What is the word formation processes

The ‘Word Formation Process’ is regarded as the branch of Morphology, and it has a significant role in expanding the vocabulary that helps us communicate very smoothly. The main objectives of the word-formation process are to form new words with the same root by deploying different rules or processes.

In other words, we can say that the word-formation process is a process in which new words are formed by modifying the existing terms or completely changing those words.

Let us see the fundamental word-formation processes in linguistics:

Derivation

‘Derivation’ is a significant word-formation process that attaches derivation affixes to the main form to create a new word. Affixes (prefixes or suffixes) are regarded as bound morphemes.

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful syntactical or grammar unit of a language that cannot be divided without changing its meaning. In contrast to the free morpheme, a bound morpheme doesn’t have any independent meaning, and it needs the help of a free morpheme to form a new word.

Let us see some examples of derivation in the below table:

Base Forms New Words
Appear Disappear
Justice Injustice
Lighten Enlighten
Friend Friendship
Happy Happiness

Back Formation

‘Back-Formation’ is a word-formation process that eliminates the actual derivational affix from the main form to create a new word. However, Back-Formation is contrary to derivation in terms of forming new words. Let us see some examples of Back-Formation in the below table:

Base Forms Back Formation
Insertion Insert
Donation Donate
Precession Process
Obsessive Obsess
Resurrection Resurrect

Conversion

In conversion, a word of one grammatical form converts into another without changing spelling or pronunciation. For example, the term ‘Google’ originated as a noun before the verb.

A few years ago, we only used the term as a noun (search it on Google), but now we say ‘Google it. Let us see some examples of conversion in the below table:

Noun To Verb
Access – to access
Google – to google
Email – to email
Name – to name
Host – to host
Verb To Noun
To hope Hope
To cover Cover
To increase Increase
To attack Attack

Compounding

‘Compounding’ is a word-formation process that allows words to combine to make a new word. Compounding words can be formed as two words joined with a hyphen. Let us see some examples in the below table:

Words Compounding Words
Class+room Classroom
Note+book Notebook
Break+up Breakup
Brother+in+law Brother in law
High+light Highlight

Clipping

‘Clipping’ is another essential word-formation process that reduces or shortens a word without changing the exact meaning. In contrast to the back-formation process, it reserves the original meaning.

Clipping is divided into four types. They are:

  1. Back Clipping
  2. Fore Clipping
  3. Middle Clipping
  4. Complex Clipping

Every Clipping has different roles in words when they are assigned. Back Clipping removes the end part of a word; Fore Clipping removes the beginning part of a word; Middle Clipping reserves the middle position. Finally, Complex Clipping removes multiple pieces from multiple words.

Let us see some examples in the below table:

Words Clippings
Advertisement Ad
Photograph Photo
Telephone Phone
Influenza Flue
Cabletelegram Cablegram

Blending

In the ‘Blending’ word-formation method, the parts of two or more words combine to form a new word. Let us see some examples in the below table:

Words Blendings
Breakfast+lunch Brunch
Biographical+picture Biopic
Motor+hotel Motel
Spanish+English Spanglish
Telephone+marathon Telethon

Abbreviation

‘Abbreviation’ is another famous and widely used word-formation method used to shorten a word or phrase. In the modern era, ‘Abbreviation is becoming more popular. Nowadays, people used to use it everywhere. Let us see some examples in the below table:

Words/Phrases Abbreviation
Junior Jr.
Mister Mr.
Mistress Miss.
Doctor Dr.
Department Dept.
Bachelor of Arts B.A.
Master of Arts M.A.
Master of Business Administration MBA

Acronyms

An Acronym is a popular word-formation process in which an initialism is pronounced as a word. It forms from the first letter of each word in a phrase, and the newly formed letters create a new word that helps us speedy communication. For example, ‘PIN’ is an initialism for Personal Identification Number used as the word ‘pin.’

However, let us see some other famous examples of acronyms in the below table for a better understanding:

Acronyms Words/Phrases
HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
ASAP As Soon As Possible
AWOL Absent Without Leave

Borrowing

‘Borrowing’ is another word-formation process in which a word from one language is borrowed directly into another language. Let us see some English words which are borrowed from another language:

Algebra Arabic
Cherub Hebrew
Murder French
Pizza Italian
Tamale Spanish

Conclusion

Now we know that Word-Formation Processes are the methods by which words are formed by deploying different types of rules. We can create new words by following the above word-formation methods.

We need to do one thing: we have to follow the fundamental rules or processes of word formation.

Azizul Hakim is the founder & CEO of englishfinders.com. He is a passionate writer, English instructor, and content creator. He has completed his graduation and post-graduation in English language and literature.

Источник

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the geological formation, see Word Formation. For the study of the origin and historical development of words, see Etymology.

In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term[1] that can refer to either:

  • the processes through which words can change[2] (i.e. morphology), or
  • the creation of new lexemes in a particular language

Morphological[edit]

A common method of word formation is the attachment of inflectional or derivational affixes.

Derivation[edit]

Examples include:

  • the words governor, government, governable, misgovern, ex-governor, and ungovernable are all derived from the base word (to) govern[3]

Inflection[edit]

Inflection is modifying a word for the purpose of fitting it into the grammatical structure of a sentence.[4] For example:

  • manages and managed are inflected from the base word (to) manage[1]
  • worked is inflected from the verb (to) work
  • talks, talked, and talking are inflected from the base (to) talk[3]

Nonmorphological[edit]

Abbreviation[edit]

Examples includes:

  • etc. from et caetera

Acronyms & Initialisms[edit]

An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of other words.[5] For example:

  • NASA is the acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • IJAL (pronounced /aidʒæl/) is the acronym for International Journal of American Linguistics

Acronyms are usually written entirely in capital letters, though some words originating as acronyms, like radar, are now treated as common nouns.[6]

Initialisms are similar to acronyms, but where the letters are pronounced as a series of letters. For example:

  • ATM for Automated Teller Machine
  • SIA for Singapore International Airlines[1]

Back-formation[edit]

In linguistics, back-formation is the process of forming a new word by removing actual affixes, or parts of the word that is re-analyzed as an affix, from other words to create a base.[3] Examples include:

  • the verb headhunt is a back-formation of headhunter
  • the verb edit is formed from the noun editor[3]
  • the word televise is a back-formation of television

The process is motivated by analogy: edit is to editor as act is to actor. This process leads to a lot of denominal verbs.

The productivity of back-formation is limited, with the most productive forms of back-formation being hypocoristics.[3]

Blending[edit]

A lexical blend is a complex word typically made of two word fragments. For example:

  • smog is a blend of smoke and fog
  • brunch is a blend of breakfast and lunch.[5]
  • stagflation is a blend of stagnation and inflation[1]
  • chunnel is a blend of channel and tunnel,[1] referring to the Channel Tunnel

Although blending is listed under the Nonmorphological heading, there are debates as to how far blending is a matter of morphology.[1]

Compounding[edit]

Compounding is the processing of combining two bases, where each base may be a fully-fledged word. For example:

  • desktop is formed by combining desk and top
  • railway is formed by combining rail and way
  • firefighter is formed by combining fire and fighter[3]

Compounding is a topic relevant to syntax, semantics, and morphology.[2]

Word formation vs. Semantic change[edit]

There are processes for forming new dictionary items which are not considered under the umbrella of word formation.[1] One specific example is semantic change, which is a change in a single word’s meaning. The boundary between word formation and semantic change can be difficult to define as a new use of an old word can be seen as a new word derived from an old one and identical to it in form.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Bauer, L. (1 January 2006). «Word Formation». Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition). Elsevier: 632–633. doi:10.1016/b0-08-044854-2/04235-8. ISBN 9780080448541. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  2. ^ a b Baker, Anne; Hengeveld, Kees (2012). Linguistics. Malden, MA.: John Wiley & Sons. p. 23. ISBN 978-0631230366.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Katamba, F. (1 January 2006). «Back-Formation». Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition): 642–645. doi:10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00108-5. ISBN 9780080448541.
  4. ^ Linguistics : the basics. Anne, July 8- Baker, Kees Hengeveld. Malden, MA.: John Wiley & Sons. 2012. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-631-23035-9. OCLC 748812931.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ^ a b Aronoff, Mark (1983). «A Decade of Morphology and Word Formation». Annual Review of Anthropology. 12: 360. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.12.100183.002035.
  6. ^ Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2018). An Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-4744-2896-5.

See also[edit]

  • Neologism
Источник

Definition

Word Formation Process (also called Morphological Process) is a means by which new words are produced either by modification of existing words or by complete innovation, which in turn become a part of the language.

Types of Word Formation Processes

Different types of word formation processes are employed to create new words. However, all word formation processes basically bring either inflectional or derivational changes. Therefore, inflection (also called inflexion) and derivation are the two core processes of word formation. Inflection differs from derivation to the following extent:

Inflection Derivation
Produces grammatical variants of the same word. Produces a new word on the basis of an existing word.
Modifies a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case. Changes the word class (also called parts of speech; form class; lexical class; syntactic category).
Does not change the meaning of a word. For example: determine→ determines, determining, determined. Modifies the meaning of the root. For example: modern → modernize (to make modern).

The major word formation processes include but are not limited to the following:

Affixation

It is a word formation process wherein an affix is attached to a root (also called stem; base) to form a new word. A root is a free morpheme (also called unbound morpheme) that can appear alone. On the other hand, an Affix is a bound morpheme which never occurs by itself, but is always attached to some free morpheme and can be either inflectional or derivational. An Inflectional affix modifies the form/grammatical category of a word, i.e., tense, person, number, gender, case, etc. For example: rat → rats. Contrariwise, a derivational affix modifies the parts of speech of the root, while leaving the grammatical category unchanged. In this way, there is a change of meaning of the root. For example: write → writer.

In English there are two types of affixations:

  1. Prefixation: In this morphological process words are formed by adding an affix to the front of a root. The type of affix used in this process is referred to as prefix. For example: un + tidy → untidy
  2. Suffixation: In this morphological process words are formed by adding an affix to the end of a root. The type of affix used in this process is referred to as suffix. For example: fear + less → fearless

Conversion

This refers to the change of function or parts of speech of a word without adding an affix. Conversion is also called zero derivation or null derivation since the functional change is brought about by supplementing an invisible affix. Sometimes it is also called functional shift. Typically conversion is made from “noun to verb” and from “verb to noun”. Less frequently, conversion is also done from “adjective to verb” and “adjective to noun”. For instance:

 Noun to Verb:  

  • access
  • email
  • film
  • name
  • shape

Verb to Noun:

  • attack
  • alert
  • hope
  • increase
  • visit
  • cover

Adjective to Verb:

  • brown
  • black
  • slow

Adjective to Noun:

  • crazy
  • nasty

Back-formation

Back-formation is a morphological process in which new word is created by extracting affixes from another word. In this way, it is the reverse of affixation, in which affixes are added. Back-formation is also different from clipping since it brings a change in the parts of speech or the word’s meaning. For example: the noun insertion has been back-formed into verb insert by removing the suffix ion.

Clipping

As the name suggests, clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced to a shorter form. With a sharp contrast to back-formation, clipping keeps the original word meaning intact. These words are very common in everyday speech. For instance: lab is the clipped form of laboratory. . There are four types of clippings:

  1. Back clipping: (also called final clipping; apocope) it involves the truncation of end of a word as in ad from advertisement.
  2. Fore-clipping: (also called initial clipping; apheresis) it is the removal of the beginning of a word as in phone from telephone.
  3. Middle clipping: (also medial clipping; syncope) it is the extraction of the beginning and end of a word as in flu from influenza.
  4. Complex clipping: is removing multiple parts from multiple words as in cablegram from cabletelegram.

Compounding

Also called composition, by this process two or more than two words are combined together to create a single word, having a single idea and function. In English, there are compound nouns, compound adjectives, and compound verbs. Customarily compound words are spelt as a single word, or as two or more hyphenated words, and even as two or more separate words. For example:

  • life + style → lifestyle
  • mother + in + law → mother-in-law
  • shopping + mall → shopping mall

There are no specific rules for hyphenated compounds. Generally, some new and original compound nouns are hyphenated, but the hyphen is ignored when they become more familiar. However, there are some compound adjectives that are always hyphenated. For instance: state-of-the-art. The hyphen is often retained when two vowels come together, such as: Co-operation. Hyphens are often used to tell the ages of people and things, for example: 10-year-old. The general rule is that words are combined with hyphens to avoid confusion.

Borrowing

This refers to the words adopted from other languages. There are two types of borrowings:

  1. Loan-word: By this process, a word is borrowed from another language without translating it into the target language. For example: the phrase tour-de-force is borrowed directly from French, which means a masterly or brilliant feat.
  2. Loan-translation: Also known as calque, a morphological process wherein a word or phrase from another language is borrowed by literally translating it into the target language. For example: the phrase point of view has been translated into English from the French phrase point de vue.

Coinage

Also called invention, is a morphological process by which new words are invented. Sometimes popular trademark names of various products are adopted by people so extensively that they ultimately become the everyday words of language. For example:

  • Heroin
  • Aspirin
  • Escalator
  • Xerox
  • Kerosene
  • Nylon
  • Band-Aid
  • Vaseline
  • Margarine
  • Videotape

Again, some words are being invented due to rapid cultural changes and the spread of information technology, mass media, internet, etc. For example:

  • Google
  • Blog
  • Hotspot
  • Netbook
  • Tablet
  • Tweet
  • Emoticon
  • Smartphone

Blending

Blending (also called portmanteau) is a morphological process in which the parts of two or more words are combined together to form a new word. Usually, the parts consist of the beginning of one word and the end of the other word(s). Typically, the meaning of the blended word reverberates with the meanings of the original words. For example:

  • breakfast + lunch → brunch
  • motor+hotel → motel

However, blending should not be confused with compounding, which combines two words without truncation of parts of the roots of the blended words.

Acronyms

These words are formed with the initial letters or each of the major parts of a word or a longer phrase. With a few exceptions, acronyms are usually capitalized. Some linguists confuse acronyms with initialisms, which are also abbreviations formed in the similar manner as the former. In essence, there is a sharp difference between the two. In language, an acronym is pronounced as a single word rather than just a sequence of individual letters, which is characteristic of initialisms. For example:
Acronyms:

  • United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization → UNESCO
  • Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation → Laser
  • International Criminal Police Organization → Interpol

Initialisms:

  • Personal Computer → PC
  • Asian Development Bank → ADB
  • Liquid Crystal Display → LCD

Reduplication

Reduplication (also called cloning; doubling; duplication; repetition; tautonym) is a word formation process in which a new word is created by repeating all or part of a root or a stem, often with a change of vowel or initial consonant. Reduplication is not a major means of creating lexemes in English, but it is perhaps the most unusual one. Based on their usage, the techniques of reduplication could be classified in the following manner:

  1. Repetition without Change: bye-bye, tick-tick
  2. Rhyming Reduplication: ding-dong, super-duper, bow-wow
  3. Repetition with Change of Vowel: tiptop, chitchat, flip-flop, ping-pong, dilly-dally, wishy-washy
  4. Repetition with Change of Initial Consonant: teeny-weeny

 

 

 

References

“English Word Formation Processes.” Really Learn English. 2016. Really-Learn-English.com.

14 July 2016 <http://www.really-learn-english.com/word-formation-processes.html>.

 “Inflection.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection>.

“Morphological Derivation.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_derivation>.

Yule, George. The Study of Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

“Word Formation.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_formation>.

Word Formation Process

Источник

Word Formation Processes in English

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Abstract

Mohsen Yousefi. photoOne
of the distinctive properties of human language is creativity,
by which we mean the ability of native speakers of a language
to produce and understand new forms in their language.
Even though creativity is most apparent when it comes
to sentence formation, it is also manifest in our lexical
knowledge, where new words are added to our mental lexicon
regularly. In this paper the most comprehensive expositions
of word formation processes that speakers of a language
use regularly (and unconsciously too) to create new words
in their language are presented.

1. Introduction

Nowadays, the terms ‘word formation’
does not have a clear cut, universally accepted usage.
It is sometimes referred to all processes connected with
changing the form of the word by, for example, affixation,
which is a matter of morphology. In its wider sense word formation denotes
the processes of creation of new lexical units. Although
it seems that the difference between morphological change
of a word and creation of a new term is quite easy to
perceive, there is sometimes a dispute as to whether blending
is still a morphological change or making a new word. There are, of course, numerous word formation processes that do not arouse any
controversies and are very similar in the majority of
languages.

2. Clipping

Clipping is the word
formation process which consists in the reduction
of a word to one of its parts (Marchand: 1969). Clippings
are, also, known as «shortenings.»Clipping mainly
consists of the following types:

1.    
Back clipping

2.    
Fore-clipping

3.    
Middle clipping

4.    
Complex clipping

2.1 Back clipping

Back clipping or apocopation
is the most common type, in which the beginning is retained.
The unclipped original may be either a simple or a composite.
Examples are: ad (advertisement), cable
(cablegram), doc (doctor), exam (examination),
gas (gasoline), math (mathematics), memo
(memorandum), gym (gymnastics, gymnasium) mutt
(muttonhead), pub (public house), pop (popular
concert), trad (traditional jazz), fax (facsimile).

2.2. Fore-clipping

Fore-clipping or aphaeresis retains
the final part. Examples are: phone (telephone),
varsity (university), chute (parachute),
coon (racoon), gator (alligator), pike
(turnpike).

2.3. Middle clipping

In middle clipping or syncope, the middle
of the word is retained. Examples are: flu (influenza),
tec (detective), polly (apollinaris), jams
(pyjamas), shrink (head-shrinker).

2.4. Complex clipping

Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound
most often remains intact. Examples are: cablegram
(cable telegram), op art (optical
art), org-man (organization man),
linocut (linoleum cut). Sometimes
both halves of a compound are clipped as in navicert
(navigation certificate). In these cases
it is difficult to know whether the resultant formation
should be treated as a clipping or as a blend, for the border between the two types is not always clear.
According to Bauer (1993), the easiest way to draw the
distinction is to say that those forms which retain compound
stress are clipped compounds, whereas those that take
simple word stress are not. By this criterion bodbiz,
Chicom, Comsymp, Intelsat, midcult, pro—am, sci-fi,
and sitcom are all compounds made of clippings.
According to Marchand (1969), clippings are not coined
as words belonging to the standard vocabulary of a language.
They originate as terms of a special group like schools,
army, police, the medical profession, etc., in the intimacy
of a milieu where a hint is sufficient to indicate the
whole. For example, in school slang originated exam,
math, lab, and spec(ulation), tick(et
= credit) originated in stock-exchange slang, whereas
vet(eran), cap(tain), are army slang. While
clipping terms of some influential groups can pass into
common usage, becoming part of Standard English, clippings
of a socially unimportant class or group will remain groap
slang.

3. Acronymy

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations,
such as NATO,
laser,
and IBM, that are formed
using the initial letters of words or word parts in a
phrase or name. Acronyms and initialisms are usually pronounced
in a way that is distinct from that of the full forms
for which they stand: as the names of the individual letters
(as in IBM), as a word (as in NATO), or
as a combination (as in IUPAC). Another
term, alphabetism, is sometimes used to describe abbreviations
pronounced as the names of letters.

Examples :

  • pronounced as a word, containing only initial
    letters:
    • FNMA: (Fannie Mae)
      Federal National Mortgage Association
    • laser: light amplification
      by the stimulated emission of radiation
    • NATO: North Atlantic
      Treaty Organisation
    • scuba: self-contained
      underwater breathing apparatus
  • pronounced as a word, containing non-initial
    letters:
    • Amphetamine:
      Alpha-methyl-phenethylamine
    • Gestapo: Geheime
      Staatspolizei («secret state police»)
    • Interpol:
      International Criminal Police Organization
    • radar: radio detection
      and ranging
  • pronounced only as the names of letters
    • BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
    • DNA: deoxyribonucleic
      acid
    • LED: light-emitting
      diode
    • OB-GYN: obstetrics and gyn(a)ecology
      or obstetrician and gyn(a)ecologist
  • shortcut incorporated into name
    • 3M: (three em)
      originally Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
    • E³: (e
      three      ) Electronic Entertainment Exposition
    • W3C: (double-u
      three cee      ) World Wide Web Consortium
  • recursive acronyms, in which the abbreviation
    itself is the expansion of one initial (particularly
    enjoyed by the open-source community)
    • GNU: GNU’s Not Unix!
    • HURD:
      HIRD of Unix-Replacing Daemons, where «HIRD»
      stands for «HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth»
    • VISA: VISA International Service Association
    • XNA:
      XNA’s Not Acronymed — Microsoft’s new game development framework
  • pseudo-acronyms
    are used because, when pronounced as intended, they
    resemble the sounds of other words:
    • ICQ: «I seek
      you»
    • IOU: «I owe you»
    • OU812:
      «Oh, you ate one, too?», a Van Halen
      album
    • CQR: «secure», a brand of boat
      anchor
  • multi-layered acronyms:
    • GTK+: GIMP Tool
      Kit, i.e. GNU Image Manipulation Program Tool
      Kit, i.e. GNU’s Not Unix Image Manipulation
      Program Tool Kit
    • GAIM: GTK+ AOL Instant
      Messenger, i.e. GIMP Tool Kit America OnLine
      Instant Messenger, i.e. GNU Image Manipulation
      Program Tool Kit America OnLine Instant Messenger,
      i.e. GNU’s Not Unix Image Manipulation Program
      Tool Kit America OnLine Instant Messenger
    • VHDL: VHSIC Hardware
      Description Language, i.e. Very High Speed
      Integrated Circuits Hardware Description Language

4. Blending

A blend is a word formed from parts of two other words. These parts
are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.

A blend is different from a portmanteau
word in that a portmanteau refers strictly to a blending
of two function
words, similar to a contraction.

4.1. Formation
of blendings

Most blends are formed by one of the following methods:

1.    
The beginning of one word is added
to the end of the other. For example, brunch is a blend of breakfast and lunch. This is the most common method of blending.

2.    
The beginnings of two words are combined.
For example, cyborg is a blend
of cybernetic and organism.

3.    
One complete word is combined with
part of another word. For example, guesstimate is a blend
of guess and estimate.

4.    
Two words are blended around a common
sequence of sounds. For example, the word Californication, from a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is a blend of California
and fornication.

5.    
Multiple sounds from two component
words are blended, while mostly preserving the sounds’
order. Poet Lewis Carroll was well
known for these kinds of blends. An example of this is
the word slithy, a blend of
lithe and slimy. This method is difficult to achieve and is considered a
sign of Carroll’s verbal wit.

When two words are combined in their entirety, the result is considered
a compound
word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound,
not a blend,

5. Back-formation

Back-formation refers to the process of creating a new lexeme
(less precisely, a new «word») by removing actual
or supposed affixes. The resulting
neologism
is called a back-formation. Back-formations are
shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations
may be viewed as a sub-type of clipping.

For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin,
and the verb resurrect was then backformed hundreds
of years later from it by removing the -ion suffix.
This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect
+ ion was possible because English had many examples
of Latinate words that had verb and verb+-ion pairs
— in these pairs the -ion suffix is added to verb
forms in order to create nouns (such as, insert/insertion,
project/projection, etc.).

Back formation may be similar to the reanalyses of folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding
of the morphology of the longer word. For example, the
singular noun asset is a back-formation from the
plural assets. However, assets is originally
not a plural; it is a loan-word from
Anglo-Norman asetz (modern French
assez). The -s was reanalyzed as a plural
suffix.

5.1. Back-formation in the English
language

Many words came into English by this route: Pease was once
a mass noun but was reinterpreted as a plural,
leading to the back-formation pea. The noun statistic
was likewise a back-formation from the field of study
statistics.
In Britain the verb burgle came into use in the
19th century as a back-formation from burglar (which
can be compared to the North
America verb burglarize formed by suffixation).

Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may
sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect.
For example, gruntled or pervious (from
disgruntled and impervious) would be considered
mistakes today, and used only in humorous contexts. The
comedian George Gobel
regularly used original back-formations in his humorous
monologues. Bill Bryson
mused that the English language would be richer if we
could call a tidy-haired person shevelled — as
an opposite to dishevelled.

Frequently back-formations begin in colloquial use and only gradually
become accepted. For example, enthuse (from enthusiasm)
is gaining popularity, though it is still considered substandard
by some today.

The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the
Siege
of Mafeking briefly created the verb to maffick,
meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly.
«Maffick» was a back-formation from Mafeking,
a place-name
that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle.

6. Derivation

Derivation is used to form new words, as with happi-ness and
un-happy from happy, or determination
from determine. A contrast is intended with the
process of inflection,
which uses another kind of affix in order to form variants
of the same word, as with determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed.

A derivational suffix usually applies
to words
of one syntactic category and changes them into words
of another syntactic
category. For example, the English
derivational suffix
-ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow
→ slowly).

Some examples of English derivational suffixes:

  • adjective-to-noun: -ness
    (slow → slowness)
  • adjective-to-verb: -ize
    (modern → modernize)
  • noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation
    → recreational)
  • noun-to-verb: -fy (glory →
    glorify)
  • verb-to-adjective: -able (drink
    → drinkable)
  • verb-to-noun: -ance (deliver
    → deliverance)

Although derivational affixes do not necessarily modify the syntactic category, they modify the meaning of
the base. In many cases, derivational affixes change both
the syntactic category and the meaning: modern
→ modernize («to make modern»).
The modification of meaning is sometimes predictable:
Adjective + ness → the state of being
(Adjective); (stupid→ stupidness).

A prefix (write → re-write;
lord → over-lord) will rarely change
syntactic category in English. The derivational prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy
→ unhealthy), some verbs (do →
undo), but rarely nouns. A few exceptions are the
prefixes en- and be-. En- (em- before labials) is usually
used as a transitive marker on verbs, but can also be
applied to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verb:
circle (verb) → encircle (verb); but
rich (adj) → enrich (verb), large
(adj) → enlarge (verb), rapture (noun)
→ enrapture (verb), slave (noun) →
enslave (verb). The prefix be-, though not as productive
as it once was in English, can function in a similar way
to en- to mark transitivity, but can also be attached
to nouns, often in a causative or privative sense: siege
(noun) → besiege (verb), jewel (noun)
→ bejewel (verb), head (noun) →
behead (verb).

Note that derivational affixes are bound
morphemes. In that, derivation differs from compounding, by which free morphemes
are combined (lawsuit, Latin professor).
It also differs from inflection
in that inflection does not change a word’s syntactic
category and creates not new lexemes but new word forms (table → tables; open
→ opened).

Derivation may occur without any change of form, for example telephone
(noun) and to telephone. This is known as conversion. Some linguists consider that
when a word’s syntactic category is changed without any
change of form, a null morpheme
is being affixed.

7. Borrowing

Borrowing is just taking a word from another
language. The borrowed words are called loan words. A
loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken
into one language from
another with little or no translation. By contrast, a
calque or loan translation
is a related concept whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed
rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself
a calque
of the German Lehnwort. Loanwords can also be called
«borrowings».

7.1. Loanwords in English

English
has many loanwords. In 1973,
a computerized survey of about 80,000 words in the old
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published
in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff. Their estimates for the origin of English
words were as follows:

  • French,
    including Old French and early Anglo-French:
    28.3%
  • Latin, including
    modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
  • Germanic languages, including Old and Middle
    English: 25%
  • Greek:
    5.32%
  • No etymology
    given or unknown: 4.03%
  • Derived from proper
    names: 3.28%
  • All other languages contributed less than
    1%

However, if the frequency of use of words is considered, words from
Old and Middle English occupy the vast majority.

Examples:

Biology, boxer ,ozone from German

Jacket,yoghurt,kiosh from Turkish

Pistl,robot from Czech

8. Coinage

Coinage is the invention of totally new words. The typical process
of coinage usually involves the extension of a product
name from a specific reference to a more general one.
For example, think of Kleenex, Xerox, and Kodak. These
started as names of specific products, but now they are
used as the generic names for different brands of these
types of products.

9. Compounding

A compound is a lexeme (a word) that consists of
more than one other lexeme. An endocentric
compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains
the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers,
which restrict this meaning. For example, the English
compound doghouse, where house is the head
and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house
intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of
the same part
of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case
of doghouse. (Such compounds were called karmadharaya in the Sanskrit tradition.)

Exocentric
compounds do not have a head, and their meaning often
cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts.
For example, the English compound white-collar
is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric
compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding
the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have
is not a verb but a noun. English language allows several
types of combinations of different word classes:

N + N lipstick , teapot

A + N fast food , soft drink

V + N breakfast , sky-dive

N + V sunshine , babysit

N + A capital-intensive , waterproof

A + A deaf-mute , bitter-sweet

Like derivational rules, compounding rules may differ in productivity. In English,
the N + N rule/pattern is extremely productive, so that
novel compounds are created all he time and are hardy
noticed. By contrast, the V + N rule/pattern is unproductive
and limited to a few lexically listed items. Apart from
endocentric and exocentric compounds there is another
type of compound which requires an interpretation different
from the ones introduced so far. Consider the hyphenated
words in the examples below:

 a. singer-songwriter

scientist-explorer

poet-translator

hero-martyr

b. the doctor-patient gap

the nature-nurture debate

a modifier-head structure

the mind-body problem

Both sets of words are characterized by the fact that none of the two members
of the compound seems in any sense more important than
the other. They could be said to have two semantic heads,
none of them being subordinate to the other. Given that
no member is semantically prominent, but both members
equally contribute to the meaning of the compound, these
compounds have been labeled copulative compounds (or dvandva
compounds in Sanskrit grammarian terms).

Why are the copulative compounds in (a & b) divided into two different sets
(a) and (b)? The idea behind this differentiation is that
copulatives fall into two classes, depending on their
interpretation. Each form in (a) refers to one entity
that is characterized by both members of the compound.
A poet-translator, for example, is a person who
is both as a poet and a translator. This type of copulative
compound is sometimes called appositional compound. By
contrast, the dvandvas in (b) denote two entities that
stand in a particular relationship with regard to the
following noun. The particular type of relationship is
determined by the following noun. The doctor-patient
gap is thus a gap between doctor and patient, the
nature-nurture debate is a debate on the relationship
between nature and nurture, and so on. This second type
of copulative compound is also known as coordinative compound.
If the noun following the compound allows both readings,
the compound is in principle ambiguous. Thus a scientist-philosopher
crew could be a crew made up of scientist-philosophers,
or a crew made up of scientists and philosophers. It is
often stated that dvandva compounds are not very common
in English (e.g. Bauer 1983:203), but in a more recent
study by Olson (2001) hundreds of attested forms are listed,
which shows that such compounds are far from marginal.

The above mentioned word formation processes are the most frequent or
important in the English language, but it is rarely the
case that only one process occurs in one word. Words can
be loaned and then back formed, later on gaining an affix.
There are practically no boundaries to those processes
other that human ingenuity.

10. Conclusion

In this paper different word formation processes were explained including derivation,
compounding, blending, clipping, acronymy, backformation
and conversion, and also different categories of each
were explained.

References

Haspelmath, M. (2003). Morphology.
London: MacMillan Press LTD.

Plag, I. (2003). Word-Formation
in English. UK: Cambridge University Press.Hans

Katamba, F. (2005). English words.
London: Ruotledge.

Bloomfield, L. (1962). Language
. London: Oxford press.

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Источник

Plan

  1. Word-formation.
    General notes.

  2. Affixation.

  3. Compounding
    (Composition).

  4. Reduplication.

  5. Phrasal
    verbs.

  6. Conversion

  7. Substantivation.

  8. Adjectivization.

  9. Phrasal
    nouns.

  10. Shortening.

  11. Abbreviation.

  12. Back-formation
    (Reversion).

  13. Blending.

  14. Minor
    types of word-formation: change of stress.

  15. Sound
    interchange (Gradation).

  16. Sound
    imitation (Onomatopoeia).

  17. Lexicalization
    of the plural of nouns.

1. Word-formation

Word-formation
is the process of creating new words from the material available in
the word-stock according to certain structural and semantic patterns
specific for the given language.

Various
types of word-formation in Modern English possess different degrees
of productivity. Some of them are highly-productive
(affixation,
conversion, substantivation, compounding, shortening, forming phrasal
verbs); others are semi-productive
(back-forming,
blending, reduplication, lexicalization of the plural of nouns,
sound-imitation), and non-productive
(sound
interchange, change of stress).

2. Affixation

Affixation
is a word-formative process in which words are created by adding
word-building affixes to stems. Affixation includes preftxation,
i.e.
forming
new words with the help of prefixes, and suffixation,
i.e.
forming new words with the help of suffixes.

From
etymological point of view affixes are classified according to their
origin into native
(e.g.
-er, -nese, -ing, un-, mis-, etc.) and borrowed
(Romanic,
e.g. -tion, -ment, -ance, -re-, sub-, etc.; Greek, e,g. -ist, -ism,
anti-, etc.).

Affixes
can also be classified into
productive (e.g.-er,
-ness, -able, -y, -ize, un- re-, dis- etc.) and non-productive
(e.g.
-th, -hood, -en, -ous, etc.).

Affixes
and a root constitute the meaning of the word, the root morpheme
forming its semantic centre, affixes playing a dependent role in the
meaning
of the word.

Prefixes
and suffixes are semantically distinctive,
they
have their own
meaning. Affixes
and a root constitute the meaning of the word, the root morpheme
forming its semantic centre, affixes playing a dependent role in the
meaning of the word.

Prefixes
change
or concretize the meaning of the word. The main
word-building
prefixes are:

  1. prefixes
    with a negative
    meaning     (e.g.
    un-, in-, il-, ir-, im-, dis-, de-, non-);

  2. prefixes
    with different
    meanings     (e.g.
    anti-, co-, counter-, inter-, mis-, over-, en-, post-, pre-, re-,
    self, semi-, sub-, ultra-, super-, undre-).

    Suffixes
    have
    a grammatical meaning they indicate or derive a certain part of
    speech. Most of frequently used suffixes are:

  1. noun-forming:
    -er,
    (-or), -tion (-sion), -ity, -ance, -ence, -ment, -ness, -ics, -ture,
    -sure, -age, -ing;

  2. verb-forming:
    -ize,
    (-ise), -fy (-ify), -en, -ate;

  3. adjective-forming:
    -able,
    -ible, -al, (-ial), -fill, -less, -ive;

  4. adverb-forming:
    -ly;
    -ward (-wards).

3. Compounding
(Composition)

Compounds
are
words produced by combining two or more stems, which occur in the
language as free forms. They may be classified proceeding
from different criteria:

-according
to the parts of speech to which they belong (e.g. cut-throat,
shoe-maker- compound
nouns, watch
making , tooth-picker- verbal
compound
nouns; bring
up, sit down —
compound verbs, life-giving,
long-tailed —
compound adjectives, etc.);

-according
to the means of composition used to link their ICs (immediate
constituents) together (e.g. classroom,
timetable, H-bomb, grey-green,
etc);

-according
to the structure of their ICs (e.g. gasometre,
handicraft, Anglo-Saxon, etc.);

-according
to their semantic characteristics (e.g forget-me-not,
up-to-date, son-in-law, etc).

The
classification of compounds according to the means of joining their
ICs together distinguishes between the following structural types:

  1. juxtapositional
    (neutral) compounds     whose
    ICs are merely placed one after another: classroom,
    timetable, heartache, whitewash, hunting-knife, weekend, grey-green,
    deep-blue, U-turn,     etc.;

  2. morphological
    compounds     whose
    ICs joined together with a vowel or a consonant as a linking
    element, e.g. gasometre,
    sportsman,     saleswoman,
    electromotive, postman,     etc.;

  3. syntactic
    compounds (integrated phrases)     which
    are the result of the process of semantic isolation and structural
    integration of free word-groups, e.g. blackboard
    (>black
    board), highway
    (>high
    way), forget-me-not
    (>forget
    me not), bull’s
    eye, go-between, known-all, brother-in-law, upside-down,     etc.

The
classification of compounds according to the structure of their ICs
includes the following groups:

Group
1. Compounds consisting of simple stems: railway, key-board,
snow-white, bookshelf, scarecrow, browbeat, etc.

Group
2. Compounds where at least one of the ICs is a derived stem:
chain-smoker, shoe-maker, pen-holder, snow-covered, moon-tit,
price-reduction,
etc.

Group
3, Compounds where at least one of the ICs is a clipped stem:
photo-intelligence, bacco-box, maths- mistress, T-shirt, TV-set,
X-mas, etc.

Group
4. Compounds where at least one of the ICs is a compound stem:
wastepaper-basket, newspaper-ownership, etc.

Note:
Compounds of Group 2 should not be mixed with derivational compounds
(Group 5) in which the second component doesn’t occur as a free
form. Derivational compounds are built by adding a suffix to phrases
of the A+N, N+N, Num+N type.

Cf:
chain-smoker (N + (V = -er)):: slim-waisted ((A + N) + -ed).

In
many English words one can find unstressed stems approaching the
status of derivational affixes. They have generalized meaning and
their combining
capacity is very great. Such morphemes are called semi-affixes.

Semi-affixes
can be used in preposition (semi-prefixes,
e.g.:
half-, ill-, mini-, midi-, maxi-, self-) and in postposition
(semi-suffixes,
e.g.
-man, -land,
-monger, -wright, -worthy, -proof, -like, -way(s)).

4. Reduplication

In
reduplication compounds are made by doubling a stem (often a
pseudomorpheme). Reduplicative compounds fall into three main
subgroups:

  1. Reduplicative
    compounds proper whose ICs are identical in their form, e.g.:
    murmur, bye-bye, blah-blah, pooh-pooh, goody-goody, etc.

  2. Ablaut
    (gradational) compounds whose ICs have different root-vowels, e.g:
    riff-raff, dilly-dally, ping-pong, chit-chat, singsong, etc.

  3. Rhyme
    compounds whose ICs are joined to rhyme, e.g.: willy-nilly,
    helter-skelter, hoity-toity, namby-pamby, walkie-talkie, etc.

5. Phrasal
verbs.

Phrasal
verbs are combinations of a verb and adverb or a verb and preposition
(or verb with both adverb and preposition).

Phrasal
verbs may be either non-idiomatic or idiomatic. Non-idiomatic phrasal
verbs can retain their primary local meaning, e.g.: come in, come
out, come out of, take off, put down, etc. They may also have a kind
of perfective colouring, e.g. add up, eat up, drink up, swallow up,
rise up, etc.

In
idiomatic compounds meaning cannot be derived from ICs, e.g.: bring
up — виховувати,
bear out — підтверджувати,
give in – піддаватися,
fall
out — сваритися,
take in — обманювати,
etc.

In
modern English fiction one can often come across verbs which denote
an action and at the same time modify it in occasional colligations
with prepositions
or adverbs e.g. He
then tiptoed down to dinner. We forced our way into the buffet.

6. Conversion

Conversion
is a special type of affixless derivation where a newly-formed word
acquires a paradigm and syntactic functions different from those of
the original word (by conversion we mean derivation of a new word
from the stem of a different part of speech without the adding of any
formatives).

A
s
a result the two words are homonymous, having the same morphological
structure and belonging to different parts of speech. As
a matter of fact, all parts of speech can be drawn into the
wordbuilding process of conversion to a certain extent. Its
derivational patterns are varied,
the most widespread among them being N —► V, V
N,
A —► V.

For
example: N+V:
a face-to face, a walk-to walk, a
tube — to tube, a pen — to pen. V—>N:
to make-a make, to bite-a bite,
to
smoke — a smoke, to talk — a talk.

A—>V:
narrow-to narrow, empty-to empty, cool-to
cool.

7. Substantiation

Substantivation
is the process in which adjectives (or participles) acquire the
paradigm and syntactic functions of nouns. One should distinguish two
main types of substantivation: complete
and partial.

C

ompletely
substantivized adjectives have
the full paradigm of a noun, i.e. singular and plural case forms.
They may be associated with various determiners (definite, indefinite
and zero articles, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, etc.), e.g.
an
official, the official, officials, the officials, official’s,
officials this official, our officials, etc.
Complete substantivation is often regarded as a pattern of conversion
(A N), though it may be argued, since, as a rule, it is the
result of ellipsis in an attributive phrase: a conservative
politician
—► a
conservative, a
convertible
car
a convertible.

In
the case of partial
substantivation adjectives
do not acquire the full paradigm of a noun. They fall into several
structural-semantic
groups:

  1. partially
    substantivized adjectives (PSA) or participles     which
    are singular in form though plural in meaning. They are used with
    the definite article and denote a group or a class of people, e.g.
    the
    rich, the accused, the English, the blind, the twing,     etc.;

  2. PSA
    used
    mostly in the plural and denoting a group or a class of people, e.g.
    reds,
    greens, buffs, blues,     etc.

  3. PSA
    used
    mostly in plural and denoting inanimate things, e.g. sweets,
    ancients, eatables,     etc.

  4. PSA
    presenting
    properties as substantive abstract notions, e.g. the
    good, the evil, the beautiful, the singular,     etc.

  5. PSA
    denoting
    languages, e.g. English,
    German, Ukrainian, Italian,     etc.

8. Adjectivization

Premodification
of nouns by nouns is highly frequent in Modern English. Non-adjuncts
should not be considered as adjectives produced by means
of conversion. Nevertheless, some nouns may undergo the process of
adjectivization and function as attributes with idiomatic meanings,
e.g.: coffee-table
(n.) —> coffee-table (adj.) — «Of a large size and richly
illustrated.»

9. Phrasal
nouns

Phrasal
nouns are
built from phrasal verbs as a result of a combined effect of
compounding, conversion, and change of stress. They consist of ICs
identical to those of the corresponding phrasal verbs, but obtain, as
a rule, the single-stress pattern and either solid or hyphenated
spelling, e.g.: to
break
down —> a
breakdown (a break-down).

10. Shortenings

There
exist two main ways of shortening: contraction
(clipping) and
abbreviation
(initial shortening).

Contraction.
One
should distinguish between four types of contraction:

  1. Final
    clipping (apocope), i.e. omission of the final part of the word,
    e.g.: doc (< doctor), lab (< laboratory), mag -(<
    magazine), prefab (< prefabricated),
    vegs (< vegetables), Al (< Albert), Nick (< Nickolas), Phil
    (< Philip), etc.

  2. Initial
    clipping (apheresis), i.e. omission of the fore part of the word,
    e.g.: phone (< telephone), plane (< aeroplane), story (<
    history), van (< caravan), drome (< airdrome), Dora (<
    Theodora), Fred (< Alfred), etc.

  1. Medial
    clipping (syncope), i.e. omission of the middle part of the word,
    e.g.: maths (< mathematics), fancy (< fantasy), specs -(<
    spectacles), binocs
    (< binoculars), through (<thorough), etc.

  2. Mixed
    clipping, where the fore and the final parts of the word are dipped,
    e.g.: tec (< detective), flu (<influenza), fridge (<
    refrigerator), stach (< moustache), Liz (< Elizabeth), etc.

Contractions
may be combined with affixation, i,e. by adding the suffixes -y, -ie,
-o, to clippings, e.g.: hanky (<handkerchief), comfy
(<comfortable),
unkie (<uncle), ammo (< Ammunition), etc.

11. Abbreviation

Abbreviations
(initial shortenings) are words produced by shortening the ICs of
phrasal terms up to their initial letters. Abbreviations are
subdivided
into 5 groups:

  1. Acronyms
    which are read in accordance with the rules of orthoepy as though
    they were ordinary words, e.g.: UNO /’ju:nou/ (< United Nations
    Organization), UNESCO /’ju:’neskou/ (< United Nations Educational
    Scientific and Cultural Organization), NATO /’neitou/ (< North
    Atlantic
    Treaty Organization), SALT /so:lt/ (<Strategic Arms Limitation
    Talks), STEM /stem/ (< scanning transmission electron
    microscope), radar /reida/ (< radio detecting and ranging), etc.

  2. Alphabetic
    abbreviation     in
    which letters get their full alphabetic pronunciation and a full
    stress, e.g.: USA /’ju:es’ei/ (< the United States ofAmerica),
    B.B.C. /’bi:’bi:’si:/ (< the British Broadcasting Corporation),
    M.P. /’em’pi:/ {<
    Member
    of Parliament), F.B.I. /’efbir’ai/ (< FederalBureau
    of Investigation), etc.

Alphabetic
abbreviations are sometimes used for famous persons’ names, eg.: B.B.
(< Brigitte Bardot), FDR (< Franklin Delano Roosevelt), G.B.S.
(< George Bernard Shaw), etc.

3)Compound
abbreviations
in which the first IC is a letter (letters) and the second a complete
word, e.g.: A-bomb (<
atomic
bomb), V-day (<

Victory
day), Z-hour (< zero hour), L-driver (< learner-driver), ACD
solution (<acid citrate dextrose solution), etc.

One
or both ICs of compound abbreviations may be clipped, e.g.:
mid-August, Interpol (< International police), hi-fi (< high
fidelity), sci-fic (< science
fiction), etc.

4) Graphic
abbreviations which
are used in texts for economy of space. They are pronounced as the
corresponding unabbreviated words,
e.g.:
Mr.
(< Mister), m. (< mile), fl. (< foot/feet), v. (< verb),
ltd. (< limited), govt. (< government), usu. (< usually),
pp. (< pages, Co (< Company), X-mas
(< Christmas), etc.

5) Latin
abbreviations which
sometimes are not read as Latin words but as separate letters or are
substituted by their English equivalents, e.g.:

i.e.
/ai’i:/-that is, a.m. /ei’em/-before midday, in the morning, e.g.
-for example, Id. -in the same place, cf. -compare, etc.

12. Back-formation
(Reversion)

Back-formation
is the derivation of new words (mostly verbs) by means of subtracting
a suffix or other element resembling it, e.g.: butle < butler,
combust
< combustion, greed < greedy, lase < laser, luminisce <
luminiscent, sculpt < sculptor, etc.

13. Blending

Blending
is the formation of new lexical units by means of merging fragments
of words into one new word, or combining the elements of one word
with
a notional word, e.g.: smog (< smoke+fog), radiotrician
(radio+electrician), drunch (drinks+lunch), cinemagnate
(cinema+magnate), etc.

14. Minor
types of word-formation: change of stress

Several
nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern.
Such nouns, as a rule, are forestressed, and verbs have a stress on
the second
syllable, e.g. ‘accent (a):: ac’cent (v.), ‘contest (n.):: ‘con’test
(v.), ‘record (n.):: re’cord (v.), etc.

The
same distinctive stress pattern is observed in some pairs of
adjectives and verbs, e.g.: ‘absent (a):: ab’sent (v.) ‘abstract (a)
::ab’stract(v.), etc.

15.
Sound
interchange (Gradation)

Words
belonging to different parts of speech may be differentiated due to
the sound interchange in the root, e.g.: food (a):: feed (v.), gold
(a):: gild (v,), strong (a):: strength (n), etc.

16. Sound
imitation (Onomatopoeia)

Sound-imitative
(onomatopoeic) words are made by imitating sounds produced by living
beings and inanimate objects, e.g.: babble, bang, buzz, crash,
giggle, hiss, moo, purr, rustle, etc.

17. Lexicalization
of the plural of the nouns

There
are cases when the grammatical form of the plural of nouns becomes
isolated from the paradigm and acquires a new lexical meaning. This
leads to the appearance of new lexical units, cf: look “погляд”
::
looks «зовнішність».

REVISION
MATERIAL

  1. Be
    ready to discuss the subject matter of word-formation

  2. Tell
    about affixation

  3. What
    do you know about compounding (composition)?

  4. Give
    examples of reduplication

  5. What
    are phrasal verbs and phrasal nouns?

  6. What
    can you tell about conversion?

  7. Comment
    on the substantivation and adjectivization.

  8. Tell
    about shortening: contractions and abbreviations.

  9. What
    is back-formation?

  10. Give
    examples of blending.

  11. Comment
    on the minor types of word-formation.

  12. What
    is the difference between gradation and onomatopoeia?

  13. What
    does «lexicalization of the plural of nouns» stand for ?

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