Chapter 5 Word Formation

 Chapter 5 Word Formation 

1 Nelogisms 

Neologsim=> neo(new)+logsim(words)=> new words

We may have never heard about the new word spangler but we have no difficulty in coping with the new words:  spangler,spanglerish, spanglerism, spanglering or spanglered

Because there is a lot of regularity in the word formation process in language.

2 Etymology

The study of the origin and history of words

Greek and Latin are the sources of many English words.

EXP: mono-(fron Greek), uni-(Latin) 

 

3 Borrowing

The process of taking words from other languages

Borrowing words from another language is quite common in English.  

EXP:

Loan-translation: a type of borrowing in which each element of a word is translated into the borrowing language, also called calque

When borrowing a word, languages can directly translate its parts to create a new word in their own language. This is called calquing. We see this with "skyscraper" being translated literally as "cloud scratcher" in Dutch (wolkenkrabber) and German (Wolkenkratzer), and "scrape-sky" in French (gratte-ciel)

4 Compounding

Some of our examples show words being combined to create a new one 

EXP: Lehn and Wort are combined to produce Lehnwort in German

This process is very common in German and English but less common in French and Spanish

EXP: 

• Noun: bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, sunburn, textbook, wallpaper, wastebasket and waterbed.

• Adj:   good-looking, low-paid, fast-food,  full-time job 

It is not only common in popular languages like German and English but also in some unpopular like Hmong(  spoken in

Laos and Vietnam)

Blending: the process of combining the beginning of one word and the end of another word to

form a new word

EXP: 

• smog, smaze (smoke + haze) and smurk (smoke +murk)

• bit (binary/digit), brunch (breakfast/lunch), motel (motor/hotel), telecast (television/broadcast), Oxbridge (Oxford/Cambridge) for both universities considered together and the Chunnel (Channel/tunnel)

5 Clipping 

The process of reducing a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form. 

EXP: 

• Word

• facsimile=> fax

• gasoline => gas

• advertisement => bra

• Name

• Alice=Al

• Edward= Ed

• Thomas=Tom

Hypocorisms:  a word-formation process in which a longer word is reduced to a shorter form with -y or -ie at the end

EXP: 

• Spidey(“Spiderman”)

• telly (“television”)

• Aussie (“Australian”)

• sickie (“a day of sick leave from work, whether for real sickness or not”)

Backformation( usually a noun): the process of reducing a word such as a noun to a shorter version and using it as a new

word such as a verb

EXP: 

• donate (from “donation”)

• emote (from “emotion”)

• enthuse (from“enthusiasm”)

• liaise (from “liaison”)

6 Conversion 

The process of changing the function of a word, such as a noun to a verb, as a way of forming new words, also known as “category change” or “functional shift”

EXP: 

Verb=> Adj: see-through material, stand-up comedian

Adj=> Verb: to dirty, to empty

Adj=> noun: a crazy, the nasty

Some compound have assumed other functions

EXP: 

ball-park

• ball-park figure (as an adjective)

• to ball-park an estimate of the cost (as a verb)

7 Coinage

The invention of new words or coinage is not very common in English.  

Trademarked names can become so popular they lose their connection to the brand and become lowercase terms for any similar product 

EXP:

•  Old: aspirin, nylon, vaseline and zipper

• Recent: granola, kleenex, teflon and xerox

• Google the name of a company has become the verb "google" (lowercase), meaning you can now use it to describe searching for information online

Eponyms: a word derived from the name of a person or place 

EXP:  

• teddy bear, derived from US president Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

• jeans (from the Italian city of Genoa where the type of cloth was first made)

Acronyms: Shorter versions of phrases, called acronyms, are created by combining the first letters of each word

EXP: 

• CD (“compact disk”)

• SPCA (“Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals”)

• laser (“light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”)

• radar (“radio detecting and ranging”)

8 Derivation

The process of forming new words by adding affixes is called derivation

A bound morpheme such as un-, -ed, un-, mis-, pre-, -ful, -less, -ish, -ism and -ness added to a word called affix 

EXP: unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish,

terrorism and sadness.

Prefixes and Suffixes:

• Prefix: a bound morpheme added to the beginning of a word (e.g. un-, mis-)

• Suffix: a bound morpheme added to the end of a word (e.g. -less, -ish)

All English words formed by this derivational process have either prefixes or suffixes, or both 

EXP: mislead, disrespectful, foolishness 

Infixes:

a morpheme that is inserted in the middle of a word

 (e.g. -rn- in srnal)

9 Multiple Processes

We can combine multiple word-formation processes to create new words.

EXP:

"Deli": borrowing ("delicatessen") and then clipping.

"Snowball": compounding ("snow" and "ball") and then conversion (noun to verb).

"Lase": backformation (from "laser").

"Waspish": acronym ("WASP") losing capitals and gaining a suffix.

"Yuppie": blending ("young urban professional") with a suffix and influenced by analogy ("hippie", "yippie").

New words are also formed through analogy, like "yuppie" resembling "hippie".

Many new words have a short lifespan, but some, like "app", "vape", "blog", "sexting", "unfriend", and "mint" (slang for "cool"), become accepted and included in dictionaries.

This process of adding new words can be controversial, but successful additions, like those by Noah Webster, show a good sense of which words will endure