Words and Wordformation Processes Lecturer Ms Abrar Mujaddidi

Words and Word-formation Processes Lecturer: Ms. Abrar Mujaddidi LANE 321

Introduction We quickly understand new words in our language and accept the use of new forms of that new word. There is a lot of regularities in the wordformation processes in our language. In this chapter, we explore some of the processes of creating new words in a language.

Etymology The study of the origin and history of a word is known as etymology. We should view the constant evolution of the words as a reassuring sign of vitality of the language.

Coinage is the invention of totally new terms. Sources of coined words: 1. Trade names of commercial products that become general terms. e. g. aspirin, kleenex, teflon, xerox. 2. New words based on the name of a person or a place. e. g. hoover, jeans, sandwich.

Borrowing is taking over words from other languages. English borrows from other languages. e. g. sofa, lilac, croissant Many languages borrow from English e. g. Japanese. supaamaaketto

cont. , Loan translation: Direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language. Many languages translated the term ‘skyscraper’ into its own vocabulary. between and

Compounding is the joining of two separate words to produce a single form. Compounding is very common in English and German. E. g. Bookcase, doorknob, sunburn low-paid, good-looking

Blending The combination of to separate forms to produce a single form is blending Blending is accomplished by taking the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word. E. g. Smog (smoke + fog) brunch (breakfast + lunch) Spanglish (spanish + English)

Clipping occurs when a word with more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form. E. g. gas (gasoline) fan (fanatic) ad ( advertisement)

cont. , A special type of reduction is hypocorisms: hypocorisms a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then a –y or –ie E. g. movie (moving picture) hankie (handkerchief)

Backformation In backformation, a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb). E. g. Televise (television) donate (donation) babysit (babysitter)

Conversion is a change in the function of the word without any reduction. 1. Noun to a verb 2. verb to a noun 3. verb to adjective butter to spy a spy see through a see-through material

Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words. e. g. CD (compact disk) VCR (video cassette recorder) laser MADD ATM

Derivation is accomplished by the use of affixes. Affixes added to the beginning of a word un- or dis- not used in standard English added to the end of the word -ful or -less

Multiple Processes It is possible to trace the operation of more than one process in the creation of a particular word. e. g. Deli snowball

See you next class read chapter 7 please!!