HXE 227 - Word formation

processes

Lecture 5

How new words are being formed in the language

The process consists of a combination of morphemes
that are rule-governed (a new word is formed)

1. Compounding
2.Shortening
Acronyms
Blends
3.Back Formation
4.Borrowing
5.Conversion
6.Clipping
7.Onomatopoeia
8.Coinage

Apart from derivation and inflection, there are other
ways words are formed (in English).
One of them is through the use of compounding :
when two or more words joined together to form a
new word
made up of at least two words which can occur
elsewhere as independent words

Compounding - Process by which new words are
formed by joining together other words, forming
compounds.
Combination of Lexical Categories
1. Roots (nouns, adjectives, verbs and prepositions)
Examples:
Homework [home]N + [work]N
Pickpocket [pick]V + [pocket]N
Blackboard [black]Adj + [board]N
2. Root/base + Affixed form
Examples:
Hairdresser [hair]N + [ [dress]V -er]N
Kindhearted [kind]Adj + [ [heart]N -ed]Adj

Closed form (words are melded together)
Examples:
firefly, secondhand, softball, crosstown, keyboard, makeup,
notebook

Hyphenated form
Examples:
daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-
year-old, mass-produced

Open form
Examples:
post office, real estate, middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney
general


In English, compounds belong to the word-classes noun / verb / adjective and are
made up of at least 2 words
(in which can consist of noun / verb / adjective / adverb / preposition)

Two criteria to classify compounds:
1. whether they have a head (i.e. the morpheme that determines the category)
2. if yes the word-class of the head; whether the head appears at the left OR
right of the compound

In most cases, the rightmost morpheme determines the category of the entire
word
Examples:
greenhouse N
spoonfeed V

Pronunciations
Most compounds are characterised by a more prominent stress on their first
component
In non-compounds, the stress is on the second component
For example:
greenhouse an indoor garden
greenhouse a house painted green.

Tense and Plural Markers
are not attached to the first element of the compound word.
For example:
The player dropped kick the ball.
The player drop kicked the ball.
The foxes hunter didnt have a licence.
The fox hunters didnt have a licence.
[gentleman]N [gentle]Adj + [man]N
[mailbox]N [mail]N + [box]N
[overlook]V [over]P + [look]v
[nationwide]Adj [nation]N + [wide]Adj
[bittersweet]A [bitter]Adj + [sweet]Adj
[sleepwalk]V [sleep]V + [walk]V
[headstrong]A [head]N + [strong]Adj
[palm pilot]N [palm]N + [pilot]N
[redhead]N [red]Adj + [head]N

In most cases, the rightmost component (head) identifies the
general class to which the meaning of the entire words belongs.
Dog food a type of food
Caveman a type of man
Fire truck a type of truck used to put out fires
Bath towel a towel used after bathing
Teapot a type of pot

These are called endocentric compounds
(i.e. headed compounds / they have a head).

In English, most compounds are endocentric (the head determines
the category of the entire compound)

Syntactically the head is the dominant constituent of the
entire compound word
For example:
[birdN watchV]V
[sugarN daddyN]N
[blueAdj blackAdj]Adj
[yellowAdj bookN]N
[overP reactV]V

Semantically - the first word (in each case) functions as a
modifier of the head (specifies the meaning of the head more
precisely)



A complex head (Adj or N) derived from a verb
Meaning of the compound is transparent
For example:

Nouns Verbs
[Noun-verb-er]N
Moneylender, shoemaker, bookseller,
gamekeeper

[Noun-verb-en]Adj
Hand-written, hand-sewn, time-worn,
guilt-ridden
[Noun-verb-ing]N
Hay-making, brick-laying,
sheep-shearing

Awe-inspiring, self-seeking,
eye-catching

In some cases, the meaning of the compounds does not
follow from the meanings of its parts.
For example:
Redneck a type of neck?
An ultra conservative, white working class person.
Lazy-bones a set of bones?
A lazy person
Blue-nose a nose?
A variety of potato in Nova Scotia (pejorative for a
Nova-Scotian)
Syntactically they are NOT headless N A + N
Semantically special stipulation is needed to show that
a lazy-bones is a lazy person and a dare-devil is a
reckless person, not one who literally dares the devil
i.e. the nouns are not taken in the literal sense.

These are known as exocentric compounds or headless
compounds.

Other examples:
butterfingers (a person who always drop things)
blockhead (an idiot)

bittersweet, player-manager, North-west, Harper-Collins
N N + N
Adj Adj + Adj
Two words which are coupled.
Syntactically the head is the rightmost noun.
Semantically the elements are equal (neither element is regarded
as more dominant than the other).
Each element contains separate aspect of the meaning of the
entire word

North-west northerly and westerly directions (equally important)
Harper-Collins 2 companies that merged to form a new one (equal
status)
Note: The meaning of a compound is not always the
sum of the meanings of its parts.
coconut oil oil made from coconuts.
olive oil oil made from olives.
baby oil oil for babies
NOT oil made from babies
a history book a book about history
a telephone book a book about telephones?
a hothouse (roughly) a house that is hot
a cathouse a house where men visit prostitutes
NOT a house for cats
Idiosyncratic Meaning (not governed
by general principles)
blueberry is not any berry that is blue, but rather a
specific type of berry

boyfriend is not just a friend who is a boy

a blackboard does not even have to be black


Permanent resident in the lexicon
(can be syntactically analysed)
modifier + head
Contains two nominal parts in which the first one is
bound
Compounds containing the form berry the most
famous is cranberry.

N N + N N A + N
Cranberry (cran shrub?)
Huckleberry (huckle shrub?)
Elderberry
Strawberry
(straw in the stable?)
Gooseberry
(a species of bird?)
Blueberry
Blackberry

(unproblematic) why?

Adj modifies the noun
independent words

A popular means of multiplying the words of a language

Acronyms
formed by taking the initial letters of some or all of the words in
a phrase or title and reading them as a word
common in names of organizations and scientific names
Examples:
UNICEF (United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund)
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation)
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Agency)
WHO (World Health Organization)


Speakers may not know that a word in their vocabulary
was originally formed as an acronym
radar
radio detecting and ranging

scuba
self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

laser
light amplification by simulated emission of radiation


combining two separate forms to produce a single new term

similar to compounds BUT parts of the words combined are deleted
less than compounds

typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and
joining it to the end of the other word
Examples:
brunch - breakfast + lunch
urinalysis - urine + analysis
smog - smoke + fog
telethon - telephone + marathon
informercial - information + commercial
Wi-fi - Wireless + Fidelity
Some blends have become so integrated into the standard vocabulary of
English that speakers are unaware of their status.
motel
motor + hotel
bit
binary + digit
modem
modulator + demodulator

Hypocorisms
a longer word is reduced to a syllable, then y or ie is added to the end

For example, telly, brekky, hankie, sunnies, mozzie
* Used most often in shortening of names Mikey, Debbie, Barbie
A process in which a word changes its form and function
Word of one type, which is usually a noun, is reduced and
used as a verb.

For example:
television (N) televise (V)
resurrection (N) resurrect (V)
editor (N) edit (V)
babysitter (N) babysit (V)
liposuction (N) liposuct (V)
liaison (N) liaise (V)
swindler (N) swindle (V)


The taking over of words from other languages

English has adopted a vast number of loan-words
from other languages.

Other languages also borrow terms from English
For example: Japanese
beesubooru (baseball)
futtobooru (football)

alcohol (Arabic)
boss (Dutch)
croissant (French)
lilac (Persian)
piano (Italian)
pretzel (German)
robot (Czech)
tycoon (Japanese)
yogurt (Turkish)
zebra (Bantu)

Loan translation or Calque
each morpheme/word is translated into the equivalent
morpheme/word in another language
Direct translation of the elements of a word into the
borrowing language

For example:
dogs hot hotdogs (from Spanish perros calientes)
beer garden (from German Biergarten)
marriage of convenience (from French mariage de convenance)
stormtrooper (from German Sturmtruppen)
half dead (possibly from Malay setengah mati)
Conversion


A process that assigns an already existing word to a new syntactic
category functional shift
Resembles derivation because of the change in category and
meaning that it brings about
a.k.a zero derivation
Involves the creation of new verbs from nouns

For example:
Hes papering the bedroom walls.
Have you buttered the toast?
We bottled the home-brew last night.
They are vacationing in France.

V derived from N N derived from V V derived from Adj
Finger (a suspect)

(a building) permit Dirty (a shirt)
Butter (the bread)

(an exciting) contest Empty (the box)
Ship the package

(a new) survey Open (a door)
Nail (the door shut)

(a brief) report Right (a wrong)
Button (the shirt)

(a long) walk Dry (the clothes)

A process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting
one or more syllables
For example: Names
Liz (Elizabeth), Tom (Thomas), Trish (Patricia)
Chris (Christopher), Ron (Ronald), Joe (Joseph)

Other examples:
Prof (for professor), fax (for facsimile), van (caravan),
phone (telephone), bike (bicycle), piano (pianoforte)
ad, gas, condo, flu, plane, fridge
Onomatopoeia

Words which sounds represents an aspect of the
thing that they name
For example:
buzz, hiss, cuckoo, meow, chirp, splash

The invention of totally new terms Word manufacture/ trademarks
This phenomenon is especially common in cases where industry requires a new
and attractive name for a product
For example: Kodak, Xerox, Nylon, Kleenex, Colgate

Brand names sometimes become so widely used that they are accepted as
generic terms
For example: Kleenex (facial tissue), Xerox (photocopy)

Eponyms Words derived from proper nouns
For example: sandwich, paparazzo
(Earl of Sandwich - put his food between 2 slices of bread so that he could eat
while gambling)
(Signor Papparazzo the news photographer in La Dolce Vita)

Scientific terms (watt, curie, fahrenheit) provide examples of words derived
from the names of individuals - often inventors




Suppletion
A complete change in the form of a root (i.e., words)
or in the replacement of root by another
morphologically unrelated root with the same
component of meaning in different grammatical
contents.
Example:
good and well better and best
bad and badly worse and worst
Reduplication
The repetition of all or of part of a root or stem to
form new words
If the entire root or stem is repeated, the process is
called complete or total reduplication
Total reduplication is frequent in Malay & Indonesian
Example: ibu-ibu (mothers), rumah-rumah (houses)
If only a part of the root or stem is repeated, the
process is called partial reduplication
Example: walkie-talkie, criss-cross, flip-flop, teeny-
weeny