Supplemental Reading

Word Formation Processes

Word formation processes are basically how new words are created and become part of the language.
Knowing these can actually help you better understand the English language, not to mention the fact
that knowing a word's origin is a great way to reinforce your understanding of it!

1. Acronym
- A word formed from the initials or other parts of several words, which are pronounced not
separately but like a normal word, e.g. "NATO," from the initial letters of “North Atlantic Treaty
Organization”
- It is a type of abbreviation, but acts and is pronounced as a normal word
- It is different from initialism (or alphabetic abbreviation), where all the letters are pronounced
separately, e.g. UN for “United Nations.”
o Examples:
AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
ASAP - as soon as possible
AWOL - absent without leave
Interpol - International Criminal Police Organization
laser - light amplification by simulated emission of radiation
MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving
NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASDAQ - National Association of Securities Dealers Automated
Quotations
NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization
PIN - personal identification number
radar - radio detection and ranging
SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome
scuba - self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
TESOL - Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages
UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization
WASP - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
LOL - laughing out loud

2. Affixation (or Derivation)

- Words are formed by adding free morphemes and affixes.
- It is also known as derivation because new words are created by adding affixes to an existing
word.
o Examples:

2.1 Prefixation
un-do
en-list
re-cover
il-legal
in-correct

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mis-spell
dis-please
im-possible
im-moral
ir-rational

2.2 Suffixation
2.2.1 Noun suffixes
dispos-al, propos-al
inform-ation, imagin-ation
confer-ence, preced-ence, resid-ence
fus-ion, act-ion, port-ion, correct-ion
magnet-ism, parallel-ism
actual-ity, moral-ity
great-ness, bold-ness
agree-ment, appoint-ment
friend-ship, court-ship, fellow-ship
psychology-ist, dent-ist, ideal-ist, etymology-ist, abortion-ist
2.2.2 Adjective suffixes
comic-al, practic-al
lov-able, depend-able
force-ful, sorrow-ful
convert-ible, aud-ible,
construct-ive, instruct-ive, illustrat-ive
count-less, care-less
virtu-ous, tortur-ous
air-y, room-y, leaf-y, tear-y
wood-en
2.2.3 Verb suffixes
bright-en, strength-en, length-en
beaut-ify, pur-ify, null-ify, clar-ify
-ise
-ist
formal-ize, crystall-ize, oxid-ize, sympathy-ize
stri-ve, li-ve, relie-ve, beha-ve
2.2.4 Adverb suffixes
clear-ly
slow-ly
peaceful-ly

2.3 Infixation
care-ful-ness
tact-ful-ness
peace-ful-ly
peace-ful-ness
mean-ing-ful
mean-ing-ful-ly
mean-ing-ful-ness

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mean-ing-less
mean-ing-less-ly
mean-ing-less-ness
mother-in-law
beauti-ful-ly
holist-ical-ly
sumulat
bumili
kumuha

2.4 Circumfixation
un-believ-able
im-mortal-ity
in-toler-able
in-excus-able
mis-understand-ing
de-construct-ion

3. Back formation
- It refers to the process of creating a new lexeme* (less precisely, a new "word") by removing
actual or supposed affixes.
o The resulting neologism (new word or meaning) is called a back-formation.
o Back-formations are shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations
may be viewed as a sub-type of clipping.
*lexeme
▪ The smallest or minimal unit of lexicon in a language that bears some meaning
▪ A fundamental unit of the vocabulary of a language that may exist in a number
of different forms, e.g. "make" existing as "makes, making, maker, made"

- We form words with back-formation when we remove part of a word, usually something which
we think is a suffix (or occasionally a prefix). We do this commonly when we form verbs from
nouns.
o Examples:

to enthuse (back-formed from the noun enthusiasm):

to intuit (back-formed from the noun intuition)
to liaise (back-formed from the noun liaison)

Can you liaise with Tim and agree a time for the meeting, please?
She’s always enthusing about her new teacher.

babysit (from babysitter)

backform (from backformation)
donate (from donation)
insert (from insertion)
project (from projection)
resurrect (from resurrection)

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televise (from television)

4. Blending
- Words are formed by combining parts of two or more different words.
- Blended words are referred to as portmanteaus.
o Examples:
advertainment advertisement + entertainment
biopic biographical + picture
brunch breakfast + lunch
chortle chuckle + snort
cyborg cybernetic + organism
edutainment education + entertainment
emoticon emotion + icon
guesstimate guess + estimate
hazmat hazardous + material
infomercial Information + commercial
infotainment information + entertainment
kidult kid + adult
mocktail mock + cocktail (cocktail with no alcohol)
motel motor + hotel
netiquette internet + etiquette
netizen internet + citizen
prissy prim + sissy
simulcast simultaneous + broadcast
smog smoke + fog
Spanglish Spanish + English
splog spam + blog (fake blog designed to attract
hits and raise Google-ranking)
spork spoon + fork
telethon telephone + marathon
tapsilog tapa + sinangag + itlog
longsilog longganisa + sinangag + itlog
webinar web + seminar
wifi wireless + fidelity
Britpoperati Britpop + literati (those knowledgeable about
current British pop music)

5. Borrowing
- Borrowing is just taking a word from another language.
o The borrowed words are called “loanwords.”
o A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with
little or no translation.
o 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.
o The word "loanword" is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort.
o Loanwords can also be called "borrowings."
o Examples:

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sakul/schakul (from school)

Some recent loanwords for food taken from other languages include
sushi
tapas
chapatti
pizza
- When we use loan words, we do not normally change them, though we do sometimes inflect
them if they are singular countable nouns (pizzas, chapattis).
- We also sometimes pronounce them more like English words, instead of using their original
pronunciation.
o Other examples:
rendezvous
deluxe
reservoir
debut
o Borrowed words are words that came to the English language from another language. It
is a process where foreign words are gradually becoming part of the language. In many
cases, the foreign words adopt the sound and other characteristics of the language, and
if used long enough, they can sound quite "native"!

Original word
(If the original
meaning is
Source language English word
different, then
it is given
in parenthesis)

Chinese t'e tea

Dutch wagen wagon
Old Norse vanta want
Old Norse taka (grasp) take
Latin rapidus rapid
Latin plus (more) plus
Latin nervus (strength) nerve
Old French blanc (white) blank
Norwegian klover (skillful) clever
Italian spago (small cord) spaghetti
Arabic safar (journey) safari
Greek beugen (to bend) bagel
(Source: http://www.really-learn-english.com/word-formation-processes.html, Retrieved 2018 June 2.)

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ketchup, gweilo, cha chaan teng, laisee, dim sum (Chinese)

balcony, opera, violin, spaghetti, macaroni (Italian)
kindergarten, pretzel, hamburger, iceberg (German)
karaoke, tsunami, sushi, origami, tycoon, karate, soy (Japanese)
croissant, macaroon, resume, mayonnaise, coup d’etat (French)
yoga, shampoo (Indian)
yogurt, kebab (Turkish)
(Source: http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/, Retrieved 2018
June 2.)
o Other examples:
▪ algebra – Arabic
▪ bagel – Yiddish
▪ cherub – Hebrew
▪ chow mein – Chinese
▪ fjord – Norwegian
▪ galore – Irish
▪ haiku – Japanese
▪ kielbasa – Polish
▪ murder – French
▪ near – Sanskrit
▪ paprika – Hungarian
▪ pizza – Italian
▪ smorgasbord – Swedish
▪ tamale – Spanish
▪ yo-yo – Tagalog

6. Calquing
- Calquing is the word formation process in which a borrowed word or phrase is translated from
one language to another. For example, the following common English words are calqued from
foreign languages:
o Examples:
▪ beer garden – German – Biergarten
▪ blue-blood – Spanish – sangre azul
▪ commonplace – Latin – locus commūnis
▪ flea market – French – marché aux puces
▪ free verse – French – vers libre
▪ loanword – German – Lehnwort
▪ long time no see – Chinese – hǎo jiǔ bu jiàn
▪ pineapple – Dutch – pijnappel
▪ scapegoat – Hebrew – ez ozel
▪ wisdom tooth – Latin – dēns sapientiae
- Calques are also referred to as root-for-root or word-for-word translations.

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7. Clipping (or Truncation)

- Longer words are shortened.
- 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."

Types of Clipping

a. Back Clipping
o Back clipping or apocopation is the most common type, in which the beginning is
retained.
o the unclipped original may be either a simple or a composite.
o Examples:
ad (advertisement)
auto (automobile)
bro (brother)
cable (cablegram)
dad (daddy)
doc (doctor)
dorm (dormitory)
exam (examination)
fax (facsimile)
gas (gasoline)
grad (graduate)
gym (gymnastics, gymnasium)
lab (laboratory)
math (mathematics)
memo (memorandum)
mom (mommy)
mutt (muttonhead)
pop (popular music, popular concert)
prof (professional, professor)
pub (public house)
sis (sister)
stude (student)
trad (traditional jazz)

b. Fore-clipping
o Fore-clipping or aphaeresis retains the final part.
o Examples:
coon (raccoon)
chute (parachute)
gator (alligator)
net (Internet)
phone (telephone)

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pike (turnpike)
plane (airplane)
varsity (university)

c. Middle Clipping
o In middle clipping or syncope, the middle of the word is retained.
o Examples:
flu (influenza)
jams (pajamas)
polly (appolinaris)
shrink (head-shrinker)
tec (detective)

d. Complex Clipping
o Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound most
often remains intact.
o Examples:
cablegram (cabletelegram)
op art (optical art)
org-man (organization man)
o 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 clipping or as a blend, for the border between the two types is not always clear.

8. Coinage
- The invention of a totally new term is called coinage.
- words may be created outright to fit some purpose. The advertising industry has added many
words to English, such as Kodak, nylon, Orlon, and Dacron. Specific brand names such as Xerox,
Band-aid, Kleenex, Jell-O, Brillo, and Vaseline are now sometimes used as the generic name for
different brands of these types of products. Some of these words were actually created from
existing words (e.g., Kleenex from the word clean and Jell-O from gel.) (Fromkin, et al., 2010)
- The sciences have given us a raft of newly coined words over the ages. Words like
asteroid
neutron
genome
krypton
brontosaurus and
vaccine were created to describe the objects or processes arising from scientific
investigation. (Fromkin, et al., 2010)

o Other examples of invented scientific terms:

aspirin
radioactive
Celsius
diesel

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- Some prefixes are commonly used to create new words. In modern English the prefix e- is used
to create new words that are connected with the Internet and the use of the Internet:
e-bank
e-cards
e-commerce
e-learning
- In many cases science fiction and fantasy writers invent new words, as well.
o Examples:
hobbit - from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings novels by J.R.R.
Tolkien, hobbit refers to a member of an imaginary good-
natured little people who have brown furry legs and live
underground
Muggle - from the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, Muggle refers to
non-magic people or those without witch or wizard blood

o Other examples:
▪ Internet
▪ blog
▪ escalator
▪ heroin
▪ factoid
▪ Frisbee
▪ Google
▪ Kerosene
▪ Laundromat
▪ Linoleum
▪ Psychedelic
▪ Quark
▪ Zipper
- Greek roots borrowed into English have also provided a means for coining new words. Thermos
“hot” plus metron “measure” gave us thermometer. From akros “topmost” and phobia “fear,”
we get acrophobia, “dread of heights.” To avoid going out on Friday the thirteenth, you may say
that you have triskaidekaphobia, a profound fear of the number 13. An ingenious cartoonist,
Robert Osborn, has “invented” some phobias, to each of which he gives an appropriate name:

logizomechanophobia - “fear of reckoning machines” from Greek

logizomai “to reckon or compute” + mekhane
“device” + phobia
ellipsosyllabophobia - “fear of words with a missing syllable” from
Greek ellipsis “a falling short” + syllable
“syllable” + phobia
pornophobia - “fear of prostitutes” from Greek porne “harlot”
+ phobia (Fromkin, et al., 2010)

- Coinages are also referred to simply as neologisms, the word neologism meaning "new word."

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9. Compounding
- Words are formed by combining two or more words.
- OR: When we use compounding, we link together two or more bases to create a new word.
o Normally, the first item identifies a key feature of the second word.
o Examples:
▪ The two bases back and ache can combine to form the compound noun backache,
▪ and the two bases post and card combine to form the compound noun postcard.
o Compounds are found in all word classes. The most common types of compounds are:
▪ Nouns: car park, rock band
▪ Adjectives: heartbreaking, sugar-free, airsick
▪ Verbs: oven-bake, baby-sit, chain-smoke
▪ Adverbs: good-naturedly, nevertheless
o Other Examples:

▪ Separate words
coffee table
commercial break
cosmetic surgery
cup holder
dog house
dry run
field study
fire extinguisher
fire hydrant
fruit fly
grade school
life jacket
mail carrier

▪ Hyphenated words
air-conditioner
cost-cutting
cost-effective
father-in-law
freeze-dry
free-range
free-weight
long-term

▪ Combined words
ashtray
blackboard
bagpipe
behave
blackboard
cupcake
database

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fireplace
football
textbook
bittersweet
rainbow
overdo
pickpocket
windshield
without

o It is sometimes difficult to know where to put hyphens in words that are compounded.
It is also difficult to know whether to separate words (e.g. post box) or to join the words
(e.g. postbox). In such cases, it is best to check in a good learner’s dictionary.

10. Conversion
- Conversion involves the change of a word from one word-class (or lexical category) to
another.
- By “converting” we mean changing the function of a word without changing its form.
Conversion, also called Zero Derivation, is the functional shift of a word from one part of
speech to another without any change in form (i.e. adding affixes or omitting letters).
o For example, the verbs to email and to microwave are formed from the
nouns email and microwave:
o Can you text her? (verb from noun text, meaning to send a text-message)
o They are always jetting somewhere. (verb from noun jet)
o If you’re not careful, some downloads can damage your computer. (noun from
verb download)
o OK, so the meeting’s on Tuesday. That’s a definite. (noun from adjective)
o It’s a very big if and I’m not at all sure we can afford it. (noun from conjunction, meaning
‘it’s not at all certain’)
o All companies have their ups and downs. (nouns from prepositions)
o We also use conversion when we change a proper noun into a common noun:
o Has anybody seen my Dickens? (copy of a book by Dickens)

o Other examples:

Noun to verb: bottle (The wine was brewed in France but bottled in Hong Kong.)
butter (Don’t butter the bread for me. I prefer jam.)
Verb to noun: hit (He scored a hit in his first shot.)
cheat (He used some cheats in the computer game to make him win easier.)
must (It is a must for you to visit the Forbidden City if you go to Beijing.)
Adjective to regular (I am one of the regulars at the pubs in Tsim Sha Tsui.)
noun: final (It is obvious that the LA Lakers will enter the NBA Finals.)
crazy (Stop shouting and running around like a crazy.)
Adjective to empty (Can you empty the bin for me, please?)
verb: dirty (Don’t sit on the floor. You might dirty your dress.)
dry (Caught in the rain, we were soaked to the skin. We dried ourselves
beside the fireplace.)

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(Source: http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/, Retrieved 2018

June 2.)

Types of Conversion
o Most cases of conversion are from noun to verb and from verb to noun. Conversion
from adjective to verb is also common, but it has a lower ratio.

1. Noun to Verb
▪ Examples:
access dot
pocket break
film host
practice rule
name telephone
shape ship
fuel
hammer

▪ Other examples of NOUNS that turn into VERBS:

Original word – noun New word – verb

We had a long talk. They like to talk for hours.
Can you buy me a drink? Don't drink that!
She finally got a divorce. I heard they will divorce.
That dress was amazing. He likes the way you dress.
I will write you an e-mail. He will e-mail me tomorrow.
(Source: http://www.really-learn-english.com/word-formation-processes.html, Retrieved 2018 June 2.)

2. Adjective to Verb
▪ Examples:
goofproof
brown
black
slow

3. Verb to Noun
▪ Examples:
fear visit
feel increase
hope call
attack command
alert cover
laugh start

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turn rise

4. Preposition to Adverb/Noun/Verb
▪ Examples:
up
out
outside
inside

5. Onomatopoeic expression to Verb

▪ Examples:
buzz
beep
woo
moo
screech

How to Use Conversion?

▪ Say each sentence out loud. The italicized words are examples of commonly used
"converted" words.

Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk.

Be who you are and say what you feel

because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

Gary showed no sign of pain or remorse.

Bush once said, “Families is where our nation takes hope, where wings take dream.”

You'd have domestic production falling, whole cities blacked out, whole industries
threatened.

I get distracted whenever mobile phones begin to buzz and beep.

11. Creative Respelling

- Changing the spelling of a word
o Examples:
Mr. Kleen (from Mr. Clean)
Bonux (from Bonus)
Krispee Krème (from Crispy cream)
Penshoppe (from Pen shop)
Krimstix (from Cream sticks)

12. Echoism/Symbolism/Onomatopoeia
- Echoism means the formation of words by imitating sounds.

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- These words seem to display sound symbolism in which a word’s phonological form suggests its
meaning in some way.
o Examples:
cuckoo
meow
ouch
quack
roar
splash
o Other examples:
Onomatopoeic words, such as
bling (the sound seems to evoke heavy jewelry making noise)
meow
tick tock
chug
whoosh
hush

*onomatopoeia
imitation of sound in words: the formation or use of words that imitate the sound
associated with something, e.g. "hiss" and "buzz"

13. Eponym (or Antonomasia)

- It is a morphological process in which a word (such as the name of an invention, activity, place,
etc.) is taken or derived from the name of a person or mythical character.
o Examples:
▪ Rome - an eponym coming from “Romulus”
▪ boycott - from Capt. Charles Cunningham Boycott
▪ sandwich - named after John Montagu, the 18th century Earl of
Sandwich who first insisted on having bread and meat
together while gambling
▪ hoover - from the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company which
produced the first vacuum cleaner
▪ Fahrenheit - from Gabriel Fahrenheit, German physicist
▪ Imeldific - from Imelda Marcos (widow of Pres. Ferdinand E.
Marcos)
▪ Napolistic - from the nefarious scammer/swindler Janet Lim
Napoles

o Other eponyms:
▪ atlas – Atlas
▪ boycott – Charles C. Boycott
▪ cardigan – James Thomas Brudnell, 7th Earl of Cardigan
▪ cereal – Ceres
▪ dunce – John Duns Scotus
▪ guillotine – Joseph Ignace Guillotin

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▪ jacuzzi – Candido Jacuzzi

▪ luddite – Ned Ludd
▪ malapropism – Mrs. Malaprop
▪ mesmerize – Franz Anton Mesmer
▪ mirandize – Ernesto A. Miranda
▪ narcissistic – Narcissus
▪ nicotine – Jean Nicot
▪ pasteurization – Louis Pasteur
▪ poinsettia – Noel Roberts Poinsett
▪ praline – César de Choiseul, Count Plessis–Praslin
▪ sadistic – Marquis de Sade
▪ salmonella – Daniel Elmer Salmon
▪ sandwich – John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
▪ volcano – Vulcan

14. Initialism (or Alphabetic Abbreviation)

- When the acronym is not easily pronounced as a word, the acronym is produced by sounding
each letter, as in NFL (National Football League).
- It is a special kind of acronym in which the initial letters that make up a word are all pronounced
separately, e.g. UN for United Nations
o Examples:
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency
DFA - Department of Foreign Affairs
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation
GUI - Graphical User Interface
IMF - International Monetary Fund
PNP - Philippine National Police
UN - United Nations
HIV - Human Immunodeficiency Virus
RSVP - répondez s'il vous plait
VIP - very important person

JFK - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

FYI - for your information

BRB - be right back
ROFL - rolling on the floor laughing
ROFLMAO - rolling on the floor laughing my ass off

15. Reduplication
- Reduplication is the formation of a new word by doubling a word, either:

o with change of initial consonants

teeny-weeny (same as or synonymous with teensy-weensy)
walkie-talkie
lovey-dovey
chiller-killer

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higgledy-piggledy
tootsie-wootsie
bunnie-wunnie
Henny Penny
snuggly-wuggly
Georgie Porgie
Piggie-Wiggie
humpty-dumpty
itsy-bitsy
hocus-pocus

o with change of vowel

chit-chat
pitter-patter
zigzag
tick-tock
crisscross
ding-dong
riffraff
flipflop

o or without change
night-night
so-so
win-win

16. Multiple Processes

- A word can be created through more than one of the above-mentioned processes.
- Examples:

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(Source: http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/, Retrieved 2018

June 2.)

(Source: http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/, Retrieved 2018

June 2.)

(Source: http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/, Retrieved 2018

June 2.)

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Word formation processes

Understanding the different word formation processes helps us thoroughly understand the
creation of the English vocabulary. But you can take it a step further. By taking individual words and
looking into their actual origin, you can achieve a [better] understanding of them.

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References

Conversion. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2017, from

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation/word-
formation#conversion

Conversion. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2017, from http://www.esl.ph/lessons/vocabulary/word-

formation-process/conversion.html

English word formation processes. (n.d.). Retrieved June 2, 2018, from http://www.really-learn-
english.com/word-formation-processes.html

Hana, J. (2011, October 31). Intro to linguistics – Morphology.

Kemmer, S. (n.d.). Types of word formation processes. Retrieved June 2, 2018, from
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.html

Kosur, H. M. (n.d.). Word formation. Tricia Goss (Ed). Retrieved June 2, 2018, from
https://www.brighthubeducation.com/esl-lesson-plans/59679-forming-new-words-compounds-
clipping-and-blends/

Word formation processes. (n.d.). Retrieved June 2, 2018, from

http://vlearn.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wordformation/word-formation-processes/

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