TOPIC 10: LEXICON.

WORD FORMATION IN
ENGLISH. AFFIXES, COMPOUNDS AND
CONVERSION.

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 TOPIC 10: LEXICON. WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH. AFFIXES,

COMPOUNDS AND CONVERSION.

0. INTRODUCTION: The nature of lexicon

1. LEXIS: CHARACTERISTICS OF WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH:

UNMOTIVATED AND MOTIVATED WORD FORMATION PROCESSES.

2.- MAJOR PROCESSES

2.1 Prefixation

 Negative

 Privative

 Pejorative

 Degree or size

 Attitude and orientation

 Locative

 Time and order

 Number

 Conversion

 Others

2.2 Suffixation

 Nouns: occupational, diminutive, feminine, status & domain, other

noun suffixes.

 Adjectives/nouns

 Verbs

 Adverbs

2.3 Compounding

 Definition

 Orthographic criteria

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  Phonological criteria

 Semantic criteria

a) Noun compounds

b) Adjective Compounds

c) Verb compounds

d) Reduplicatives

e) Bahuvrihi compounds

2.4 Conversion

3.- MINOR TYPES

3.1 Infixation and tmesis

3.2 Backformation

3.3 Abbreviations

 Initialisms

 Acronysms

 Clippings

3.4 Blending

3.5 Coinage

 Nonce words

 Neologisms

3.6 Borrowings (loan-translations or calques)

4.- MULTIPROCESSES

5.- CONCLUSION AND TEACHING IMPLICATIONS

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

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0. INTRODUCTION: The nature of lexicon

The term lexicon is known in English from the early 17th c. It comes from Greek
"lexis" (word). It refers to the total stock of meaningful units in a language -not only the
words and idioms, but also the parts of words which express meaning, such as the
prefixes and suffixes.

To study the lexicon of English is to study all aspects of the vocabulary of the language-
how words are formed, how they have developed over time, how they are used now and
how they are handled in dictionaries and other word books. It is a study which is carried
on by lexicologists, who are thus practising lexicology. If lexicologists choose to write a
dictionary, they are known as lexicographers and their calling is lexicography.

What shall we call the units of meaning which appear as the headwords in an English
dictionary? the tradition is to call them 'words'. However, in a study of the lexicon we
need to be more precise, because when we refer to a dictionary we actually do
something rather more subtle: we don´t look up 'eating', but 'eat'. A lexeme is a unit of
lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the
number of words it may contain. The headwords in a dictionary are all lexemes.
Therefore, 'eat', 'rain cats and dogs', 'come in' are all lexemes.

1. LEXIS: CHARACTERISTICS OF WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH:

UNMOTIVATED AND MOTIVATED WORD FORMATION PROCESSES.

The rules by which words are constructed are important to the study of grammar for two
reasons. Firstly, they help us to recognize the grammatical class of a word by its
structure. Secondly, they teach us that there is a flexibility in the application of
grammatical rules whereby the native speaker may transfer words, with or without the
addition of affixes or other words, to a new grammatical class.

A rule of word-formation usually differs from a syntactic rule in one important respect:
it is of limited productivity, in the sense that not all words which result from the
application of the rule are acceptable; they are freely acceptable only when they have
gained an institutional currency in the language. Thus there is a line to be drawn
between "actual English words" (e.g.: sandstone, unwise) and "potential English words”
(e.g.: (*)lemonstone, (*)unexcellent), both of these being distinct y from "non-English"

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words like *selfishless which, because it shows the suffix -less added to an adjective
rather than to a noun, does not even obey the rules of word-formation.

Rules of word-formation are therefore at the intersection of the historical and

contemporary (synchronic) study of the language, providing a constant set of "models“
from which new words, ephemeral or permanent, are created from day to day. Yet on a
larger scale, the rules themselves (like grammatical rules) undergo change: affixes and
compounding processes can become productive or lose their productivity; can increase
or decrease their range of meaning or grammatical applicability. We concentrate on
productive or on marginally productive rules of word-formation, leaving aside “dead“
processes, even though they may have a fossilized existence in a number of words in the
language. For example, the Old English affix -th, no longer used to form new words,
survives in length, depth, width (cf: long, deep, wide). A corollary of this approach is
that the historical study of a word is irrelevant to its status as an illustration of present-
day rules; the fact that the word unripe has existed in the English language since Anglo-
Saxon times does not prevent us from using it as an example of a regular process of
word-formation still available in the language.

A second restriction of this account is that it

takes only passing notice of word-formation
according to Latin and Greek, rather than
English models. From the Renaissance to the
early twentieth century, English word-
formation, like English (or for that matter
European) architecture, was dominated by neo-
classicism. The vocabulary was augmented by
borrowing and adaptation of Latin and Greek words, or, as time went on, by the
formation of words in English-speaking countries according to the Latin. and Greek
models. The habit of neo-classical formation still flourishes in certain learned areas of
vocabulary, particularly in the natural sciences. However, English has adapted to her
own purposes a large number of Latin and Greek word-elements, and these, being
productive in the ”common core“ of the language, we must take into account. Moreover,
some purely neo-classical affixes (-ic, -ous, etc.) are so common that it would be
perverse to exclude them from any account of English word formation.

WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES

Most English vocabulary arises by making new lexemes out of old ones. A form to
which a rule of word formation is applied is called a base. A stem or root is the part of
the word remaining after every affix has been removed.

WORD BASE STEM

UNFRIENDLY FRIENDLY FRIEND

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The chief processes are affixation (or derivation), conversion and compounding, though
other processes are also used: coinage, clipping, backformation, acronyms, etc.

The processes can be divided into unmotivated (nonce formation) , which covers or
satisfies immediate needs, for example: wifolatry (wife idolatry), and motivated
processes, such as backformation, derivation, etc. The concept of motivation, as
employed here, goes back to Saussure and his pupil Bally, who claim that linguistic
signs are not completely arbitrary, but may be motivated by the signifier, the signified,
or both of them together.

2.- MAJOR PROCESSES The chief processes of English word-

formation by which the base may be modified are:

 Derivation/affixation

a) Adding a prefix to the base, with or without change of word-class: author →co-
author. It´s the most common word-formation process. English does not have affixes in
large numbers, but these limited resources are used in a complex and productive way.

b) Adding an infix inside the word: un-fucking-believable!

c) Adding a suffix to the base, with or without a change of word-class: drive → driver

 Conversion: assigning the base to a different word-class without changing its

form ("zero affixation": drive → driven)
 Compounding: adding one base to another (e.g.: tea + pot →teapot)

Affixation and compounding are not always easy to distinguish. For example, we have
to decide whether 'in-group' is a compound with prepositional adverb as its first
element, or whether the in- is a prefix comparable to the pre- of pre-war. In fact, the
meaning (clearly relatable to that of the adverb) and the initial stress suggest that it is a
compound. Another borderline example is policeman, which is a compound of police
and man as far as writing goes, but in speech, the peculiarity that -man is normally
pronounced /mƏn/ shows that this element has progressed part of the way to becoming
an affix, and cannot be straightforwardly identified with the personal noun man /mæn/.
Meaning, spelling, and pronunciation (including compound stress, or main stress on the
first element) all help to mark the divergence between a word-element and the separate
word from which, historically, it may have been derived; we shall not attempt to assign
priority to any of these criteria, or to prescribe a particular point beyond which
compounding becomes affixation.

2.1 Prefixation

A prefix is an element paced before and joined to a word or stem to add to or qualify its
meaning. Marchand says that prefixes can be added to full words but they are not
words with an independent existence. So great has been the foreign or neoclassical

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influence on the English language, that the majority of prefixes in the language are from
Latin, Greek or French origin: with the exception of "a-", "be-", "fore-", "mis-", "un-",
all living English prefixes are of non-Germanic origin.

Contrary, to what we find in other Germanic languages, all English prefixes are
inseparable. Prefixes do not generally alter the word-class of the base. Productive
prefixes normally have a light stress on their first (or only) syllable, the main stress of
the word coming on the base.

English prefixes are grouped here according to meaning, according to Randolph

Quirk. Where an affix has two or more separate semantic or syntactic functions, it will
be given two or more separate entries.

 Negative

- UN - ("the opposite of, not") is the commonest negative prefix, It is used with native
English words, especially adjectives, adverbs, and "-ed" or "-ing" participles: unwise,
unkind, unexpected, unusual.

- NON- ("not") can normally be regarded as derivable from clause negation: non-
smoker ("one who doesn’t smoke”) It is prefixed to: adjectives (non-conformist, non-
existent) ,nouns of action (non-politician, non-aggression), and a verb-stem (non-stop,
non-drip).

- IN; IL- before /l/; IM- before labials; IR- before /r/ (same as for -un). These prefixes
are generally preferred to UN- in learned words of
Latin or French origin, though their use have
declined. They are added to adjectives: insane,
inaudible, illogical, irrelevant...

- DIS- (same as for -UN): It negates the word to

which it is prefixed. This word may be added to:
an adjective (disloyal, disobedient, dishonest), a
verb (disagree, disobey) or an abstract noun
(disfavour, dishonour).

- A(N)- (lacking in, of) denotes the mere absence of

a quality and is mostly found in borrowed or
neoclassical words. It may be added to an adjective
(amoral, asexual, amorphus) or a noun (asymmetry,
atheist, anarchy)

 Privative : Deprivation or reverse of the action, action contrary to or anulling the verb.
- UN-: When, prefixed to verbs, it denotes an “action contrary to or annulling that
of the simple verb" (COD). It may be added to a verb, meaning "to reverse the
action": undo; or a noun: meaning "to deprive of", "to release from": unearth.

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- DE-: "to remove, get rid of, undo", what is indicated by the second element. It forms
verbs from nouns: decode, defrost; and from other verbs: dehumanize.

- DIS-: (as for UN-) may also express deprivation or the reverse of an action when
added to verbs: disconnect, disinfect, participles: dishearten, discoloured or nouns:
discontent.

 Pejorative

- MIS- ("badly, wrongly, astray"). Normally unstressed if next is stressed. It may be

added to verbs: miscalculate, mishear, misfire, misunderstand; abstract nouns:
misconduct, misdemeneaur; or participles: misleading.

- MAL- ("badly, bad“) The second element is

always a word of non-Germanic origin. It is
chiefly added to verbs (maltreat), adjectives
(malodorous) , abstract nouns (malfunction,
malpractice) and participles (malformed).

- PSEUDO- (“false, imitation"). Added to nouns

(pseudo-Christianity, pseudo-classicism),
adjectives (pseudo-intellectual), (no. or adj.)
pseudo-scientific.

 Degree or size

- ARCH-("supreme, highest, worst") is only

combined with nouns; it is used with favourable or unfavourable meaning though the
new formation in “arch-" are normally pejorative, It is added to mainly human nouns:
archduke, archbishop, arch-enemy.

- SUPER-: ("above, more than, better") Nouns usually have initial main stress; In
adjectives it usually means "beyond“. It´s added to nouns (supermarket, superhuman) or
adjectives (supernatural, supersensitive).

- OUT- ("to do something better, faster, longer, etc. than) It´s very productive. This
prefix is added to intransitive verbs to form transitive verbs; outgrow, outrun, outlive.

- SUR- (“over and above") It is rare. It may be added to nouns (surcharge, surtax). In
most cases the distinctive meaning of “sur-" has disappeared: surname.

- SUB- ("under, lower than, less than" ) usually forms adjectives: subnormal,
subhuman.

- OVER- (“too much"). Added to verbs (overdo, overeat, oversimplify), adjectives

(overconfident) or -ed participles (overdressed).

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- UNDER- ("too little"); Added to verbs (undercook, undercharge), and -ed participles
(underworked, underprivileged).

-HYPER- ("extra specially; excessively"). Used to form adjectives (hypersensitive,

hypercritical) and nouns (hypermarket).

-ULTRA- ("beyond, extremely, excessively"). Added to adjectives: ultra-modern,

ultra-violet.

-MINI- (little) A recent prefix, often used in humorous coinages; The contrasting prefix
for "maxi" (large, long), and "midi" (medium) are also fashionable; It may be added to
nouns: mini-skirt, mini-car, mini-budget.

- MEGA- ("very big"): megaloan.

 Attitude and Orientation

- CO- (accompanying, with, joint,

together) can be prefixed to verbs
(cooperate, coexist), nouns (co-
education, co-heir) or adjectives (co-
eternal).

- COUNTER- (against, in opposition

to) is prefixed to verbs: counteract, counterbalance; or abstract nouns : counter-
revolution, counter-espionage, counter-attack.

- ANTI- (against) It suggests simply a state of mind, an attitude of opposition, while

"counter-" suggests action in opposition, an activity, It may be added to nouns: (the
prefix meaning "rival, enemy of"): antibody; adjectives: anti-semitic, anticlerical,
antisocial; adverbs: anti-clockwise; or verbs(rare): anti-freeze.

-PRO- (for, on the side of, opposite of "anti") is combined with: adjectives: pro-
communist, pro-German; or nouns: pro-Common Market, pro-Castro.

 Locative: They generally refer to position, but they can be used metaphorically.

- SUPER-: (over, above) is used to form nouns: superstructure.

- SUB- :(under, beneath, lesser in rank) usually forms nouns (subway, subsection),
adjectives (subconscious) or verbs (subdivide, sublet).

- TRANS-: (across, from one place to another) used in geographical terms to form
denominal adjectives (transatlantic, trans-Siberian) or verbs( transplant).

- INTER-: (between, among) may be prefixed to adj. (international, inter-continental),

verbs (interlock, intermarry, interwave), or nouns (intermarriage, interplay).

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  Time and order

-FORE-: (before) might be thought to form compounds rather than derivatives: verbs
(foretell, foresee, foreshadow), abstract nouns (foreknowledge, foreword, forearm).

-PRE-: (before) is used in the sense of "beforehand" to form n&v:(to)

prearrange(ment), pre-school, pre-heat; or meaning "existing before the time of" to
form attributive nouns (pre-war, pre-reformation) or adjectives (pre-marital, pre-
Shakespearian).

-POST-: (after, opp. ante-, pre-) refers to time and order (rarely to place: post-genitive).
It‘s chiefly used to form attributive nouns: post-war (drama), post-election (boom);
adjectives: post-classical, post-diluvian; or verbs(rare): post-date (a letter).

-EX-: ("former, sometime") may be prefixed to human or personal nouns especially,

denoting office or occupation; ex-president, ex-film-star, ex-husband...

-RE- : ("again, back") very important, used with borrowed words from French and
Latin. Prefixed to nouns (rebirth, reconstruction) , verbs(rebuild, reclaim) and
adjectives(re-eligible).

 Number

- UNI- (one): unicycle, unilateral, unisex. MONO- (one): monotheism, monorail.

- BI- (two): bifocal, bilingual, biceps, bicycle. DI- (two): dichotomy.

- TRI- (three): tripartite, tripod, tricycle, trident.

- MULTI- (many): multinational, multi-racial. POLY- (many): polysyllabic,

polygamy, polyglot.

 Conversion: They convert the base into a different grammatical class. Examples:

PREFIX WORD CLASS CONVERSION EXAMPLE

BE- noun participial adjective Bespectacled,

bemedalled,
befogged
BE- verb transitive verb Becalm, bemoan,
bestir
BE- adjective transitive verb belittle
BE- noun transitive verb Bewitch, befriend
BE- noun verb Endanger, empower
EN, EM /p, b/ noun verb Endanger, enslave
A- verb predicative Astride, awash,
adjective asleep, aloud

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A- together with FOR- (forget) and WITH- (withdraw) are dead or unproductive.

 Others

- AUTO- (self); autocrat, autobiography,

autosuggestion.

- NEO- (new revived): neo-classicism, neo-

liberal.

- PAN- (all, world-wide): pan-American, pan-

African.

- PROTO- (first, original): Proto-Germanic, prototype.

2.2 Suffixation

Unlike prefixes, suffixes frequently alter the word-class of the base. They rarely have a
meaning of their own and serve to modify the meaning of the main element (red-
reddish) or to convert it into another part of speech (clean - cleanness; friend-friendly)

 Nouns: occupational, diminutive, feminine, status & domain, , other

noun suffixes, de-adjectival/noun suffixes, de-verbal.


OCCUPATIONAL

-EER ("person concerned with or engaged in an occupation or activity"). It´s added to

nouns to form personal pronouns: engineer, auctioneer.

-STER: person engaged in an occupation or activity, etc, often pejorative; non-personal

- personal: gangster, trickster, spinster(no derivative); in youngster, roadster, songster,
teamster (no pejorative).

-ER (" maker of, inhabitant of”, etc) added to nouns- personal and in agent nouns:
glover, Londoner, banker, hatter.

DIMINUTIVE, FEMININE

They are rare in English and are usually affective and used with decreasing frequency.

- LET (small, unimportant) Added to countable nouns-new countables: booklet, starlet,

flatlet, piglet, owlet, islet.

- ETTE: added, to nouns to form pure diminutives denoting things: cigarette,

kitchenette, usherette, suffragate.

- ESS (female person/animal): countess, hostess, stewardess, lioness, etc.

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- Y (less frequently IE). Familiar contexts( affection, familiarity): Johnny, daddy, pussy,
fatty, Annie, auntie.

STATUS & DOMAIN

-HOOD (status) Added to nouns: boyhood, neighbourhood, falsehood.

-SHIP: (status, condition) nouns (especially people) to form abstract nouns: friendship,
membership. In hardship it is added to an adjective.

-DOM: (domain, realm, condition, etc ) added to nouns to abstract nouns:

a) domain or realm: kingdom, Christendom.

b) rank or condition: earldom, dukedom.

c) collectivity: heathendom, filmdom(film world).

It‘s pejorative in modern formation: officialdom (bureaucracy).

-OCRACY (system of government) added to nouns to form abstract nouns: democracy,

plutocracy. They alternate with personal nouns in democrat.

-ERY/-Y: added to words of one syllable, the latter to more than one syllable:

a) behaviour, action or condition: slavery, foolery (unfavour).

b) place of activity or abode in concrete, countable nouns: nursery.

c) collectivity of persons or things in mass nouns: machinery.

d) science, occupation, trade: chemistry, dentistry.

OTHER NOUN SUFFIXES

-ING: added co count. nouns to form mass n.: (collective) shipping; (matter) sacring.

-FUL: added to count nouns to form new countable nouns: "the amount which N
contains": handful, spoonful.

ADJECTIVE/ NOUN SUFFIXES: The following are added to nouns or

adjectives to form new nouns or adjectives.

-ITE: added to proper nouns denoting places or people: "member of a tribe or

community": Israelite; or "member of a faction, sect: Stalinite.

-(I)AN "belonging to": it‘s added to proper nouns to form personal nouns and non-
gradable adjectives: Elizabethan, republican, Canadian, etc.

-ESE: "nationality", personal noun and adjective: Chinese, Portuguese.

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-IST: personal n., or adj. ="member of a party, occupation" added to n.: novelist,
Bhudist; a small number of v.: typist, copyist; and to adj., in -al: socialist, royalist.

DE-VERBAL SUFFIXES: The following may be added to form nouns:

- ER (-OR): personal or agent nouns, from mainly

dynamic verbs (singer, writer), animate nouns (worker,
drinker, employer), inanimate nouns (thriller, receiver,
silencer) and compound (onlooker, washer-up, passer-
by, window-cleaner).

-OR borrowed and neoclassical words: inspector, actor.

-ANT (unproduct.): inhabitant, lubricant, disinfectant.

-EE (passive suffix, added to a verb stem=person affected): payee, trainee.

-ATION: not combined with an English word, it forms:

a) abstract nouns meaning “state, action": operation, fixation.

b) collective nouns: organization, foundation.

-MENT: added to verbs to form abstract nouns:"action, state": arrangement, argument.

Sometimes used to form concrete nouns: equipment, sediment.

-AL: nouns from verbs: refusal, revival.

-ING: combined with verbs to form:

a) abstract n.:"activity, state": bathing, driving, betting.

b) concrete n.:"that resulting from the act, of the verb": painting

-AGE forms abstract nouns expressing:

a) amount or collectivity: package, peerage

b) function or condition: bondage, shortage

c) action: stoppage, drainage.

d) fee or charge: postage, cartage ("cost of carting")

e) abode or residence: hermitage, vicarage, orphanage

DE-ADJECTIVAL SUFFIXES

The following may be added to adj. to form abstract nouns: "state, quality, etc"

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- NESS: very productive. Abstract nouns from and adj. except where some borrowed or
neo-classical form already exists, or in cases where ~ITY is preferred: goodness,
happiness, selfishness, meanness.

- ITY added to many adjectives of neoclassical or French origin and regularly to those
with the suffixes -able,- ible, -al, -ic(al): readable-readability / visible- visibility /
historic- historicity/ sentimental-sentimentality / comical- comicality.

 Verb suffixes:

Verbs forming suffixes are very few in English:

-FY: added to nouns or adjectives to form transitive verbs. Causative meaning used in
borrowed and neo-classical formations: certify, identify, signify, notify.

- IZE (-ISE, an alternative spelling in Br. English) : "advertise, despise, surprise" don´ t
contain this suffix. Added to noun or adjectives to form transitive verbs: epitomize,
organize, scandalize ("to make,to treat in the way of") , realize.

-EN: forms transitive verbs with causative meaning or with the sense "become":
blacken, shorten, sadden, ripen.

-ATE: combines with chiefly neo-classical noun bases: hyphenate.

 Adjective suffixes:

- ABLE (-IBLE): added to transitive verbs to form adjective with passive meaning:
”able to be V-ed": acceptable, readable, drinkable.

- AL (also -ICAL, -IAL) used to form primarily non-gradable adjectives: criminal,

cultural, musical, philosophical.

- FOLD: added to cardinal numerals higher than one with the sense of “multiplied by":
twofold, tenfold. Also to many: manyfold (literary).

- FUL: added to abstract nouns :"full of, having, giving" : useful, helpful.

- ED: added to n. or n. phr. to form adj.:"having": wooded, walled, blue-eyed.

-EN: derived from names of material: wooden. Figurative:”resembling": golden, silken

- ESQUE: added to proper n.: "in the style of": Dantesque, picaresque.

- IC: used to form proper gradable or non-gradable adj,: atomic, heroic, Celtic.

- ISH: added to proper and countable nouns in the sense:

a) "belonging to": Swedish, Turkish, Spanish.

b) "having the character of": foolish, snobbish (pejorative).

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c) adjective denoting colour: reddish, bluish, oldish.

-IVE: used to form gradable or non-gradable adj.: attractive, productive.

-LESS: added to nouns="without, not giving": speechless, fearless.

-LIKE: added to concrete nouns,="having the quality of": childlike, ladylike.

-LY: added to personal nouns: "having the qualities of": manly, and to non- personal
n.: earthly. In adj.: deadly. "Time" group: daily, hourly.

- OUS forms primarily gradable adj.: ambitious, courteous, virtuous.

- Y: added to concrete mass nouns ="like, full of, covered

with": hairy, sandy, noisy; to adjectives : whity, paly; to
verb: crunchy, poppy.

The following are other less important suffixes which

usually form adj., from noun bases or adverbs ("ward"):

- SOME: burdensome, fearsome, troublesome.

- WARD: backward, downward, upward.

- WORTHY: praiseworthy, seaworthy.

-ARIAN: authoritarian, parliamentarian. Nouns: a vegetarian.

 Adverbs

-LY: adverb of manner, viewpoint, etc. from adj. "in a... manner": happily, greatly,
quickly, strangely. From nouns: instantly, namely. Following "-ic", it takes the form -
ally: systematically. Adjectives ending in -ly rarely take -ly: in a friendly manner.

-WARD(S): added to prepositional adverbs and nouns to build adverbs f manner or

direction: onward(s). The form without "-s" is commoner in Am.E.

- WISE: is added to nouns to form:

a) adverbs of manner="in the manner of": clockwise, crabwise.

b) viewpoint adverbs: as far as ... is concerned"; weather-wise, educational-wise. This

type is especially productive in Am.E.

-STYLE and -FASHION ("in the manner/style of”) are sometimes used as adverbial
suffixes: he eats American-style, to walk crab-fashion.

2.3 Compounding

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 Definition: According to Quirk, a compound is a unit consisting of two or
more bases. David Crystal defines it as a unit of vocabulary which consists of
more than one lexical stems. On the surface, there appear to be two or more
lexemes present, but in fact the parts are functioning as a single item which has
its own meaning and grammar. Such “compound words" can be nouns (blood+
test= bloodtest), adjectives (tax+free= taxfree) or verbs (spring + clean=
spring-clean). There is no one formal criterion that can be used for a general
definition in English. This process is very productive in English.

 Orthographic criteria
Orthographically, compounds are written solid (e..g.: bedroom), hyphenated
(tax-free) or open, as in reading material.

There are no safe rules-of-thumb that will help in the choice between these three
possibilities. In Am.E. there seems to be a trend away from the use of hyphens:
compounds are usually written solid as soon as they have gained some
permanent status; otherwise they are written open. In Br.E., however, there is a
more extensive use of the hyphen.
 Phonological criteria
Phonologically, compounds can often be identified as having a main stress on
the first element and a secondary stress on the second element, hence
"blackbird" ’___,___ in contrast with ,____ ’_____ "black bird".
 Semantic criteria
Semantically, compounds can be seen to be isolated from ordinary syntactic
constructions by having a meaning which may be related to but cannot simply be
inferred from the meaning of its parts, for example: darkroom= dark room, in its
strict sense.

Since the term "compound" covers a wide range of different relations between
bases, none of these three markers can be used as strict defining criteria. We will
have to be content with a broad definition of compounds as isolated multi-base
units which function as single words reflect certain grammatical processes.
a) Noun compounds: Comp. n. can be formed with the following elements:
a) Adjective plus noun, or noun plus adjective: bluebell, redskin, sweetheart,
handful, spoonful.
b) Noun plus noun: shopkeeper, toothbrush, postcard, race-horse, horse-race.
c) Form in -ing plus noun, dining-room, boarding-house, rocking-chair.
d) Pronoun plus noun: he-goat, she-goat.
e) Verb plus noun: pickpocket, breakfast, driftwood, grindstone, turntable.
f) Particle plus n., or vice-versa: overcoat, underclothes, looker-on, passer-by.
g) Verb plus particle, or vice-versa: breakdown, drawback, outcome, offspring,
income, by-pass.

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h) Noun plus a form in -ing: fox-hunting, horse-riding
i) Whole phrases: forget-me-not,
man-of-war, son-in-law.
Since the compound noun is
considered as one word, it is usual to
form the plural by adding "-s" to the
end: armchairs, breakdowns, forget-
me-nots, boyfriends.
However, in compounds where the first element is a noun followed by a particle,
only the noun takes the plural form: sons-in-law, passers-by, commanders-in-
chief. Finally in a few compounds, where two nouns are combined, both
elements are made plural: men-servants, gentlemen farmers, women doctors.

b) Adjective Compounds: Compound adj. can be formed in various ways:

a) Noun + adjective: sky-blue, foot-sore, snow-white, stone-cold, oven-ready.

b) Noun + past participle : crest-fallen, tongue-tied, hen-pecked, moonlit, sun-
burnt, petrol-driven.
c) Noun + form in -ing: water-drinking, fruit-picking, meat-eating.
d) Adjective + adjective : red-hot, blue-green, dark-blue, light-green.
e) Adjective + p. partic.: high-born, ready-made, hard-boiled, absent-minded.
f) Adj. or adv. + n. + ending -ed:, bare-footed, long-legged, well-mannered.
g) Adjective + form in -ing: dirty-looking, good-looking, evil-smelling, hollow-
sounding, bitter-tasting.
h) Adverb + past participle: so-called, far-fetched, ill-bred, well-dressed.
i) Adverb + form in -ing: hard-working.
All these compounds behave as adj. and so are invariable in number and gender.
c) Verb Compounds
Noun + verb: to brainwash, to house-hunt, to chain-smoke, to baby-sit.
d) Reduplicatives
These are a special type of compound formed by repeating a word, sometimes
with a slight modification of the second element. They are mainly onomatopoeic
and highly informal words: helter-skelter, hocus-pocus, wishy-washy, tip-top,
knock-knock, flower-power, zigzag.
e) Bahuvrihi compounds
The term ’bahuvrihi’ (i.e. exocentric) comes from Sanskrit and it refers to the
relation the constituents of the sentence have with their referents. None of the
elements of such a compound refers to the entity named. It rather refers to a
separate entity that is claimed to be characterized by the compound in its literal
or figurative meaning. The process involves a semantic movement that may be
thought of as `lateral` or metaphorical. Thus an egghead is an intellectual. Other
examples are: butterfingers, featherweight, fathead, paleface, hardback.

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2.4 Conversion: It is the change in the function of a word without the addition of an
affix.. There are different types of conversion:

INPUT WORD CONVERSION PROCESS EXAMPLES

NOUN VERB bottle→to bottle

paper→to paper
water→to water
VERB NOUN To spy→a spy
To swim→a swim
must→a must
ADJECTIVE VERB dirty→to dirty
dry→to dry
ADJECTIVE NOUN final→a final
match→a match
NOUN ADJECTIVE Cotton/brick→It´s
cotton/brick.
GRAMMATICAL WORD NOUN Too many ifs and buts
PHRASE NOUN Free-for-all
PREPOSITION VERB Up→to up
Down → to down
3.- MINOR TYPES

3.1 Infixation and tmesis

INFIXATION

An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem. It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for
an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix..They are not normally
to be found in English, but fairly common in some other languages. They are
occasionally used in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused
English speakers: un-fucking-believable! (swearing)

English has almost no true infixes (as opposed to tmesis), and those it does have are
marginal. A few are heard in colloquial speech (hip-hop slang -iz- or- izn-: hizouse for
house) , and a few more are found in technical terminology, as in Chemistry (pe
=complete hydrogenation) piperidine. Infixes also occur in some language games. For
instance, the game Haigy Paigy (=Aigy Paigy) inserts 'aig' before the rime of each
syllable. Thus, 'hello' becomes 'haigellaigo'.
Expletive infixation is a process by which an expletive or profanity is inserted into a
word, usually for intensification. It is similar to tmesis, but not all instances are covered
by the usual definition of tmesis because the words are not necessarily compounds.
The most commonly inserted English expletives are adjectival: either participles
(fucking, mother-fucking, freaking, blooming, bleeding, damned) or adjectives (bloody).
TMESIS
It is a linguistic phenomenon in which a word or phrase is separated into two parts, with
other words interrupting between them. One example would be the recurring phrase
by Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, "Legen-wait for it-dary", in which the

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phrase "wait for it" is inserted into the word Legendary.
Representative English examples of the use of tmesis for added emphasis include:

 Wh-words, words usually beginning with wh- that can be used as interrogative
words, can also be used as subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns. When
they express indefiniteness using the suffix -ever they can have the
intensifier so inserted between the two parts (the base word and the
indefinitizer ever) to emphasize the indefiniteness: whatsoever, whosoever,
whomsoever, whosesoever, wheresoever, whensoever, howsoever. Unlike the
following examples, these are considered standard words in the language.
 "Abso-fuckin-lutely" in which an expletive or profanity is inserted.
 "Fan-fucking-tastic" may be used to emphasize the literal meaning of fantastic, or it
can also be used sarcastically.
 "Guaran-damn-tee" in which an expletive or profanity is inserted for humor and/or
emphasis.
 "Any-old-how", in which the divisibility of "anything" (as in "any old thing") is
mimicked with the usually indivisible "anyhow".
 "A-whole-nother", in which another (an+other) is reanalyzed as a+nother.
 "Abso-bloody-exactly", a humorous misuse of infixation by fictional character Alan
Partridge.
 "Discom-fucking-bobulate" is another good example of tmesis.

3.2 Backformation: A word of one type is reduced to form another word of a

different type. A compound verbal noun is shortened to form a verb. Ex.: brain-washing
→ to brain-wash. More examples are: television→televise, donation→donate and
option→opt.

3.3 Abbreviations: The fashion can be traced back over 150 years. Abbreviations can
contribute to a concise style.

 Initialisms: Spoken as individual letters: BBC, MP, USA; also called

alphabetisms. The vast majority of abbreviations fall into this category.
Punctuation is often present. F.B.I.
 Acronysms: They are pronounced as a single word: NATO, laser, UNESCO,
AIDS. Such items would never have periods separating the letters.
 Clippings
a part of a word which serves for the whole, such as: ad, phone, exam, lab,
vocab, fan, plane, bike, bus, gas. Sometimes the middle part is kept: fridge
(refrigerator), flu (influenza). Some more examples are: pub (public house), vet
(veterinary), Maths (mathematics).

3.4 Blending: It is accomplished by taking only the beginnings of one word and
joining it to the ending of other word: smoke+frog→smog, breakfast+lunch→brunch,

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motor + hotel →motel,
European+television→Eurovision, Oxford +
Cambridge → Oxbridge, Spanish + English →
Spanglish.

Blending seems to have increased in popularity in

the last decades of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st c., especially in
commercials and advertising contexts. Products are 'sexational' or 'sportsational'. These
forms are felt to be eye-catching and exciting.

3.5 Coinage: It is one of the least common processes. It is the invention of new terms.

There are two types: Nonce words(Lexemes created for temporary use, to solve an
immediate problem of communication and it´s forgotten later on) and Neologisms (A
new word in a language. Usual in humour, theology, informal conversation and
literature: aspirin, nylon, kleenex). Subcategories of neologisms include:

 The eponym, a proper noun that becomes commonly used for an idea it is
associated with, usually by changing its part of speech, like Xerox, Orwellian, and
Stentorian.
 An onomatopoeic word, a word which imitates natural sounds, like the bird
name cuckoo.
 Formation using Phono-semantic matching, that is, matching a foreign word with
a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root. A few PSMs
exist in English, based on French loanwords; the mispronunciation of Chaise
longue as "chase-lounge" is a familiar example.

Not all the coinages have to mean something before they can achieve currency, as
the examples from the Walt Disney film Mary Poppins
"supercalifragilisticexpialidocius" illustrates. Sung by Julie Andrews, it is probably
the most famous nonsense word.
3.6 Borrowings (loan-translations or calques): It is one of the most common
sources of new words in English, the taking over of words from other languages:
alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch), croissant (French), piano (Italian), tycoon (Japanese),
yoghourt (Turkish), siesta (Spanish). Other languages, of course, borrow terms from
English (anglicisms): fútbol, internet, corner...

A special type of borrowing is loan-translation or calque: direct translation of the

elements of a word into the borrowing language. An interesting example is the French
term 'gratte-ciel' (skyscraper) or the Spanish 'perros calientes' (hot-dogs).

4.- MULTIPROCESSES: Once a base has undergone a rule of word-

formation, the derived word itself may become the base for another derivation; and so,
by reapplication, it is possible to derive words of considerable morphological and
semantic complexity. A moderately complex example is the word unfriendliness.

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Friend →noun, (friend)-ly : noun→adjective, un-(friend)-ly: adjective →adjective, Un-
(friend)-li-ness: adjective→noun.

5.- CONCLUSION AND TEACHING IMPLICATIONS:

In recent years a lot of investigation has been devoted to how computers can facilitate
language learning. One specific area on the computer frontier which still remains quite
open to exploration is corpus linguistics. A corpus consists of a databank of natural
texts, compiled from writing and/or a transcription of recorded speech. A
concordancer is a software program which analyzes corpora and lists the results. The
main focus of corpus linguistics is to discover patterns of authentic language use
through analysis of actual usage. There are two important corpuses in English:
The British National Corpus (BNC), a 100-million-word text corpus of British
English of the late 20th century from a wide variety of genres and the American
National Corpus (ANC), the American English counterpart, containing 22 million
words produced since 1990. The ANC may at
some point include a range of genres comparable
to the British Corpus, but more richly annotated.
According to Barlow (2002), three realms in
which corpus linguistics can be applied to
teaching are syllabus design, materials
development, and classroom activities. A corpus
and concordancer can be used to compare
language use, analyze the language in books,
readers, and course books, generate activities,
examine word order and compare similar words.

Apart from corpus linguistics, vocabulary and word formation are an important part of
the curriculum in secondary education for their communicative power and should be
taught systematically in its own right. Actually they are part of one of the blocks of
contents established by RD 1105 LOMCE and D. (según CCAA).

But getting to be on familiar terms with vocabulary is quite difficult. Words live within
their own languages and though a dictionary translation can give an introduction to the
meaning of a word, we should encourage the use of monolingual dictionaries. Training
in the effective use of dictionaries gives students a valuable skill that they can use in
and out of the classroom to work autonomously and develop the key competences. We
can also provide them with different strategies to learn vocabulary: guessing meaning
from context, mind maps, visual dictionary, etc. Games play an important role in this
sense: bingo, domino, pictionary, taboo, etc. Gamification and game based learning are
essential parts of methodology. At the beginner level most new words learned have
obvious immediate practical use; they quickly become part of learners´ every day
English (productive vocab.). Good pronunciation may be encouraged. We also need to
help them practice, store, recall and use the items. However, as they learn more and

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more words, they will find that many items seem less
immediately useful and are perhaps only occasionally met
within the context of reading or listening material (receptive
vocab.).

In the 21st century, thanks to the development of ICTs,

lexicography has been fundamentally affected. Online updates
of dictionaries are more frequent and help our students to pronounce new words
(dictionary.cambridge.org). Wordia is a free visual video dictionary online very useful
for our pupils. thesaurus.reference.com is the online version of the Roget´s Thesaurus
dictionary.

An eVoc strategy is an electronic or technology-based strategy that teachers can use to

develop students' vocabulary learning and interest in words. We use the term eVoc both
to highlight that the strategies rely on digital tools and resources and to suggest the
evoking of learning potential that is possible when technology and media are part of the
instructional mix. Teachers can create a digital version of a vocabulary field trip
(webquest) using a free online program called TrackStar (trackstar.4teachers.org). Two
sites to engage students in playing with words are www.vocabulary.co.il and
www.vocabulary.com. Games include crossword puzzles, picture-word matches, word
scrambles, and 8 Letters in Search of a Word. Knoword is another fun and challenging
website game that tests your ability to match definitions to words. Some tablet computer
and mobile phones applications to practise vocabulary are wurdle and wordsort.

To end up, teachers must be updated constantly regarding vocabulary, as English is in

constant movement: meanings change and new words and processes appear every day.
There is no equivalent to our Spanish RAE, and the authority dictionaries as, Oxford
English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Chambers
Dictionary and Collins Dictionary register the new words, but do not prescribe them.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

-Bauer, L. English Word-Formation, C.U.P., Cambridge, 1983.

- Baugh, A., A History of the English Language, Routledge, London, 2012.

-Fisiak, J. and Bator, M., Historical English Word-Formation and Semantics, Peter
Lang edition, Pieterlen, 2013.

- Schmitt, N., Vocabulary in Language Teaching, C.U.P., Cambridge, 2000.

-Scrivener, J., Learning Teaching, MacMillan Heineman, Oxford, 2002.

- http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/: British National Corpus & http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/:

The Corpus of Contemporary American

- http://www.michaelbarlow.com/

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