Word formation

processes
ENG1161
Dr NV Demana
 Types of Word Formation

1. Compounding 6. Conversion
2. Blending 7. Acronyms
3. Clipping 8. Derivation
4. ` Borrowing 9. Coinage
5. Backformation
 Compounding
Compounding is a process in which two different words are joined together to
denote one thing.

For example flower-pot is a compound made of two words: flower and pot, but it
does not denote two things, it refers to one object.

windmill, waterfall fingerprint, scarecrow. Some compounds are written with

hyphens: full-time, good-looking; some are written separately: bank account,
mini skirt; and some can be written in both ways.
 Blending

Blending is very similar to compounding, but it is characterized by taking only

parts of words and joining them. Famous English examples include: smog which

combines smoke and fog, motel made of motor and hotel, Spanglish which is

combination of Spanish and English; and guesstimate, from guess and estimate.
 Clipping

Clipping is shortening or reducing long words. It is very common in

English which can be seen on the following examples: information is

clipped to info, advertisement to advert or ad, influenza to flu,

telephone to phone.
 Coinage
Coinage is creation of a totally new word. This word formation
process is not frequent, however large corporations attempt to outdo
one another to invent short eye-catching names for their
products. Some examples of these could include: aspirin or xerox.
Sometimes the products that the companies want to sell simply take
over the name of the creator or inventor. In such case the new word
is called an eponym. Some well known eponyms include: sandwich,
or hoover. They are very frequently used in science where units of
measurement are named after people, like: hertz, volt, (degree)
Celsius.
 Borrowing

Borrowing is taking a word from one language and incorporating it into

another. The English language has been very absorbent and took over

words from all over the world, some of them include: biology, boxer, ozone –

from German; jackal, kiosk, yogurt – from Turkish; pistol, robot – from

Czech.
 Acronym
Acronym is a word formed from initial letters of a few words in a
phrase or a name which are pronounced as words, like:
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,
Scuba – self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
• NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

• Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization)

• radar (Radio Detection And Ranging)

 Backformation

Backformation is 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. To show it on an example: the English word arms
meaning weapon was backformed to arm to mean provide weapons,
similarly edit was backformed from editor, or typewrite from
typewriter.
 Conversion

Conversion is a change in function of a verb without changing its

form. Nouns start to be used as verbs like: bottle – to bottle, bottling:
I’m bottling the compote; butter – to butter, buttered: I’ve buttered the
bread. Also verbs can become nouns: must – a must: Watching this
film is a must; guess – a guess: It was a lucky guess.
 Examples of NOUNS that turned 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 are divorcing.
That dress was amazing. He likes the way she dresses.
I wrote you an e-mail. He e-mailed me several times.
 Derivation

Derivation is probably the most common word formation process in

the English language. It is achieved by adding affixes: prefixes – are
added at the beginning of a word, suffixes added to the end of a
word, or infixes which are inserted inside a word, but infixes are
unusual in English. English prefixes include for example re-, un-, mis-
, pre-, dis-; suffixes include for instance -ful, -less, -able, -or.
 Identify the different word-formation processes involved in
producing each of the underlined words in these sentences
(Yule, 2014, p.59).
a. Don’t you ever worry that you might get AIDS?
b. Do you have a xerox machine?
c. After the breakdown, we had to put up at a motel.
d. That’s really fandamntastic!
e. Mpho still parties every Saturday night.
f. She bought a new nightdress.
g. When I’m ill, I want to see a doc, not a vet.
h. This is a most common Spanglish expression.