You are on page 1of 11

I.

Blending
Blending is the word formation process in which parts of two separate forms
combine
to produce a single new word whose meaning is often a combination of the
original
words. Typically, two words are “blended” by taking the beginning of one
word and
joining it to the end of the other word. Below are some common examples of
everyday
“blended” words with their meaning.
Blends Words Meaning
1. Brunch - breakfast + lunch => a meal eaten in the late morning that is a
combination of breakfast and lunch
2. bit - binary + digit => a unit of information in a computer that must be either
0 or 1
3. Emoticon - emotion + icon => an image made up of symbols such as
punctuation marks, used in text messages, emails, etc. to express a particular
emotion
4. smog - smoke + fog => a mixture of smoke, gases, and chemicals, especially
in cities, that makes the atmosphere difficult to breathe and harmful for health
5. Motel - motor + hotel => a hotel by the side of a road, usually with spaces
for cars next to each room
6. Telecast - Television + broadcast => a programme that is broadcast on
television
7. Edutainment - education + entertainment => the process of entertaining
people at the same
time as you are teaching them something, and the products, such as television
programmes or software, that do this
8. Camcorder - camera + recorder => a small video camera that can be held
easily in one hand
9. Netiquette - network + etiquette => the set of rules about behaviour that is
acceptable
on the internet
10. Webinar - web + based seminar => an online seminar that turns a
presentation into a real-time conversation from anywhere in the world
11. Brexit - britain + exit => The name given to the UK departure from the
European Union

II. Clipping
This process of word formation happens when a word of more than one
syllable (photograph) is reduced to a shorter form (photo). Similarly, everyday
fax is the clipped form for facsimile. Common examples of English clippings
are bike for bicycle, match for mathematics, gas for gasoline, phone for
telephone, bus for omnibus, van for caravan, prof for professor, fan for fanatic,
ad for advertisement, telly for television and gym for gymnasium. As Yule
(2010, p. 56) states, particularly educational environments encourage the
process of clipping because so many of them are reduced as in such examples
ad chem, vocab, exam, gym, lab, math, phys-ed, poly-sci, prof and typo.
Orthographically, there are also some clipped abbreviations such as
Dr. (doctor), Mr. (mister) and GB (gigabyte) whose spellings have been
shortened but whose pronunciations are not essentially different. In English
expressions such as the baker’s (for the baker’s shop), a daily (for a daily
newspaper) and white-collar (for white-collar-worker) there is also a kind of
clipping called ellipsis in which a part of the structure or phrase is omitted “for
reasons of economy, emphasis, or style.”

III. Compounding
The joining of two or more separate words to produce a single form is
technically known as compounding and very common in such languages as
English, Turkish and German. Common examples of English compounds are
notebook, textbook, bookcase, girlfriend, footprint, fingerprint, wallpaper and
waterbed. Some compound words introduced recently into English are
Facebook, YouTube, power nap, and carjack. In English, The White House,
school bus, and decision making are also compounds but written as two words.
These examples of English compounds are mostly nouns, but it is also possible
to produce compound adjectives (icy-cold, bittersweet) and compound words
consisting of noun (spoon) plus verb (feed) as in Start to spoonfeed your baby
at around six months. As the following table of compounds words shows,
English is pretty much flexible in the types of compounds allowed. A variety of
similar combinations can be generated from the entries given in the table.

ADJ N V PERPOSITION
ADJ Bittersweet Blackboard Hightlight -
N Headstrong Homework Breastfeed Love-in
V - Pickpocket Sleepwalk Breakup
PERPOSITION Over-ripe Underworld Underestimate Without

The most salient characteristic of this word formation process is that when the
two words have the same grammatical category in common, the compound is
also in the this category. For example, homework, girlfriend, landlord, paper
clip and elevatoroperator are all nouns consisting of noun plus noun. Similarly,
bittersweet, icy-cold, worldly and red-hot are adjectives that have a systematic
rule of adjective plus adjective = adjective. In English, the rightmost member
of a compound is the head of the compound and governs its grammatical
category and general meaning. Therefore, if the two members of the compound
are of different classes, then the grammatical category of the compound is
determined by the second or final word (e.g. noun plus adjective = adjective, as
in sky-blue; verb plus noun = noun, as in workroom). On the other hand,
prepositions make up a closed-class category of words not readily admitting
new members. Consequently, English compounds with prepositions like
oversleep (verb), over-ripe (adjective) and sundown (noun) are in the class of
the nonprepositional part of the compound.

IV. Acronym
Acronyms, also called initialisms, are new words produced from the initial
letters of a group of other words. For example, DVD is an acronym for digital
video disk, ATM is another acronym for automatic teller machine and VCR is
likewise an acronym for video cassette recorder where the pronunciation
consists of saying each separate letter (D-V-D, A-T-M and V-C-R). Other
common examples of acronyms in English include NATO /ˈneɪ.tәʊ/ from
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NASA /ˈnæs.ә/ from National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, UNESCO /juːˈnes.kәʊ/ from United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and UNICEF /ˈju:.nɪ.sef/
from United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. These
acronyms are typically pronounced as new single words and written in capital
letters. In everyday English, however, many acronyms have lost their capital
letters and become everyday terms, including scuba (self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus), zip (zone improvement plan) code, laser (light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), and radar (radio detecting
and ranging). Although these words are originally produced as acronyms,
people rapidly forget their origins and such acronyms regularly become new
independent words in languages. Finally, it seems that there are tens of
thousands of acronyms in the English-speaking world today, which precisely
shows the creative and changeable aspects of human language.

V. Structural ambiguity
1. Some Japanese print collectors

2. A few students
3. The old Vietnamese history teacher
a) The old teacher who teaches Vietnamese history

b) The teacher who teaches old Vietnamese history

c) The old-history teacher who come from VN

VI. Subcategories of verb


1. All John’s new books edited by a popular writer
All: Pre-determiner
John’s: Central determiner
New: post-determiner
Books: head N
Edited by a popular writer: post-modifier
None: Post-modifier

2. All her pretty hats bought by her mother


All: pre-determiner
Her: (poss N) central- determiner
Pretty: (attr) post-deter
Hats: head noun (head N)
Bought by her mother: post-modifier

VII. Verb Phrase


1. Monotransitive verb

2. Intransitive verbs
S - Vgrp
She/we/they - sleep

3. Ditransitive verbs
S - Vgrp - indirect object - direct object
They - bought - me - a book

S - Vgrp - direct object - to/for - indirect object


They - bought - a book - for - me

He owes money to several people


He killed the thief with a knife

4. Intensive verbs
S - Vgrp - S predicative
They - seem - happy… to the ceremony

We become master after a long time studying

5. Complex transitive verbs


S - Vgrp - direct object - object predicative

Beth is making John her spokesman


6. Prepositional verbs
S - Vgrp - prepositional complement
We - love - in/to flying over the river

VIII. Types of post-nominal modifiers (5 types)


1. Prepositional phrases

2. Adjective Phrases

3. Participial Phrases
4. Infinitive Phrases

5. Subordinate Adjective clauses

IX. How many Types of finte dependent clauses


1. Nominal clause
That rain may fall in deserts is true

2. Relative clause
We have 30 men who are working from 6am to 11pm

3. Adverbial clauses
If you are in hurry, you can leave

4. Reporting clauses
“Please come too,” she begged

5. Comment clauses
It’s a nice approach, I think
X. How many types of non-finite clauses
1. Infinitive clauses
To dance is her passion

2. Gerund clauses
Eating so quickly can be unhealthy

3. Particle clauses
Walking down the street , she noticed the shop was closed (V-ing)
Pleased with her result, she celebrated her success (V-ed)

4. Verbless clauses
Although not a classic, this 90-minute video is worth watching

XI. A Embedded nominal clauses


XII. Structurally Ambiguous. Using tree diagrams to show the meaning
involved of the following sentences:
1. The old Vietnamese literature teacher wrote this book

2. I saw the girl with dark glasses

You might also like