THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

CHAPTER 5

Word information: it is a derivational process whereby new words

are coined or formed.

1-Conversion: it can be defined as the change in the syntactic

category of a word without any corresponding change of form. It is
the derivational process whereby an item is converted to a new word
class without any addition of an affix. For example, the (verb) (Bottle)
in (I must bottle the plums) is derived from the noun (bottle),
whereas the (noun) (catch) in (that is a fine catch) is derived from the
verb (catch).

2-Compounding: Compounds are lexical units formed by juxtaposing

more than one stem.

School bag breakfast fast food restaurant

Wall paper sunrise full-time job
Arm chair sunset breakfast restaurant
Text book popcorn A jack-of-all-trades
Ice cream newspaper A jack-in-a box

The spilling of compounds in English is inconsistent.

The compound noun (breakfast) is spelled without a space or
hyphen, and the Compound noun (arm chair) is spelled with a space,
whereas the compound (A jack-in-a box) is spelled with a hyphen.

The meaning of the individual parts can be included in the meaning

of the compound as in (school bus) and (wall paper), and cannot be
as in (A jack-in-a box) which means a tropical tree, or (turncoat)
which means a traitor. Compounds must be learned as if they were
simple words.

3-Clipping: it is a process of word formation whereby the form of

some words is affected by shortening or cutting off the beginning or
the end of a word leaving a part to stand for the whole.
For example, the word “doc” for “doctor”, “prof” for “professor”,
and “exam” for “examination”.
These are all a few examples of short forms in English that are now
used as whole words. This process is also called abbreviation

4-Acronymy: it is a derivational process whereby new words are

derived from the initials of several words. Such words are
pronounced as the spelling indicates. In some cases, the initials are
pronounced as in “MP” (“member of parliament” or “military
police”). In others, the initials are pronounced as the spelled word
would be. For example, NATO” (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
is pronounced /neɪtəʊ/, “UNESCO” is pronounced /juːˈnɛskəʊ/, and
so on.

Ex: (USA) / United State of America

(MP) / “military police” or “member of parliament”
(NATO) / North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(UK) / United Kingdom
(VIP) / Very Important Person
(UNESCO) / (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization)
(UNICEF) / (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)

(NASA) / (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

5-Blending: a blended word or blend is pronounced by combining

two words so that only a part of each remains. The meaning is also a
blend of the two-component words. For example, “brunch” which is
a combination of (breakfast + lunch) occurs midway between
“breakfast time and lunchtime”. Other blends are “smog”
(smoke + fog); “comsymp” (communist + sympathizer); “comsat”
(communication + satellite); etc.

6-Back-formation: it is a process of word-formation whereby new

words are derived from existing words by subtracting an affix
thought to be part of the old word. Thus “peddle” was derived from
“peddler”. The verbs “swindle” and “edit” came into the language by
Back-formation. This process is regarded as an active source of new
words today.

Farmer -> farm

Editor -> edit

Teacher -> teach

7- Reduplication: It is a process of the words formation whereby new
words are derived by doubling a free morpheme. The difference
between the two elements may be either in the initial consonants, as
in the “walkie-talkie”, or in the middle vowels, as in "Criss-Cross"

8-Borrowing: it is the process by which one language or dialect takes

linguistic elements from another. It is an important source of
language change. Most languages and dialects are borrowers and the
lexicon of any language Can be divided into native and non-native
words (which are called loan words) A language may borrow words
directly or indirectly, An example of indirect borrowing is the word
"Algebra" which came into the English from the Spanish which in
turn, had borrowed it from Arabic. So English borrowed the word
“Algebra” indirectly from Arabic.

9-Antonmasa: it is a process of word formation whereby the forms of

some words have been derived from the proper names of individuals
or places. A lover may be called "Romeo”