Base-altering word

building mechanisms
Layout
 Corruption
 Deflection
 False analogy
 Folk etymology
 Metanalysis
 Metathesis
Corruptions
 “distorts an already existing word without
connecting it with another” (Levitchi 1970:
67)
 Corruption types

(a) everyday life – the Indian native word tea

(cha)  to char
(b) literature –the Dickens’s character - Mrs.
Micawber’s motto experientia does it (<Latin
experientia docet, = experience teaches)
(Woods 1969: 127) .
Deflection
‘an alliteration based on vowel change in the root of a word’
(Levitchi 1970: 66).

Vowel deviations in:

 i) grammatical forms of
 noun plurals:
 a) /u:/  /i:/  tooth – teeth
 b) /au/  /ai/  mouse – mice
 irregular verbs:
 sing – sang – sung or swim –swam –swum
 ii) their nature:
 open vowels evolved into close vowels:
 /e:/  /i:/ in reed /re:d/  /ri:d/
 close vowels became diphthongs:
  /i:/  /ai/ in five /fi:v/  /faiv/
  /i/  /ei/ in estimate /estimit/  /’estimate /esti’meit/
Deflection – consonant deviation
 i) /s/ /z/

◦ advice – to advise
◦ device – to devise
◦ use – to use
 
 ii) /f/ /v/

◦ proof – to prove
◦ belief – to believe
◦ relief – to relieve (<O.F. relever to relieve)

 iii) /t/  /d/

◦ intent – intend
◦ extent – extend
Deflection – double deviation
i) vowel /a/  diphthong /ei/+ voiceless
dental/θ/  voiced dental/ð/:

◦ bath – to bathe

ii) vowel /o/  diphthong /əu/+ voiceless

dental /θ/  voiced dental /ð/:

◦ cloth /k l o θ/ – to clothe /kl əu ð

False analogy
 Bill Bryson (1990: 64) ‘ghost words’ i.e.,
those words created by error, such as dord’.
 Merriam Webster International Dictionary

(1934) uses dord as synonym for ‘density’.

dord - a misreading of the scribbled ‘D or d’,
i.e., density could be abbreviated with capital
or lower case.
Folk etymology

 posthumous - originally spelt without h 

meaning ‘coming after in order of time’.
 By a mistake of etymology, -humous, was

assumed to be connected with death and

burial, and so, the meaning ‘after death’
developed (Wood 1969: 130)
Metanalysis

 Sometimes the article steals an n from the

noun that follows it:
◦ an adder, the common venomous viper in Europe
(first recorded in 1377) - originally (< Middle
English, a naddre, from Old English nædre, akin to
Old High German nātara),
◦ an apron (1535) was a napron (< Middle French
naperon)
Metathesis
 “the transposition of elements of language,
usually two sounds and/or letters in a word”
(McArthur 1996: 592)

 such alterations:
◦ Old English bridd which is in Modern English bird
◦ Middle English Manisk which has evolved to Modern
English Manx
Conclusions

 Six types of alterations

 Not equally productive
 Deflection not active nowadays
References
Bryson, Bill, 1990, The English Language. Our
Mother Tongue,
Levitchi, Leon, 1970, Limba engleza
contemporana. Lexicologie, Bucuresti: EDP
McArthur, Tom, 1996, The Oxford Companion
to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Wood, Frederick, 1969, An Outline History of
the English Language, MacMillan