Word
Formation
What
is Word?
The
study of the origin and history of the word is known as its etymology. The origin of the etymology
is in Greek (etymon original form + logia
study of). The average speakers of a language know from 45,000 to 60,000 words.
The ‘word’ as a linguistic unit deserves some attention, because it is not as straightforward
as one might expect. Whenever a new object, process or
concept is discovered, a word has to be found for it. The word can come from
anywhere: from an ancient language, from a foreign language or from the
discoverer’s imagination.
Introduction
to Word Formation
The
terms ‘word formation’ does not have a clear cut, universally accepted usage. It
is a process connected with changing the form of the word. In its wider sense word
formation denotes the processes of creation of new lexical units. To understand the word formation in detail we
need to understand the two following terminology in brief:
·
Morphology:
Investigating basic forms in language means ‘the study of forms’.
·
Morphemes:
a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.
Types of Word Formation
1.
Compounding:
Compounding
is putting together two or more words to form a new word. Compounding is one of
the most productive word-formation processes in English. Words, particularly
adjectives and nouns, are combined into compound structures in a variety of
ways.
One
thing must be noted that the meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the
meanings of its parts. For example: olive oil – oil made from olives; baby oil
– oil for babies and not oil made from babies.
Some
compounds have more than two component words. These are formed by successively
combining words into compounds. For example: pick-up stand, ice-cream parlour,
no-claim bonus. Even more complex examples: top-rack dishwasher safe, beauty
product shop, micro-wave safe cookware.
2.
Clipping:
Clipping
or truncation (searching technique) is
a process of dropping an important portion of an existing word in order to find
only a base word to be used freely. It is a type of abbreviation of a word in
which one part is 'clipped' off the rest and the remaining word means
essentially the same thing as what the whole word means or meant. It is the
process of reducing a word to one of its parts. It is also known as shortening.
There are four types of
clipping:
·
Back clipping: This is the most
common type of all. It is also called apocopation dropping or omission of a
letter or syllable from the end of a longer word. The beginning of a word is retained
and the end of a word is chopped off. The unclipped original word may be either
a simple or a composite one. For example: ad (advertisement), cable
(cablegram), doc (doctor), exam (examination), gas (gasoline), math (mathematics), memo (memorandum), gym
(gymnastics, gymnasium), mutt (muttonhead), pub (public house), pop (popular
concert), photo (photograph), vamp (vampire), pants (pantaloon), Feb
(February), lab (laboratory), mike (microphone), matrix (matriculation), hippo
(hippopotamus), demo (demonstration)
·
Fore-clipping: It is also
called aphaeresis – the loss of one or more sounds or letters at the beginning
of a word. The final part of a word is retained. This is less common in
English. For example: round (around), varsity (university), chute (parachute),
coon (racoon), gator (alligator), pike (turnpike), burger (hamburger), bike
(motorbike), phone (telephone), plane (aeroplane), boat (steamboat)
·
Middle clipping: Here, the middle
part of a word is retained. For example: flu(influenza), tec (detective), polly
(apollinaris), jams (pyjamas), shrink(head-shrinker), fridge (refrigerator).
·
Complex clipping: Clipped forms are also
used in compounds. One part of the original compound most often remains intact.
For example: cablegram (cable telegram), opart (optical art), org-man
(organization man), linocut (linoleum cut).
3.
Blending:
Blending
is a popular word formation process. It involves taking two or more words,
removing parts of each and joining the remains together to create a new word
whose form and meaning are taken from the source words.
·
In blending, part of one
word is stitched onto another word, without any regard for where one morpheme
ends and another begins. The morphemes generally overlap. (motel = motor +
hotel) or Sometimes, the two elements are put together without any overlap
(brunch = breakfast + lunch).
·
The beginning of the first word
and the end of the last one are put together.
e.g. bromance
(brother + romance), smog (smoke + fog), advertainment (advertisement +
entertainment), Gujlish = (Gujarati + English), Spanglish (Spanish + English)
·
The beginnings of both the words
are put together.
e.g. cyborg
(cybernetic + organism), biopic (biographical + picture), hazmat (hazardous + material),
telex (teleprinter + exchange)
·
A whole word combined with a part
of another one.
e.g. guesstimate
(guess + estimate), mockumentary (mock + documentary), cheeseburger (cheese +
hamburger), mocktail (mock + cocktail), webinar (web + seminar), carjacking
(car + hijacking), fanzine (fan + magazine)
·
The blending of celebrity couple
names is done.
e.g. Brangelina
(Brad + Angelina), Bennifer (Ben + Jennifer), Virushka (Virat + Anushka)
·
Two words are blended around a
common sequence of sounds.
e.g. Californication
(California + fornication), electrocute (electric + execute)
4.
Creative Respelling:
Creative
Respelling changes some letters in a word and thus forms a new word that is
misspelled on purpose (thanx, nite, lite). Change of spelling is often used in commercials
and slogans. For example Kleenex tissues, Mortal Kombat (game), Qwikster (movie-by-mail
service). Misspelling quite often gives rise to brand names.
Sometimes
words are formed by simply changing the spelling of a word that the speaker
wants to relate to the new word. Product names often involve creative
respelling, such as Mr. Kleen or Krunch.
5. Coining & Borrowing:
Coining
& Borrowing involves copying a word that originally belonged in one
language into another language. The borrowed words are called loan words. Borrowing
requires that the borrowing language and the source language come in contact with
each other. The borrowed word never remains a perfect copy of its original. It
is made to fit the phonological, morphological, and syntactic patterns of its new
language.
·
Words taken directly from
Sanskrit usually with religious and philosophical associations: ahimsa, ananda,
chakra, guru, nirvana, rajas, sattva, tamas,
yoga, yogi
·
Local senses and
developments of general English words: batch-mate,
body-bath, by-two coffee, communal, England-returned, eve-teasing,
foreign-returned, four-twenty, head-bath, interdine, intermarriage, issueless,
military hotel, out of station, outstation (cheque), pre-pone, ration shop
