WORD
BUILDING
Student: Guranda Iobashvili
Lecturer: Ana Gadakhabadze
Derivation
Derivation( affixation) is the process of forming a new word by
adding an affix to an existing stem.
Prefixation: able-disable possible- impossible make- remake
Prefixes: post-, pre-; im-; mis-; re-; dis; un-; en-; de-; ex-;
Suffixation: happy- happiness beauty-beautiful quick-quickly
Suffixes : -ous; -ity; -ic; -ty; -ness; -hood; -able; -ance, -ion; -ant, -ee
Compounding
- process of joining two or more stems to create a new word
Without a connecting element: headache, heartbreak;
With a vowel or consonant : speedometer, craftsman;
With a preposition or conjunction : down-and-out ; son-in-law;
Ø Nouns: seafood, moonlight, airport
Ø Adjectives: heartbreaking, sugar-free, good-looking, easy-going
Ø Verbs: oven-bake, baby-sit, sky-dive
Ø Adverbs: over-night , off-hand, nevertheless
Types of compounds:
Endocentric: armchair, doghouse
Exocentric: pickpocket, hotdog, loudmouth
Coordinative or copulative: bittersweet, sleepwalk
Appositional: maidservant, apeman
Blending
The process of joining two words by taking parts of both
words and combining them in one.
v Breakfast+ lunch=brunch
v motor+ hotel=motel
v Smoke + fog= smog
v situation+ comedy=sitcom
v Emotion+ icon=emoticon
Clipping
Types:
1) Back-clipping: mathematics- math, laboratory- lab; Professional- pro;
doctor- doc; kilogram- kilo; captain- cap
2) Fore-clipping: telephone – phone; airplane – plane;
3) Middle-clipping : influenza – flu; refrigerator – fridge;
4) Complex clipping : cable telegram- cablegram, optical art- op art
Acronyms
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a
longer name or phrase.
Examples :
LOL
YOLO
PIN
GIF
SWOT
RAM
Conversion
Conversion is the process of word-building by changing
the class of the word.
Bottle – to bottle. ( noun > verb)
Text- to text
Butter- to butter
Empty- to empty
Back-formation
Back-formation or disaffixation is a process that creates a new word by
removing a real or supposed affix from another word.
Donation-donate
Emotion- emote
Action-act
Revision-revise
Sculptor- sculpt
Editor-edit
Reduplication
Exact: boo-boo, bye-bye, bling-bling
Rhyming: Boogie-woogie, Bees-knees, abracadabra,
Hocus-pocus , Itsy-bitsy, Okey-dokey
Ablaut: zig-zag, ding-dong, criss-cross,
sing-song, pitter-patter
Sound interchange
to strike -
stroke, Stress interchange
to sing – song
hot - to heat Ø ‘accent - to
blood - to bleed ac’cent.
speak- speech Ø ‘conflict- to
con’flict
Ø ‘present- to
pre’sent
Ø ‘export- to ex’port
Analogy
Sometimes speakers take an existing word as a model and form
other words with an analogically similar meaning.
Cheeseburger < hamburger
carjack< skyjack<hijack
Loanwords
Loanwords are words taken into a language from another
language (the term borrowing is used for the process).
Examples :
croissant, entrepreneur, ballet (French)
Karate, karaoke, ninja, origami, tsunami ( Japanese)
Pizza, paparazzi, stanza, sonnet, broccoli (Italian)
Coining -Coining is process of creating new words
Words coined by Shakespeare:
• bedroom • vulnerable • Embrace
• admirable • Priceless • Employer
• belongings • Useful • Import
Sound imitation ( onomatopoeia )
Sound imitation is the process of word building by imitating;
a) Sounds produced by human beings: to whisper, to giggle, to
mumble, to sneeze, to whistle
b) Sounds produced by animals, birds, insects: to hiss, to buzz, to
bark, to moo, to twitter
c) Sounds produced by nature and objects : to splash, to bang, to
bubble, to ding-dong, to crash, to pop
Novel creation
A word formation process in which a new word is
creating 'from scratch’
Blimp
Googol (10¹⁰⁰)
Slang
Creative respelling
Sometimes words are formed by simply
changing the spelling of a word that the
speaker wants to relate to the new word.
Thanx, Mortal kombat , Kleenex tissue,
Mister Kleen , krunch
Thanks for your attention!
Sources:
https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.html
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation_2
https://sites.google.com/site/derzispit/17-principal-ways-of-word-formation
https://studfile.net/preview/3846052/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/loanword
https://www.litcharts.com/blog/shakespeare/words-shakespeare-invented/
https://englishforbe.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/chapter-1-1-word-formation/
