Word Formation Processes
1. Word Formation
2. Word Formation Processes
3. Etymology
4. Word Formation Processes
Dr Muhammad Yousaf
NUML, Islamabad
Word Formation
• In linguistics word formation refers to the ways in which new words are made or
created.
• The study of word formation falls in the domain of morphology or lexicology.
• The branch of morphology dealing with word formation is also called derivational
morphology.
• Word-formation can denote either a state or a process.
• Word formation can be viewed as:
1. diachronically (through different periods in history) or
2. synchronically (at one particular period in time).
Word Formation Process
• Any new word that enter a language follows a process to become part of that
language.
• The word formation process is also called morphological process.
• The new words in a language are produced either by modification of existing
words or by complete innovation or involving both of them.
• The words in turn become a part of the language.
Etymology
• The study of origin and history of a word is known as its etymology, the
term comes to us through Latin, but has its origins in Greek (étymon
“original form” + logia “study of ”,
• In English, usually words are originated from Latin or Greek.
• Some of them are not necessarily complete words but prefixes or part of
blending.
Word Formation Processes
(Types)
• Coinage
• Borrowing
• Compounding
• Blending
• Clipping
• Backformation
• Conversion
• Acronym
• Derivation
Further Reading
• Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language (4th Edition).Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Word Formation Processes
5. Coinage
6. Eponyms
7. Borrowing
8. Compounding
Dr Muhammad Yousaf
NUML, Islamabad
1. Coinage
• It is one of the least common processes of word formation in English is
coinage.
• It is simply defined as the invention of totally new words.
• The most typical examples are invented trade names for commercial
products.
1. Coinage
Examples:
1. Some of the old examples are aspirin, nylon, vaseline etc.
2. Some of the recent examples are kleenex, teflon, and Xerox etc.
3. One of the most recent example of coinage is ‘google’ which is the name
of a company (Google).
4. The word ‘google’ has entered English and now is used with the meaning
of “to use the internet to find information.”
1 a. Eponyms
• Eponyms is a special type of Coinage.
• It creates new words based on the name of a person or a place.
Examples:
• The word “sandwich” is from the 18th century. The Earl of Sandwich who
first insisted on having his bread and meat together while gambling.
• The word “jeans” which is derived from the Italian city of Genoa where the
type of cloth was first made.
2. Borrowing
• It is one of the most common sources of new words in English.
• It is the taking over words from other languages.
• English has adopted many loan-words from other languages such as:
• alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch), piano (Italian), croissant (French), and
yogurt ( Turkish).
3. Compounding
• Compounding forms a word out of two or more root morphemes.
• The words are called compounds or compound words.
• It is the joining of two separate words to produce a single form.
• It is a very common and productive source of new terms not only in English
but also in other languages.
• Some of the examples are:
• bookcase, fingerprint, sunburn, wallpaper, textbook, wastebasket, waterbed,
and doorknob.
3. Compounding
• wallpaper
• textbook
• Facebook
• YouTube
Further Reading
• Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language (4th Edition).Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Word Formation Processes
8. Blending
9. Clipping
10. Backformation
11. Hypocorism
Dr Muhammad Yousaf
NUML, Islamabad
4. Blending
• In blending, part of one word is stitched onto another word, without any
regard for where one morpheme ends and another begins.
• Blending is typically made by taking only the beginning of one word and
joining it to the end of another word.
• The word smog is blended from smoke and fog,
4. Blending
• The word smog is blended from smoke and fog,
• brunch (breakfast / lunch),
• motel (motor / hotel),
• telecast (television / broadcast),
• infotainment (information/ entertainment)
• mockumentary (mock and documentary.
5. Clipping
• Clipping is a type of abbreviation of a word in which one part is 'clipped' off
the rest, and the remaining word now means essentially the same thing as
what the whole word means or meant.
• It is the reduction of a word of more than one syllable into a shorter form,
often in casual speech.
• E.g. gasoline = gas.
• ad = advertisement, fan = fanatic, fax = facsimile.
6. Backformation
• It is a very specialized type of reduction.
• It typically happens when a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to
form another word of a different type (usually a verb).
• For example the noun television is reduced to form the verb televise.
• Other instances are:
• donate (from ‘donation’), emote (from ‘emotion’), babysit (from ‘babysitter’).
7. Hypocorism
• A particular type of backformation.
• It happens when a word of a longer syllable is reduced to a single syllable,
then –y or – ie is added to the end,
• E.g. movie (moving picture), telly (television), and barbie (barbecue).
Further Reading
• Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language (4th Edition).Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
