Word Formation in English

Word formation is a process with the result of a new lexeme. Lexeme is a standard shape of a word as
you would find in dictionary. There are many processes that result in a new word being added to the
vocabulary. The following are the important methods.
1. Affixation/ Derivation

A process by which a word is derived by adding an affix to an existing word or another affix
is called Affixation.
a. Use of Prefixes
i. Negative prefixes (im-possible, in-evitable, un-stable, a-moral, non-violence, dis-
service, il-logical, ir-rational, de-frost, mis-understand, pseudo-secular)
ii. Prefixes of Number (mono-syllabic, uni-lingual, bi-polar, di-pole, tri-cycle, tetra-
cyclic, multi-national, poly-syllabic)
iii. Prefixes of time and order ( re-evaluate, ante-chamber, fore-tell, pre-mature, post-
war, ex-MLA, super-fine
iv. Prefixes of location (sub-way, inter-racial, intra-departmental, trans-migraiton
v. Prefixes of degree or size (super-man, out-run, under-cooked, hyper-active, ultra-
modern, mini-bus, over-active, arch-angel, midi-skirt, maxi-dress
vi. Prefixes of attitude ( pro-hindu, anti-social, co-operate, counter-proposal)
vii. Other prefixes ( auto-biography, neo-rich, semi-circle, pan-Indian
viii. Class-changing prefixes change the class of the word (be-head, en-able, a-float,
de-form)
b. Use of Suffixes
i. Class-maintaining suffixes
Friend-ship, boy-hood, hindu-ite, London-er, Tiger-ess, king-dom, machine-ery
ii. Class-changing suffixes
 Noun to adjective
India-ian, China-ese, beauty-ful, harm-less, friend-ly, child-like, child-
ish, accident-al, virtue-ous.
 Adjective to noun
Able-ity, happy-ness, brave-ery
 Noun to verb
Fort-ify, length-en, top-le
 Verb to noun
Drive-er, govern-ment, drain-age, pollute-ant, pay-ee, condemn-ation,
withdraw-al, act-or
 Verb to adverb
Sleep-ily, play-fully
 Adjective to adverb
Nice-ly, back-wards

2. Inflection

In linguistics, inflection is the modification of a word to express different grammatical

categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, person, number gender and
case.
-s in cars (plural)
-‘s in John’s (possession)
-s in reads (first person singular)
 -ing in dancing (continuous)
-ed in danced (past tense)
-t in dreamt (perfect)
-er in older (comparative)
-est in oldest (superlative)

3. Conversion

Some words are used as words of different classes without any change in the form of the
word, without the adiditon if an affix or prefix. This process of derivation is called
conversion.
Examples:
Switch on the light./ Light the lamp.
The Earth is round./ The doctor went on a round./You must round all the sharp corners.

4. Compounding

Compounds are formed by joining two or more bases. These bases are sometimes separated
by a hyphen, while on other cases, the hyphen appears to have disappeared with the passage
of time.
Types of Compounds
 Noun+ Noun- motor cycle, teargas, girl-friend, fire-engine, goldfish, pot-
belly, hair breadth.
 Noun + Adjective- trustworthy, home sick, duty free, beauty conscious,
brickred, sea-green.
 Adjective +Noun – paleface, yellow press, red light, fathead,blackboard
 Verbs/Adverbials/Verbal nouns- sight-seeing, birth-control, record-
player, brain-washing, walking-stick, man-eating, heart-breaking, easy-
going, baby-sitting, lip-read.

5. Clipping

Some words are use in shortened form by subtracting one or more syllables from a word. This
shortening occurs at the beginning of the word, at the end of the word or at both ends of the
word.
 Back-clipping/Apocopation- Last part of the word is dropped
Ad (advertisement), Doc (doctor), gas (gasoline), gym (gymnasium),exam
(examination), pub (public house), cable (cablegram), pop (popular concert), fax
(facsimile)
 Fore-clipping/ Aphaeresis- Retains the final part
Phone (telephone), chute (parachute), gator (alligator), varsity (university)
 Middle Clipping/ Syncopation – Middle part of the word is retained
Flu (influenza), tec (detective), shrink (head-shrinker), jams (pyjamas)
 Complex Clipping- In compound words, one part of the original compound remains
intact.
Cablegram (cabletelegram), op art (optical art), navi cert (navigation certificate)

6. Syncopation
 This is a particular form of shortening or abbreviation. Example: pram. Its original form was
perambulator. It was syncopated to prambulator and thenabbreviated to pram. In syncopation,
a vowel is removed from a word and the consonants on either side are then run together. As a
result, one syllable is lost. Other examples are Once which was originally ones, Else which
was originally ells. Likewise,, some past participles like born, worn, shorn, forlorn are
syncopated forms. At one time they had the terminal ending –en and were used as boren,
woren, shoren and forloren.

7. Acronyms

Acronyms and Initialisms are formed by joining the initial letters of other words. The
difference between an acronym and an abbreviation is that the latter may be formed by the
initial letters in a phrase and is read letter by letter.
Acronyms
AIDS- Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome
LASER- Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation
UNICEF- United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
NATO- North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Gestapo- Geheim, Staats Polizei

Abbreviations
BBC- British Broadcasting Corporation
DNA- Deoxyribonucleic acid
B2C- Business to Customer
UNO- United Nations Organisation

8. Blending/ Portmanteau Words

A blend is a word formed by parts of two other words, sometimes, but not always,
morphemes. Most blends are formed by one of the following methods.
a. The beginning of one word is added to the end of the second word ( brunch from
breakfast and lunch)
b. The beginnings of two words are combined (cyborg from cybernetic and organism)
c. One complete word is combined with part of another (guesstimate from guess and
estimate)
d. Two words are blended around a common sequence of sounds (Californication from
California and fornication)
e. Multiple sounds from two component words are blended while preserving the sounds
order. (Slithy from lithe and slimy)

9. Telescoping

It is a type of blending where two words are formed into one by the omission of a portion of
one word duplicated in the other
Example
SLNAGUAGE from ‘slang’ ‘language’
to don was originally to do on.
to doff was originally to do off
10. Borrowings

English has a large number of words borrowed from other languages with which it has come
to contact over the years. The language has been enriched by borrowings.

Guru from Hindi

Bazaar from Persian
Sheikh from Arabic
Tycoon from Japanese
Dame from French
Biology, Boxer, Ozone from German
Jacket, Yoghurt, Kiosh from Turkish
Pistol, Robot from Czech
Croissant from French
Piano from Italian
Pretzel from German
Sofa from Arabic
Tattoo from Tahitian

A calque or loan translation is called borrowing the meaning or idiom from another
language rather than the lexical item in itself.
Sakul/Schakul in German became School.
Skyscraper from Dutch wolkenkrabber
Boyfriend from Japanese boyifurendo

11. Coinages/ Inventions

Coinage is the invention of totally new words. The typical process of coinage usually
involved the extension of a product name from a specific reference to a more general one.
Kleenex, Xerox and Kodak, Vaseline are examples
These started as names of specific products and now they are used as the generic names for
different brands of these types of products.
X-ray, Laser, Sputnik, Astronaut are other examples.

12. Eponyms

There are a number of words in English based on proper names of a person or place.
Sandwich from Earl of Sandwich
Watt from Scott-James Watt
Volt from Alessandro Volta
Gamp (Umbrella) from Mrs Gamp (Dickens’ character)
Boycott from Captain Boycott
Calico from Calicut
Malapropism from Mrs. Malaprop
Jeans from the city of Genoa

13. Reduplication
 The process of forming new words either by doubling an entire word (total reduplication) or
part of a word (partial reduplication). Total reduplication in English is extremely rare.

Criss-Cross, Pooh-pooh, hush-hush, dooddle-doo, kit-kat, see-saw, wishy-washy, tip-top,

hurry-worry, trin-trin, hanky-panky, sing-song, walkie-talkie, humdrum, goody-goody.

Rhyming Compounds: These words compounded from two rhyming words are associated in
English with child talk, technically called hypocoristic language.

Bunnie-wunnie, henny-penny, snuggly-wuggly, piggie-wiggie

14. Onomatopoeic Words/ Echoing

Sometimes words are formed by the sounds that suggest their meaning.
Clang, whisper, thunder, click, tick, lisp, murmur

15. Back formation

Sometimes words are creatively reduced (form is changed) due to incorrect morphological
analysis.
Editor  edit
Television televise
Babysitter  babysit

16. Metanalysis

A spelling or sound in a word is split in the wrong place, often when the word has jumped
from one language to another and is subjected to gravitational pull of new phonetic
combinations.

Apron <An Apron < Napron (Middle English) < Naperon (ME French)
Noche < An Oche < Oche (French meaning an incision)
Nickname < An ekename (ME)

17. Elison

The term for leaving out letters in a word in order to form a shorter word.

Gonna -going to
Wanna -want to
Ne’er -never
Can’t- cannot
O’er- over
‘tis- it is

18. Hypocrisms

The process where a longer word is reduced to a single syllable the -y or -ie is added to the
end.
Movie from moving picture
 Telly from Television
Barbie from Barbecue
Aussie from Australian
Hankie from Handkerchief

19. Reanalysis

Sometimes speakers unconsciously change the morphological boundaries of a word, creating

a new morph or making an old one unrecognizable. This happened in hamburger, which was
originally Hamburger steak 'chopped and formed steak in the Hamburg style, then hamburger
(hamburg + er), then ham + burger

20. Analogy
Sometimes speakers take an existing word as a model and form other words using some of its
morphemes as a fixed part, and changing one of them to something new, with an analogically
similar meaning. Cheeseburger was formed on the analogy of hamburger, replacing a
perceived morpheme ham with cheese. carjack and skyjack were also formed by analogy.

21. Novel creation

In novel creation, a speaker or writer forms a word without starting from other morphemes. It
is as if the word if formed out of 'whole cloth', without reusing any parts.

Some examples of now-conventionalized words that were novel creations include blimp,
googol (the mathematical term), bling, and possibly slang, which emerged in the last 200
years with no obvious etymology. Some novel creations seem to display 'sound symbolism',
in which a word's phonological form suggests its meaning in some way. For example, the
sound of the word bling seems to evoke heavy jewelry making noise.

22. Creative respelling

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.

23. Corruption or Misunderstanding

Sometimes new words are formed by corruption or through misunderstanding. For example,
the word whitsun (the 7th day after easter) came into existence through a corruption. It refers
to the Sunday following Easter. It refers to the festival, which celebrates the decent of the
Holy Spirit. The word whitsun originated Whitsunday which meant white Sunday. On that
day, all converts to Christianity wore white robes, as a symbol of purification. Then
Metanalysis, whit Sunday was transformed to whitsun day. Later on, the analogy of this came
whitsun week, whitsun tide, whitsun Sunday, and even whitsun Monday, which is a
contradiction in terms. In the same way goodbye is a garbled form of God be with you.

24. Freak Formation

Certain words came into existence as a result of Freak-Formation ie., quite unexpectedly or
strangely or accidentally. Example: Teetotaller. Teetotaller (one who abstains from alcohol).
This word originated as a result of stammering by an antialcohol advocate. He stammered
while pronouncing the expression total abstainer and thus the word Teetotaller was formed.