Theme 10
Features of word formation in English: PREFIXATION, SUFFIXATION and
COMPOUNDING.
As one can find in many other languages, there are three main morphological
processes that result in the formation of new words in English:
1. Affixation. (Derivation)
Affixation is the process in which bound morphemes are added to the base
either in initial or final position.
2. Conversion. (Derivation)
In Conversion a word is assigned to a different class-word without changing its
form.
3. Compounding.
The process by which two or more stems or bases are combined to form a new
word is called Compounding.
Other morphological processes that result in the formation of new words are:
Reduplication, Clipping, Backformation, Blending, Acronym, Coinage, Borrowing and
Calque.
The elements of the language are combined in order to produce a message. Encoding
and decoding messages reveal different levels of linguistic analysis: sound level,
morphological level, syntactic level, semantic level.
Morphology is the branch of Linguistics that studies the structure words and the
formation of the elements of the language system. Morphology is concerned with the
structure and derivation of words. The main morphological process in word formation is
derivation. Derivation is accomplished by means of Affixation and Conversion.
Morphology is the branch of grammar which studies the structure of words. In the
following list, all the words except the last can be divided into parts, each of which has
some kind of independent meaning:
unhappiness un-happi-ness
horses horse-s
talking talk-ing
yes yes
Yes has no internal grammatical structure. We could analyse its constituent sounds, /j/,
/e/, /s/, but none of these has meaning in isolation. By contrast, horse, talk, and happy
plainly have a meaning, as do the elements attached to them (the affixes): un- carries a
negative meaning; -ness expresses the state or quality; -s expresses plural, and –ing
helps to convey a sense of duration. The smallest meaningful elements into which
words can be analysed are known as morphemes; and the way morphemes operate in
language provides the subject matter of morphology. It is an easy matter to analyse
some words into morphemes when is a clear sequence of elements is involved.
Two types of morphology are identified:
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1. Inflectional morphology: the process affects the meaning of the stem.
2. Lexical morphology: the process yields a different lexical item from the source.
According to David Crystal, two main fields are traditionally recognized within
morphology. Inflectional morphology studies the way in which words vary (‘or inflect’)
in order to express grammatical contrasts in sequences, such as singular/plural or
past/present tense. e.g. boy and boys are forms of the same words; the choice
between them, singular vs plural, is a matter of grammar, and thus the business of
inflectional morphology. Derivational morphology, however, studies the principles
governing the construction of new words, without reference to the specific grammatical
role a word might play in a sentence. In the formation of drinkable from drink, or
disinfect from infect, for example, we see the formation of different words, with their
own grammatical properties.
It is important to distinguish the base and the stem: the stem is the part of the word
remaining after the affix has been removed. The base is the word from which it derives.
Morpheme is the minimal unit of grammatical description or stem. For instance the
base of the word unfriendly is friendly and the stem in friend.
There are two main types of morphemes:
1. Free morphemes (house)
2. Bound morphemes (-ed, -ing). The stem plus a bound morpheme may form the
base for new words.
It is significant for users of language to know the mechanism it employs to form new
categories, it is essential to distinguish the grammatical class of a word. In addition, a
word can be changing only by adding affixes and language users must be conscious of
this, for instance, the word ‘quickly’ is an adverb because it ends in the suffix -ly. Once
a base has undergone a rule of word-formation, the derived word itself may become
the base for another word. Word formation is one of the most common ways of
language growing.
Morpheme problems
Not all the words can be analysed into morphemes so easily. In English, for example, it
is difficult to know how to analyse irregular nouns and verbs: feet is the plural of foot,
but it is not obvious how to identify a plural morpheme in the word, analogous to the –s
ending of horses. This process of forming a word using morpheme-internal modification
is called ALTERNATION. In same cases, the etymology will help us to develop a
morphological analysis of certain words.
Examples: man / men, child / children, goose / geese, tooth / teeth
Another complication is that morphemes sometimes have several phonetic forms,
depending on the context in which they occur. In English, for example, the regular past-
tense morpheme (written as –ed), is pronounced in three different ways, depending on
the nature of the sounds that precede it. It the preceding sound is /t/ or /d/, the ending
is pronounced /id/ as in spotted; if the preceding sound is voiceless consonant, the
ending is pronounced /t/, as in walked; and if the preceding sound is a voiced
consonant or a vowel, the ending is pronounced /d/, as in rolled. Variant forms of a
morpheme are known as allomorphs.
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AFFIXATION or DERIVATION
Affixation is adding a prefix or a suffix to the base; the class of the word can or cannot
change.
PREFIXATION (an affix is placed before the base of the word)
A prefix is an element joined before a base to add or quality its meaning. They do not
generally alter the class of the word. The main stress is on the base, they have
normally a light stress.
A. Negative prefixes un- (the opposite of), non- (not), in- (the opposite of), dis- (the
opposite of), or a- (lacking in). These prefixes are normally added to adjectives,
although they can be used with other word types.
Examples: unexpected, unfair, unhappily, unbelievable, non-smoker, non-sense, non-
resident, infinite, invisible, incorrectly, incapacitate, disfavour, dishonest, discovery,
amoral, atheist and asymmetry.
B. Reversative or privative prefixes un-, de-, and dis-. They usually mean, ‘to
reverse an action’ or ‘to deprive of’. They are mainly added to verbs, but also to nouns,
adjectives or participles.
Examples: untie, unplug, deforestation, defrost or disconnect.
C. Pejorative prefixes mis-, mal-, and pseudo-. They normally mean ‘wrongly or
badly’, ‘pseudo-‘means ‘false or imitation’. They are added mainly to verbs, but they are
also possible with adjectives or participles.
Some examples are misconduct, mistranslate, misunderstood, malfunction, pseudo-
scientific or pseudo-intellectual.
D. Prefixes of degree and size arch- (highest), super- (above, more than), out- (to do
something more…than) sur- (over and above), sub- (lower than, less than), over- (too
much) under- (too little), hyper-, ultra- (extremely). Mini-, midi-, and maxi- mean ‘little,
medium and large’ respectively. These prefixes are mainly added to nouns and
adjectives.
Examples: archduke, superman, outdo, surreal, substandard, overheated, undercook,
hypercritical, hypersensitive, ultraviolet, minibus or miniskirt.
E. Prefixes of attitude co- (with), counter-,(in opposition to), pro- and anti- (in favour
and against respectively). They are added to verbs, nouns and adjectives.
Examples are: co-authored, cooperative, coeducation, counter-act, counter-revolution,
pro-abortion, antibiotic, anti-Semitic or antimilitarism.
F. Locative prefixes super- (over), sub- (beneath), trans- (from one place to another),
and inter- (between or among). They are added to nouns, verbs and de-nominal
adjectives.
Examples: superstructure, subway, submarine, transplant, international.
G. Prefixes of time and order
Fore- and pre- are two prefixes that mean before, for instance foretell and pre-war.
prehistoric
Other prefixes of time and order are ex- (former), re- (again) and post- (after). The
prefix ex- is usually used with human nouns, as in ex-husband, ex-wife.
Examples with the prefixes re- and post-: rebuild, resettlement, post-war, post-
classical.
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Proto- means ‘first’, as in prototype. Pre- and post- normally involve conversion from
noun to adjective.
H. Number prefixes
English use the following prefixes concerning number: uni-/mono-, bi-/di-; tri-, and
multi-/poli-. Examples: monotheism, unilateral, bilingual, bisexual, bicycle, tricycle,
tripartite, polysyllabic, and multimedia.
I. Other prefixes are: auto- (self), neo- (new), pan- (all), semi- (half), vice- (deputy) and
proto- (first, original). Examples: autograph, neoclassical, Pan-American, semicircular,
vice-president, prototype.
J. Conversion prefixes
Its function is to convert the base into a different grammatical class. be- added to
nouns forms participles, bewigged. When the prefixes en- or em- are added to nouns
or adjectives they become verbs, endanger, enlarge, empower, embitter ‘A-‘ added to
verbs forms predicative adjectives, awash, asleep.
SUFFIXATION (an affix is placed after the base of the word)
Suffixes normally alter the word class. Suffixes can be grouped not only according to
the part of speech they form, but also according to the class of base they are added to,
for instance worker is a deverbal noun.
1. Noun - Noun suffixes
Occupational suffixes are: -eer, -ster, -er, -ist, and the feminine suffix –ess that can
form words such as: engineer, volunteer, Londoner, worker, waiter, widower, gangster,
youngster, novelist, chemist, guitarist, waitress, actress. Some suffixes imply a
diminutive or feminine meaning. For instance: -let,-ette, -es, -ie, or –y; booklet,
kitchenette, waitress or auntie. The status or domain suffixes normally convert nouns to
abstract nouns. For instance, –hood, -ship, -dom, or –ocracy, friendship, boredom,
democracy.
2. Noun/adjective - Noun/adjective suffixes
Some of the suffixes of this type deal with nationalities. For instance, -ese added to the
name of the country form the nationality: Japanese, Portuguese. The suffix –ite can
derive in an adjective designing a member of a community: Israelite. The suffixes –ism
or –ist form new words designing attitudes or belonging to a party as in Socialist or
idealism.
3. Verb - Noun suffixes: suffixes that form nouns from verbs.
The suffixes –er, –or or –ant form the agentive: driver, actor, and inhabitant. With –ee
we form a passive: employee, addressee. The suffix –ation results in a state, action or
organization: exploration. The same happens with –ment (treatment). The suffixes –ing
or –age added to verbs result in activities or results of activities: driving, drainage.
4. Adjective - Noun suffixes: suffixes that form nouns from adjectives.
The suffixes –ness or –ity added to adjectives derive in words that mean a state or
quality: happiness, emptiness, sanity.
5. Verb suffixes
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The suffixes –ify, -ize, and –ise form transitive verbs as in simplify, criticise, or
popularize. The suffix –en forms transitive or intransitive verbs as in deafen, deepen.
6. Noun- adjective suffixes: suffixes that form adjectives from nouns.
The suffixes that turn nouns into adjectives are: -ful, -less, -ly, -like, -y, -ish or –ian.
With full nouns they form gradable adjectives such as useful. The suffix –less means
without, when added to a noun, e.g. childless. The suffixes –ly or –like, form adjectives
with the meaning of “having the qualities of”, for instance, cowardly or childlike. The
suffix –y forms gradable adjectives that mean like or “covered with”, for example
creamy or hairy. The suffix –ish added to a noun forms an adjective that means
“belonging to” or “having the character of “ as in Turkish or foolish.
7. Some adjective suffixes common in borrowed or neoclassical words
The suffixes –al, -ial, and –ical, are used to form primarily non-gradable adjectives,
such as criminal or musical. The suffixes –ic, -ive, -ative, and –itive are used to form
gradable or non-gradable adjectives as heroic, tragic, athletic, attractive, talkative or
sensitive. The suffixes –ous, -eous, and –ious are employed to form primarily gradable
adjectives like dangerous, famous, curious, furious, ambitious.
Note carefully the difference between these pairs of adjectives ending in –ic and –al:
Economic: connected with the economy. An economic crisis.
Economical: inexpensive. An economical car.
Historic: to do with or making history. A historic moment.
Historical: to do with the study of history. A historical survey.
Comic: connected with comedy. A comic opera / masterpiece.
Comical: funny, laughable. A comical situation.
Electric: powered by electricity. An electric shaver.
Electrical: of electricity. An electrical storm/ blackout.
Classic: memorable, great. A classic performance/ mistake.
Classical: of artistic styles, originally going back to the Greeks and Romans.
Classical languages/ literature/ music
8. Other adjective suffixes
The suffixes –able or –ible, added to verbs form adjectives, for instance, readable,
relatable, edible, incredible. The suffix –ish means “somewhat” and form gradable
adjectives, for example youngish. The suffix –ed added to nouns or noun phrases form
adjectives meaning “having” as in balconied.
9. Adverb suffixes
The suffixes –ly and –ward are added to adjectives to form adverbs of manner and
direction, for instance happily and backward. The suffix –wise is added to nouns to
form adverbs of manner, clockwise, crabwise.
Morphemes can be classified into ‘free’ and ‘bound’ forms. Free morphemes can occur
as separate words, e.g. car, yes. Bound morphemes cannot occur on their own, e.g.
anti- , -tion. The main classes of bound morphemes are the prefixes and suffixes; but
infixes are also possible – an affix which is inserted within a stem. The nearest we get
to this in English is emphatic forms such as abso-blooming-lutely; but in many
languages, infixation is a normal process. Some authors call this process PSEUDO-
INFIXATION in English.
Examples: Abso-bloody-lutely (from My Fair Lady), Halle-fucking-lullah (Soprano’s
episode).
CONVERSION (a word changes its class without any change of form).
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It is the derivational process whereby an item changes its word class without an affix.
For instance, release is a verb in “They released him” and a noun in “They ordered
their release”.
1. Conversion from VERB class to NOUN class:
From stative verbs: doubt, love.
From dynamic verbs: laugh, walk.
Objects: answer, catch.
Subjects: bore, cheat.
Instrument: cover, wrap
Manner: throw, walk
Place: retreat, turn
2. Conversion from ADJECTIVE class to NOUN class:
A normal case of a noun being ellipted:
A daily newspaper: daily
A comic actor: comic
Married people: marrieds
3. Conversion from NOUN class to VERB class:
To put something in/on something else: bottle, corner
To give something: coat, mask
To deprive of something: peel, skin
To do something with an instrument: brake, knife
To make/change something: cash, cripple
To send by something: mail, ship
To go by something: bicycle, motor
4. Conversion ADJECTIVE class to VERB class:
This category competes with –en suffixation. Both derivation may be available for
the same adjective, e.g. black-blacken.
To make (transitive verbs): calm, dirty
To become (intransitive verbs): dry, empty
5. Minor categories conversion:
From closed system words to nouns: must, will
From phrases to nouns: alsoran (looser)
From phrases to adjectives: under-the-weather, eighteen-year-old
From affixes to nouns: isms (doctrine)
6. Change of secondary word-class: nouns
From non-countable to countable: coffees, paints, difficulties
From countable to non-countable: floor, room
From proper nouns to common nouns: A Jeremiah, several Cambridges, a
Rools Royce, a Renoir
From stative to dynamic: being a fool
7. Change of secondary word class: verbs
From intransitive to transitive: run the water (abrir el grifo, estirar de la
cadena...)
From transitive to intransitive: read well, a door opened
From intransitive to intensive: fall flat
From intensive to intransitive: turn sour
Monotransitive to complex transitive: wipe something clean
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8. Change of secondary word-class: adjectives
From non-gradable to gradable: a legal turn of mind
From stative to dynamic: being friendly
9. Approximate conversion: voicing and stress shift
The cause when the word changes its pronunciation or spelling in order to change its
grammatical function is known as an approximative conversion. There are two main
alterations. The first one deals with voicing final consonants from nouns to verbs
(breath / breathe; bath / bathe; belief / believe; gift / give; half / halve), and the second
one with the occasionally change of stress from the second syllable to the first when
verbs of two syllables are converted into nouns.
Noun Verb
record record
contrast contrast
permit permit
transport transport
convict convict
COMPOUNDING (two base forms are added together, e.g. blackbird)
A compound consists on two or more bases, the syntactic relations between these
units are exemplified by paraphrases.
Noun compounds
Subject and verb compounds: sunrise, earthquake, headache, dancing girl,
fingerpoint, bookcase, textbook, wallpaper.
Verb and object compounds: sightseeing, blood test, storytelling, chewing gum.
Verb and adverbial compounds: swimming pool, daydreaming, baby sitter,
homework.
Verb less compounds: toy factory, doorknob, bloodstain, tissue paper, girlfriend.
Bahuvriri compounds: they name the entire thing by specifying some feature,
paperback.
Adjective compounds
Verb and object compounds: heartbreaking, man-eating.
Verb and adverbial compounds: ocean-going, heart feels, handmade,
hardworking.
Verbless compounds: class-conscious, sea-green, British-American.
Verb compounds
Examples of these compounds are sightsee or baby-sit. They are considered back
formations from the nouns sightseeing or babysitter.
CLIPPING (an informal shortening of a word, often to a single syllable e.g. ad, gents, flu, telly)
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It refers to the subtraction of one or more syllables of a word, for instance we can say
phone instead of telephone, or photo instead of photograph. They are usually used in
informal style.
CLIPPING BACKFORMATION
Reduction of a word of one lexical category (usually a noun) to a word of another
lexical category (usually a verb).
Examples: television → televise, editor → edit, donation → donate, option → opt,
enthusiasm → enthuse, emotion → emote
REDUPLICATION (a type of compound in which both elements are the same, or only
slightly different, e.g. goody-goody, wishy-washy (soso, aguado, insípido, flojo
(argument)), teeny-weeny (colloquial: little, small))
They are compounds in which the two elements are equal or similar (walkie-talkie,
criss-cross). The most common types of reduplicatives: imitate sounds as tick-tock,
suggest alternating movements such seesaw, disparage by suggesting instability like
nonsense, or intensify like tiptop.
BLENDS (two words merge into each other, e.g. brunch (breakfast + lunch), telex
(teleprinter + exchange))
In them one of the elements is fragmentary when compared with its non compound
word, for instance brunch. Typically, the beginning of one word is joined to the end of
other word. They are informal but at the same time very used, for example motel
(motor + hotel), smog (smoke + fog), telecast (television + broadcast).
ACRONYMS (words formed from the initial letters of the words that make up a name)
They are formed from the initial letters from words. New ones are freely produced.
Acronyms pronounced as a series of letters are called alphabetisms. Many acronyms
are pronounced as words. Some examples are: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation), OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), or AIDS
(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
COINAGE
The invention of totally new terms; originally invented trade names or now everyday words.
e.g. aspirin, nylon, kleenex, Xerox.
BORROWING
Process of taking over words from other languages.
Loan words: alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch), croissant (French), lilac (Persian), piano
(Italian), robot (Czech), pretzel (German), yogurt (Turkish), zebra (Bantu).
Calque: loan translation of the elements or structure a certain words, e.g. rasca-cielos
Spanish calque from English skyscraper; e.g. loan word English calque from German
lehnwort.
MORPHOLOGY
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Basic terminology with definitions and examples
MORPHEME = the smallest meaningful unit of language (any part of a word that cannot be
broken down further into smaller meaningful parts, including the whole word itself). The word
'items' can be broken down into two meaningful parts: 'item' and the plural suffix '-s'; neither of
these can be broken down into smaller parts that have a meaning. Therefore 'item' and '-s' are
both morphemes.
FREE MORPHEME = a morpheme that can stand alone as an independent word (e.g. 'item').
BOUND MORPHEME (morfema dependiente) = a morpheme that cannot stand alone as an
independent word, but must be attached to another morpheme/word (affixes, such as plural '-s',
are always bound; roots are sometimes bound, e.g. the 'kep-' of 'kept' or the '-ceive' of 'receive'.
BASE = an element (free or bound, root morpheme or complex word) to which additional
morphemes are added. Also called a STEM. A base can consist of a single root morpheme, as
with the 'kind' of 'kindness'. But a base can also be a word that itself contains more than one
morpheme. For example, we can use the word 'kindness' as a base to form the word
'kindnesses'; to make 'kindnesses', we add the plural morpheme, spelled '-es' in this case, to the
base 'kindness'.
ROOT = a (usually free) morpheme around which words can be built up through the addition of
affixes. The root usually has a more-soecific meaning than the affixes that attach to it. Ex.: The
root 'kind' can have affixes added to it to form 'kindly', 'kindness', 'kinder', 'kindest'. The root is
the item you have left when you strip all other morphemes off of a complex word. In the word
dehumanizing, for example, if you strip off all the affixes -- -ing, -ize, and de-, human is what you
have left. It cannot be divided further into meaningful parts. It is the root of the word.
AFFIX = a bound morpheme which attaches to a base (root or stem). PREFIXES attach to the
front of a base; SUFFIXES to the end of a base; INFIXES are inserted inside of a root. An
example of a prefix is the 're-' of 'rewrite'; of a suffix, '-al' of 'critical'.
INFLECTION= the process by which affixes combine with roots to indicate basic grammatical
categories such as tense or plurality (e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' an d'-ed' are inflectional
suffixes). Inflection is viewed as the process of adding very general meanings to existing words,
not as the creation of new words.
DERIVATION= the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new words (e.g. in
'modern-ize', 'read-er', '-ize' and '-er' are derivational suffixes). Derivation is viewed as using
existing words to make new words. The inflection/derivation difference is increasingly viewed as
shades of gray rather than an absolute boundary. Derivation is much less regular, and therefore
much less predictable, than inflectional morphology. For example, we can predict that most
English words will form their plural by adding the affix <-s> or <-es>. But how we derive nouns
from verbs, for example, is less predictable. Why do we add <-al> to 'refuse', making 'refusal',
but '-ment' to 'pay' to make 'payment'? 'Payal' and 'refusement' are not possible English words.
We have to do more memorizing in learning derivational morphology than in learning inflectional
morphology.
CONTENT MORPHEME: A morpheme that has a relatively more-specific meaningthan a
function morpheme; a morpheme that names a concept/idea in our record of experience of the
world. Content morphemes fall into the classes of noun, verb, adjective, adverb.
FUNCTION MORPHEME: A morpheme that has a relatively less-specific meaning than a
content morpheme; a morpheme whose primary meaning/function is to signal relationships
between other morphemes. Function morphemes generally fall into classes such as articles ('a',
'the'), prepositions ('of', 'at'), auxiliary verbs ('was eating', 'have slept'), etc.
SIMPLE WORD = a word consisting of a single morpheme; a word that cannot be analyzed into
smaller meaningful parts, e.g. 'item', 'five', 'chunk', 'the'.
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COMPLEX WORD = a word consisting of a root plus one or more affixes (e.g. 'items', 'walked',
'dirty').
COMPOUND WORD = a word that is formed from two or more simple or complex words (e.g.
landlord, red-hot, window cleaner).
MORPHOPHONEMICS/ALLOMORPHY = the study of the processes by which morphemes
change their pronunciation in certain situations.
ALLOMORPHS = the different forms (pronunciations) of a single morpheme. Ex: the plural
morpheme in English is {-z}. Its allomorphs are / s /, / z /, / @z /.** Also, the morpheme 'leaf'
has two allomorphs: 'leaf' in words built from it (e.g.'leafy') and 'leav-', found only in the plural:
'leaves'.
Why use a dictionary?
Dictionaries can be used to check spelling, to learn new words, to find or double-check
the meaning of a word you encounter, or to find the right word to use. How to best use a
dictionary depends on what you are doing with words.
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