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Word Formation

The document discusses various processes of word formation in English grammar. It explains that word formation rules help identify a word's grammatical class and show flexibility in applying rules. These rules have limited productivity, as new words formed from rules must gain common usage. The major word formation processes in English are affixation (adding prefixes and suffixes), conversion (changing word class without inflection), and compounding (joining word bases). Words can undergo multiple derivations through reapplying rules. Word spelling may change when suffixes are added. Phrasal derivation and minor processes like blending also form new words in English.

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Abigail Cordero
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183 views2 pages

Word Formation

The document discusses various processes of word formation in English grammar. It explains that word formation rules help identify a word's grammatical class and show flexibility in applying rules. These rules have limited productivity, as new words formed from rules must gain common usage. The major word formation processes in English are affixation (adding prefixes and suffixes), conversion (changing word class without inflection), and compounding (joining word bases). Words can undergo multiple derivations through reapplying rules. Word spelling may change when suffixes are added. Phrasal derivation and minor processes like blending also form new words in English.

Uploaded by

Abigail Cordero
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

WORD FORMATION

RELEVANCE OF WORD-FORMATION TO GRAMMAR: The rules by which words


are constructed are important to the study of grammar for two reasons. Firstly,
they help us to recognize the grammatical class of a word by its structure.
Secondly, they teach us that there is flexibility in the application of grammatical
rules, whereby the native speaker may transfer words, with or without the
addition of affixes or other words, to a new grammatical class.

PRODUCTIVENESS: a rule of word-formation usually differs from a syntactic rule


in one important respect: it is of limited productivity, in the sense that not all
words which result from the application of the rule are acceptable; they are freely
acceptable only when they have gained an institutional currency in the language.

Rules of word-formation are therefore at the intersection of the historical and


contemporary (synchronic) study of the language, providing a constant set of
models from which new words, ephemeral or permanent, are created from day
to dat. Affixes and compounding processed can become productive or lose their
productivity, can increase or decrease their range of meaning or grammatical
applicability.

BORROWING AND NEOCLASSICAL FORMATIONS: from the Renaissance to the


early 20th century English word-formation was dominated by neo-classicism. The
vocabulary was augmented by borrowing and adaptation of Latin and Greek words
that is why the majority of prefixes in the language are of Latin, Greek, or French
origin.

AFFIXATION, CONVERSION, AND COMPOUNDING: the chief (main) processes of


English word-formation by which the base may be modified are:

Adding a prefix to the base, with or without a change of


word-class (e.g. Author co-author)
Affixation
Adding a suffix to the base, with or without a change of
word-class (e.g. drive driver)
Assigning the base to a different word-class without
Conversion changing its form (zero affixation drive, as a noun
drive, as a verb)
Compounding Adding one base to another (e.g. tea + pot teapot)

REAPPLICATION AND COMBINATION OF WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES: one


a base has undergone (to undergo) a rule of word-formation, the derived word
itself may become the base for another derivation; and so, by reapplication. For
example: unfriendliness
1. Friend Noun
2. (friend)-ly Noun adjective
3. Un- [(friend)-ly] Adjective adjective
4. {un-[(friend)-ly]} -ness Adjective noun

WORD-FORMATION, SPELLING, AND HYPHENATION: the spelling of a word


may undergo change, according to the spelling rules in English, when a suffix is
added and consequently the final part of the word assumes medial position in the
derived word:

Unfriendly Unfriendliness Panic Panicky


Happy Happily Cause Causation
Red Reddish Change Changeable

Compound elements are frequently hyphenated. At the same time prefixes are
more like compound elements in that they are often joined to the base by a hyphen
e.g. pseudo-scientific, anti-war.

LEXICAL ITEMS: as the grammatical word (item functioning as noun, verb,


adjective, etc.) is not necessarily identical with the orthographic word (a
sequence of symbols bounded by spaces on the page) the grammatical word in not
identical with the lexical word(often called lexical item). The lexical item is the
unit involved in the word-formation.

PHRASAL DERIVATION: the rules of word-formation could operate on idioms or


lexical items which are grammatical phrases. For example a noun phrase can
become the base of a derived word, by affixation or compounding: old maid+ -ing=
old maidish.

MINOR WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES: English has also a number of minor


devices as means of forming new words on the basis of old. These minor processes
are: blending, clipping,andacronymy.

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