Download Part 4 Word Formation II The expansion of vocabulary in modern

Part 4
Word Formation II The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word­formation. There is a variety of means being at work now. The most productive are affixation, compounding, and conversion . According to Pyles and Algeo (1982), words produced through affixation constitute 30% to 40% of the total number of new words; compounding yields 28% to 30% of all the new words; conversion gives us 26% of the new vocabulary. The rest of the new words come from shortening, including clipping, and acronymy, , amounting to 8% to 10%, together with 1% to 5% of words born out of blending, and other means. Talking about word­forming patterns means dealing with rules. But a rule of word­formation usually differs from a syntactic rule. Not all the words that are produced by applying the rule are acceptable. For example, the existence of the actual English words unclean, unwise, unfair does not ensure the acceptance of * unexcelled. Therefore, rules only provide a constant set of models from which new words are created from day to day. Rules themselves are not fixed but undergo changes to a certain extent. For instance, affixes and compounding processes may become productive on one time, e.g. de­, non­, ­teria, ­wise (defog, non­hero, cafeteria, weatherwise) or lose their productivity, e.g. the Old English ­th which is found in warmth, length, depth, width, breadth derived from adjectives warm, long, deep, wide, broad is no longer used to form new words, * coolth (Quirk, et al 1985). By word­formation processes, we concentrate on productive or on marginally productive rules. While applying the rules, we should remember that there are always exceptions. 4.1 Affixation Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word­forming or derivaional affixes to stems. This process is also known as derivation, , for new words created in this way are derived from old forms. The words formed in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions which affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subclasses: prefixation, and suffixation, . 4.1.1 Prefixation The same is true of the past tense marker {­ed}, which is realized by /t/ after a verb ending with /p, k/ as in worked, helped; by /d/ after vowels and sounds like /m, n, ­, l/ as in tried, warmed, lived, enabled, and by /id/ after /t, d/ as in wanted, landed, etc. This is also applicable to affixational morphemes. The prefix {in­} has allomorphs such as /im, ir, il/ depending on the first sound of the base to which the prefix is added. If the first sound is /p, b, m/, the realization is /im/ as in improper, immovable, imbalance, but /ir/ with the sound /r/ as in irreconcilable, and /il/ with the sound /l/ as in illegible, and so on. The majority of prefixes are characterized by their non­class­changing nature. Their chief function is to change meanings of the stems. Accordingly, we shall classify prefixes on a semantic basis into eight groups.
1.Negative prefixes: a­, dis­ in­(il­,ir­,im­), non­, un­, e.g. amoral (nonmoral), apolitical (not political); disloyal (not loyal), disobey (not obey); injustice (without justice), illegal (not legal), irresistible (not to be resisted), immature (not mature); non­smoker (not a smoker), non­classical (not classical); unfair (not fair), unwilling (not willing). Of this group, un­ is by far the most productive and can usually replace in­ or dis­ with adjectives for actual use as in unreplaceable, unmovable for irreplaceable and immovable. 2.Reversative prefixes: de­, dis­, un­, e.g. decentralize (give greater powers for self­government), de­compose (separate into parts); disunite (become separate), disallow (refuse to allow); unhorse (cause to fall from a horse), unwrap (open). The prefixes of this group can all be found in the previous class. The reason for their separation lies in the meaning. 3. Pejorative prefixes: mal­, mis­, pseudo­, e.g. maltreat (treat badly), malpractice (wrongdoing); misconduct (bad behaviour), mistrust (not to trust); pseudo­friend (false friend), pseudo­science (false science). 4. Prefixes of degree or size: arch­, extra­, hyper­, macro­, micro­, mini­, out­, over­, sub­, super­, sur­, ultra­, under­, e.g. archbishop (a priest in charge of bishops in a large area); extra­strong (very strong), hyperactive (extremely active); macrocosm (the universe); microcomputer (very small computer); mini­election (small­scale election); outlive (live longer than); overweight (weighing more than normal); subheading (secondary heading); superfreeze (freeze to a very low temperature); surtax (tax too much); ultra­conservative (extremely conservative); underdeveloped (less developed). 5. Prefixes of orientation and attitude: anti­, contra­, counter­, pro­, e.g. anti­nuclear, anti­government; contraflow (the arrangement for the traffic to go on both directions on one side of the road); pro­student (on the side of the student), pro­democracy (supporting democracy). 6. Locative prefixes: extra­, fore­, inter­, intra­, tele­, trans­, e.g. extraordinary (more than ordinary), extramarital (outside marriage); forehead, forearm; inter­city (between cities), interpersonal (concerning relations between people); intra­party (within the party); telecommunication (communication by telephone, radio, television, etc.); trans­world (across the, world), transcontinental (across the continent). 7. Prefixes of time and order: ex­, fore­, post­, pre­, re­, e.g. ex­professor (former professor), ex­student (former student); foretell (tell before happening), foreknowledge (knowledge before happening); post­election (after election); pre­prepared (prepared beforehand); reconsider (consider again). 8. Number prefixes: bi­, multi­(poly_), semi­(hemi­), tri­, uni­(mono­), e.g. bicycle, bilingual (concerning two languages); multi­purpose (more than one purpose), polysyllable (more than one syllable); semi­naked (half naked), hemisphere (a half of the earth on either side of equator); tricycle (a vehicle with three wheels); uniform (not different), monorail (one rail). 9. Miscellaneous prefixes: auto­, neo­, pan­, vice­, e.g. autobiography (biography written by oneself), neo­Nazi (new Nazi); pan­European (the whole of Europe); vice­chairman (deputy chairman). Some highly productive prefixes:
de­: meaning "negation, reversal, removal" decentralize, depenalize, defocus, depoliticize, defrost, defog, deschool (abolish traditional schools), devalue (lessen the value of), defeather, depost, deplane, detrain (get off) non­: added to nouns, adjectives and adverbs, meaning "not, not important, of little value, not traditional" non­scientific, non­musician, non­additive, non­book, non­friend, non­hero,non­novel, non­topic, con­conversation anti­: traditionally meaning "against, preventing" anti­crime, anti­fat, anti­noise newly meaning "against traditional characteristics" anti­art, anti­music, anti­novelist, anti­theatre E.g. In my happier nightmare," he adds, "I see myself attending an anti­play with an anti­audience after a dinner prepared by an anti­cook." mini­: meaning "very small" mini­cinema, min­crisis, mini­war, mini­election, mini­boom, mini­lecture, mini­bikini, mini­by­pass Suffixaton Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems. Unlike prefixes which primarily change the meaning of the stem, suffixes have only a small semantic role, their primary function being to change the grammatical function of stems. In other words, they mainly change the word class. Therefore, we shall group suffixes on a grammatical basis into noun suffixes, verb suffixes, adjective suffixes, etc. By noun suffix or adjective suffix, we mean that when the suffix under discussion is added to the stem, whatever class it belongs to, the result will be a noun or an adjective. For example, ­er is treated as a noun suffix because all the derived forms from it are nouns whether it is fixed at the end of a verb as in employer or of a noun as in villager. The first kind is thus called deverbal nouns and the second denominal nouns. 1. Noun suffixes 1) Denominal nounsa. Concrete. The suffixes of this group are added to noun bases to produce concrete nouns: ­eer, ­er, ­ess, ­ette, ­let, ­ster e.g. profiteer (person who makes unfairly large profits), engineer; teenager; hostess (female host), priestess (female priest); cigarette, kitchenette (small kitchen); booklet (small book); gangster (member of the gang), songster (skilled singer), trickster, rhymester, punster. b. Abstract. The following suffixes come at the end of noun stems to form abstract nouns: ­age, ­dom, ­ery (­ry), ­ful, ­hood, ­ing, ­ism, ­ship, e.g. wastage, mileage; officialdom (officials as a group); slavery; mouthful (room, arm, spoon, hand); adulthood (condition of being an adult); farming; terrorism (the use of violence to obtain political demands); friendship, sportsmanship. 2) Deverbal nounsa. The following suffixes combine with verb stems to create largely nouns
denoting people: ­ant, ­ee, ­ent, ­er(­or), e.g. assistant, informant (one who gives information to police, etc); employee, trainee; respondent (person who responds), dependent (one who depends on someone else for food, clothing etc.) b. Suffixes of this group added to verb stems to produce largely abstract nouns, denoting action, result, process, state, etc.: ­age, ­al, ­ance, ­ation (­ition, ­tion, ­sion, ­ion), ­ence, ­ing, ­ment, ­ity e.g. linkage, carriage; dismissal, survival; attendance, performance, protection, decision; existence, persistence; building, savings; statement, judgement. 3) De­adjective nouns: ­ity, ­ness, e.g. popularity, productivity; happiness, largeness.­ity ­ve: productivity, sensitivity ­r: popularity, familiarity ­al: morality, generality ­able/­ible: ability, responsibility 4) Noun and adjective suffixes A small number of suffixes, when added to stems related to human beings or nationality names, form words that can be used both as nouns and adjectives: ­ese, ­an, ­ist, e.g. Lebanese, Chinese; Australian, Elizabethan; socialist, violinist. 2.Adjective suffixes 1) Denominal suffixes (added to nouns): ­ed, ­ful, ­ish, ­less, ­like, ­ly, ­y, e.g. wooded, simple­minded; successful; childish, foolish; priceless, nameless; lady­like, dreamlike; cowardly, friendly; smoky, bloody. Among them, ­ish can be added to adjective stems to form adjectives, e.g. brownish, coldish. This group also includes ­al (­ial, ­ical), ­esque, ­ic, ­ous (­eous, ­ious), e.g. cultural, residential; picturesque; economic, historic; courageous, marvellous. ­ly can be added to father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, man, woman.­y can be added to cream, rain, sun, wind, winter, sand, hill, hair, water. It is worth noting that both ­ic and ­ical can be affixed to the same stem in some cases, but differ in meaning: classic (great, memorable) comic (of comedy) classical (of Latin and Greek) comical (funny) historic (important in hist.) historical (of history) economic (in the economy) economical (money­saving) electric (powered by electr.) electrical (of electricity) 2) Deverbal suffixes (added to verbs): ­able (­ible), ­ive (­ative, ­sive), e.g. washable, arguable, permissible; active, decisive, productive. 3. Adverb suffixes: ­ly, ­ward(s), ­wise, e.g. calmly, naturally, publicly; homewards, downward, onward; clockwise (in the direction in which the hands of the clock move), education­wise (so far as education is concerned). ­ward(s) can be added to in, out, up, down, back, fore, side, sky, earth, east, west, north, south. ­wise can be added to budget, time, money, security, economy, life.
4. Verb suffixes: ­ate, ­en, ­(i)fy, ­ize(­ise), e.g. originate (have as ... origin); darken, heighten, strengthen; solidify (make ... solid), beautify (make more beautiful); modernize, symbolize. In modern English, there are some seemingly productive vogue affixes like ­nik (a person who becomes devoted to or a member of), which gives birth to quite a few words such as folknik (one fond of folk music), peacenik (devotee to peace), jazznik (jazz fan), protestnik (one who protests against sth). But most of them, if not all, are still considered slang and have not been widely accepted. Therefore, they are not listed here. 4.2 Compounding Compounding, also called composition, is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems. Words formed in this way are called compounds. So a compound is a 'lexical unit consisting of more than one stem and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word'. Silkworm and honey­bee are compounds; so are tear gas and easy chair. These examples show that compounds can be written solid (silkworm), hyphenated (honey­bee) and open (tear gas and easy chair). As open compounds are the same in form as free phrases, what is the dividing line between them? Solid: breakneck, flowerpot Hyphenated: honey­bee, flower­pot Open: easy chair, flower pot 4.2.1 Characteristics of Compounds Compounds differ from free phrases in the following three aspects. 1. Phonetic features. In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first element whereas in noun phrases the second element is generally stressed if there is only one stress. In cases of two stresses, the compound has the primary stress on the first element and the secondary stress, if any, on the second whereas the opposite is true of free phrases, e.g. Compound Free phrase a `fat head a fat `head a `hot house a hot `house a `dark horse a dark `horse a `green room a green `room But these stress patterns of compounds are not absolute. Sometimes, the primary stress may also fall on the second element as in ash­`blonde and bottle­`green as well as in combining­form compounds, socio­lin`guistic, psycho­a`nalysis. Therefore, this is not always reliable. Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word­forming or derivaional affixes to stems. This process is also known as derivation, , for new words created in this way are derived from old forms. The words formed in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions which affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subclasses: prefixation, and suffixation, .
2. Semantic features. Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word. For instance, a green hand is an 'inexperienced person', not a hand that is green in colour; red meat refers to 'beef' or 'lamb' rather than any meat that is red in colour; hot dog is by no means a dog that is hot, but a typical American sausage in between two pieces of bread. The meanings of such examples cannot be easily inferred from the two components of the compounds. Nevertheless, a lot of compounds are transparent, that is the meaning can be inferred from the separate elements of compounds. Consider the following random examples: disaster­related, flower pot, washing machine, dumb show, scarlet fever and many others. But the two elements are inseparable and the change of the element would result in the loss of the original identity. Look at the following examples; bird brain hot potato black mail dog days the youngest daughter that white dark horse a bright dark room 3. Grammatical features. A compound tends to play a single grammatical role in a sentence, for example, a verb, a noun, or an adjective. Bad­mouth used as a verb can take the third person singular ­s and the past tense marker ­ed, e.g. 'He bad­mouthed me.' Compound nouns show their plural forms by taking inflectional ­s at the end, e.g. new­borns, three­year­olds, will­o'­the­wisps, major generals. Of course, there are exceptions such as brothers­in­law, lookers­on. In spite of this their single grammatical role is apparent. 4.2.2 Formation of Compounds Compounding can take place within any of the word classes, e.g. prepositions as without,
throughout; conjunctions as however, moreover; pronouns as oneself, somebody, but the productive ones are nouns and adjectives followed by verbs to a much lesser extent. Most compounds consist of only two stems but are formed on a rich variety of patterns and the internal grammatical relationships within the words are considerably complex. This section will focus on the three major classes of compounds. 1. Noun compounds Of these patterns, (1), (3) and (5) are very productive. 3. Verb compounds Verb compounds are not as common as the other two classes. The limited number of verbs are created either through conversion or backformation (See Conversion and Backformation for details). Through conversion Through backformation
As shown by the examples, back­formed verb compounds are formed mainly by dropping the suffixes: ­er, ­ing, ­ion, etc. The discussion so far is restricted to two­stem compounds. There are many compounds which contain more than two stems. In fact, these are free phrases or idioms but are joined together by hyphens to form a single unit, for example, stay­at­home, forget­me­not, dog­in­the­manger. This probably accounts for the high productivity of compounding. When a word which is needed does not exist, all one has to do is choose an expression or even a sentence and hyphenate the words. This is the common practice of journalists and popular writers. In mass media we may often come across expressions like a pain­in­stomach gesture, ahead­of­schedule general election, too­eager­not­to­lose champion, a middle­of­the­road politician, and round­the­clock discussion. Multistem words stay­at­home forget­me­not dog­in­the­manger pain­in­stomach gesture ahead­of­schedule general election too­eager­not­to­lose champion a middle­of­the­road politician round­the­clock discussion. devil­may­care twist­and­turn waist paint­yourself­dress A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who says that women had outgrown the jumping­on­a­chair­at­the­sight­of­a­mouse era and a major who says that they haven't. 4.3 Conversion 4.3.1 Characteristics Conversion is the formation of new words by s the formation of new words by another class. This is a method of turning words of one part of speech to those of a different part of speech. These words are new only in a grammatical sense. Since the words do not change in morphological structure but in function, this process is also known as functional shift. Look at the word round in the following sentences: [4a] He was knocked out in the first round.
[4b] Round the number off to the nearest tenth. [4c] The neighbours gathered round our barbecue. [4d] The moon was bright and round. [4e] People came from all the country round. In each sentence round is used as a different part of speech: noun, verb, preposition, adjective and adverb. Conversion is generally considered to be a derivational process whereby an item is adapted or converted to a new word class without the addition of an affix. Hence, the name zero­derivation. Take single and simple for example. Both are adjectives, but single can be used as a verb without changing the form, e.g. 'She singled him out at once as a possible victim.' In contrast, simple cannot function as a verb without adding an affix, e.g. 'Continental quilts simplify (not simple) bed­making.' The first instance is a case of zero­derivation or conversion whereas the second is one of suffixation as the suffix ­ify is added to make simple a verb. Words produced by conversion are primarily nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The most productive, however, is the conversion that takes place between nouns and verbs. It deserves noting that conversion is not only a change of grammatical function of the lexical item involved but with it the different range of meaning that it originally carried. For example, the word paper as a noun has four senses: a) material in thin sheets made from wood or cloth, b) a newspaper, c) a piece of writing for specialists, and d) wallpaper. When turned into a transitive verb, it is related only to d) as in 'the papered the room green.' Conversion involves mainly three classes of words: nouns, verbs and adjectives. 4.3.2 Formation 1. Conversion to noun 1) Verb to noun. Almost all mono­morphemic verbs can be used as nouns, which are semantically related to the original verbs in various ways according to Quirk et al: (1) State (of mind or sensation) doubt want the state of doubting what is wanted desire, love, hate, smell, taste (2) Event or activity search the activity of searching laugh the act of laughing attempt, hit, release, swim, shut­down, teach­in (3) Result of the action catch what is caught find what is found reject, buy, hand­out, answer, bet (4) Doer of the action help one who helps cheat one who cheats
bore, coach, flirt, scold, stand­in (5) Tool or instrument to do the action with cover used to cover something wrap used to wrap something cure, paper, wrench (6) Place of the action pass where one has to pass walk a place for walking divide, turn, drive, retreat, lay­by Many simple nouns converted from verbs can be used with have, take, make, give etc. to form phrases to replace the verb or denote a brief action: have a look (smoke, swim, try, wash); take a walk (ride, glance, rest, shower); give a cry (grant, start, laugh, shudder); make a move (guess, offer, slip, attempt). Look at the following examples: You'd better have another think. There's no come and go with her. I dutifully recoded a 2­1 win for the guest team. Words like hand­out, stand­by, lay­by, teach­in, shut­down are all converted from phrasal verbs. Such conversion is very common in English. The examples cited here keep their original order, hand­out from hand out, stand­by from stand by. Sometimes, when a phrasal verb is turned into a noun, the verb and particle should be inverted, for example, flow over to overflow, break out to outbreak, fall down to downfall, take in to intake, etc. 2) Adjective to noun. It is not unusual to have nouns converted from adjectives. Unlike verbs, not all adjectives which are converted can achieve a full noun status. Some are completely converted, thus known as full conversion, others are only partially converted, hence partial conversion. (1) Words fully converted. A noun fully converted from an adjective has all the characteristics of nouns. It can take an indefinite article or ­(e)s to indicate singular or plural number. They can be a. common adjectives: a white a liberal a native Republican finals n ecessaries drinkables valuables b. participles and others: a given a drunk young marrieds newly­weds Look at the actual use of adjectives as nouns. a. Come to the fire and have a warm.
b. The inexperienced young hopefuls were pushed aside in the scramble for places. c. Poor innocents! d. I'm one of his familiars. (2) Words partially converted. Nouns partially converted from adjectives do not possess all the qualities a noun does. They must be used together with definite articles. What's more, they retain some of the adjective features, for example, the poor, the rich, the young, the wounded, the poorer, the more affluent, the most corrupt. Words of this class generally refer to a group of the kind, the young = young people, the wounded = wounded soldiers. But such nouns can refer to a single person as well, e.g. the deceased (departed, accused, deserted, condemned). Look at the actual use of partially converted adjectives. a. The old man is the poorest among the poor. b. The young should not look down upon the old. 3) Miscellaneous conversion. This covers nouns converted from conjunctions, modals, finite verbs, prepositions, etc. [5] Would you like a with or a without­ [6] Better to be an also­ran than a never­was. [7] His argument contains too many ifs and buts. [8] Life is full of ups and downs. [9] Rubber gloves are a must if your skin is sensitive to washing powders. [10] Patriotisms, nationalisms, and any other isms you'd like to name. Such phrases as ups and downs, ins and outs, pros and cons are well established and should always be used in plural forms. 2.Conversion to verbs As is often the case, a noun can be converted to a verb without any change. The use of the verb converted is both economical and vivid. For example, 'to elbow one's way through the crowd' is more concise and impressive than 'to push one's way through the crowd with one's elbow'. Compare another two sentences to see the effect of using nouns as verbs. [11a] They now eat better food, live in better houses, and wear better clothes than ever before. [11b] They are better fed, better housed, and better clothed than ever before. 1) Noun to verb. Verbs converted from nouns are semantically related to the original nouns in a variety of ways. Quirk et al sum up as follows: (1) To put in or on N to pocket the money to put money into the pocket to can the fruit to put the fruit into cans bottle, garage, corner, shelve (2) To give N or to provide with N to shelter the refugees to give shelter to the refugees to oil the
machine to provide the machine with oil butter, fuel, grease, arm, finance, coat (3) To remove N from to skin the lamb to remove the skin from the lamb to juice the oranges to remove the juice from the oranges core, peel, feather, core, gut (4) To do with N to pump water to bring water with a pump to knife the steak to cut the steak with a knife brake, fiddle, finger, hammer, shoulder, glue (5) To be or act as N to nurse the baby to be the nurse for the baby to captain the team to act as the captain for the team father, parrot, pilot, referee, tutor (6) To make or change into N to cash the cheque to change the cheque into cash to orphan the boy to make the boy an orphan cripple, fool, knight, widow (7) To send or go by N to mail the letter to send the letter by mail to bicycle to go by bicycle helicopter, ship, telegraph, boat, motor Verbs of this type are all transitive except (7): helicopter, bicycle, boat, motor. Look at the actual use of nouns as verbs. a. That young writer pens gripping tales b. Watching a television movie is really like watching commercials with a movie sandwiched in between. c. Thumb through any dictionary and you find the word. d. He can't stomach such an insult. e. He Hamleted at the chance and then he regretted for it. f. Let's weekend in the country. g. Robert roomed next to me. 2) Adjective to verb. Conversion of adjectives into verbs is not as productive as that of nouns. The verbs thus converted are semantically simple, that is, they can be used either transitively to mean 'to make...adjective' or intransitively 'to become adjective', e.g. [12] He walked carefully so as not to wet his shoes. [13] The photograph yellowed with age. In [12] wet is used as a transitive verb meaning 'make...wet', so the sentence can be paraphrased as 'He walked carefully so as not to make his shoes wet.' The verb yellow in [13] does not take an object,
obviously an intransitive use meaning 'become yellow', thus the sentence can be rephrased as 'the photograph became yellow with age.' Most verbs converted from adjectives have both transitive and intransitive functions, for example: [14a] Two men carrying a wooden keg emptied its contents into the opening. [14b] The play was over and the auditorium began to empty. Here are some more words: dim, dirty, warm, cool, slow, clear, dry, narrow. Verbs restricted to transitive use are still, forward, free, bare, blind and so on. Those limited to intransitive use are by far fewer like sour, slim. 3) Miscellaneous conversion [15] The intellectuals are muched again. [16] We downed a few beers. [17] The students tut­tut the idea. [18] She will off and do her own thing. [19] But me no buts. [20] The engineers ahed and ouched at the new car. 4.3.3 Changes In some cases, conversion is accompanied by certain changes which affect pronunciation or spelling or stress distribution. The most common changes are: (1)Voiceless to voiced consonant Noun Verb house /­s/ house /­z/ use /­s/ use /­z/ mouth /­θ/ mouth /­ e/ shelf /­f/ shelve /­v/ sheath /­θ/ sheathe /­e/ (2) Initial to end stress This stress shift occurs usually in two syllable words. When used as a noun, the stress falls on the first syllable whereas as a verb, the stress moves onto the second syllable, e.g. `conduct (n) ­ con`duct (v), `extract (n) ­ex`tract (v), `permit (n) ­ per`mit (v) and so on. In some rare cases, a big change of pronunciation may happen as in breath /e/­ breathe /i:/, bath /a:/ ­bathe /ei/, food – feed, blood – bleed. 4.4 Blending Blending is the formation of new words by combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word. Words formed in this way are called blends or pormanteau words. For example, flush is the combination of fl in the word flash and ush in the word blush. Similarly, smog is the result of putting sm out of smoke and og out of fog together. Blending is a very productive process and many coinages resulting from blending have become well­established. Moreover, they even serve as models for new formations. Hamburger is a popular fast food
originating from the German seaport Hamburg. Later people mistook it as a combination of ham + burger and coined such words by analogy as beefburger, cheeseburger, shrimpburger. As far as the structure is concerned, blends fall into four major groups: 1. head + tail autocide from (automobile + suicide) motel from (motor + hotel) slurb from (slum + suburb) cremains from (cremate + remains) chunnel from (channel + tunnel) 2. head + head comsat from (communications + satellite) telex from (teleprinter + exchange) Amerind from (American + Indian) sitcom from (situation + comedy) FORTRAN from (formula + translator) 3. head + word medicare from (medical + care) Eurasia from (Europe + Asia) telequiz from (telephone + quiz) autocamp from (automobile + camp) 4. word + tail lunarnaut from (lunar + astronaut) bookmobile from (book + automobile) workfare from (work + welfare) tourmobile from (tour + automobile) The overwhelming majority of blends are nouns; very few are verbs and adjectives are even fewer. The few verbs are: telecast from (television + broadcast), guestimate from (guess + estimate), breathalyse from (breath + analyse). Blends are mostly used in writing related to science and technology, and to newspapers and magazines. Though many of them have already achieved currency in English, they are still considered by serious­minded people to be slang and informal. Therefore, it is advisable not to use such words too often, particularly in formal writing. 4.5 Clipping Another common way of making a word is to shorten a longer word by cutting a part off the original and using what remains instead. This is called clipping. For example, omnibus has given way to its shortened form bus. Similarly, plane and exam are often used in place of aeroplane, and
examination respectively. In modern times, people tend to be economical in writing and speech to keep up with the tempo of new life style. To save time one is likely to clip words that are frequently used, e.g. bike for bicycle, auto for automobile, taxi for taximeter cabriolet. In schools we use econ, gym, math, and trig for economics, gymnastics, mathematics, trigonometry. In catering business, we eat lunch instead of luncheon, have a burger instead of a hamburger, and take a coke instead of cocoa cola. There are four common types of clipping: 1. Front clipping 2. Back clipping 3. Front and back clipping 4. Phrase clipping In some cases, clipping gives rise to alterations in spelling and pronunciation as indicated by fridge, in which the letter d is inserted between i and g to conform to the English ways of spelling and pronunciation. More examples are bike from bicycle, mike from microphone, coke from cocoa cola, pram from perambulator, and telly from television. This change in form and sound is possibly due to convenience and casualness in speech. People often omit one or two syllables and then when is written down new spelling forms are coined to suit the oral forms. 4.6 Acronymy Acronymy is the process of forming new words by such as the names of social and political organizations or special technical terms. Words formed in this way are called initialisms or acronyms, depending on the pronunciation of the words. 4.6.1 Initialisms Initialisms are words pronounced letter by letter. In cases like A.D.(Anno Domini = in the year after the birth of Jesus Christ), B.C.(Before Christ) and C.O.D. (cash on delivery), the letters are separated by periods, but most of them have no periods between the letters.
1. Letters represent full words: 2. Letters represent constituents in a compound or just parts of a word: 4.6.2 Acronyms Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as a normal word, for example radar (radio detecting and ranging), and WAVES (Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service), etc. More examples are as follows: Some acronyms are formed with the initial letter of the first word plus the whole of the second, e.g. Both initialisms and acronyms have become very popular since the Second World War and thus extremely productive. This is justified by the number of such words collected in E. T. Crowley's Acronyms and Initialisms Dictionary. The 1st edition which appeared in 1961 contains 12,000 entries; the 2nd edition that came out in 1965 lists 45,000 entries and the 3rd edition which was published in 1970 collects 80,000 entries, almost twice the number in the second edition. With the advance of time, some of the words may fall out of use whereas by far a greater number of words will be added. Acronymy will undoubtedly remain an important contributor to contemporary English vocabulary.
4.7 Back­formation Back­formation is considered to be the opposite process of suffixation. As we know, suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to bases, and back­formation is therefore the method of creating words by removing/so­called the supposed suffixes. This is because many of the removed suffixes are not true suffixes but inseparable parts of the words. For example, it is a common practice to add ­er, ­or, ­ar to verb bases to form human nouns. Reasonably, people make verbs by dropping the endings such as ­or in editor, and ­er in butler. This is how we derive edit and butle. Back­formation usually involves the following types of words: 1. Abstract nouns 2. Human nouns 3. Compound nouns and others 4. Adjectives Words created through back­formation are mostly verbs. There are only a few that can be used as nouns or as both nouns and verbs, e.g. gloom (n) from gloomy (a), greed (n) from greedy (a). Stylistically, back­formed words are largely informal and some of them have not gained public acceptance. Therefore, they should be used with care. 4.9 Words from Proper Names Apart from the means of word?formation discussed so far, there is an interesting source of English vocabulary, i.e. proper nouns. A good example of such is the word sandwich, which now denotes a popular fast food. It originates from John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich in 18th­century England. He was so fond of gambling that he often forgot his meals. He often ordered slices of bread
with thick pieces of roast beef stuffed between them be brought to him so he could eat while playing. Later, people used his name to refer to all similar food. This is how his name came to be in common use. Modern English has a large number of words which come from proper nouns. They include names of people, names of places, names of books and trade names. 1. Names of people Words of this group are from names of scientists, inventors, etc. e.g. ampere, farad, ohm, volt, watt from French physicist Ampere, British physicist Faraday, German physicist Ohm, Italian physicist Volta and Scottish inventor Watt respectively. These terms are now used as measurements of electricity. Similarly, diesel was invented by the German inventor Diesel, mackintosh (waterproof cloth or rain coat) by the Scottish inventor Mackintosh, and bloomers (woman's short loose trousers gathered at the knee) by Mrs Bloomers in New York. Some words are from characters in mythology, e.g. cherub (a charming pretty male child) from Cherub, a winged little attendant of God, and protean (able to assume different forms or characters; versatile) from Proteus, a sea deity with the gift of prophecy and the power to assume different forms. Some are from historical figures, e.g. bobby (BrE policeman) from Sir Robert Peel, founder of London police in early 19th century; cynic (one always suspicious of people's motives and quisling (traitor), from Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian army officer who betrayed his country to the Nazis. There are words from characters in literary works, e.g. quixotic (extravagantly romantic, idealistic, chivalrous), from Don Quixote in the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Cervantes, sadism (getting sexual pleasure from hurting other people) from Count Donation (Marquis) de Sade, and robot (a humanoid mechanical creature), from the mechanical monsters in the play R.U.R. by Karel Capek. 2. Names of places Many words denoting products, objects or materials come from the names of places where they were first produced, e.g. china (porcelain), from the homeland China, afghan (a kind of knitted rug) first made in Afghanistan, jersey (sweater) from Jersey Island in the US, champagne (a kind of wine) from Champagne in France where the wine champagne was first produced, and rugby (a sort of ball games) from a British Rugby School, which used to be known for the game. 3. Names of books Quite a few words come from names of books and thus take on the meanings associated with the names described in the books. For example, utopia (a imaginary perfect society) is from Sir Thomas More's book Utopia, odyssey (an extended journey) from Homer's epic The Odyssey, which describes all the hardships Odysseus experienced on his voyage home after the fall of Troy, and Babbit (a person concerned mainly with business and position, caring little for art or culture) from the novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. 4. Tradenames Words like nylon, orlon, dacron, rayon were originally tradenames and are now used to denote the four types of fabric. Other examples are Frisbee (a plate­like toy), deep­freeze (a deep freezer), Omega (a kind of cigarette), xerox (photocopier) and so on.
When proper nouns are commonized, many of them have lost their original identity: a) the initial letter may not be capitalized as already shown; they can be converted to other classes, e.g. boycott (n & v) meaning 'refusal or refuse to do business with, attend or take part in, as a way of disapproval or opposition' from the 19th century Landlord Captain Boycott, and cabal (n & v) meaning 'clique or make secret plans for political action', from the initial letters of the five ministers Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and lauderdale. These words can also take suffixes ­ic, ­an, ­al, ­ist,­ese,­ish, ­esque to form adjectives as in colossal, irenic, stentorian, Micawberish, picaresque, and suffixes ­ism, ­(i)ne, ­age, ­ade, ­ia, ­ity, ­ry to form nouns as in solecism, morphine, sabotage, pasquinade, Babbittry, magnolia, etc. Words that are commonized from proper nouns have rich cultural associations and thus stylistically vivid, impressive and thought­provoking, e.g. [19] I want to be TV's czar of script and grammar. [20] Churchill, a bent Pickwick in blue uniform, looked up at him with majestic good humor,much older, more dignified, more assured. [21] It is with procrustean thoroughness that the Soviet government squelches all dissent. The word czar refers to the emperors of Russia until 1917, but it originates from the Roman Emperor Caesar. Now it is used to denote 'any one with great or unlimited power', 'authority'. So in sentence [19] the speaker wants to have the same power and authority in the realm of TV script and grammar as Caesar did in the Roman Empire, implying his domineering personality and ambition. In sentence [20] Churchill is compared to Pickwick, a naive, benevolent character in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. The word Pickwick not only describes the outward appearance of Churchill but also depicts his inward personality, building up an amiable image in the reader's mind, so vivid and striking as if right in front of one. The word procrustean conjures up quite a different image. It is from Procrustes, a giant of Attica who tortured travellers by stretching or cutting off their limbs to make them fit his bed, hence 'ruthless in trying to force conformity'. The soviet government treats the dissent with the same cruelty as Procrustes did with the travellers, leaving an unforgettable picture of horror and terror. Needless to say, the replacement of these words with synonymous equivalents would surely have completely different effect.