Dr. Marwa Abdel Mohsen

Chapter 5

Word FormationTheStudyofLanguage

GeorgeYule

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Etymology• Thestudyoftheoriginandhistoryofwords.

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WordFormationProcesses

1. Borrowing

2. Compounding

• Blending

3. Clipping

• Hypocorisms

• Backformation

4. Conversion

5. Coinage

•Acronyms

6. Derivation

• Prefixes,suffixes,andinfixes

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Borrowing

• Itistakingwordsfromotherlanguages.

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Borrowing• Oneofthemostcommonsourcesofnewwords.

• ExamplesofEnglishborrowingfromother

languages:

• Piano(Italian)

• Yogurt(Turkish)

• Alcohol(Arabic)

• Croissant(French)

• FromEnglishtootherlanguages:

• Suupaamaaketto/sport/klub/futbal

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Borrowing

Loan-translation(Calque)

Adirecttranslationofthewordintothe

borrowinglanguage.

Skyscraper

Lehnwort

Gratteciel(Fr)/wolkenkrabber(Dutch)/wolkenkratzer(Gr)

Loan-word

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Compounding

• Thejoiningoftwoseparatewordstoformasingleword.

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Blending

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• Thecombinationoftwoseparateformstoproduceasingle

newterm.

• Takingthebeginningofonewordandjoiningittotheend

ofanother.

• smoke/fog

• Binary/digit

• Teleprinter/exchange

• Information/entertainment

SMOG

BIT

TELEX

INFOTAINMENT

Blending

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Clipping• Itoccurswhenawordofmorethanonesyllableis

reducedtooneword.

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Clipping

Hypocorisms

Awordreducedtoasinglesyllable,yorieisaddedtotheend

telly(television)

movie(movingpictures)

bookie(bookmaker)

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Clipping

Backformation

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Clipping

Backformation• Aspecializedtypeofreduction

• Awordofonetype(usuallyanoun)isreducedtoformawordofanothertype(usuallyaverb)

DonateDonation

BackformBackformation

BabysitBabysitter

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Conversion• Achangeinthefunctionofawordwithoutany

reduction.

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Verbsasnouns:amust/aguess/aspyPhrasalverbsasnouns:Aprintout/atakeover

Verbsasadjectives:See-throughmaterial/astand-upcomedianAdjectivesasverbs:todirty/toempty

Prepositionsasverbs:They’regoingtoupthepriceofoil./Wedownedtheprices.

Conversion

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Coinage

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• Theinventionoftotallynewtermsforcommercialproductsthatbecomegeneralterms.

• Olderexamples:aspirin,nylon,Vaseline

• Newerexamples:Kleenex,Xerox,Google

Coinage

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Eponyms• Newwordsbasedonthenamesofpersonsorplaces

Coinage

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Acronyms• Newwordsformedfromtheinitiallettersofasetof

otherwords.

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• Byaddingaffixes

Derivation

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Derivation• Themostcommonword-formation

process.

• Linkingaffixestowords

• Affixesareprefixes&suffixes&infixes.

• Prefixes: beginning of words & change the meaning (un+happy=unhappy).

• Suffixes: end of words & change the word class (happy+ly=happily).

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Thank you