—WORD COINAGE

—COMPOUNDS

Compound - a word that consists of more than one element.

Compound of words that are in the same grammatical category:

—Noun + noun e.g. girlfriend, landlord, mailman

—Adjective + adjective e.g. icy-cold, red-hot

In English, the rightmost word in a compound is the head of the compound. The head is the part of a word or phrase that determines its broad meaning and grammatical category.

Compound of words that are in different grammatical categories:

—Noun + adjective = adjective e.g. lifelong, headstrong

—Verb + noun = noun e.g. pickpocket, daredevil

—word + preposition = word it is the category of nonprepositional part of the compound

  e.g. overtake, downfall

Dr. Seuss uses the rules of compounding when he explains ‘’when tweetle beetles battle with paddles in a puddle, they call it a tweetle beetle puddle paddle battle”

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—THE MEANING OF COMPOUNDS:

The meaning of compounds is not always the sum of the meanings of its parts:

  e.g. blackboard may be green or white

          falling star is the star that falls, but looking glass is not a glass that looks (it is a mirror)

The stress in the pronunciation of compounds is meaningful:

  e.g. hot-dog /’hɒt dɒg/ a kind of fast-food

          hot dog/,hɒt ‘dɒg/ a dog that is hot

 

           I live in a white house, but I don’t live in the Whitehouse.

              /,waɪt ‘haʊs/          /’waɪt haʊs/

Compounding is a common and frequent process for enlarging the vocabulary of all languages.

—ACRONYMS

Acronyms are words derived from the initials of several words.

  e.g. UNESCO from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

          NASA from National Aeronautics and Space Administration

          scuba from self contained underwater breathing apparatus

Words that we use in emails and in short text messages.

  e.g. FYI (for your information)

          BTW (by the way)

          WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)

—BACK-FORMATION

Back-formation is the process of creating a new word by removing actual or supposed affixes.

e.g. beggar  →  to beg

  peddler  →  to peddle

In Polish, there are examples involving the deletion of the suffix -k-:

  bułka ‘roll’- buła

  dwójka ‘two (grade)’-dwója

—ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviation is the deletion of some part of a longer word to give a shorter word with the same meaning. This process is sometimes called clipping.

Types of clipping:

—Back clipping e.g. exam (examination), gym (gymnastics, gymnasium)

—Fore-clipping e.g. phone (telephone), varsity (university)

—Middle clipping e.g. flu (influenza), tec (detective)

—Complex clipping e.g. op art (optical art), navicert (navigation certificate)

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Back-formation is different from clipping – back-formation changes the part of speech, whereas clipping also creates shortened words from longer words, but does not change the part of speech.

—EPONYMS

Eponyms are words derived from proper names.

For example:

sandwich - named from the Earl of Sandwich, who put his food between two slices of bread so that he could eat while he gambled.

cereal – named from Ceres, Roman goddess of grain and agriculture.

to boycott - named from Charles C. Boycott - snooty Irish landlord.

—BLENDS

Two words may be combined to produce blends. Blends are similar to compounds but parts of the words that are combined are deleted, so they are ‘’less than” compounds.

e.g. smog → smoke + fog

  motel → motor + hotel

  infomercial →  info+ commercial

Blending is even done by children

e.g. crocogator → crocodile + alligator

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—EXERCISE:

Identify word formation processes in the words given below:

Home + work à homework   …………………………………

Automation à automate  …………………………………

Modulator, demodulator à modem  ………………………………...

professor à prof   …………………………………

Pick + pocket à pickpocket   …………………………………

szpilka  à szpila  ……………………………………

parachute à chute   …………………………………

International, police à Interpol  …………………………………

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund  à UNICEF…………………………..

breakfast + lunch à Brunch   …………………………………..

garnek  à gar  ……………………………………

Duke of Wellington à wellington   ……………………………………

Fancy à fan  ……………………………………

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