1.

Grimm's Law

Grimm’s Law, description of the regular correspondences in Indo-European languages formulated by

Jacob Grimm in his Deutsche Grammatik (1819–37; “Germanic Grammar”) pointed out prominent
correlations between the Germanic and other Indo-European languages of Europe and western Asia.
The law was a systematic and coherent formulation, well supported by examples, of patterns recognized
as early as 1814 by the Danish philologist Rasmus Kristian Rask.

Grimm’s Law affected the Indo-European stop consonants, or stops, which could be articulated as labial,
dental, or velar sounds. Except in special circumstances, any IE word which contained the original
consonants developed the new consonants after Grimm’s Law.

The changes identified by Grimm are as follows:

Voiceless Stops become Voiceless Fricatives

IE p t k

Gmc after Grimm’s Law f θ x ( h in Old English)

[For instance, IE *peisk- vs. OE fisc ‘fish’]

Voiced Stops become Voiceless Stops

IE b d g

Gmc after Grimm’s Law p t k

[For example, IE *grənom vs. PDE(Present-Day English) corn]

Voiced Aspirates become Voiced Fricatives (/bh, dh, gh/) turned into voiced fricatives and usually the
voiced fricatives developed into voiced stops (/b, d, g/) later in history, so that we can ultimately say the
IE voiced aspirates became voiced stops.

[For instance, IE * əndhero- vs. OE under]

Tom Mcarthur summarize the rules within this law as follows: "Grimm's Law holds that unvoiced IE stops
became Germanic unvoiced continuants, that voiced IE stops became Germanic unvoiced stops, and
that unvoiced IE continuants became Germanic voiced stops.

Grimm's Law is important because it demonstrates the development, from the Old Germanic languages,
of more recent languages such as English, Dutch, and Low German. It also shows that changes in a
language and in groups of languages come about gradually and not as a result of random word changes.

2. Pre-Christian Latin loans

Latin contribution to English started long before the Anglo Saxons had come over to England. Some
loans from Latin were present in the Germanic dialects which were brought to England in the first place.
These probably entered Germanic because of contact and trade with the Romans on the continent. The
loanwords of this particular period came into English mainly orally. Contact with the Roman Empire
during several centuries had introduced the Germanic tribes to a number of Latin words before the
Anglo-Saxons invaded England. To this early period, while the Anglo Saxons were still living on the
continent, belongs the first category of Latin influence on English. This may be called the Pre-Christian
period. These words were mostly related to military, governmental and trading terms, or names of
materials new to the Germanic people. These words were related to commerce and travel (such as wine,
cheap, mint, inch, and street), art of cooking (cook, kitchen, and mill), vessels and receptacles (chest,
dish), plants and fruits (pear, peach, pea, pepper, and plum). The study of these words shows that these
were short, concrete ones, picked up orally and easily assimilated. In their primitive simplicity, the
Germanic people had borrowed only these practical words. 

3. Scandinavian war and law terms

Although the Scandinavian loan words began to enter the English language probably at the same time
when the Vikings settled down (the period of Old English), the evidence in writing can be found mostly
in Middle English texts. The loanwords were recorded long after they came in use because it took some
time before they entered the Standard English. Baugh and Cable divided the early loanwords (in OE) into
two groups. The first group constitutes words “associated with sea-roving and predatory people” (99).
The second group is made out of “words relating to the law or characteristic of the social and
administrative system of Danelaw”. The attempt of the Scandinavians to impose their own Danish law
on England is evident from the number of Scandinavian law-terms that have entered the language. For
instance, “law”, “by-law”, “thrall”, “crave” are all Scandinavian words. As the Scandinavians were
superior in military affairs, the English borrowed from them a few words like “orrest” (battle), “lith”
(fleet), “barda” (a type of warship). After the Norman Conquest, however, most of the words from the
second group were replaced by the French terms and thus can no longer be found in Modern English.

4. Hybridism

Hybridism is the process of forming composite words from the stems of different languages. When a
prefix and suffix is added to an original word of another language, the new word, thus formed, is called a
hybridism. In the English language, the principle of new hybridism is found operative in the formation of
new words by the combination of English and French, English and Latin, and English, French and
Scandinavian, and so on. Basically, the term Hybridism refers to the philological process of forming a
composite word with elements taken from different sources. For instance, the word “king’ itself is an
English word. When the French term “dom” is affixed to it, a new hybrid word “kingdom” is formulated.
Similarly, words like beautiful (beauty+ful), likeable (like+able) are all examples of hybrid words.

5. S-ending words

In modern English language, as it is evident, the process of word formation takes place in numerous
guises. One of such is the use of the plural suffix –s or -es. The plural noun is generally formed by
adding -s to the singular. For instance, to indicate more than one cow, we use the word “cows”.
Similarly, the word “ninja” (which means “spy” in Japanese, but in English it’s used to describe a person
who can move extremely fast and attack silently) is a loanword, but it has been pluralized as “ninjas” in
English. Again, most of the nouns that end in -s, -sh, -ch or –x form the plural by adding -es to the
singular (eg. Brush- Brushes, Box- Boxes). Most nouns ending in -o also form their plural by adding -es to
the singular (eg. Mango- Mangoes). However, there are a few exceptions- there are nouns like ox(plural-
oxen) or photo (photos) that do not follow the rules above. Nouns ending in a consonant + y form their
plural by changing -y into -i and adding –es (Baby-Babies). Nouns ending in -f or -fe (like thief or wife)
form their plural by changing -f or -fe into v and adding -es. Thus, in English language, -s ending words
are generally formed to indicate plurality of a word. The words created are not entirely new to the
language but they certainly display their unique characteristic of indicating plurality.

6. Ing-ending words

Unlike the plural suffix –s, the -ing form of a word can be used in a number of occasions- like a noun, a
verb or an adjective. Words that end with –ing are not simply verbs that indicate continuity of an action
though in many of the cases they do so.

When it is used as a verb, it signals that the tense is progressive, or continuous.

For example,

 I am walking as fast as I can!

Over here, the action of walking is progressive; hence the verb form is created as Walk+Ing

When the -ing form is used as a noun, it modifies (or gives context to) a verb.

For example,

Dancing is a good way to release stress. (used as a subject; -ing form + noun)

Over here, “dancing “is a noun that the verb “release” is referring to.

Again, When it is used as an adjective, the -ing form describes another noun. (-ing form + noun)

For example,

He's a very exciting  player to watch. (“exciting” describes the player)

Thus, words those end with –ing have their unique characteristics according to the function they serve
within a sentence.

7. Malapropism

The term Malapropism refers to a sort of verbal blunder in which one word is replaced by another
similar in sound but different in meaning. The term derives from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s character
Mrs. Malaprop, in his play The Rivals (1775). [Her name is taken from the term malapropos (French:
“inappropriate”)]. Sheridan used Mrs. Malaprop’s character to bring about humour- for instance,
thinking of the geography of contiguous countries, she spoke of the “geometry” of “contagious
countries”. Basically, the term refers to the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a
word or phrase- especially, the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously
wrong in the context. Few instances of malapropism might include:

He is the very pineapple (pinnacle) of politeness.

I remember because I have photogenic (photographic) memory.

It is interesting to note that way before Sheridan’s creation of Mrs. Malaprop,  In Much adoe about
Nothing (Folio 1, 1623), by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Dogberry
is a constable notable for his malapropisms; he says, for example:

One word  sir, our watch  sir haue indeede

comprehended  two  aspitious  persons, & we would haue
them this morning examined before your worship.

8. French Law Terms

The Norman invasion of England in 1066 had a major impact not only on the country, but also on the
English language. William the Conqueror and his merry band of Normans brought with them Norman
French, which became the language of the court, government and the upper class for the next three
centuries. English continued to be used by ordinary people, and Latin was the language of the church.
Words related to governance and politics: Old English words “king” and “queen” remained in English,
but nearly all other words related to governance and administration were borrowed from French. For
example, words like crown, state, government, reign, realm, sovereign, power, minister, council,
authority, parliament, people, nation became part of the English vocabulary. Feudalism, as a political
system was an integral part of French influence as a whole. Therefore, there was a large intake of
related words such as prince, peer, court, courteous, noble, honour, glory, heraldry etc. Governance is
intimately connected to law and order of a nation. Therefore, the French influence was felt in this
sphere widely. Words like justice, judge, jury, suit, plaintiff, defendant, plead, summon, attorney,
session, crime have all been borrowed from French. Some words, borrowed from French have gone into
common use and now belong to everyday life. For example, marry, marriage, prove, false, heir etc.

9. Assimilation

Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound.
Assimilate comes from the Latin prefix ad- (meaning "to, towards") and similis ("similar").This can occur
either within a word or between words. In rapid speech, for example, "handbag" is often pronounced
[ˈhambag], and "hot potato" as [ˈhɒppəteɪtoʊ]. As in these two examples, sound segments typically
assimilate to a following sound (this is called regressive or anticipatory assimilation), but they may also
assimilate to a preceding one (progressive assimilation). While assimilation most commonly occurs
between immediately adjacent sounds, it may occur between sounds separated by others ("assimilation
at a distance").
Assimilation can be synchronic— that is, an active process in a language at a given point in time—
or diachronic: That is, a historical sound change.

In phonetics, assimilation is basically the change of a sound in speech so that it becomes identical with
or similar to a neighboring sound. Eg. the usual assimilation of \z\ to \sh\ in the phrase his shoe. Again,
for instance, the original spelling of immovable in English was inmovable, and over time the n began to
sound more like its neighboring m, to the point that it actually became that letter.

10. Free and Fixed Compounds

Compounding is one of the most common types of word-formation in English. In English

grammar, compounding is the process of combining two words (free morphemes) to create a new word
(commonly a noun, verb, or adjective). Also called composition,  it is from the Latin for "put together".

Compounds are written sometimes as one word (sunglasses), sometimes as two hyphenated words (life-
threatening), and sometimes as two separate words (football stadium). There are mainly two types of
compounds in English- free compounds and fixed compounds.

Free compounds are those whose component parts can be separated from each other and yet they
retain the meaning. The following are instances of free compounds.

Table cloth= table + cloth

Head clerk= head + clerk
Handbook= hand + book 

Fixed compounds are those whose component parts cannot be separated from each other. When we try
to separate them, the words lose their meaning. Examples of fixed compounds include:

Christmas= Christ + mass

Window= wind + eaga (eyo)
Daisy= day’s + eye

11. Derivation

In morphology, derivation is the process of creating a new word out of an existing word, usually by

adding a prefix or a suffix. The word ‘derivation’ comes from the Latin, meaning "to draw off." In this
process, a new entity is derived not from independent words but from a single full word (which is
generally called the root word) plus an affix.

Derivation is one of the most common rules of word-formation in the English language.  Prefixes like
‘sub’-, ‘for’-, ‘fore’-, ‘mis-’, ‘un-’ etc; and suffixes like‘-al’, ‘-dom’, ‘-some’, ‘-ness’ etc. are used to form
variety of words.
For example, the word ‘unconditional’ has the root word ‘condition’. Then it is affixed with the suffix ‘-al’
to create the word ‘conditional’. Again, the prefix ‘un-‘ is attached to the word to create a newly derived
word ‘unconditional’.

12. Shortening

In linguistics, shortening is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one

of its parts. The process is also known as "truncation" or “clipping ". Clipping is different from back-
formation – back-formation may change the part of speech or the word's meaning, whereas clipping
creates shortened words from longer words, but does not change the part of speech or the meaning of
the word.

Shortening does not seem to follow any definite rules. However, we can note three types of shortening–

Fore clipping- (clipping of the initial part)

(uni) varsity, (earth) quake.

Back clipping-(end elements are dropped)

lab (oratory), exam (ination).

Fore and back clipping- (the middle part of the word is retained)
(in) flu (enza), (re)fridge (rator).

According to Marchand (1969), shortenings or clippings are not coined as words belonging to the

standard vocabulary of a language. They originate as terms of a special group like schools, army, police,
the medical profession, etc., in the intimacy of a milieu where a hint is sufficient to indicate the whole.
For example, exam(ination) in school vocabulary, doc(tor) in the medical field, cap(tain) in army, and the
like.