THE WORD-

FORMING SYSTEM
OF ENGLISH

Lecture 8
THE WORD-FORMING
SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
1. Types of Forming Words. General
Issues
2. Major Types of Word-formation
3. Minor Types of Word-formation
 Word-formation is a branch of
Lexicology which studies the process
of building new words, derivative
structures and patterns of existing
words.
 All ways of forming new words can be
classified into two big groups: major
and minor types of creating new
words.
 Two major types – word-derivation
and word-composition
 The minor types – comprise
shortening, blending, acronymy,
sound imitation, sound interchange,
back-formation, distinctive stress.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Word-formation deals with words which
can be analyzed both structurally and
semantically.
 Simple words are closely connected
with word-formation: they serve as the
foundation of derived and compound
words.
 E.g., consumer, misunderstand, sugar
free vs to consume, to understand, free
are irrelevant to it.
Major Types of Word-
formation
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Word-derivation: affixation and conversion.
 Affixation is the formation of a new word
with the help of affixes (happiness,
misprint). Affixation → suffixation and
prefixation.
 Suffixation is mostly to coin nouns and adjectives.
Prefixation is mostly to coin verbs.
 Word-derivation deals with the derivational
structure of words: derivational bases,
derivational affixes and derivational
patterns.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 A derivational base is the part of the word
which establishes connection with the lexical unit
that motivates the derivative and determines its
individual lexical meaning describing the
difference between words in one and the same
derivative set.
 For example, the individual lexical meaning of the
words consumer, dealer, teacher which denote
active doers of the action is presented by the
lexical meaning of the derivational bases:
consume-, deal-, teach-.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Derivational affixes are Immediate
Constituents of derived words in all
parts of speech.
 Derivational affixes are added to
derivational bases.
 Affixes can be of two types: prefixes
and suffixes.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Prefixes modify the lexical meaning but
rarely transfer a word into a different part
of speech: hear (v) → overhear (v), fair
(adj) → unfair (adj), president (n) → ex-
president (n), etc.
 Suffixes also modify the lexical meaning
but not necessarily transfer a word into a
different part of speech: king (n) →
kingdom (n), book (n) → bookish (adj),
rapid (adj) → rapidly (adv), etc.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 A derivational pattern is a regular
meaningful arrangement, which imposes
rigid rules on the order and the nature of
the derivational base and affixes that may
be brought together to create a new word.
 Derivational patterns are also known as
structural formulas. Here are some
examples of derivational patterns: n + -sf
→ N (friend + ship), v + -sf → N (sing +
er), etc.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Conversion is the formation of a new word by
putting a stem of the already existing word into
a different paradigm ( fly (noun) – fly (verb)),
thus, by changing the category of a part of
speech without adding any derivative
elements, so that the original and the converted
words become homonyms.
 E.g., the paradigm of the verb fly → fly, flies,
flying, flew, flown,
the paradigm of the noun fly → fly (sg) and flies
(pl).
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Conversion is highly-productive and
widely-spread among verbs and nouns.
Converted words can sound extremely
colloquial, e.g. I’ll microwave the chicken
for you.
 Conversion can be explained by the
analytical character of the English
language, deficit of inflections and
abundance of monosyllabic and disyllabic
words in different parts of speech.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Compound words are words consisting
of at least two stems which occur in the
language as free forms.
 Most compounds have the primary stress
on the first syllable, e.g., blackboard.
Compound adjectives and numerals have
two primary stresses, e.g. hot-tempered,
new-born, seventy four, ninety one.
Major Types of Word-
formation
1. Compounds are binary in structure (consist of
two or more constituent lexemes), e.g., vacuum-
cleaner manufacturer → vacuum-cleaner and
manufacturer, while vacuum-cleaner → vacuum
and cleaner.
2. Compounds usually have a head constituent. It
is a part of the word which determines the
syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g.
snow-white → the noun snow and the adjective
white. White is the head constituent of snow-
white.
Major Types of Word-
formation
Compound words can be found in all major
syntactic categories:
 · nouns: sunlight, longboat;
 · verbs: window shop; safeguard;
 · adjectives: duty-bound, ice-cold;
 · prepositions: into, onto, upon.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Morphologically compounds are classified
according to the structure of immediate
constituents:
 · consisting of simple stems: strawberry,
blackbird;
 · where at least one of the constituents is a
derived stem: gascooker, mill-owner;
 · where one of the constituents is a clipped
stem: V-day, Xmas;
 · where one of the constituents is a compound
stem: football player, wastepaper basket.
Major Types of Word-
formation
Structurally compounds can be:
1. words which are formed by a mere
juxtaposition, i.e. without any
connecting elements: e.g. saleboat,
schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine;
2. stems which are connected with a vowel
or a consonant placed between them:
e.g. salesman, handicraft.
Major Types of Word-
formation
 Semantically compounds may be non-idiomatic
and idiomatic.
 Compounds are non-idiomatic when they are
motivated morphologically, e.g., Suitcase is a
sum of meanings of the stems this compound
word consists of (the meaning of each stem is
retained).
 When the compound is not motivated
morphologically, it is idiomatic. The meaning of
each component is either lost or weakened. It
has a transferred meaning, e.g., Butterball – is
not “a ball made of butter”, it is “someone who is
fat, especially child”.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Minor types of modern word-formation
are shortening, blending,
acronymy, sound interchange,
sound imitation, distinctive
stress, back-formation, and
reduplication.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
Shortening is the formation of a new word by
cutting off a part of the word.
Types:
 · aphaeresis – initial part of the word is clipped,
e.g. history → story, telephone → phone;
 · syncope – the middle part of the word is
clipped, e.g. madam → ma'am; specs →
spectacles
 · apocope – the final part of the word is clipped,
e.g. professor → prof, vampire → vamp;
 · both initial and final, e.g. influenza → flu,
detective → tec.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one
meaning only. E.g., doctor →1) someone who is
trained to treat people who are ill; 2) someone
who holds the highest level of degree given by
a university. Thus, it can be clipped only in the
first meaning, e.g. doc.
 There can be distinguished homonyms, so that
one and the same sound and graphical lexical
unit may represent different words,
e.g., vac – vacation and vacuum,
vet – veterinary surgeon and veteran.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Blending is the formation of a new word
which combines the features of both
clipping and composition,
 e.g. boatel (boat + hotel), brunch
(breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog),
modem (modulator + demodulator).
Minor Types of Word-
formation
Several structural types of blends:
 1) initial part of the word + final part of
the word, e.g. electrocute (electricity+
execute);
 2) initial part of the word + initial part of
the word, e.g. lib-lab (liberal + labour);
 3) initial part of the word + full word,
e.g. paratroops (parachute + troops);
 4) full word + final part of the word,
e.g. slimnastics (slim + gymnastics).
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Acronnymy is the formation of a new
word by means of the initial letters of a
word or phrase.
 Acronyms are commonly used for the
names of institutions and organizations.
No full stops are placed between the
letters.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 All acronyms can be divided into two
groups. Acronyms in the first group are
often pronounced as series of letters:
EEC (European Economic Community), FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation), PC
(personal computer).
 Acronyms in the second group are
pronounced according to the rules of
reading: AIDS (Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome), NATO (North
Atlantic Treaty Organization).
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Some words of the second group can be
written without capital letters as they are
no longer recognized as acronyms: laser
(light amplification by stimulated
emissions of radiation), radar (radio
detection and ranging), jeep (general
purpose car).
 Acronyms can be homonyms as well:
MP – Member of Parliament and Municipal Police,
PC – Personal Computer and Politically correct.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Sound-interchange is the formation of a
new word due to an alteration in the
phonemic composition of the root of a
word.
Sound-interchange can be of two types:
1) vowel-interchange, e.g. full – fill; in some
cases vowel-interchange is combined with
suffixation, e.g. long – length;
2) consonant-interchange e.g. believe –
belief.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 New words formed by sound imitation
denote an action or a thing by more or
less exact reproduction of the sound
which is associated with it.
 Let’s compare such words from English
and Russian:
cock-a-dodoodle-do – ку-ка-ре-ку,
bang – бах, бац (сильный удар).
Minor Types of Word-
formation
According to the source of sound:
1. words denoting sounds produced by
human beings in the process of
communication or expressing their
feelings, e.g. chatter, boo;
2. words denoting sounds produced by
animals, birds, insects, e.g. moo, buzz;
3. words imitating the sounds of water,
the noise of metallic things, movements,
e.g. splash, scratch, swing.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Distinctive stress is the formation of a
new word by means of the shift of the
stress in the source word, e.g.,
 'increase (n) – in'crease (v),
 'subject (n) – sub'ject (v).
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 Backformation is the formation of a new
word by cutting off a real or supposed
suffix, as a result of misinterpretation of
the structure of the existing word.
 This type of word-formation is built on
analogy, e.g.
cobbler – to cobble,
blood transfusion – to blood transfuse.
Minor Types of Word-
formation
 In reduplication new words are formed
by doubling a stem, either without any
phonetic changes or with a variation of the
root-vowel or consonant, e.g. walkie-
talkie, riff-raff, hurdy-gurdy.
 Some more examples:

bye-bye
chit-chat
walkie-talkie
Home task:
 Read the lecture
 Make up the vocabulary of it
 Be ready to answer the questions given
after the lecture.