WORD-FORMATION IN

MODERN ENGLISH
Word formation is the creation of new
words from elements already existing
in the language. Every language has its
own structural patterns of word
formation.
 Morphemes are subdivided into roots
and affixes. The latter are further
subdivided, according to their position,
into prefixes, suffixes and infixes, and
according to their function and
meaning, into derivational and
functional affixes, the latter also called
endings or outer formatives.
The root morpheme is the lexical center of the
word. It is the semantic nucleus of a word with
which no grammatical properties of the word
are connected. It is the common element of
words within a word-family. Thus, -heart- is the
common root of the following series of words:
heart, hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless,
hearty, heartiness, sweetheart, heart-broken,
kind-hearted, whole-heartedly, etc.
Stem is that part of a word which remains
unchanged throughout its paradigm and to
which grammatical inflexions and affixes
are added. The stem expresses the lexical
and the part of speech meaning. For the
word hearty and for the paradigm heart
(sing.) – hearts (pi.) the stem may be
represented as heart-.
Affixational morphemes include inflections
and derivational affixes.
Inflection is an affixal morpheme
which carries only grammatical
meaning thus relevant only for the
formation of word-forms (book-s,
open-ed, strong-er).
 Derivational morpheme is an affixal
morpheme which modifies the lexical
meaning of the root and forms a new
word. In many cases it adds the part-of-
speech meaning to the root (manage-
ment, en-courage, fruit-ful).
 An allomorph is defined as a positional variant
of a morpheme occurring in a specific
environment and so characterised by
complementary distribution. Complementary
distribution is said to take place when two
linguistic variants cannot appear in the same
environment. Thus, stems ending in consonants
take as a rule -ation (liberation); stems ending in
pt, however, take -tion (corruption) and the final
t becomes fused with the suffix.
Different morphemes are characterised by contrastive
distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment
they signal different meanings. The suffixes -able and -
ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not
allomorphs, because adjectives in -able mean "capable
of being": measurable "capable of being measured",
whereas -ed as a suffix of adjectives has a resultant
force: measured "marked by due proportion", as the
measured beauty of classical Greek art; hence also
"rhythmical" and "regular in movement", as in the
measured form of verse, the measured tread.
 Productivity is the ability to form new words
after existing patterns which are readily
understood by the speakers of a language. The
most important and the most productive ways
of word-formation are affixation, conversion,
word-composition and abbreviation
(contraction). In the course of time the
productivity of this or that way of word-
formation may change.
 Affixation
The process of affixation consists in
coining a new word by adding an
affix or several affixes to some root
morpheme: uninterested –
disinterested; distrust – mistrust.
 A suffix is a derivational morpheme
following the stem and forming a new
derivative in a different part of speech or a
different word class, cf. – en, -y, -less in
hearten, hearty, heartless.
 A prefix is a derivational
morpheme standing before the
root and modifying meaning, cf.
hearten – dishearten.
An infix is an affix placed within the
word, like -n- in stand. The type is
not productive.
 Word-composition
Word-composition is another type of word-
building which is highly productive. That is
when new words are produced by
combining two or more stems.
 The classification according to the type of composition
establishes the following groups:
1) The predominant type is a mere juxtaposition
without connecting elements: heartache n, heart-beat n,
heart-break n, heart-breaking adj, heart-broken adj, heart-
felt adj.
2) Composition with a vowel or a consonant as a linking
element. The examples are very few: electromotive adj,
speedometer n, Afro-Asian adj, handicraft n, statesman n.
3) Compounds with linking elements represented by
preposition or conjunction stems: down-and-out n, matter-
of-fact adj, son-in-law n, pepper-and-salt adj, wall-to-wall
adj, up-to-date adj, on the up-and-up adv (continually
improving), up-and-coming.
The classification of compounds according to the structure
of immediate constituents distinguishes:
1) compounds consisting of simple stems: film-star;
2) compounds where at least one of the constituents is
a derived stem: chain-smoker;
3) compounds where at least one of the constituents is
a clipped stem: maths-mistress (in British English) and
math-mistress (in American English).
4) compounds where at least one of the constituents is
a compound stem: wastepaper- basket.
 Conversion
conversion is an affixless derivation
consistsing in making a new word
from some existing word by
changing the category of a part of
speech, the morphemic shape of
the original word remaining
unchanged.
 The most frequent types of conversion are:
- from noun to verb: to hand, to back, to face, to
eye, to mouth, to nose, to dog, to wolf, to
monkey, to can, to coal, to stage, to screen, to
room, to floor, to blackmail, to blacklist, to
honeymoon, etc.
- from verb to noun: do, go, make, run, find,
catch, cut, walk, worry, show, move, etc.
- from adjective to noun and to verb: to pale, to
yellow, to cool, to grey, to rough, etc.
 Shortening. Lexical Abbreviations.
Acronyms
Lexical abbreviations may be used both in
written and in oral speech. Lexical
abbreviation is the process of forming a
word out of the initial elements of a word
combination by simultaneous operation
of shortening and compounding.
Shortenings are produced in two different ways.
The first is to make a new word from a syllable
of the original word. The latter may lose its
beginning (as in phone made from telephone,
fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from
holidays, vac from vacation, props from
properties, ad from advertisement) or both the
beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza,
fridge from refrigerator).
The second way of shortening is to make a
new word from the initial letters of a word
group (UNO from the United Nations
Organization). This type is called initial
shortenings.
 Blending
Blending may be defined as formation that
combine two words and include the letters
or sounds they have in common as a
connecting element: bio (logical) +
(electro)nic ——> bionic, wash + (caf)eteria
—> washeteria, sk(ateboard) + (s)urfing
——> skurflng.
 Back-formation
Back-formation is a term borrowed from
diachronic linguistics. It denotes the
derivation of new words by subtracting a
real or supposed affix from existing words
through misinterpretation of their
structure.
 Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the naming of an action
or thing by a more or less exact
reproduction of a natural sound associated
with it (babble, crow, twitter).
 Sound and Stress Interchange
Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in
which words or word forms are differentiated due to an
alternation in the phonemic composition of the root.
The change may affect the root vowel, as in food n —>
feed v; or root consonant as in speak v —> speech n; or
both, as in life n —> live v. It may also be combined
with affixation: strong a —> strength n; or with
affixation and shift of stress as in 'democrat —>
de'mocracy.
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