Unit 10: The Lexicon.

Word Formation in English: Affixation,

Compounding and Conversion.

 Introduction.

Word-formation refers to the rules that come into play when words are constructed.
Their study is important for two reasons. Firstly, they help us to recognize the grammar
class of a word by its structure; we are able to tell that the word ‘organization’ is a noun
from the fact that it ends in the suffix -ation. Secondly, they teach us that there is
flexibility in the application of grammatical rules: native speakers may transfer words,
with or without the addition of affixes or other words, to a new grammatical class.

English is a rather adaptable language. One of the reasons for its international success is
the richness of its vocabulary. English contains more words than any other language due
to the freedom of word formation. Throughout history, words have been formed
according to the needs of society.

Old English had a remarkable capacity for derivation and word formation, and this was
in actual fact more resourceful in utilizing its native material than modern English,
which has to rely to a large extent on its facility in borrowing and assimilating elements
from other languages.

From the early Renaissance to the early twentieth century, English word-formation was
dominated by neoclassicism. The vocabulary was grown with the borrowing and
adaptation of Latin and Greek words. For this reason, many words in English come
from these classical languages, and the majority of prefixes in the language are of Latin,
Greek or French origin.

1. Lexicon.

The lexicon is the set of all the lexemes in a language. In its most general sense, the
term is synonymous with vocabulary.

Lexemes or lexical items can be defined then as “the words as they appear in a
dictionary” (Quirk), and the area of language study concerned with the nature, meaning
history and use of the stock of lexemes existing in a language (in other words, its lexis)
must be referred to as lexicology.

Consequently, happier, happiest and happy are not to be seen as different words –if we
simply would consider them as forms that can occur in sentences when they function as
constituents of phrases– but as variants, as word forms of the same lexical item happy.

Apart from this, the notion of lexical item does not necessarily correspond to the idea of
word in another respect: for example, a word such as bank will however represent not
one but two different lexical items, since there are two different contexts to attach to this
form: 1. ‘bank’ as “the shore of a river” or 2. ‘bank’ as “a particular kind of financial
institution”. Yet, not being the purpose of our topic, we shall by now postpone the
discussion about the distinct criteria for a satisfactory definition of what a word is.

As a way of illustration we dare present here a general classification of lexical units,

even though these pages will be devoted to the first two categories, being the one to be
mentioned in the first place the basis for the second:

- Primary units: love, care...

- Word formation units: derived and compounds: lover, careless, caretaker…

- Phrasal units: put up with...

- Verbal syntagmatic units: have a look at, take care of...

- Lexicalized phrases –near compounds: virtual reality, governmental

spokesman...

- Idioms: to go round the bush...

- Proverbs or repeated discourse: kill two birds of one stone; a friend in need, a
friend indeed; ignorance is bliss...

So, as already stated, the lexicon, or ‘dictionary’ is that component of a linguistic

description that deals with the lexical items of the language –the lexemes, words and so
on that make up its vocabulary. The entry for each lexical item will give its meaning, its
phonological and orthographic properties, determining respectively how it is
pronounced and spelt, and its grammatical properties.

Lexicography, on the contrary, is the procedure and profession of arranging and

describing items of vocabulary in such works as dictionaries, glossaries, thesaurus,
synonym guides, and usage guides. Traditionally, lexicography has been of two kinds:

- Alphabetic lexicography, whose best-known product is the dictionary.

- Thematic lexicography, which arranges words by themes and topics, usually

accompanied by an index.

Lexicographic work may be monolingual (dealing with one language only), bilingual
(with sections that define a language A in terms of another language B and vice versa),
or multilingual (covering three or more languages), and may be undertaken for general
purposes or for (among others) children, school students, or a range of other special
interest groups.

The greatest lexicographical effort in England in the 19 th century –perhaps the greatest
of any century anywhere– was the Oxford English Dictionary (Johnson). The idea was
that the dictionary would draw its data from English writing and would not only give
word meanings but would systematically cite contextual evidence to verify the
meanings given.
In America, the great pioneer in lexicography was of course Noah Webster. He brought
out his last and greatest effort in lexicography in 1828 under the title An American
Dictionary of the English Language.

2. English Word-formation.

The two most basic units of syntax, i.e.: the way of analyzing a language in terms of
how words are put together into sentences and how words combine to form sentences,
are the sentence and the word.

The sentence is the largest unit of syntax: as we move upwards beyond the sentence we
pass from syntax into discourse analysis; the word is the lowest unit of syntax; as we
move downwards beyond the word we pass from syntax into morphology (the study of
the internal structure or forms of units).

And just as a sentence cannot normally contain any smaller sentence within it, so a word
cannot normally contain any smaller word within it. Thus, although we can analyze the
word blackbird, for example, into black + bird, each of which occurs as a word in the
sentence The bird was black, we shall not regard black and bird as words when they
occur within the word blackbird: here they are merely morphemes, understood as “the
smallest meaningful units in the structure of a language which are grammatically
pertinent and show contrast of meaning” (Crystal).

In the example above, those morphemes are called stems. These are the part of the word
that is left after dropping affixes –prefixes and suffixes mainly–, that is to say, what is
added. In a way, they are the center of the word since they are the elements to which
inflectional elements are attached. It seems pertinent to us to draw a distinction between
stem and base. Having defined the former, we come now to do the same with the latter.
A base is that part of a word to be seen as a unit to which an operation can be applied.
Consequently, friend is both base and stem of friendly. However, in unfriendly, friend is
just the stem whereas friendly is the base.

The most elementary words, such as boy, cat, good, in, have the form of simple stems,
simple in the sense that they are not analyzable into smaller morphological units. Other
words are then formed from the stock of simple stems by various morphological
processes. The two such processes traditionally recognized as the most important are
affixation (love–lover) and compounding (super + star = superstar). A third type of
morphological process, particularly important in the grammar of English, is conversion
(to bottle).

Apart from these major word-formation processes, a number of minor devices are also
called upon as means of forming new words:

- Reduplication (e.g. tick-tock), clipping (e.g. ad.)

- Blends (e.g. smog from smoke and fog)

 - Acronyms (e.g. NATO)

- Vowel change from the simple stem (e.g. took from take)

- Changing of the final consonant (e.g. belief from believe)

- Moving of the accent from the second to first syllable (e.g. IMport and imPORT)

- Suppletion (e.g. were from be)

It goes without saying that it is possible to mix processes of derivation within the same
word; for instance, compounding and affixation are both found in a word such as
unselfconsciousness.

So, the term word-formation refers to the whole process of morphological variation in
the constitution of words, i.e.: including the two main divisions of inflection (word
variations signaling grammatical relationships: aspect, case, gender, mood, number,
person, tense and voice) and derivation (word variations signaling lexical relationships),
according to David Crystal. The present chapter will be concerned with those variations
falling under the second process only.

Those word-formation processes mentioned above can be classified in three main

categories, depending on the nature of the change suffered by the original word (base):

1. Extension of meaning: the form and the class of the word remain the same,
but a new meaning is added to the word, normally a figurative one. Ex.: fox:
a) furry animal; b) cunning person.

2. Syntagmatic changes/processes: these are based on the combination of

linguistic elements and are the main types of word formation processes:
affixation – prefixation and suffixation–, conversion and compounding.

3. Non-syntagmatic changes/processes or miscellaneous: back-formation,

reduplicatives, abbreviations –clippings and acronyms–, blends and
familiarity markers (auntie, daddy, comfy...)

2.1. Affixation.

In affixation, an affix is added to a stem to yield a complex stem. More specifically, we

can distinguish between prefixes like pre-, sub-, un-, which are added to the left of the
stem, and suffixes like -able, -ed, -ing, -iness, which are added to the right. Thus the
complex stems substandard and unkind are formed by prefixation; payable and
goodness by suffixation. Those additions may or may not result in a change of the
word-class to which they are attached.
 2.1.1. Prefixation.

A prefix is a morpheme which is placed before and joined to a stem to add or qualify its
meaning. We can draw a distinction between:

- Productive prefixes: They create a contrast between two words (able–unable)

- Unproductive prefixes: These, on the contrary, do not produce such a contrast

(sequence–consequence).

Prefixes do not generally alter the word-class of the base (agree (v)–disagree (v)), and,
contrary to what we find in other Germanic languages, all English prefixes are
inseparable. However, the prefix “non-”, which always has a hyphen after it.

Most prefixes commonly used in English are of Latin, Greek or French origin; except
‘a-’, ‘be-’, ‘fore-’, ‘mis-’, ‘un-’ which are of Germanic origin. Prefixes normally carry
secondary accent on their first or unique syllable, but the main stress falls on the base.

English prefixes can be grouped according to their meaning into:

- Negative prefixes: ‘un-’: unfair, unwilling; ‘non-’: non-smoker, non-conformist;

‘in-,’ ‘il-’, ‘im-’, ‘ir-’: invisible, impossible; ‘a/an-’: amoral, atheist.

- Reversative or privative prefixes: ‘un-’: undress, undo; ‘de-’: defrost,

depoliticize; ‘dis-’: discouraging, disheartened.

- Pejorative prefixes: ‘mis-’: mishear, misleading; ‘mal-’: malformed,

malfunction.

- Degree or size prefixes: ‘arch-’: archduke, archenemy; ‘super-’: supernatural,

superhuman; ‘out-’: outstanding, outrun; ‘sur-’: surname; ‘sub-’: subnormal,
suburban; ‘over-’/‘under-’: overdressed, underdone; ‘hyper-’/‘ultra-’:
hypersensitive, ultramodern; ‘mini-’/‘macro-’/‘micro-’: macromachine,
miniskirt.

- Orientation and attitude prefixes: ‘co-’: cooperate, cohabit; ‘counter-’: counter-

attack; ‘anti-’/‘pro-’: anti-democracy.

- Locative prefixes: ‘sub-’: subway; ‘super-’, ‘under-’, ‘trans-’, ‘pan-’, ‘inter-’.

- Time and order prefixes: ‘pre-’, ‘post-’: pre-war, post-marital; ‘ex’: ex-wife;
‘re-’: rebuild.

- Conversion prefixes: ‘en-’, ‘a-’, ‘be-’: endanger, asleep.

- Number prefixes: ‘uni-’: unilateral; ‘mono-’, ‘bi-’, ‘di-’: dichotomy; ‘multi-’:

multiracial; ‘poli-’, ‘pluri-’.
 - Miscellaneous neo-classical prefixes: ‘auto-’, ‘extra-’, ‘neo-’, ‘paleo-’, ‘pan-’,
‘proto-’, ‘tele-’, ‘vice-’: autocrat, extraordinary, neo-Gothic, paleography, pan-
American, prototype, television, vice-president.

2.1.2. Suffixation.

A suffix is a morpheme which is placed after and joined to a stem. Unlike prefixes,
suffixes frequently alter the word-class of the base. As a rule, suffixes serve to modify
the meaning of the stem or to convert one word class into another part of speech. A key
point within suffixation is the distinction that can be made between:

- Derivational or lexical suffixes (‘-hood’, ‘-ship’, ‘-ness’, ‘-er’ [not the

comparative]) create a new word within the same lexical field and by their
addition the part of speech to which they belong may be changed (class-
changing or class-maintaining derivational suffixes). Derivational suffixes are
arbitrary and sporadic, with no fixed rules, showing a certain degree of
irregularity with respect to the base to which they apparently belong (act–actor;
but solicit–solicitor?). Sometimes we find forms derived from non-existent
stems: barrister, broker.

- Inflectional or grammatical suffixes (‘-ed’, ‘-er’ [comparative], ‘-est’, ‘-ing’)

follow derivational morphemes (paint + er + s) closing the construction in which
they occur. They are always class-maintaining and relatively more stable in
meaning than the previous ones (they express that idea of plural, comparative,
past...)

Whilst the treatment of prefixes was on a generally semantic basis, the treatment of
suffixes is on a generally grammatical basis. This is because whereas prefixes primarily
effect a semantic modification of the base, suffixes have in contrast a rather restrictive
semantic role, their primary function being that of changing the grammatical function of
the base. That is why suffixes will be grouped not only according to the part of speech
they form, but also to the class of base they are added:

- Noun suffixes:

o Denominal nouns: official-DOM, spoon-FUL, child-HOOD, friend-

SHIP.

o Deverbal nouns: ‘-er/-or’: worker, actor; ‘-ant’: inhabitant; ‘-ation’:

foundation; ‘-ment’: argument; ‘-al’: refusal; ‘-ing’: building; ‘-age’:
shortage.

o De-adjectival suffixes: ‘-ness’: happiness; ‘-ity’: visibility.

- Noun/Adjective suffixes: ‘-ite’, ‘-(i)an’: Canadian; ‘-ese’: Japanese; ‘-ist’:

typist; ‘-ism’: communism.
 - Verb suffixes: ‘-ify’: identify; ‘-ze’: organize/se; ‘-en’: sadden.

- Adjective suffixes (denominal and deverbal adjectives): ‘-able/-ible’: readable;

‘- al/-ical/- ial’: chemical; ‘-ful’: beautiful; ‘-ed’: blue-eyed; ‘-en’: wooden; ‘-
ic’: Germanic; ‘-ish’: English; ‘-less’: hopeless; ‘-like/-ly’’: friendly, childlike.

- Adverb suffixes: ‘-ly’: happily; ‘-wards’: onwards; ‘-wise’: clockwise.

2.2. Compounding.

A compound is a lexical unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both
grammatically and semantically as a single word. In principle, any number of bases may
be involved, but in English, except for a relatively minor class of items (normally
abbreviated), compounds usually comprise two bases only, however internally complex
each may be (Quirk et al).

In this respect, attention must be drawn to two issues: first, the conditions for
lexicalization –the fact of having a new word for a particular concept or reality– in
respect of a particular collocation of bases; second, the formal characteristics of the
composition thus made into an institutionalized whole.

LEXICAL CONDITIONS

In contrast to affixation, in which a base is typically altered in terms of certain broad

semantic or grammatical categories by the use of a closed set of items, compounding
associates bases drawn from the whole lexicon in a wide range of semantic relations.
Nonetheless, although both bases in a compound are in principle equally open, they are
normally in a relation whereby the first is modifying the second. In short, compounding
can in general be viewed as prefixation with opening class items.

This does not mean, though, that a compound can be formed by placing any lexical item
in front of another; on the contrary, the relations involved in compounding are
frequently resemblance, function, or some other salient or defining characteristic.

FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPOUNDS

1. Phonology: The semantic structure of compounds tends to entail a focal first

constituent. In consequence, there is a contrast between the prosodic pattern
of a noun phrase and that of a compound, the latter having primary stress on
the first constituent:

An ,English ‘teacher (Noun phrase meaning a teacher who is English)

An ‘English ,teacher (Compound meaning someone who teaches English)

 Almost all compounds have this accentual pattern, whether they are nouns,
adjectives or verbs. Exceptions are on the whole equally explicable in terms
of thematization: ash-BLOND, bottle-GREEN.

2. Orthography: The semantic unity of a compound is reflected in an

orthographic unity: a black bird vs a blackbird. Spelling conventions are,
however, less dependable than prosody. Practice varies in many words and
some compounds may even occur in three different forms: “solid”,
hyphenated, and “open”: a flower pot, a flower-pot, a flowerpot.

But in general, there is a progression from open to solid as a given

compound becomes established, and hence widely recognized and accepted
as a “permanent” lexical item.

3. Semantics: The meaning of a compound cannot always be deduced from the

separate meaning of its individual elements. The lack of transparency in
some cases is another characteristic of compounds such as hot dog,
birdbrain... These are termed bahuvrihi or exocentric compounds where
neither constituent of such a compound refers to the entity named but, with a
semantic movement that may be thought of as “lateral”, the whole refers to a
separate entity –usually a person– that is claimed to be characterized by the
compound, in its literal or figurative meaning.

On the other hand, and as suggested above, we speak of endocentric or

dwan-dwa compounds, those whose meaning can be derived from the
meaning of the simple stems –ashtray, for instance)

The normal way of classifying compounds is according to the function they play within
the sentence (as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.):

- Compound nouns: tea table, old age, pick-pocket, make-believe, fast-food, over-
kill, new generation, press-up, sister-in-law, rundown…

- Compound adjectives: red-haired, low-paid, good-looking, bottle-green, deep-

sea, run-down, five-page, out of date…

- Compound verbs: skydive, double-book, overbook…

2.3. Conversion.

Conversion is the derivation process whereby an item is adapted or converted into a new
word class without the addition of an affix. In this way, conversion is closely analogous
to suffixation (as distinct from prefixation). Conversion is unusually prominent as a
word-formation process, through the variety of conversion rules and their productivity.

Other terms for conversion are functional conversion, functional shift and zero
derivation. This last reflects the notion of a ‘zero’ suffix, analogous to the actual
suffixes already dealt with. Conversion includes, in this treatment, cases where the
bases undergo some slight phonological or orthographic change: shelf–shelves.

The process of conversion can be exemplified in the formation of the verb bottle (as in I
must bottle some plums) from the noun bottle. We take the noun and verb to be distinct
words (and hence distinct stems), with the noun bottle being primary; the verb is then
formed by conversion of the stem from one class to another.

Just as we observed that compounding and affixation can combine, so either of them
can combine with conversion. The verb soundproof, for example, (as in I’m going to
soundproof my study), is derived by conversion from the adjective soundproof (as in
The room is soundproof), which is in turn formed by compounding from the simple
stems sound and proof. The plural noun weeklies (‘magazines which are published each
week’) is based on the simple stem week: -ly is suffixed to this to yield the adjective
base weekly, which is then converted to the noun base weekly, and finally the plural
suffix is added.

Because of the fact that conversion changes only the grammatical properties of the stem
while leaving its pronunciation and spelling intact, it raises certain special problems of
analysis.

In the first place, we have to distinguish conversion (one stem formed from another
without any change in pronunciation or spelling) from the case where we simply have a
single stem, a single word, used in two different grammatical constructions. For
example, we have conversion of bottle because the bottle of I must bottle some plums is
a different word from that of I’ll put it in a bottle, but in a happy man and The man was
happy, we have two syntactic uses of the same word happy, so that there is here no
conversion of one stem into another.

In the second place, in cases where we do have conversion, we are faced with the
problem of deciding which is the original stem and which the derived. We will make the
decision on the basis of meaning and also on a diachronic study of the terms involved
(To whip originates from whip; To dust comes from dust but, conversely, drive results
from to drive, for instance).