Nick Lyons Unit 10 Secondary- English

WORD FORMATION

1. THE BASICS

A MORPHEME is a minimal unit of word building that combines a minimal unit of meaning with a minimal
linguistic form that carries this meaning. Morphemes are the building blocks of word derivation in language. They
can be FREE or BOUND. The FREE morpheme can stand by itself, the BOUND morpheme can not.

Bound morphemes may be INFLECTIONAL or DERIVATIONAL. DERIVATIONAL morphemes create new words,
usually changing the word class, whereas INFLECTIONAL morphemes are grammatical markers that indicate
number, tense, person, comparison, possession (…).

Bound morphemes are AFFIXES. AFFIXES may be PREFIXES or SUFFIXES.

PREFIXES are DERIVATIONAL and do not alter the word class. (happy – unhappy)
SUFFIXES may be either DERIVATIONAL (happy – happiness) and normally alter the word class or INFLECTIONAL
(happy – happier) which do not alter the word class.

Exercise 1. Free and Bound Morphemes

List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free (F) or bound (B). State
whether the bound morpheme is a prefix or suffix and derivational or inflectional.

1. creating 6. unhealthy
2. seaward 7. waiter
3. wastage 8. reconsider
4. poetic 9. keys
5. modernize 10. incompletion

WORD TREES a pictorial representation of the morphological process:

N V

V Daff Daff V IAff

laugh ter re settle d

Exercise 2: Word Trees

For each word below, draw a word tree.
1. shipper 6. simply
2. disobey 7. jumping
3. resettled 8. digitizes
4. anticlimaxes 9. activity
5. unemployment 10. confrontational

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2. DERIVATION

The processes of derivation is usually actually not one process, but usually three simultaneous processes,
namely: a morphological process (e.g. changing the shape of an existing word by adding a prefix or suffix
morpheme to an existing root morpheme) a syntactic process (changing the part of speech of a word, e.g. from
verb to noun) and a semantic process (producing a new sense)

Example
Morphological process Syntactic process Semantic process
laugh:laughter add suffix -ter change verb - noun produce word denoting an act/activity
teach:teacher add suffix -er change verb - noun produce word denoting an agent
red:redness add suffix -ness change adj - noun produce noun denoting a property
market:hypermarket add prefix hyper Non class changing denotes a noun on a much larger scale

Exercise 3.
Given below are pairs of words, one derived from the other. Fill in details of the morphological and syntactic
processes involved in the derivation, as in the example chart above.

Morphological process Syntactic process Semantic Process

(1) wasp : waspish
(2) bake : bakery .
(3) avoid : avoidable
(4) honest : honesty

DERIVATIONAL PREFIXES are usually classified on a semantic level

Exercise 4.
Place the following words and prefixes in the correct line according to the semantic process involved. One prefix
may appear in various categories, but there is only one category for each word.

unkind, unscrew, miniskirt, overexpose, supernatural, hyperventilate, bedazzle, enable, malpractice, cooperate,
anti-establishment, defrost, submarine, transatlantic, procommunist, postwar, counterargument, ditransitive,
prefix, nonsmoker, ultramodern, dislike, disconnect, tricycle, unicycle, misspell, international, underestimate,
surreal, , inexplicable, bicycle, asymmetrical, exwife, rewrite, foresee, monotranstive, polysyllabic, multilingual,
prototype, semicircle, vice-President, pan-African

Semantic process Examples

NEGATIVE
REVERSATIVE
PERJORATIVE
DEGREE / SIZE
ATTITUDE
LOCATIVE
TIME / ORDER
NUMBER
CONVERSION
OTHER

DERIVATIONAL PREFIXES may also be classified on a SYNTACTICAL LEVEL:

As they usually alter the word class of the free morpheme, we can attribute the terms DEVERBAL, DENOMINAL,
DEADJECTIVAL (the type of base they are typically added to) then we can add the derived words themselves and

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talk of a DEVERBAL NOUN, DENOMINAL ADJECTIVE etc...

Exercise 5

Describe the following derivations:

1) gangster
2) employee
3) sanity
4) simplify
5) childlike
6) strangely

3. CONVERSION (ZERO-DERIVATION)

The derivational process (also called zero-derivation) whereby an item changes its word-class without the
addition of an affix. Once again it is a process that usually involves both a syntactical and semantic process and
can therefore be classified on such levels. It typically involves all the possibilities between nouns, adjectives and
verbs, but also includes minor categories of conversion. Indeed conversion can be within a word class itself. Place
the following examples into the table provided.

Exercise 6

This under-the-weather feeling is getting me down.

I am getting a bit sick of these isms
Would you like coffee? Two coffees please.
I wiped the table I wiped it clean
I tried to calm the situation, but couldn't.
He's very friendly He's just being friendly.
He's a natural!
It was just bottled yesterday.
You're having a laugh aren't you?
No ifs and buts! You're doing it!.

Verb-Noun
Adj - Noun
Noun-Vb
Adj - Vb
Closed categories - nouns
Phrases - nouns
Affixes - nouns
Within word class noun
verb
adjective

Approximate conversion is when a slight change of pronunciation or spelling is involved. This may be the voicing
of final consonants or the shift of stress.

eg. VOICING: advice – advise, thief – thieve, house – house

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Exercise 7
The capitalized words in the sentence below are examples of conversion. In each case:
(a) give the part of speech of the capitalized word (including transitive or intransitive for verbs), arriving at your
answer on
the basis of its use in the given sentence;
(b) give the part of speech of the word from which the example word is derived (the ‘source word’);
(c) give an example sentence using the source word.

EXAMPLE: (1) The workmen will WIDEN the road

(a) transitive verb
(b) instransitive verb..
(c) The road WIDENS here

(2) A window cannot OPEN by itself

(a) ............................................. (b) .............................................
(c) ................................................................................................................
(3) We’re going to PAPER the wall at the far end of the room
(a) ............................................. (b) .............................................
(c) ................................................................................................................
(4) I’m going for a SWIM
(a) ............................................. (b) .............................................
(c) ................................................................................................................
(5) We met some really FUN people at Jake’s party
(a) ............................................. (b) .............................................
(c) ................................................................................................................
(6) The children are building a PRETEND house in the garden
(a) ............................................. (b) .............................................
(c) ................................................................................................................

4. COMPOUNDING

A derived word formed by combining two FREE MORPHEMES in a language is called a COMPOUND word.Such
compound words’ can be nouns, adjectives or verbs.

bloodtest, taxfree, springclean).

Orthographically, compounds are written solid, hyphenated or open (bedroom, tax-free, reading material). There
are are no safe rule-of-thumb that will help in the choice between these three possibilities. Practice varies in
many words, and some may even occur in three different compound forms (tax free, taxfree, tax-free). In AmE
there seems to be a trend away from the use of hyphens. In BrE there tends to be more extensive use of the
hyphen.

Phonologically, compounds can often be identified as having a main stress on the first element and a secondary
stress on the second element.

Semantically, compounds can be semantically transparent (meaning can be inferred from the meaning of its
parts (a darkroom)). In many cases this is not the case however: hot dog.

They may also be categorised according to syntactic considerations

Exercise 8
The following words are compounds. For each one, give the meaning. Analyse it syntactically and say whether
the compound is semantically transparent or not.
eg. headache a pain in your head Subject & Verb semantically transparent
a. madman
b. scarecrow

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c. homesick
d. buttercup
e. sun-bather
f. bluebell

Minor word formation processes.....

5. REDUPLICATIVES

A compound in which the two or more elements are either identical or slightly different:

goody-goody, walkie-talkie, criss-cross

Most of these are highly informal or familiar. The most common uses are to imitate sounds, suggest alternating
movements, to intensify or to disparage.

tick tock, ping-pong, teeny-weeny, dilly-dally

6. CLIPPING

The term ´clipping´’ denotes the subtraction of one or more syllables from a word, which is also available in its
full form. The clipped form is normally found to be informal. The shortening may occur at the beginning, at the
end or at both ends of the word

telephone – phone
advertisement - ad
influenza - flu

7. BACK FORMATION

The process of creating a new lexeme usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. Back-formation is different
from clipping. 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. (Edit
from editor)

8. BLENDS

In a blend at least one of the elements is fragmentary when compared with its corresponding uncompounded
word form.

Breakfast + lunch: brunch

smoke + fog smog

9. INITIALISMS/ALPAHBETISMS

Words formed through the first letter (or in some cases first few letters) of each word, such as USA or BBC. In
some cases they may take a letter from the middle of a word, such as TV. They are pronounced as separate
letters.

Exercise 9 What do the following initialisms stand for? Can you think of any others?

PhD
GHQ
TGIF
LOL

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JK

10. ACRONYMS

Acronyms are initialisms pronounced as single words, such as NATO or Laser.

Exercise 10. What do the following acronyms stand for? Can you think of any others?

UNESCO
SALT (talks)
SARS ()
NEET
GIF

11. BORROWINGS

In linguistics, borrowing (also known as lexical borrowing) is the process by which a word from one
language is adapted for use in another. The word that is borrowed is called a borrowing, a borrowed word,
or a loanword

Exercise 11. Where could the following borrowings be from?

Fjord, lemming
Sauna
Bonanza, hacienda, hammock, mosquito
Apartheid
Coffee, jackal, kebab
Mousaka, lexicón
Sputnik, inteligentsia, pundit, shampoo, bungalow

12. NONCE WORDS

A nonce word is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication. The
term is used because such a word is created "for the nonce"and is thus "an invented or accidental linguistic form,
used only once". All nonce words are also neologism( newly created words that have not entered the lexicon of a
language). Some nonce words have a meaning and may (or may not) become an established part of the
language, while others are essentially meaningless and disposable and are useful for exactly that reason

eg. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,

Exercise 12
Invent new English words synonymous with the following expressions.
(1) instrument for making things blunt .........................................
(2) the property of being easy to please .........................................
(3) the process of making something transparent .........................................
(4) having to do with giraffes (adjective) .........................................

Exercise 13.
Name the word-formation process exemplified by each of the following derivations.
1. Graphical User Interface → GUI
2. professor → prof
3. information + commercial → infomercial
4. un- + rely + -able → unreliable
5. wind + shield → windshield
6. orientation → orientate
7.. a process → to process
8. teeny-weeny

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9. an anti-everything wrong organisation