COMMON PROCESSES OF WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH

BY : KHAMISA BINTI AWANG

Word Formation Process

 How new words are being formed

in the language.  Creation of a new words

BORROWING

 taking over of words from other languages and incorporating it into another Examples : amok (Malay) sofa (Arabic) yogurt (Turkish)

COMPOUNDING
 Process in which two different words are

joined together to produce a single form.

 Examples of words formed by the

compounding process:

girl + friend = girlfriend text + book = textbook

BLENDING
 Process of creating a new word by combining

the parts of two different words, usually the beginning of one word and the end of another.
motor + hotel = motel camera + recorder = camcorder

CLIPPING
 Process of creating new words by shortening

parts of a longer word.

doctor dormitory doc dorm

BACKFORMATION
 A word of one type which is usually a noun is

shortened to form a word of another type which is usually a verb  Examples: donate from the word donation

COINAGE
 Invention of a new words.  This word formation happened when the

need arises.  For example large corporation invented names for their product to attract customer.  For example words such as Kleenex and Xerox.

ACRONYM
 A word that formed from initial letters of a few

words or word parts in a phrase or name.  For example : CD compact disc VCR video cassette recorder AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

DERIVATION
 To form new words by adding prefixes or

suffixes.  Some examples of words by adding prefixes are: write rewrite , un-unhealthy  Some examples of words by adding suffixes are: -ness (slowness), -ize (modernize)