Word-formation processes

COINAGE:
-The invention of totally new terms
-Proper names or trade names for one company’s product become general terms for any
version of that product.(eg. kleenex, Guy Fox->guy(any human being); -meaning of the words
is broaden and broaden.
BORROWING:
-very common word –formation process;
-it’s social phenomenon;
-means, the taking over of words from other languages; -it takes place when a speaker of one
culture come to contact with another one; -the borrowing will be taken from the most
influential culture
Loan-words – words adapted from other languages
Loan-translation (calque) – it’s a direct translation of the elements of a word into the
borrowing language.
There’s always change in phonological structure.
COMPOUNDING:
-joining of two separate words to produce a single form; -important for English word –
formation process, it’s the most productive process;
-eg. wallpaper, textbook
-the category of the word is determined by the last element (adjective, verb, noun…)
-the first element receive primary stress
-‘English Literature Teacher ->compound because of the stress(teacher of the literature);
->English ‘Literature Teacher=a phrase but compound noun (a teacher who is English)
BLENDING:
-taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word; -clipped
and then compounded word
-eg. smog (smoke +fog), motel, bit, brunch, telecast, Chunnel.
CLIPPING:
-clip=to cut; -making words shorter, reducing them;
-a word of more then one syllable is reduced to a shorter form; -esp in casual speech; -gas, bus,
piano, bra
BACKFORMATION:
-a word of one type(usu a noun) is reduced to form another word of a different type(usu a
verb); -worker->work, donation->donate…
-hypocorisms-a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then –y or –ie is added to the end:
movie, telly->television
Synchronic perspective on language-together; at the same point of time
Diachronic perspective on language-not together; in different points of time; showing changes,
how the language evolve in time.
CONVERSION:
-a change in the function of a word(eg. when the noun comes to be used as a verb without any
reduction)
-other names are: “category change” I “functional shift”;
-very productive in English, do not exist in Polish
-eg. cut,paper, butter, bottle, vecation, spy.
-some converted forms shift in meaning when they change the category.
ACRONYMS:
-extreme form of reduction; -are formed from the initial letters of a set of other words
-2 kind of them: “alphabetisisms”->CD, DNA-pronunciation consist of the set of letters;
-second are pronounced as a single word-> NATO, NASA, UNESCO, PIN
-some acronyms lose their capitals to become everyday terms -> laser
DERIVATION:
-opposite of reduction; -very common process; -creating longer forms from very short, simple
to more complex by adding affixes (prefixes+ suffixes) to the root
-prefixes-in the beginning of the word; -suffixes-at the end of the word; -infixes-affix that is
incorporated inside another word -> unfuckingbelievable.
-swindle+er-from synchronic point of view it’s derivation
MORPHOLOGY:
-is the study of meaningful forms in the language, or of internal structures of words.
MORPHEME-is a minimal unit of meaning or (grammatical function) in the language
(element such as –s,-er,-ed,-ing) eg. reopened=3 morphemes re+open+ed
-the smallest meaningful unit in language.
LEXEME-is a family of words eg. be,is,are.am,was,were,being,been-different word forms but
one lexeme.
Word forms-specific, real forms that represents type of word
TYPES OF MORPHEMES:
-free morphemes-those which can stand by themselves as single words (open, tour):
-lexical morphemes-those that have more specific meaning- nouns,adj, adv and verbs; -it’s
open category
-functional morphemes (grammatical)-have general meaning- conjunctions(and), prepositions,
articles, pronouns.-it’s closed class
-bound morphemes:
-inflectional m.-used to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word, (used to show
if the word is pl or sing.; if it’s past or not…); -8in English: nouns(-s, -‘s), verbs: -ing,-s,-ed,-
en; adj:-er, -est.; -never change the category of a word
-derivational m.-used to make new words and to make words of a different grammatical
category from the stem: all affixes; eg. good->goodness
Allomorphs-different forms carry the same meaning
Morph- the actual forms used to realize morphemes (the form “cat” is a single morph realizing
a lexical morpheme; “cats” consists of 2 morphs, realizing a lexical morpheme and an
inflectional morpheme.)
Reduplication-repetition of the first part of the singular form (ulo->ululo)
GRAMMAR: - consist of morphology and syntax(how words are combining into sentences);
it is modification of word forms and arrangement of words into sequences(sentences, phrases
etc)
3 types of grammar: mental g, prescriptive g, descriptive g.
Mental grammar-a form of internal linguistic knowledge of language. This knowledge is
subconscious and innate. It covers all kinds of knowledge that is needed to use language. Level
of this knowledge depends on our social background.
Prescriptive grammar-it’s very narrow term, it focuses on morphology and syntax.Grammar as
a set of rules for the correct or proper use of language. It focuses on errors which people make,
it identify the “proper” or “best” structures to be used in language, it says what is correct and
what is not. It’s rather subjective than objective; it’s not really based on evidences, it’s based
on errors. It’s a prescientific approach.
Descriptive grammar- describe the regular structures of the language as it is used, not
according to some view of how it should be used; descriptive approaches:
-structural analysis:-it’s main concern is to investigate the distribution of forms in a language.
it use “test-frames” ; -immediate constituent analysis-descriptive aim; -designed to show how
small components in sentences go together to form larger constituents. (brackets and tables
rozkladu; kazde slowo w osobnym nawiasie, pozniej frazy itd…)
Art.=article; N=non; NP=noun phrase; V=verb; VP=verb phrase; S=sentence
SYNTAX:
-concentrate on the structure and ordering of components within a sentence;-the word come
from Greek and literally meant “a setting out together” or “arrangement”
Generative grammar:-‘50s; -Noam Chomsky; -mathematical view of language; -set of explicit
rules(jasne). The rules are finite but people can use them to produce an infinitive number of
sentences.
Generate-math; create by giving some numbers for x and y.
Recursion—the capacity to be applied more than once in generating sentence