TOPIC 10: LEXICON. CHARACTERISTICS OF WORDS FORMATION IN ENGLISH.
PREFIXATION, SUFFIXATION AND COMPOUNDING
1. INTRODUCTION
Morphology deals with the composition and internal structure of words and the
way that structure determines the meaning of words. Morphology is traditionally
divided into inflectional and derivational morphology. The former conveys grammatical
information such as number, tense, person, or case; the latter, on the other hand,
deals with the formation of words or word-formation.
Since this essay copes exclusively with derivational morphology, we are only
pointing out that the major difference between both fields of study is that inflectional
morphology is strongly linked to syntax and therefore syntactically relevant, whereas
derivational morphology is mainly relevant to the content of the dictionary.
Teaching morphology in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom
is explicitly connected with vocabulary instructions; among the manifold advantages
of teaching morphology, we can allude to a better understanding of how language
works and so to avoid one-at-a-time word memorization. Morphology is a critical
element of successful vocabulary development.
2. WORD-FORMATION
In the English lexicon, we find words that are composed by putting together
smaller units to form larger words with complex meanings, then, we can say that we
are dealing with morphological complex words. We can, thus, decompose complex
words into their smallest meaningful units. These units are called morphemes.
There are words which cannot be decomposed into smaller meaningful units,
they consist of only one morpheme, i.e. monomorphemic words. Some morphemes
can only occur if attached to some other morpheme(s). Such morphemes are called
bound morphemes, in contrast to free morphemes which do occur on their own. Using
Latin-influenced terminology, bound morphemes can be either suffixes or prefixes,
with the term affix covering for all bound morphemes attached to root words.
It is also possible to combine two base words or root words, a process known
as compounding. The grammatical category of a word can be changed by adding
nothing at all at the base, i.e. conversion. There are also processes involving the
deletion of material, i.e. clipping, blending, acronym and abbreviation.
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3. AFFIXATION
The affix has been defined as a bound morpheme that attaches to bases. There
are different ways of classifying affixes. The most obvious way is according to their
position with regard to the base, i.e. whether they are prefixes or suffixes.
Regarding pronunciation, words form by adding a prefix to a word of common
use generally have a stress on the prefix as well as on the base, ‘archbishop’
/ɑːʈʃˈbɪʃəp/ and ‘disagree’ /ˌdɪsəˈgri:/ are cases in point; however, suffixes are
unmarked: ‘fashionable’ /ˈfæʃənəbəl/.
3.1. SUFFIXATION
A suffix is a bound morpheme added to the end of a word to form a derivative.
Suffixes can change the category of a word, for instance, adding the nominal suffix -
er to the verb ‘employ’ (employer), but they can also, for example, form new nouns
from other nouns, i.e. -hood and -dom (‘knighthood’ and ‘kingdom’) are illustrative
cases.
English suffixes usually derive words of only one category, however, there are
exceptions such as -al that can form either nouns ‘arrival’ or adjectives ‘logical’.
3.1.1. NOMINAL SUFFIXES
Nominal suffixes are often employed to derive nouns from verbs, adjectives and
other nouns. For the sake of time only a few nominal suffixes are mentioned: -al, -
dom, -ee, -er/-or, -ess, -hood, -ion, e.g. arrival, boredom, employee, worker, actor,
waitress, neighborhood, classification.
3.1.2. VERBAL SUFFIXES
There are four suffixes which derive from other categories, mainly adjectives
and nouns: -ate, -en, -ify and -ize, e.g. designate, frighten, classify, categorize.
3.1.3. ADJECTIVAL SUFFIXES
Instances of adjectival suffixes are -al, -ary, -esque, -ic, -ing, -ed, -ive, -less, e.g.
logical, legendary, picturesque, logic, boring, bored, hopeless.
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3.1.4. ADVERBIAL SUFFIXES
The presence of the de-adjectival suffix -ly is for the most part syntactically
triggered and obligatory, and it can therefore be considered inflectional. However, in
some formations there is a difference in meaning between the adjective and the
adverb derived by -ly attachment: ‘shortly’ and ‘hardly’ are semantically distinct from
their base words and ‘hotly’, ‘coldly’ and ‘darkly’ can only have metaphorical senses.
3.2. PREFIXATION
The vast majority of prefixes do not change the syntactic category of their base
words, they merely act as modifiers. Furthermore, it can be observed that they
generally attach to more than one kind of syntactic category, i.e. verb, adjective, or
noun.
English prefixes can be classified semantically into different groups, namely:
QUANTIFIER PREFIXES: uni-, bi-, di-, multi-, semi-, omni-, micro-, over-, under-,
e.g. unilateral, bifocal, ditransitive, multimodal, semicolon, omnipotent, micro
function, overrate, underage.
LOCATIVE PREFIXES: circum-, endo-, counter-, retro-, e.g. circumscribe,
endocentric, counteract, retroflex.
TEMPORAL PREFIXES: ante-, pre-, post-, neo-, e.g. antedate, prehistory, post-
structuralist, neoclassical.
NEGATIVE PREFIXES: a(n)-, de-, dis-, un-, non-, e.g. atemporal, decolonize,
discharge, disclosure, unbelievable, non-fat.
Numerous prefixes do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories and
express diverse notions, such as ‘wrong’ of ‘false’, examples are ‘malfunction’ and
‘pseudoscience’.
4. DERIVATION WITHOUT AFFIXATION
Apart from the, perhaps more obvious, possibility to derive words with the help
of affixes, there are a number of other ways to create new words on the basis of
existing ones. These types have already been mentioned when the notions of
conversion, clipping, blend, and abbreviation were briefly introduced.
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4.1. CONVERSION
Conversion can be defined as the derivation of a new word without any overt
marking. Different types of conversion can be distinguished, namely:
NOUN TO VERB: ‘the water’ (n) - to water (v); ‘the bottle’ (n) - ‘to bottle’ (v); ‘the skin’
(n) - ‘to skin’ (v).
VERB TO NOUN: ‘to guess’ (v) - ‘a guess’ (n); ‘to call’ (v) - ‘a call’ (n); ‘must’ (v) - ‘a
must’ (n).
ADJECTIVE TO VERB: ‘better’ (adj) - ‘to better’ (v); ‘empty’ (adj) - ‘to empty’ (v);
‘open’ (adj) - ‘to open’ (v)
ADJECTIVE TO NOUN: ‘poor’ (adj) - ‘the poor’ (n); ‘rich’ (adj) - ‘the rich’ (n); ‘blind’
(adj) - ‘the blind’ (n).
The grammatical change in conversion is sometimes distinguished by the
location of the stress, this occurs in words made up of two syllables, thus ‘suspect’
/səˈspekt/ is a verb but /ˈsʌspekt/ is a noun.
4.2. BACKFORMATION
Backformation is a linguistic process where a new word is created by removing
a perceived affix from an existing word, often resulting in a change in grammatical
category.
This phenomenon frequently involves transforming a longer, more complex
word into a shorter, simple one. For example, the word editor has been backformed
into the verb edit, suggesting that editing is the action performed by an editor. Similarly,
the noun burglar has led to the verb burgle.
4.3. CLIPPING
The operation of clipping involves cutting off part of an existing word or phrase
to leave a phonologically shorter sequence: ‘ad’ from ‘advertisement’, ‘chute’ from
‘parachute’, etc.
Clippings often have restricted uses in that they are deployed only in informal
style or even constitute slang when they are first coined. Thereafter, however, they
may wholly or largely displace the original, as with ‘cell’ from ‘cellphone’.
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4.4. BLENDING
Another class of complex words whose formation is best described in terms of
prosodic categories is blending. Blending differs from the processes discussed in the
previous section in that it involves two or, rarely, more base words, but shares with
clipping a massive loss of phonetic or orthographic material. Examples of blendings
are: motel, sci-fi, brunch, Megxit.
4.5. ABBREVIATION AND ACRONYMS
Abbreviations are similar in nature in nature to blends because both are
amalgams of parts of different words. Abbreviations are most commonly formed by
taking initial letters of multi-words sequences to make up a new word, for example,
DC ‘District of Columbia’, EU ‘European Union’, UK ‘United Kingdom’, Inc.
‘Incorporated’, or NATO ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’.
They can be either spelled in capital or in lower case letters, and they can be
either pronounced by uttering each individual letter, the so-called initialism as in USA
/ˌjuːɛsˈeɪ/ or by applying regular reading rules as in NASA /ˈnæsə/ in the latter, the
abbreviation is called acronym.
4.6. COINAGE WORDS
Coinage, in linguistics, refers to the creation of a completely new word or phrase
that is not derived from existing words. This process can involve inventing a brand
new term to name a new concept, product or phenomenon.
Coined words often aroused in response to technological advances, cultural
changes, or the need for novel expressions.
Examples of coinage include words like google, blog and selfie. Coinage plays
a vital role in language evolution, reflecting ongoing changes in society and
technology.
5. COMPOUNDING
Compounding is the most productive type of word-formation process in English,
it is perhaps also the most controversial in terms of its linguistic analysis; it is a field of
study where intricate problems abound, numerous issues remain unsolved and
convincing solutions are generally not so easy to find.
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In this essay, we have defined ‘compounding’ rather loosely as the combination of two
words to form a new one. However, if we take into account compounds such as ‘teeth
marks’, ‘astrophysics’ or ‘pipe-and-slippery husband’ we can slightly modify our
definition above and claim that a compound is a word that consists of two elements,
the first of which is either a root, a word, or phrase, the second of which is either a root
or a word.
The vast majority of compounds are interpreted in such a way that the left-hand
member somehow modifies the right-hand one, in other words, compounds exhibit
what is called a ‘modifier-head structure’, it is the head which is modified by the other
member(s) of the compound.
5.1. COMPOUNDING PATTERNS
In English, as in many other languages, a number of different compounding
patterns are tested. Not all words from all word classes can be combined freely with
other words to form compounds. These are the most common ways of compounding:
As far as pronunciation is concerned, compounds tend to receive only one
primary stress on the first element as in ‘greenhouse’ /ˈgriːnhaʊs/ compounds formed
by a phrase have two stresses as in ‘film society’ /ˈfɪlm səˈsaɪəti/.
6. CONCLUSION AND TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
The knowledge of the language and the reflection of how language works is
part of language learning. And when teachers explicate the formation and derivation
of words in English they do not only enhance grammatical skills, they also improve
students’ range of expression. Because the knowledge of morphological processes
and of new words and meanings goes hand in handy so of the secondary stages of
compulsory education and post-obligatory ones, teachers need to fully integrate this
grammatical knowledge with the use of words in contexts for comprehension purposes
but also to become more productive.
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Royal Decrees 217/2020, 29 March; 243/2020, 5 April and Decrees 64/2020,
20 July and 65/2020, 20 July which regulate the educational curriculum at national and
regional levels, Madrid in this case, take into account morphosyntactic processes
which are basic strategies for identifying, organizing, retaining, retrieving and using
linguistic units creatively. Teaching morphology in context has didactic implications.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Adams, Valerie. An introduction to modern English word-formation. No 7. Routledge,
2016
- Downing, Angela, and Philip Locke. A university course in English grammar.
Psychology Press, 2002.
- Plag, Ingo. Word-formation in English. Cambridge University Press, 2018
- Villaplan, Eva Estebas. Teach yourself English pronunciation: an interactive course
for Spanish Speakers. Netbiblo. 2009
