NAHIDA SULTANA

CHAITY
Lecturer of English
Dept of Humanities
CUET
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 Linguistics
 3 linguistic levels

phonological grammatical semantics

• phonetics • Morphology
• Phonology • syntax

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 Synchronic 2 kinds of Diachronic
Morphological
study

• Structure, form, • Etymology:

function & study of the
classes of history of
words words, their
origin, how
their form &
meaning
changed over
time
• How new words
are being
formed in the
language.
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Why are new words
needed?
 Because of new inventions and
changes
 Language is dynamic
 One of the distinctive properties of
human language is creativity

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English Word formation
Processes

How new words are being

formed in English
language.

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IMPORTANT TERMS
 Root word
• primary lexical unit of a word,
• can’t be reduced into smaller
constituents
• free of pre/suffixes
• chatter, running, mice, interrupt

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Major Word Formation
processes
1. coinage 2. Borrowing
3. Calque 4. Compounding
5. Affixation 6. Blending
7. Backformation 8. Clipping
9.Acronymy 10.Onomatopoeia
11.Folk Etymology 12.Reduplication

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1. Coinage
 The word formation process of
inventing entirely new words
 Ex: robotics (1941), genocide
(1943), black hole (1968),blog,
internet, google,
 Quite rare,some of them are
produced for commercial products
that become general terms for any of
that product.
Vaseline,Aspirine.
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Some more examples
 e-cruitment-online recruitment of employees;
online submission of resumes and cover letters

 netbook–small laptop computer which weighs

less than 3 pounds and has a 7 to 10 inch screen

 notspot-an area where there is slow internet

access or no connection at all

 slumdog-very poor, underprivileged person who

lives in an overcrowded a slum
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Eponym

 --new words based on names of

persons/place
 volt [ Alessandro Volta, Italian]
 watt [James Watt, Scot scientist]
 boycott [Charles Boycott, Irish]
 fahrenheit [Gabriel Farenheit, German
scientist]

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2. Borrowing
 Borrowing is the process of actually
borrowing words from foreign languages.
 The English language has been borrowing
words from ''nearly a hundred languages
in the last hundred years'‘
 The other way round, many countries
also have taken many English words into
their dictionaries, such as the well-known
“OK or internet”
 most of the loan words are nouns, only
some of them are verbs or adjectives.
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 Latin: interim, memorandum, agenda, p.m.
and a.m., sponsor.

 Greek : pneumonia, panorama,

psychoanalysis, psychology, python

 French: bureau, café, chauffeur, abattoir,

attaché, á la carte

 Sanskrit: chakra, mahatma, nirvana, musk

 Hindi -avatar, bungalow, jungle, pajamas,

verandah, shampoo, yoga, pundit, cheetah 12
3. Calque
 Direct translation of the element of a
word into the borrowing language.

 word-for-word translation of a phrase

borrowed from another language.

 Ex: from Spanish to English

perros calientes –dog hot =
hot dog

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4. Compounding
 It refers to the joining of two separate
words to produce a single idea. The
two words don’t lose their individual
sounds.
 It does not denote two things, but one
and that is ''pronounced as one unit''
 Ex: -handbag=hand + bag;(unlike um)
-wallpaper=wall + paper;
-fingerprint=finger + print;
-sunburn=sun + burn, 14
 Three forms
1. Open compound:
high school

2. Close compound:
cornflakes

3. Hyphenated compound:
mother-in-law
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 Three kinds

1. Compound adjective

2. Compound noun

3. Compound verb

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compound adjective
Two or more words that act as a single
idea to modify a noun
Ex. a part-time employee
a high-speed chase
 As a general rule, the words in a compound
adjective are hyphenated when they come before a
noun but not when they come after
Ex. a well-known actor (√)
The actor is well known (x)
 Also, compound adjectives formed with an
adverb ending in -ly are usually not hyphenated.
Ex. rapidly changing
violently swirled
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 Examples
 "The general was meeting someone for dinner at
an out-of-the-way restaurant, not in the suburb of
Nanterre, but close by."
(Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity. Richard Marek
Publishers, 1980)

 "A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that

adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope
of life."
(William Arthur Ward)

 "In the 19th century, before the science of

archaeology became well developed, the Ottomans
laid out the brick and concrete city that stands
today."
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compound noun
Two or more nouns combined to form a
single noun.
Ex. grapefruit juice sister-in-law
schoolteacher

 As for me, except for the occasional heart

attack, I feel as young as I ever did.“ Robert
Benchley

 "Some movie stars wear

their sunglasses even in church. They're
afraid God might recognize them and ask for
autographs.“
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(Fred Allen) 19
compound verb

Two or more words combined to form a

single verb. Compounds are written as
either one word or two hyphenated words
Ex. stir fry
sleep walk
brainwash
was playing
would have been playing
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5. Affixation
 An affix is a group of letters that are added to
the beginning or end of a root word that can
change the word’s meaning

The main function of affixation is to form one

part of speech from another.

 Affixation is divided into suffixation and

prefixation.

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 PREFIXATION

A prefix is an affix that comes at the beginning of the

word. There are almost 50 different common prefixes.

types: negative prefixes(unfair, non-stop), pejorative

prefixes(to misbehave), prefixes of place/Locative
prefixes(midway, transatlantic), prefixes of size, degree
and status(micro-, macro-, mini-, co-, vice-), prefixes
of time and order(ex-wife, midnight, preview), prefixes
of number (mono-, poly-, semi-, tri-) and others.

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 SUFFIXATION
 An affix that comes at the end of a word..

 There are 5 groups of suffixation:

-Noun-forming –er, -dom, -ism

-
- Adjective-forming –able, -less, -ous
-
- Verb-forming -ize, -ify, -en
-
- Adverb-forming –ly, -ward, -wise
-
- Numeral-forming –teen, -ty, -fold
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2 kinds of suffixes

1.INFLECTIONAL 2.DERIVATIONAL

Only words change,

not meaning Change not only
meaning, but also
Number, tense, parts of speech
degree suffixes

Cookie-cookies
Write-writer
Walk-walked
Patriot-patriotism
Tall-taller
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6. Blending
 A blending is a combination of two or more
words to create a new one, usually by taking
the beginning of the other word and the end
of the other one.

 creative (sondhi bicched)

 two words are merged based not on

morpheme structure but on sound structure.
The resulting words are called blends.

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Example
 brunch =breakfast+ lunch
motel = motor + hotel
smog = smoke + fog
transistor = transfer + resistor
emoticon = emotion + icon
webinar = web+ seminar
Sitcom= situation + comedy
Netizen = internet+ citizen
Escalator=

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7. Backformation

Ex: television = televise

donation = donate
option = opt
emotion = emote
enthusiasm = enthuse
editor = edit

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8. Clipping

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9. Acronymy
 word from initials/beginning segments of a
set of words

 Ex: SCUBA -Self-Contained Underwater

Breathing Apparatus
RADAR -Radio Detection And
Ranging
LASER –Light Amplification by
Stimulated Emission of
Radiation
PIN-Personal Identification Number
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11. Onomatopoeia/Echoism

 This is special type of sound word

Ex: buzz, hiss, sizzle, cuckoo, crash, bang,

hush, ticktack, etc.

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11.Folk Etymology
 In Bengali,
 From “totsom” to “todvob”

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12. Reduplication

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Conclusion
 As we have seen before, there are many
ways to create new words
 So finally, if we take a look around, we will
see a mass of new words surrounding us,
brought to us both consciously by language
trends and unconsciously through language
change over time
 Language changes constantly. And who
knows if the people will understand the
language we are using now in a few
decades?
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Refrences
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_form
ation
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_%
28morphology%29
 http://introling.ynada.com/session-7-
word-formation

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THANK YOU

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