General Morphological Processes Involved in the Formation of New Words.

In this course, we will study major morphological processes which lead to the production of new words. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Coinage (Neologism) Borrowing Compounding Blending Clipping Acronyms Abbreviations Backformation Conversion Paired word sound play Scale change Multiple processes 1. COINAGE As neologism or coinage we identify the word formation process of inventing entirely new words. This is a very rare and uncommon method to create new words, but in the media, people try to outdo each other with more and better words to name their products. Often these trademark names are adopted by the masses and they become ''everyday words of language'' (Yule 2006, 53) to coin a phrase Examples: xerox kleenex Vaseline yahoo Nylon Google Skype 2. BORROWING Words are created by borrowing from another language and incorporating into English. Sometimes the original meaning is altered, and the pronunciation may change. Since some words were borrowed long ago, it may be hard to recognize that they were ever not part of English. Examples Tortilla * nuance coup de grace *chaos kowtow alchemy espresso

3. COMPOUNDING A new word is composed of two free morphemes to create a new meaning. Examples: buyout do-it-yourself spyware homeplate ringtone underestimate freefall backpedal makeover overstate turnaround upstage

4. 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. So new words like spork (spoon + fork), fanzine (fan + magazine), bromance (brother + romance) or Spanglish (Spanish + English) are created. There are of course other ways to create a blending: for example, you can take both beginnings of a word (cybernetic + organism cyborg) or take a whole word and combine it with a part of another one (guess + estimate guesstimate). (Yousefi 2009) Another example of combining words, in this case names, is the bleding of celebrity couple names, such as Brangelina (Brad + Angelina) or Bennifer (Ben + Jennifer). Sometimes blendings are referred to as portmanteau words. The term portmanteau was coined by Lewis Carroll in 1882, when in his book Through the Looking Glass Humpty Dumpty describes a new word he uses as follows: "Well, 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy'. [] You see, it's like a portmanteau - there are two meanings packed into one word" (Carroll 1996, 102 - i.e. there are two different words with completely unequal meanings put together to form a new word with a new meaning. 5. CLIPPING New words are made by shortening the perceived ending of another word or phrase. Examples: pro psych (class) meds combo prof prom oped gym demo exam zoo (tele)phone (neighbor)hood 6. ACRONYMS Acronymy Acronymy is the process whereby a new word is formed from the initial letters of the constituent words of a phrase or sentence. For example, from the initial letters of the words of the phrase North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the word NATO \ "neItU\ is formed. Similarly, from the initial letters of the constituent words of the phrase unidentified flying object, the word UFO \ juef "U\ (or\ " jufU\) is formed. In a like manner, from the constituent words of the sentence I owe you, the word IOU \ aIU"ju\ (notice the adaptation in spelling) is formed. And from the Situation normal, all fouled up, snafu \sn"fu\ (army slang) is formed. The words created by this process are called acronyms; all of them function as nouns. According to Quirk et al. (1985), there are two main types of acronyms, namely: 1. Acronyms which are pronounced as a word; e.g., NASA \ "ns\ (= National Aeronautics and Space Administration), radar \ "reIdAr\ radar \ "reIdAr\ (radio detecting and ranging), laser (= light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), UNESCO \ju"neskU\ (= United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), BASIC \ "beIsIk\ (= Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), COBOL \ "kUbl\ (Common Business Oriented Language), etc 7. ABBREVIATION The first letters of a group of words are combined into a single word whose letter names are pronounced separately. Examples: LOL AKA RIP 8. BACKFORMATION People cut off a piece of an existing word, create a new morpheme from it, and combine it with other morphemes to create a new word. Sometimes the part of speech changes. Example: television -> televise

priority -> prioritize donation -> donate enthusiasm - > enthuse sermon -> sermonize 9. CONVERSION New words are formed when the grammatical category of a word is changed with no changes to the basic letters of the word. Examples: butter (N -> V) empty (adj -> V, N) this movie is a must (V - > N) chair (N -> V) friend on Facebook (N -> V) homeschool (N ->V) The can do spirit (V -> adj.) 10. PAIRED WORD PLAY A double word is created in two ways: the second word has a change of vowel, usually formed lower in the mouth. the second type is a rhyme, with the first consonant changing. There may be a slight onomatopoetic association, but not always. Changed vowel rhyme hip hop helter skelter singsong willy nilly wishy washy bow wow seesaw hurdy gurdy splish splash nitwit 11. SCALE CHANGE Affixes are added to a base word to indicate its dimension, sometimes using affixes from other languages droplet sermonette megamall nanosecond hankie micromanage operetta dinette Supersize bachelorette

12. MULTIPLE PROCESSES Most words are formed through multiple processes! deli is borrowed from German (delicatessen) and then clipped snowball is compounded from two free morphemes to form a noun, then converted into a verb (snowballed, etc.); Internet is a product of clipping (international plus network), blending (inter+net) and conversion (netiquette) cyberbullying is a blend (cyber + bully) and a conversion (N -> V-> Gerund)