25/08/2024

WORD FORMATION
Phuong Anh Nguyen, M.A.

Morphology
• Your ability to make up these new words, and to make judgments
about words that you think could never exist, suggests that you
have intuitive knowledge of the principles of word formation in
English, even if you can’t articulate what they are.

• We each have a mental lexicon, an internalized dictionary that

contains words we can produce or understand and word formation
rules that allow us to create new words and understand them.

• Morphology deals with that knowledge: how you form and

understand new words

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Table of contents

1 Morphology and Word formation

2 Basic concepts
• Morpheme, root, base, affix, paradigm

3 Word formation processes

• Major processes: Borrowing, Derivation, Compounding, Shortening

• Minor processes: Sound imitation, Reduplication, Back-formation ,
Coinage, Eponymy

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Morphology and
Word formation

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Word formation

Word formation process/ Morphological process: The

process of creating new words from the resources of a
particular language.
Word formation processes fulfill two basic purposes:
1. to create new words in a language
2. A measure of economy in our mental lexicon

Word formation
Word formation processes can be:
• Internal (coinage, derivation, compounding, back-
formation, abbreviation, etc.)
• External (borrowing)
• Mixed between internal & external processes

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2
Basic
concepts

Paradigm: h ệ biến hoá/ h ệ t ừ

Ø Paradigm /ˈpærədaɪm/: the system of all the word forms of a word.

Ø What is the paradigm of lexeme FAST (adj)?

Lexeme

Word forms

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● “atoms with which words are built” - Katamba,

1994

The smallest unit that has meaning or serves

a grammatical function

Free morpheme Can stand by themselves

MORPHEME e.g. random

Cannot stand by themselves, but

Bound morpheme
need to be attached to a free
morpheme: e.g. –ize, -ation
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Free morphemes

• Lexical morphemes: the morphemes that carry the content (meaning) of

the message, forming an open class of words, e.g. red, chair, go, cake..
• Functional morphemes: the morphemes that simply modify the meaning of
a word, e.g. and, on, but, with, of, the, I…

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Bound morpheme

dis-/ respect PREFIX

AFFIX: phụ tố
McDonald/ -ize/ -ation SUFFIX

à Affix: bound morphemes added to the beginning

(prefix) or after (suffix) the base of a word.

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Base

The base is the semantic core of the word to which

the affixes (prefixes or suffixes) attach.

1. Disrespect (v)
2. McDonaldization (n)

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Root
Consider this word: developmental

To form the word, we need to go through 2 stages:

1. (1) develop + -ment à development
2. (2) development + -al à developmental

Ø What are the bases (i.e. the core to which affixes attach) in (1) and (2)?
Ø Which of these bases CANNOT be further analyzed?

à When a base consists of only one morpheme and cannot be further analysed, it
is called a root, aka the basic part left when all affixes are removed.

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Find the root in the following words

1. Teachers
2. Relational
3. Matchmaking
4. News

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Bound morpheme

Changes the word forms to fit into a Creates new lexemes (new meanings/
grammatical context. Does NOT new lexical items in dictionary). May
create new lexemes or change part of (not) change part of speech.
speech
flaunt(v) + -ed – flaunted(v) Print (v) + -er = printer (n)
flaunt(v) + -ing = flaunting(v) Sorrow (n) + -ful = sorrowful (adj)
Cat(n) + -s = cats (n) Piano (n) + -ist = pianist (n)
Tall (Adj) +-er = taller (Adj)

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Identify the inflectional and derivation

morphemes (if any) in each word

1. Teachers
2. Relational
3. Matchmaking (v)
4. News

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3
Word
formation
processes

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Major processes

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3.1. Borrowing (See lecture 1)

International words

Etymological doublets

Loan translations

Hybrid

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3.2. Derivation/ Affixation

• Derivation/ Affixation creates or derives new lexemes from existing one
by adding affixes to other words or morphemes.
• Derivation allows us to economize – by packing more information into
shorter utterances.
E.g.: “a person who plays the piano professionally”, we say:

• Affixation is a highly productive word formation process: adjà n;

adjà v; adj à adj; n à v; nà adj; và n; etc.

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3.2. Derivation (Affixation)

• Affixes can be classified into different categories based on:
etymological, semantic, productive & functional criteria. (read
text book, pp. 36-44)

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Word Challenge
1. What English word refers to the action of
removing the black thread from shrimps?

2. What’s the word for…?

• A baby duck
• A baby pig
• A small book

3. Find the prefix that doesn’t belong to the

group:
a. Macro-economics
b. maximum
c. semi-final.
d. megaproject

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3.3. Conversion

“The word-form remains the same, but it realises a different

lexical item.” (Katamba, 2005)

• Conversion: to form new lexemes by shifting the part of speech of an

already existing lexeme without adding an affix
à functional shift
• Conversion can be applied to almost all types of part of speech
(= highly productive), e.g.:
Butter (n) to butter (v)
To kick (v) a kick (n)
Rich (adj) the rich (n)
Up (adv) up (n)

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3.3. Conversion (cont.)

• Some morphologists argue that conversion is affixation
with a phonologically null-affix à zero affixation
• Others see conversion as simply a change of category
without any change of form
e.g. to chair (v) would simply be regarded as having been
relisted or re-categorized in our mental lexicons.

Word tree of chair (V)

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3.3. Conversion (cont.)

• Semantically, when a word is formed by conversion, its new
meaning may alter slightly from the original one. However, some
semantic or logical associations between the two are still sustained.
e.g.: Can you hand me the paper?
hand (n) hand (v)

• Grammatically: when a word is formed by conversion, it has a new

paradigm specifically belonged to its new part of speech.

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3.3. Conversion (cont.)

Practice
Identify the converted words and their meanings:

1. Youth is wasted on the young.

2. He hammered down the lid of the box to fasten it.
3. She just parrots whatever her mom says.

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3.4. Compounding
• Compounding is the formation of new words by combining two (or
more) bases, roots, or stems.
• In English we generally use free bases to compose compounds.
Ø compounds of two nouns: windmill, dog bed, book store
Ø compounds of two adjectives: icy cold, blue-green, red hot
Ø compounds of an adjective and a noun: greenhouse, blackboard,
hard hat
Ø compounds of a noun and an adjective: sky blue, cherry red, rock
hard

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3.4. Compounding (cont.)

• Each compound has a head - the element that serves to determine
both the part of speech and the meaning denoted by the compound
as a whole.

• In English, compounds are said to be right-headed.

e.g.: sky blue is an adjective à head =
dog food is a noun à head =

What about Vietnamese?

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3.4. Compounding (cont.)

Compounds can be classified based on structural & semantic criteria.
A. STRUCTURAL CRITERION
1. Neutral compounds (formed by combining 2 bases without using any linking
elements):
• Simple neutral compounds (components are root words) :
car park, soy sauce, fingerprint, starfish, etc.
• Derivational compounds (1 or more components are derived words):
music-lover, absent-minded, newcomer, etc.
• Contracted compounds (1 component is a contracted word):
T-shirt, X-sport, ebook, etc.

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3.4. Compounding (cont.)

2. Morphological compounds: formed by combining 2 stems with the help of a
linking vowel or consonant, i.e. an interfix.
e.g.: sportswear, handicraft, acidophile

3. Syntactic compounds: strings of words formed from segments of speech,

preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relation typical of
speech (like adjective, noun, preposition, etc.)
e.g.: mother-in-law, folditup, lily of the valley, fresh-from-the-farm

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3.4. Compounding (cont.)

B. SEMANTIC CRITERION
1. Non-idiomatic compounds (Endocentric compounds): whose meanings can be
regarded as the sum of the meanings of their components.
e.g.: late-comer, toy car, windmill, brick red, caveman

2. Idiomatic compounds (Exocentric compounds): whose meanings do NOT

correspond to the meanings of their components, partially or completely.
e.g.: tallboy, dropout, brainchild, lady fingers, airhead, turncoat

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Compound or not compound – that is the

question

“How do we know that a sequence of words is a compound? Surprisingly, it’s

not that easy to come up with a single criterion that works in all cases.”

Lieber, 2009
1. Green house
2. Greenhouse
3. Hot dog
4. Hot dog

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Compound vs Word phrase

Criterion Compound Word phrase
e.g. Greenhouse e.g. a green house
Phonetic Usually stressed on the first or left-hand base Each base has a stress of its own

Semantic Expresses only one concept Concept depends on the number of words
in the combination
e.g. Greenhouse: a structure made of e.g. Green house: a house painted green
transparent material used to grow plants

Syntactic Has fixed structure (modifying words CANNOT Has flexible structure (modifying words can
(most sensibly be inserted between the bases) sensibly be inserted between the bases)
reliable) e.g. a green wooden house

Spelling Usually jointly written or hyphenated (s) Always separately written

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Practice

Identify the compounds, type of compounds and their

meanings
1. Millie is still finding her sugar daddy.
2. Anna Wintour has been the editor-in-chief of Vogue
magazine since 1988.
3. That blond is really a third-wheel in our relationship.
4. Guests included European diplomats and statesmen.

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3.5. Shortening (Contraction)

Shortening: the formation of new words by contracting certain elements of
existing words or word groups.
Types of shortening: Clipping, Abbreviation & Blending.

3.5.1. Clipping: excluding certain part of the existing word.

• Initial clipping, e.g. violoncello à cello, telephone à phone, robot à bot.
• Final clipping: e.g. laboratory àlab, examination àexam, Wednesday
àWed, chemotherapy àchemo.
• Initial-final-clipping, e.g. Elizabeth àLiz, influenza à flu
• Medial clipping: e.g. mathematics à maths, madam à ma’am,
carbohydrates à carbs.

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Identify the examples of clipping in the

following sentence. What are the full
forms?

‘Students study psych, anthro, soc, and even ling with one prof or
another, and if they’re taking a science class, may spend long hours
in the lab, which might or might not involve running some stats.’

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3.5. Shortening (Contraction)

3.5.2. Abbreviation: The process in which a word is formed from the
initials of the word group.
e.g.: UNDP, MOFA, DNA, ASEAN, laser, FAQ, CD-ROM, zip code
• Acronyms: pronounced as a word, rather than as a series of letters:
e.g. AIDS /eidz/, scuba
• Initialisms: pronounced as a series of letters, e.g. PR, FBI..

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3.5. Shortening (Contraction)

3.5.3. Blending: when parts of lexemes are combined to form a new
lexeme, the resulting word is called a blend (sometimes also called
portmanteau word).

In English, blending is preferred in advertising, product naming, and

playful language.
e.g.: bromance (brother + romance);
motel (motor + hotel);
infotainment (information + entertainment)

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At home:
Go to Word spy and find more examples of blends.
What lexemes form those words?

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Minor processes

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3.6. Sound imitation (Onomatopoeia)

• Sound imitation, also known as Onomatopoeia /ɒn.əmætəˈpiː.ə/ or
Echoism, is the creation of words from sounds that resemble those
associated with the objects or actions to be named, or that seem
suggestive of its qualities.
• Can vary across languages:
e.g.: boom, cuckoo, tic toc, slap, hiccup.
• Words formed in this way make up
a very small percentage of English words

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3.7. Reduplication
Reduplication: The formation of words by repeating the root or stem of a word, or
part of it, either without any phonetic changes or with a variation of the root-vowel or
consonant.

a. Rhyming reduplication: walkie-talkie, super-duper, braindrain, etc.

b. Exact reduplication: bye-bye, choo-choo, pee-pee, etc.
c. Ablaut reduplication (change of vowel sound):
chit-chat, flip-flop, zig-zag, etc.

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3.8. Back formation

• Sometimes, there are words that historically existed as a root but which ended in a
sequence of sounds identical to certain affixes. When native speakers come to
perceive these words as being complex rather than simple, they create what is called
a backformation.
à Back-formation is the creation of new words by extracting supposed affixes from
existing words.
E.g.:
• Burglar à to burgle
• Television à to televise
• Editor à to edit
• Surveillance à to survey
• Laser à to lase List of English backformations
• Kidnapper à to kidnap

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3.9. Coinage
• A process that creates a new word, either by making up a completely new
word, called a coined word/ neologism.
e.g.: Kodak, Xerox, or Kleenex, nylon, aspirin, Vaseline.
• But it’s relatively rare to coin new words because the words themselves
give no clue to their meaning.
e.g. blivet ‘an intractable problem’
mung ‘to mess up, to change something so that it no longer works’
à many of the pure coinages that creep into English come from original
product names: the association of the coined word with the product makes
its meaning clear

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3.10. Eponymy
• Eponymy is a process that use proper names (of people or places)
to create words.
• The product of eponymy is an eponym.
e.g.: watt, jeans, champagne, sandwich

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Recap: Word formation processes

Derivation/
Shortening
Affixation

Conversion Reduplication

Compounding Back formation

Borrowing Sound imitation

Coinage
Eponymy

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