Formation of Words

Word Formation Process: Acronym, Blending, Backformation, Coinage, Borrowing,

Compounding, Clipping, Conversion, Affixation (Prefixes and Suffixes), etc.
Introduction
The word-formation process is the process by which new words are produced either by
modification of existing words or by complete innovation, which in turn become a part of the
language. We can very quickly understand a new word in our language (a neologism) and accept
the use of different forms of that new word.
The study of the origin and history of a word is known as its etymology, a term which, like many
of our technical words, comes to us through Latin, but has its origins in Greek (e´tymon “original
form” + logia “study of”), and is not to be confused with entomology, also from Greek (e
´ntomon “insect”). When we look closely at the etymologies of less technical words, we soon
discover that there are many different ways in which new words can enter the language. Here, we
will explore some of the basic processes by which new words are created.
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a way to shorten a phrase or a word. Many common abbreviations tend to
shorten the word being referenced by literally shortening the word but not creating a new one.
Here are some abbreviation examples:

 Ave., which is an abbreviation for “avenue”

 Dec., which is an abbreviation for “December”
 Etc., which is an abbreviation for “et cetera”
 Photo, which is an abbreviation for “photograph”
 Exam, which is an abbreviation for “examination”

Acronyms and initialisms are types of abbreviations.

Acronyms

An acronym is a type of abbreviation that shortens a phrase by combining the first letter (or
letters) of each word in the phrase to form a new pronounceable word. Here are some acronym
examples:

NASA, which stands for National Aeronautical and Space Administration. To form the acronym
NASA, you take the first letter of each of the words in the phrase “National Aeronautical and
Space Administration” and then pronounce the collection of letters as a new word—we
pronounce the term as “nah-suh” and not the individual letters “N-A-S-A.”
FOMO, which stands for “fear of missing out”
LASER, which stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”
RADAR, which stands for Radio Detection and Ranging

Names for organizations are often designed to have their acronym represent an appropriate term,
as in “mothers against drunk driving” (MADD) and “women against rape” (WAR).

Initialism
An initialism is another type of abbreviation similar to an acronym—but not exactly the same.
Initialisms also use the first letter of each word in the phrase, but instead of combining the letters
to form a new word, like with “NASA,” you pronounce each letter individually. Here are some
examples:

VIP, which stands for “very important person”

DVD, which stands for “digital versatile disc”
ATM, which stands for “automatic teller machine”
AM and PM, which stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”
Blending
The combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term is also present in the
process called blending. However, blending is typically accomplished by taking only the
beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word.
Gasoline+alcohol=gasohol.
Smoke+Fog=Smog.
Smoke + haze= smaze
Smoke + murk= smurk.
Binary+digit=bit
Breakfast+lunch= brunch
Motor+hotel) = motel
Television+broadcast= telecast
Spanish+English Spanglish
Information+entertainment= infotainment, etc.
Backformation
A very specialized type of reduction process is known as backformation. It is the word formation
process that eliminates the actual derivational affix from the main form to create new words. It is
contrary to derivation in terms of word formation.
Typically, a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually
a verb). A good example of backformation is the process whereby the noun television first
came into use and then the verb televise was created from it. Other examples of words created by
this process are: Donate from “donation”

Emote from “emotion”

Enthuse from “enthusiasm”
Liaise from “liaison”
Babysit from “babysitter”
Opt from “option”
Insert from “insertion”
Donate from “donation”
Resurrect from “resurrection” etc.
Coinage
Coinage is one of the least common processes of word formation in English. Simply, it means
the invention of totally new terms. The most typical sources are invented trade names for
commercial products that become general terms (usually without capital letters) for any version
of that product. The (older) examples are as follows: aspirin, nylon, vaseline and zipper; more
recent examples are granola, kleenex, teflon and xerox.
The most salient contemporary example of coinage is the word google. Originally a misspelling
for the word googol (= the number 1 followed by 100 zeros), in the creation of the word
Googleplex, which later became the name of a company (Google), the term google (without a
capital letter) has become a widely used expression meaning “to use the internet to find
information.” New products and concepts (ebay) and new activities (“Have you tried ebaying
it?”) are the usual sources of coinage. One of its important type is known as eponym.
Eponyms: New words based on the name of a person or a place are called eponyms.
When we talked about a hoover (or even a spangler), we were using an eponym. Other
common eponyms are sandwich (from the eighteenth-century Earl of Sandwich who first
insisted on having his bread and meat together while gambling) and jeans (from the
Italian city of Genoa where the type of cloth was first made). Some eponyms are
technical terms, based on the names of those who first discovered or invented things,
such as fahrenheit (from the German, Gabriel Fahrenheit), volt (from the Italian,
Alessandro Volta) and watt (from the Scottish inventor, James Watt).
Borrowing
One of the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply labeled
borrowing. It is the process where we take over words from other languages or simply we
borrow words from other languages. (Technically, it’s more than just borrowing because English
doesn’t give them back, nor the source language lost that words.) Throughout its history, the
English language has adopted a vast number of words from other languages, including:
Croissant- French
Dope- Dutch
Lilac- Persian
Piano- Italian
Pretzel- German
Sofa- Arabic
Tattoo- Tahitian,
Tycoon- Japanese
Yogurt- Turkish
Zebra- Bantu, etc.
Other languages, of course, borrow terms from English, as in the Japanese use of suupaa or
suupaamaaketto (“supermarket”) and taipuraitaa (“typewriter”), Hungarians talking about sport,
klub and futbal, or the French discussing problems of le stress, over a glass of le whisky, during
le weekend. In some cases, the borrowed words may be used with quite different meanings, as in
the contemporary German use of the English words partner and look in the phrase im Partner
look to describe two people who are together and are wearing similar clothing. There is no
equivalent use of this expression in English.
Loan-translation or calque:
A special type of borrowing is described as loan-translation or calque (/kælk/). In this
process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing
language. Interesting examples are the French term gratte-ciel, which literally translates
as “scrape-sky,” the Dutch wolkenkrabber (“cloud scratcher”) or the German
Wolkenkratzer (“cloud scraper”), all of which were calques for the English skyscraper.

In English we see many examples of common phrases that are calques translated from
other languages. For example; Beer Garden is a calque of the German Biergarten, and
Adam’s Apple is a calque of the French pomme d’Adam. In both these examples, English
phrases are derived from a direct literal translation of the original.

Another example is from Pashto language. A phrase ‘Da stargu toura’ which was used in
an English movie named Mute (2018) and then given a direct translation ‘the black of my
eyes’ means beloved.
Compounding
When we conjoin or join two separate words to produce a single form, it is called compounding.
Thus, Lehn and Wort are combined to produce Lehnwort in German. This combining process,
technically known as compounding, is very common in languages such as German and English,
but much less common in languages such as French and Spanish. In English, there are compound
nouns, compound adjectives, and compound verbs. Usually compound words are spelt as a single
word, or as at least two joined words, and even as at least two separate words. For instance:
1. Life + style → lifestyle
2. Mother + in + law → mother-in-law
Shopping + mall → shopping mall

Common English compounds are:

Book+case= bookcase
Door+knob= doorknob,
Finger+print= fingerprint,
Sun+burn= sunburn
Text+book= textbook
Wall+paper=wallpaper
Waste+basket=wastebasket
Water+bed=waterbed
All these examples are nouns, but we can also create compound adjectives:
Good+looking= good-looking
Low+paid= low-paid)
Compounds of adjective (fast) plus noun (food) as in a fast-food.
Reduplication:
It is a special kind of compounding. Reduplication is a morphological process in which
the root or stem of a word or part of it is repeated exactly or with a minor change. It is
used to show plurality, distribution, repetition, customary activity, increase of size, added
intensity, continuance etc. It is found in many languages, though its level of linguistic
productivity varies from language to language. This is a process of repeating a syllable or
 the word as a whole (sometimes with a vowel change) and putting it together to form a
new word. For example: byebye (exact reduplication), super-duper (rhyming
reduplication) or chitchat, pitter-patter, zigzag, tick-tock, flipflop.
Clipping
The element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is even more apparent in the process
described as clipping. This occurs when a word of more than one syllable (facsimile) is reduced
to a shorter form (fax), usually beginning in casual speech. The term gasoline is still used, but
most people talk about gas, using the clipped form. Other common examples:
Ad- advertisement
Cab- cabriolet
Ondo- condominium
Fan- fanatic
Flu- influenza
Pub- public house, etc
There are four different types of clipping.
Back clipping: removes the end part of the word like in Ad- advertisement
Fore clipping: removes the beginning part of the word like in Phone-telephone
Middle clipping: reserves the middle position like in Flu- influenza
Complex clipping: removes multiple pieces from multiple words like in fax-facsimile

Conversion
A change in the function of a word without adding an affix, as for example when a noun comes
to be used as a verb (without any reduction or addition), is generally known as conversion.
Sometimes it is also called functional shift.
A number of nouns such as butter, chair and vacation have come to be used, through
conversion, as verbs:
1. Have you buttered the toast?
2. Someone has to chair the meeting.
3. They’re vacationing in Florida.

Typically conversion is made from “noun to verb” and from “verb to noun”. Less frequently,
conversion is also done from “adjective to verb” and “adjective to noun”. For instance:

 Noun to Verb:  

 access
 email
 film
 name
 shape

Verb to Noun:

 attack
 alert
 hope
 increase
 visit
 cover
 Adjective to Verb:

 brown
 black
 slow

Adjective to Noun:

 crazy
 nasty

Derivation
In our list so far, we have not dealt with what is by far the most common word formation process
to be found in the production of new English words. This process is called derivation and it is
accomplished by means of a large number of small “bits” (bound morphemes as affixes) of the
English language which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small “bits”
are generally described as affixes. Some familiar examples are the elements un-, mis-, pre-, -ful,
-less, -ish, -ism and -ness which appear in words like unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful,
careless, boyish, terrorism and sadness.
Affixation: Attaching prefix or suffix or both into the Root Word is called Affixation. For
example,
Un (prefix)- Unbound
Ly (Suffix)- Lovely
So, it is divided mainly into Prefix, Suffix and Infix.
Prefixes and suffixes
Looking more closely at the preceding group of words, we can see that some affixes have to be
added to the beginning of the word (e.g. un-, mis-). These are called prefixes. Other affixes have
to be added to the end of the word (e.g. -less, -ish) and are called suffixes. All English words
formed by this derivational process have either prefixes or suffixes, or both. Thus, mislead has a
prefix, disrespectful has both a prefix and a suffix, and foolishness has two suffixes.

Infixes
There is a third type of affix, not normally used in English, but found in some other languages.
This is called an infix and, as the term suggests, it is an affix that is incorporated inside another
word. It is possible to see the general principle at work in certain expressions, occasionally used
in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers:
Hallebloodylujah!, Absogoddamlutely!. In the film Wish You Were Here, the main character
expresses her aggravation (at another character who keeps trying to contact her) by screaming
Tell him I’ve gone to Singabloodypore!. The expletive may even have an infixed element, as in
godtripledammit!.
 Exercise
1. Identify the process of word formation responsible for each of the following words. Try to
determine the process before you consult a dictionary, though it may be necessary for you to
do so.
a. curio, b. (to) laze, c. (to) network,
d. (to) cohere, e. sitcom f. (the) muppets,
g. (a) what-not, h. margarine, i. dystopia
j. serendipity, k. diesel, l. ha-ha,
m. (to) make up, n. (to) total o. (the) hereafter
p. amphetamine q. (a) construct r. (the) chunnel
s. guestimate t. canary u. brain-gain
v. boojum w. gaffe-slack x. psycho
y. walkie-talkie z. bonfire
2. The words in column A have been created from the corresponding words in column B.
Indicate the word formation process responsible for the creation of each word in column
A.

Column A Column B
a. stagflation stagnation + inflation
b. nostril nosu + thyrl ‘hole’ (in Old English)
c. bookie bookmaker
d. van caravan
e. Amerindian American Indian
f. CD compact disc
g. RAM random access memory
h. televise television
i. xerox xeroxography
j. telathon television + marathon
k. sci-fi science fiction
l. elect election
m. deli delicatessen
n. scuba self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
o. scavenge scavenger
p. hazmat hazardous material

*****