Word Creation

Write short notes on Word Creation

Acronym formation
-word that is formed from the initial letters of the phrase
- is denoted with capital letters to show that it actually represents something more.
-over time and when used regularly, the acronyms start to take the characteristics and spelling structure of a normal word

Eg : SARS severe acute respiratory syndrome

Borrowing
-occurs when one language takes words from another language and adopts the pronunication of structural pattern of the borrowing language.
English is a very heavy borrower of words from many languages, latin, greek, french.
For eg the word vocabulary is borrowed from the latin word vocabulum.

-Happens when 2 or more languages come in contact with each other
- in the same way, many foreign words enter the El language due to colonisation, war , labor migration and trade.
For eg:
Singapore English borrows words from both Hokkien and Malay due to close contact with the various languages
-kiasu (taken from Hokkien to mean someone is overly anxious)
-makan (taken from Malay )

Backformation
- special case of clipping
- happens when the original word is shortened to form another word by removing what seems like the derivational suffix.
-results in a change in word class
- mostly from nouns to verbs
Eg: Television -> televise
Editor -> edit
Donation -> donate

*special case : Backformation with no change in word class
The word peas is orginated from the word PEASE which in the middle english known as little green plants.
-however,-se is not a suffix.
-thus, this results to a backformation of Pease to Pea by removing the suffix -se.
-people thought that pea is the singular form of pease but this is not true.
-thus , it seems like it's the removal of the inflectional suffix instead.
It is what we now know as Peas.

Blending
-very similar to compounding but at least one of the words that form the blend is reduced.
most recent blends would be dweeb - blend of drawrf and creep
brunch - blend of breakfast and lunch
-think is not a recent phenomena as it has been started since the 16th century with blends
Eg : twirl - twist and swirl
flurry - flutter and hurry

Conversion
- when there is a change in the word class without a change in the form of the word.
- known as class changing process
- words are converted from one class to another without a change in form
- not restricted to only 1 type of word class
Eg: Bottle ---- bottled
Up ------ upped
butter -------buttered
why --------whys

Coinage
- formation of totally new words.
- usually trade names but overtime, these words will be known as common nouns.
Eg : Kodak, Xerox
-again, not a recent phenomena
- nylon(1930)

Compounding
- single new word is formed from 2 separate words.
- the meaning of compounded word is similar to the component words.
Eg: Blackboard, lifeguard

*special case : capsize
- is not a compounded word from the words cap + size.
-the meanings of the above words are not related to the word capsize.
-same refers to carpet

Clipping
- done mostly for convenience as it is easier to remember
- original single word is shortened
-again, not a recent phenomena - previous (pram -----perambulator)
- more recent clipped words - (net ------ internet , lab----------laboratory)

Derivational
- most productive word/utterance creation
-can be done to almost any word just by adding prefix or suffix
-results in a change in lexical meaning and word form
Eg : googol
- the word googol acts as the stem, can be changed into a whole new set of words just by adding derivational suffixes
-can be changed into a noun ---googolisation
-can be changed into a verb ------googolised
-can be changed into an adverb ---- googolly