Word formation

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In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term [1] that can refer to either:

Contents

Morphological

A common method of word formation is the attachment of inflectional or derivational affixes.

Derivation

Examples include:

Inflection

Inflection is modifying a word for the purpose of fitting it into the grammatical structure of a sentence. [4] For example:

Nonmorphological

Abbreviation

Examples includes:

Acronyms & Initialisms

An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of other words. [6] For example:

Acronyms are usually written entirely in capital letters, though some words originating as acronyms, like radar , are now treated as common nouns. [7]

Initialisms are similar to acronyms, but where the letters are pronounced as a series of letters. For example:

Back-formation

In linguistics, back-formation is the process of forming a new word by removing actual affixes, or parts of the word that is re-analyzed as an affix, from other words to create a base. [5] Examples include:

The process is motivated by analogy: edit is to editor as act is to actor. This process leads to a lot of denominal verbs.

The productivity of back-formation is limited, with the most productive forms of back-formation being hypocoristics. [5]

Blending

A lexical blend is a complex word typically made of two word fragments. For example:

Although blending is listed under the Nonmorphological heading, there are debates as to how far blending is a matter of morphology. [1]

Compounding

Compounding is the processing of combining two bases, where each base may be a fully-fledged word. For example:

Compounding is a topic relevant to syntax, semantics, and morphology. [2]

Hashtagging as word formation

Linguists argue that hashtags are words and hashtagging is a morphological process. [8] [9] Social media users view the syntax of existing viral hashtags as guiding principles for creating new ones. A hashtag's popularity is therefore influenced more by the presence of popular hashtags with similar syntactic patterns than by its conciseness and clarity. [10]

Word formation vs. semantic change

There are processes for forming new dictionary items which are not considered under the umbrella of word formation. [1] One specific example is semantic change, which is a change in a single word's meaning. The boundary between word formation and semantic change can be difficult to define as a new use of an old word can be seen as a new word derived from an old one and identical to it in form.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bauer, L. (1 January 2006). "Word Formation". Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second ed.). Elsevier. pp. 632–633. doi:10.1016/b0-08-044854-2/04235-8. ISBN   9780080448541 . Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  2. 1 2 Baker, Anne; Hengeveld, Kees (2012). Linguistics. Malden, MA.: John Wiley & Sons. p. 23. ISBN   978-0631230366.
  3. ↑ Katamba, F. (1 January 2006). "Back-Formation". Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second ed.). pp. 642–645. doi:10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00108-5. ISBN   9780080448541.
  4. ↑ Linguistics : the basics. Anne, July 8- Baker, Kees Hengeveld. Malden, MA.: John Wiley & Sons. 2012. p. 217. ISBN   978-0-631-23035-9. OCLC   748812931.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Katamba, F. (1 January 2006). "Back-Formation". Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second ed.). pp. 642–645. doi:10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00108-5. ISBN   9780080448541.
  6. 1 2 Aronoff, Mark (1983). "A Decade of Morphology and Word Formation" . Annual Review of Anthropology . 12: 360. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.12.100183.002035.
  7. ↑ Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2018). An Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. p. 71. ISBN   978-1-4744-2896-5.
  8. ↑ Caleffi, Paola-Maria (2015). "The 'hashtag': A new word or a new rule?" (PDF). Skase Journal of Theoretical Linguistics. 12 (2). ISSN   1336-782X.
  9. ↑ Calude, Andreea S.; Long, Maebh; Burnette, Jessie (2024-06-07). "#AreHashtagsWords? Structure, position, and syntactic integration of hashtags in (English) tweets" . Linguistics Vanguard . 10 (1): 105–114. doi:10.1515/lingvan-2023-0044. ISSN   2199-174X.
  10. ↑ Wan, Ming Feng (2024-03-12). "The role of syntax in hashtag popularity" . Linguistics Vanguard . 10 (1): 693–698. doi:10.1515/lingvan-2023-0051. ISSN   2199-174X.
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