FACHSPRACHENZENTRUM UNIVERSITÄT HANNOVER · Word-formation 3 1 INTRODUCTION Word-formation is an...

Papiere zum Spracherwerb und zur Grammatik ENGLISCH

VII

Dermot McElholm

Word-formation

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FACHSPRACHENZENTRUM UNIVERSITÄT HANNOVER

McElholm – Fachsprachenzentrum

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1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................3

2 COMPLEX WORDS.......................................................................7

2.1 Affixes ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 Prefixes........................................................................................................ 7 2.1.2 Suffixes ....................................................................................................... 7

2.2 Greek and Latin morphemes........................................................................ 8

3 COMPOUND WORDS .................................................................10

3.1 Orthography ................................................................................................ 11

3.2 Compound words with relational adjectives............................................. 11 3.2.1 Noun-noun compounds ............................................................................. 15

4 OTHER TYPES............................................................................18

4.1 Conversion ................................................................................................... 18

4.2 Back-formation............................................................................................ 18

4.3 Abbreviations............................................................................................... 19 4.3.1 Clipping..................................................................................................... 19 4.3.2 Acronyms .................................................................................................. 19 4.3.3 Blends........................................................................................................ 19

4.4 Exocentric compounds ................................................................................ 20

4.5 Co-ordinate compounds.............................................................................. 20

4.6 Reduplicatives .............................................................................................. 21

4.7 Hypocoristics (familiarity markers)........................................................... 21

4.8 Knowledge of the world .............................................................................. 21

4.9 Technical terminology................................................................................. 22

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1 INTRODUCTION Word-formation is an important aspect of the English language. It is that part of the grammar which studies the patterns by which we form new words from existing words. The other possibilities are coining, inventing new words, and borrowing words from other languages.

Word-formation is part of morphology, which also includes inflexion, that is endings such as the –ed ending that forms the past tense of verbs, as in work-ed. Morphemes are the smallest language units that carry meaning, the minimal units out of which words are composed. Thus the word unacceptable can be divided into the morphemes un-, accept and –able. Note that accept can exist on its own – it is free – while –able cannot, it is bound.

There are basically three types of word: simple, complex and compound. Simple words are the smallest units, like table. Complex words are derived from simple words – the stem – by the process of affixation, .i.e. adding a prefix or suffix: modernisation, made from the verb to modernise by adding the suffix -

ation, which again is derived from the adjective modern by adding the suffix -ise;

unacceptable, made from the adjective acceptable by adding on the prefix un-, and acceptable is derived from the verb to accept by adding the suffix -able.

We can see that the derived words are formed from a base to which an affix is added, either a prefix such as un- or a suffix like -ation.

Compound words are combinations of two words to form a new word. Examples of compound nouns are: • town centre, which is composed of two nouns; • presidential election, which is composed of an adjective (a relational

adjective) and a noun.

We can analyse complex and compound words to determine their structure. Thus the complex word decentralisation can be broken down into the verb decentralise and the suffix –ation, expressing the formation of a noun from a verb; decentralise can further be broken down into the prefix de- used to express reversative meaning and the verb centralise. The verb can be again broken down into the adjective central and the verb-forming suffix –ise. The following diagram shows the breakdown:


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FIGURE 1 de central is(e) ation

Equally, a compound word such as wastewater treatment system can be broken down as follows: FIGURE 2

wastewater treatment system These are relatively clear examples of how compound and complex words have an internal structure between their elements. We can also see that for example in the case of wastewater treatment system the precise meaning relationships between the elements is important and still needs to be defined, for example wastewater here is clearly the object of treatment: the system treats wastewater. Note that ultimately every compound is basically binary. There are other types of word-formation process which will be dealt with in more detail later, e.g. conversion, back-formation and blending. Conversion is the process of moving a word from one class to another without changing its form in any way, for example: • the bottle (noun) → to bottle (verb), e.g. the soft drinks are bottled Back-formation is where we take an established word such as burglar and then ‘work backwards’ by analogy to derive the verb to burgle, treating it as if it was formed in the same way as say inspector, derived from to inspect. However, the word burglar existed first and the verb to burgle was derived from it. Abbreviations are also frequently used. These include acronyms like DJ for disk jockey. Clippings are where part of a word – one or more syllables – is left out: ♦ advertisement → advert → ad

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Blends are words where elements of two words are used to make a new word. A typical example is smog, which is a blend of smoke and fog. Exocentric compounds are compounds which cannot be explained in terms of the words that make up the compounds. In words such as heartthrob, heart does not determine throb: a heartthrob is a person who makes someone’s heart throb, i.e. a sexually attractive person. Co-ordinate compounds are where the two constituents are equal and neither determines the other, e.g. Franco-German, fighter-bomber. Reduplicatives are words where two constituents are identical or nearly identical, e.g. din-din (dinner), walkie-talkie. Hypocoristics (familiarity markers) are words used with certain endings like -y or –ie used as pet names, e.g. telly, goalie, auntie. We return to these types of word-formation later.

EXERCISE I.

EXAMINE THE FOLLOWING WORDS AND ANALYSE THEM TO DETERMINE WHAT TYPE OF WORD-FORMATION IS INVOLVED IN EACH CASE. BREAK DOWN COMPOUNDS INTO THEIR BASIC UNITS.

(1) solar energy (2) wastepaper basket (3) diving board (4) diversification (5) spinal injury (6) to carpet (7) conveyor belt (8) computational (9) product liability insurance

(10) empowerment (11) cash dispensing machine (12) microminiaturization (13) painting (14) anti-trust legislation (15) egghead (16) rapid eye movement (17) take-over (18) to carbon-date


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EXERCISE II.

USE A DICTIONARY TO DETERMINE ALL THE DERIVATIONS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING BASES AS WELL AS THEIR MEANINGS.

(1) nation (2) to differ (3) nature (4) photograph (5) to calculate

(6) accept (7) finance (8) to vary (9) measure (10) economy

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2 COMPLEX WORDS

2.1 Affixes

A wide variety of prefixes and suffixes are used in English. Prefixes and suffixes have very different functions.

2.1.1 Prefixes

Prefixes are used to express changes of meaning: • interesting → uninteresting; complete → incomplete (negation) • to do → to undo; to infect → to disinfect (reversal) • to inform → to misinform (pejorative) • clockwise → anti-clockwise (orientation) • to let → to sublet (under also in a metaphorical sense) • war → pre-war (time, before) • to build → to rebuild (again, back)

Note the following special cases with the prefix in-, where it is assimilated to the following consonant (following Latin rules): ♦ before l it becomes il-: in- + logical = illogical ♦ before m it becomes im-: in- + mobile = immobile ♦ before p it becomes im-: in- + possible = impossible ♦ before r it becomes ir-: in - + reversible = irreversible

2.1.2 Suffixes

Suffixes change words from one word class to another. They can be grouped according to the word class which results, e.g. noun, and/or according to what the word is formed from, e.g. denominal (from a noun): friend (noun) → friendship (noun): denominal happy (adjective) → happiness (noun): de-adjectival accept (verb) → acceptable (adjective): deverbal modern (adjective) → modernise (verb): verb-forming represent (verb) → representation (noun): deverbal

It should be remembered that the English language like every other language changes over time. Syllables that were once prefixes or syllables – taken in many cases from other languages like French or Latin – are now part of the language and the original stem has been lost:

to repeat to reverse


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to disperse fallible

These words cannot be broken down any more into separate units: they form a whole and there is thus no stem *peat, *verse, *perse, *fall. The same applies to words like receive, perceive, conceive, deceive etc.: although -ceive looks like a stem, it does not exist on its own in English and occurs in a number of words for historical reasons. As regards orthography, all suffixes and most prefixes are written as one word with the stem, e.g. unacceptability. However, a small number of prefixes are typically separated by a hyphen from the stem, especially in British English (Americans would tend to write many of these words solid): non-, as in non-smoker co-, as in co-education anti-, as in anti-social pro-, as in pro-American ex-, as in ex-wife

The hyphen is used especially when the same sound or letter occurs twice, e.g. the e in re-educate. Also, the hyphen can be used to distinguish between two different meanings: re-form (to form again) as opposed to reform (to change for the better).

2.2 Greek and Latin morphemes

English makes considerable use of morphemes of Latin and Greek origin to form neo-classical compounds. Very many classical elements, such as micro-, -scope, tele-, -graph, occur frequently in new words: although they may look ‘foreign’, and appear only in combination with other like elements, they are nonetheless productive. They are particularly prevalent in science and technology, typical examples being: • tele-: television, telephone, telescope, telecommunications • bio-, hydro-, micro-, photo- as prefixes, e.g. biology, photography • -logy, -scope as suffixes: biology, microscope • -graph, -graphy, -gram as suffixes: telegraph, photography, hologram

One difference between them and other derived or complex words can be seen from the following example: • unacceptable = un- + accept + -able (NATIVE) • biology = bio- + -logy (NEOCLASSICAL)

Here we can see that in the latter case there is no stem! Note in particular the systematic use of certain elements in chemical nomenclature:

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♦ mono-, bi-, tri- etc. to indicate the number of atoms in molecular compounds of two elements, e.g. dinitrogen monoxide

♦ -ide to indicate the non-metal in a binary compound: sodium chloride ♦ -ate for the second part of a copound of three or more elements: sodium

carbonate ♦ endings like -ane, -ene to indicate members of classes of organic

compounds, e.g. methane is an alkane.

EXERCISE III.

FIND THREE EXAMPLES OF THE FOLLOWING NEO-CLASSICAL COMPOUNDS.

(1) photo- (2) –logy (3) –graph (4) micro- (5) –crat/-cracy (6) bio-

EXERCISE IV.

PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF THE FOLLOWING PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES. DETERMINE THE FUNCTIONS OF THE AFFIXES AS WELL AS THE OVERALL MEANING OF THE DERIVED WORD.

(1) –ness (2) semi- (3) -hood (4) in- (5) -ment (6) dis- (7) -ish

(8) sub- (9) -ful (10) re- (11) -ation (12) en- (13) –able (14) dis-

(15) –ize (16) –ee (17) non- (18) –y (19) –ify (20) a-


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3 COMPOUND WORDS Compound words are words which are formed by combining more than one base or stem. Typical examples are houseboat, bee-sting, walking stick. Compound words can be broken down into two constituents. Most compound words are endocentric and one constituent determines the other. We can see this if we consider houseboat and boathouse. The former is a kind of boat which one can live on and the latter is a kind of house used to store boats.

The exceptions are exocentric (also called “bahuvrihi”) such as heartthrob and co-ordinate compounds like Franco-German, which will be discussed later.

We are going to concentrate here on compound nouns; although other words classes also form compounds, e.g. the adjective hard-working or the verb to air-condition, the most important class is that of nouns.

In endocentric compounds, which form the large majority, the two constituents are various referred to as: determinatum (head): this is the base that determines the grammatical

category; it also typically forms the genus of which the compound is a species or kind – bee sting is thus a kind of sting, bee being the determinant;

determinant (modifier): provides the differentiating feature which together with the head yields the species.

Compound words can be divided into several categories based on the types of constituents involved, some of the principal ones being: • relational adjective + noun, e.g. solar energy, urban development,

presidential election, manual labour; • qualifying adjective + noun, e.g blackbird, cold cream, small talk • noun + noun, e.g. diving board, bookshelf; • noun + prepositional phrase (preposition and noun), e.g. conditions of

work, centre of gravity.

We are going to concentrate on two groups, relational adjective + noun and noun + noun, since the other types are less important in terms of frequency. One important distinction is that between a compound word and a free syntactic group such as wet day. This is a particular problem in relation to the second group, relational adjective + noun, to which we will return shortly. Compound words form single units that mean one thing, even if they are generally written as separate words, e.g. blood pressure; free syntactic groups such as wet day can for example be modified easily, e.g. a very wet day. In

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some cases, we find that two words may be used in two different ways with completely different meanings, one being the free syntactic group and the other being a compound: ♦ black bird vs. blackbird: the former is a definite description which is used

to identify an individual bird which is black (the black bird in the tree is a crow), while the latter is a species of bird (turdus merula), the female being actually brown, not black;

♦ dark room vs. darkroom: the formers refers to a room that is dark, while the latter refers to a room used for photographic processing.

The important point is that in a definite description the words that make it up keep their independence and their meaning (the adjective dark and the noun room are not changed or affected in any way), while a compound is a unit which has one unique meaning. In other words, a blackbird forms one unit which means one species of bird only.

3.1 Orthography

We can see from the above examples that in some cases in English compounds are written as one word, e.g. blackbird. However, normally compounds are written as separate words in English, in contrast to German for example: police officer, petrol engine, employment benefit, welfare state. As a compound becomes more established as a permanent lexical item, i.e. as a unit that is an accepted part of the English language, then the trend is from open (welfare state) to hyphenated (honey-bee) and finally to solid (bloodstain). Thus words like bedroom have been part of the English language for centuries and are regarded as one unit. In some cases, we even find that a word may be written in several different ways: flower pot, flower-pot, flowerpot!

3.2 Compound words with relational adjectives

Relational adjectives need to be clearly distinguished from qualifying adjectives such as wet. The important point is that these compound words form a single fixed unit of meaning: we can see this with the combination of relational adjective and noun urban development, where we have no way of modifying the expression – one cannot say *very urban development example in the way one can say a very wet day. In particular, the use of adjective plus noun is a widespread procedure in word-formation in English, as it is in


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Romance languages and in distinct contrast to German, where relational adjectives are used comparatively little. Thus we say in English urban development and in German Städteentwicklung (literally “cities development”). These relational adjectives that form compounds with nouns have particular functions that distinguish them from qualifying adjectives:

– they cannot be modified in any way – intensifiers like very cannot be used with them – *very urban is thus

impossible – some are derived from nouns, presidential for example being derived

from the noun president, that is they are denominal – they are not gradable, that is one cannot say *more urban – they cannot be used predicatively, in that one cannot say for example

*this development is urban

Relational adjective-noun compounds are particularly important in English as they are such a productive type of word-formation both in everyday English and in more specialised fields: manual labour, nervous system, royal family, editorial comment, electric light, solar energy, planetary motion, nuclear power...the list is virtually endless. In such compounds, the relational adjective forms the determinant and the noun the determinatum: thus in presidential election, presidential is the determinatum and determines election.

In some cases, the relational adjective is directly derived from a noun, e.g. presidential from president, in other cases it is not directly derived from a noun, but borrowed (from Latin or French): ♦ city ⇔ urban

♦ brother ⇔ fraternal

♦ countryside ⇔ rural

♦ king/queen ⇔ royal

♦ sun ⇔ solar

♦ mind ⇔ mental

♦ moon ⇔ lunar

♦ hands ⇔ manual

♦ tooth ⇔ dental

♦ voice ⇔ vocal

Let us now look more closely at the way adjective-noun compounds are formed and the relationship between the elements. Let us first look at the example presidential election. The determinant presidential is derived from the noun president; the determinatum is derived from the verb to elect and is

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thus deverbal. But we can go a step further. If we think about the meaning of presidential election, we can see that it is derived from the sentence people elect the president. In other words, the relational adjective is derived from the object in this construction. If we look at the compound word economic growth, on the other hand, we can see that the determinatum growth is also deverbal, but that the meaning relationship is different: economic growth is derived from the economy grows, and the determinant is subject in this case.

Note that two adjectives can be derived from the noun economy: economic, as we have seen, and economical, which means something completely different, namely the quality of ‘having low consumption’ (e.g. a car). In other cases, an adjective may be used both as a relational adjective and as a qualifying adjective with different meanings, for example literary. We can thus talk about a literary prize (relational) or a very literary style (qualifying). In the case of royal and regal, the former is relational adjective (royal assent), while the latter is a qualifying adjective (his manner is truly regal).

The use of relational adjectives in English can thus be classified according to the various grammatical functions of the elements as determined by their paraphrases:


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TABLE 1

1 Relational adjective (RA) as object 1.1 deverbal determinatum x renews the city → urban renewal the earth eclipses the moon → lunar eclipse (conversion) 2 RA as subject 2.1 deverbal determinatum the economy grows → economic growth 2.2 non-deverbal determinatum electricity produces the light → electric light 2.3 determinatum as ‘middle object’ the atom has a nucleus → atomic nucleus 2.4 determinatum as direct complement or predicate the mirror is part of a sphere → spherical mirror 2.5 deadjectival determinatum the sun is active → solar activity 3 RA as prepositional phrase the bear is found at the north pole → polar bear 4 A is ‘for’ B this instrument is for music → musical instrument 5 A ‘concerns’ B these affairs relate to the economy → economic affairs 6 Series of RAs science and technology are progressing → scientific and technological progress

EXERCISE V:

DETERMINE THE MEANINGS OF AND THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE PARTS OF THE FOLLOWING COMPOUNDS:

(1) urban development (2) solar energy (3) cellular phone (4) lunar module (5) terrestrial transmission (6) electric guitar

(7) industrial production (8) manual labour (9) agricultural loan (10) human fallibility (11) presidential trip (12) economic performance

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(13) institutional investor (14) digital computer

3.2.1 Noun-noun compounds

Noun-noun and adjective-noun compounds have two constituents, the determinant and the determinatum, so that the determinant – e.g. bee – determines or modifies the determinant, e.g. sting. We can also look at it this way: a kind or species is formed by adding a modifier to the genus, the modifier indicating the differentiating feature. The relationship between modifier and base can have different functions:

TABLE 2

TYPE OF RELATIONSHIP

EXAMPLE PARAPHRASE

means/instrument washing machine this type of welding is carried out using an arc

purpose washing machine a machine for washing clothes

location combustion chamber chamber where combustion takes place

composition semiconductor thermocouple, roller

bearing

a thermocouple made of semiconductors, a bearing

made of rollers actor frequency multiplier this multiplies frequencies

possession cylinder head the cylinder has a head mode of operation jet engine a gas turbine that

produces a stream of hot gas to propel an aircraft

form, state solid-state device an electronic device consisting solely of solids

effect ionising radiation this radiation causes ionisation

object sludge digestion sludge is digested We can in fact describe the relationships between the constituents of a compound in more detail:


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Table 3

1 N-N (noun-noun) as subject and verb 1.1 deverbal determinatum the earth quakes → earthquake (conversion) 1.2 verb + determinatum as subject the lamp flashes → flash lamp 1.3 verbal noun in –ing + determinatum as subject

the machine washes clothes → washing machine N-N as verb and object 2.1 object + determinatum as deverbal noun x controls the quality → quality control object + determinatum as verbal noun in –ing

x forms metal → metal forming 1.4 object + determinatum as agential noun in –er

x washes the dishes → dishwasher 1.5 verb + determinatum as object

x draws the bridge → drawbridge 1.6 verbal noun in –ing + determinatum as object

x chews gum → chewing gum N-N as verb and prepositional phrase 3.1 verbal noun in –ing + determinatum as prepositional phrase

x dives from this board → diving board (location) x sews with this machine → sewing machine (instrumental) 3.2 prepositional phrase + determinatum as deverbal noun

x rides in a boat → boat-ride 3.3 verb + determinatum as prepositional phrase

x searches with a light → searchlight ‘verbless’ compounds 3.4 noun + determinatum as noun [operates/powers]

wind powers this mill → windmill 3.5 noun + determinatum as noun [produces/yields]

this bee produces honey → honey bee 4.3 noun + determinatum as noun [has]

the door has a knob → doorknob subject and complement 3.6 noun + determinatum as noun [is]

this shark is a killer → killer shark 3.7 noun + determinatum as noun [consists of]

this flake consists of snow → snowflake 3.8 noun + determinatum as noun [is for]

the belt is for safety → safety belt

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EXERCISE VI.

DETERMINE THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE DETERMINANT AND DETERMINATUM IN THE FOLLOWING COMPOUNDS:

(1) managing director (2) drinking-water (3) bloodshed (4) steam engine (5) candlelight (6) book-keeping (7) diving board

(8) chairperson (9) quality assurance (10) taxpayer (11) table leg (12) horror film (13) pine tree (14) washing machine


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4 OTHER TYPES

4.1 Conversion

Conversion is the process of moving a word from one class to another without changing its form in any way. This is linked to the process of reclassification we discussed in the paper on the article in English1; here, a word is moved from one word class to another with a corresponding change in meaning. The most common conversion is from noun to verb, but other conversions are also possible: • the bottle (noun) → to bottle (verb), e.g. the soft drinks are bottled • to answer (verb) → the answer (noun), e.g. he gave me the answer • to drop out (verb) → drop-out (noun), e.g. he is a university drop-out • calm (adjective) → to calm (verb), e.g. we calmed him down • further (adverb) → to further (verb), e.g. to further one’ aims Note that in many cases figurative processes are basically involved, primarily metaphor. Thus to bridge does not mean to build bridges in a literal sense, but in a metaphorical sense, and to axe does not usually mean to cut with an axe but to make job cuts.

4.2 Back-formation

Back-formation is where we take an established word such as burglar and then ‘work backwards’ by analogy to derive the verb to burgle, treating it as if it was formed in the same way as say inspector, derived from to inspect. However, the word burglar existed first and the verb to burgle was derived from it. One productive type of back-formation is in creating denominal verbs: ♦ baby-sitter → to baby-sit ♦ brain-washing → to brain-wash ♦ mass production → to mass-produce ♦ globetrotter → to globetrot ♦ self-destruction → to self-destruct (but the verb derived from destruction

is to destroy)

1 See ENGLISH II, The Use of the Article in English.

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4.3 Abbreviations

Abbreviations are also frequently used, where a word is shortened by omitting one or more syllables, clipping, forming a new word from the initial letters of a compound, especially with the names of organisations, acronyms, and finally, contracted forms of compounds, blends.

4.3.1 Clipping

Clippings are where part of a word – one or more syllables – is left out: - advertisement -> advert -> ad - examination -> exam - public house -> pub - telephone -> phone - influenza -> flu We can see that often it is the first syllable or first two syllables which are used (advert), but in some cases it is the last syllable (phone), and in a few cases the middle syllable (flu). Note that in cases where a word has more than one meaning, e.g. examination, the clipping retains only one specific meaning. Exam only means examination in the sense of a test of one's performance at school or university.

4.3.2 Acronyms

Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of words that make up a name. There are different forms: - pronounced as a series of letters, where the letters stand for full words: EU for European Union - letters stand for constituents of a compound or even for syllables: DJ for disk jockey, TV for television, ID for identification card - letters are pronounced as a word: NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, laser = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

4.3.3 Blends


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Blends (also known as portmanteau words) are words where elements of two words are used to make a new word. A typical example is smog, which is a blend of smoke and fog. The meaning is that it is a mixture of smoke and fog, a kind of fog triggered by smoke particles in the air. Note that we do not combine units which carry meaning - we don not say *smoke-fog - but rather clusters of consonants and/ or vowels such as [smo] from smoke and [og] from fog and add them together. We do however combine the meaning elements, as here the meanings of smoke and fog. Some elements have proven productive, e.g. the burger constituent of hamburger has been taken and combined with other words referring to types of food to yield cheeseburgers, beefburgers, chickenburgers. In general, blends often provide new words by using established patterns and introducing new elements, e.g. infotainment from information and entertainment.

4.4 Exocentric compounds

Exocentric compounds are compounds which cannot be explained in terms of the words that make up the compounds. Normally in a compound, for example with two nouns, a walking stick is a kind of stick, i.e. NOUN1 + NOUN2 is a type of NOUN2, and we say that one element ‘determines’ the other. However, the exception is words such as heartthrob, where heart does not determine throb: a heartthrob is a person who makes someone’s heart throb, i.e. a sexually attractive person. Other examples are egghead and butterfingers. These compounds involve figurative processes, more specifically tropes such as synecdoche and metaphor. If we think about butterfingers, for example, this refers to a clumsy person who lets things slip through his fingers as if there was butter on them to make them slippery. In other words, we use the part -fingers- to refer to the person who is clumsy (synecdoche, i.e. intrinsic and non-accidental part of a whole for the whole).

4.5 Co-ordinate compounds

Co-ordinate (or appositional) compounds are where the two constituents are equal and neither determines the other, e.g. German-American, fighter-bomber, producer-director. We can see that both constituents have the same weighting. A variation of this type is the combining-form compound, where the first constituent is in a modified form: Anglo-German, socio-economic, as in Anglo-German relations, socio-economic classes.

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4.6 Reduplicatives

Reduplicatives are words where two constituents are identical or nearly identical, with perhaps a vowel or consonant being varied e.g. din-din (dinner), walkie-talkie. These may be found in children’s speech: quack-quack (duck); puff-puff (train).

They are also found in adult speech: hush-hush (secret). In these cases, the constituents are identical. In other cases, the second constituent is a variant of the first, involving assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds or use of similar vowel sounds) or alliteration (the repetition of consonants). In some cases, sounds are imitated: tick tock (sound of a clock). In other cases, there is a negative connotation, as in dilly-dally (to loiter or waste time), or there is a suggestion of alternating movements, e.g. seesaw, ping-pong, flip-flop. Other examples include: mishmash (a mixture) singsong (singing together, or a monotonous voice) fuddy-duddy (foolish or conservative person) higgledy-piggledy (confused) mumbo-jumbo (mystical nonsense) teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy (very small)

4.7 Hypocoristics (familiarity markers)

Hypocoristic forms, hypocoristics, or familiarity markers, are pet names, nursery words, children’s speech, or diminutives. Most of them have distinctive endings, for example: ♦ -er: rugger (rugby), fresher (freshman); ♦ -o: ammo (ammunition); aggro (aggravation); weirdo (strange person); ♦ -s: Babs (Barbara), preggers (pregnant), Twickers (Twickenham); ♦ -y, -ie: Aussie, telly, goalie, auntie, mummy, baddy, bicky (biscuit),

Katie, Susie, sweetie.

4.8 Knowledge of the world


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Compounds not only provide us with new words. They are motivated and they have a certain degree of transparency, so that we understand immediately what a ticket-holder is, for example: a person who holds a ticket. They also compress information, so that instead of having to say every time ‘a person holding a ticket’ we compress this multiple-element construction into one complex word, saving time and space and simplifying the syntax. This economy of language comes at the expense of loss of meaning, however. We do not necessarily understand compounds automatically, but only if we know what it is in the outside world they refer to. In other words, we bring our knowledge of the world to the interpretation of compounds. We have seen that there are many different possible relationships between the two constituents of a compound such as instrument, composition, location, purpose. If we consider the following compounds with initial constituent paper - paperboy, paperclip, paper money, paperback, paper tiger - which all look superficially similar, we can actually see that we have a wide range of different relationships. A paperboy is a boy who delivers newspapers (papers), a paperclip is a clip for holding sheets of paper together, paper money is money made out of paper, a paperback is a book whose cover is made of paper or card (this is an exocentric compound that involves synecdoche), while a paper tiger is a country that appears more powerful than it really is. This last example involves a complex of metaphorical process. The possible relationships between the constituents of a compound are exploited in the following joke:”If a tin whistle is made of tin, what’s a foghorn made of?” Composition is, of course, only one of the many possible relationships between compounds.

4.9 Technical terminology

Word-formation is particularly important in the context of technical terminology, i.e. the technical terms of subjects such as economics, engineering, law or physics. Also, the discovery of new phenomena or the development of new ideas requires the creation of new words, and this is where word-formation comes into play. That is why we have relatively new terms such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, very large scale integration, and aggregate demand determinants. This is also where standardisation comes in, in an attempt to develop conceptual systems as well as systematic terminology to express these concepts clearly and unambiguously. We have seen this already in the systematic use of affices in

Word-formation

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chemical terminology. Very often, the development of technical terminology goes hand in hand with a restriction in meaning compared to everyday uses: the technical term aggregate demand is defined in am ore concise restricted manner than in everyday language: The total (or aggregate) real expenditures on final goods and services produced in the domestic economy that buyers would be willing and able to make at different price levels, during a given time period (usually a year).

EXERCISE VII.

CHECK THE MEANING OF THE FOLLOWING COMPOUNDS.

(1) highbrow (2) birdbrain (3) redhead

(4) blackhead (5) skinhead (6) pickpocket

(7) spoil-sport

EXERCISE VIII.

EXPLAIN HOW THE FOLLOWING WERE FORMED:

(1) to brain-wash (2) lab (3) to up (4) DIY (5) flu

(6) smog (7) bit (8) infotainment (9) rockumentary (10) mike

(11) REM (12) paperback (13) stagflation (14) to power-broke (15) schlockbuster

FACHSPRACHENZENTRUM UNIVERSITÄT HANNOVER · Word-formation 3 1 INTRODUCTION Word-formation is an...

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