Word formation

In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with 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 'conversion'.

For the geological formation, see Word Formation.

Root

There are a number of methods of word formation.

Borrowing
Main article: Loanword

Derivations
Main article: Morphological derivation

Compounding
Main article: Compound (linguistics)

Blending
Main article: Blend word

A lexical blend is a complex word typically made of two word fragments. Some examples are smog, which comes from smoke and fog, and brunch, from breakfast and lunch.[1]

Acronym
Main article: Acronym

An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of other words.[1] Some examples are NASA for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and ATM for Automated Teller Machine. They are usually written entirely in capital letters, though some words originating as acronyms, like radar, are now treated as common nouns.[2]

Calque
Main article: Calque

A calque is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.[3] For example, the English phrase to lose face is a calque from the Chinese "丟臉/丢脸".[4]

A subcategory of calques is the semantic loan, that is, the extension of the meaning of a word to include new, foreign meanings.

Neologism
Main article: Neologism

A neologism is a process of forming a new word by coining such as quark.

Subcategories of neologisms include:

  • The eponym, a proper noun that becomes commonly used for an idea it is associated with, usually by changing its part of speech, like Xerox, Orwellian, and Stentorian
  • The loanword, a word borrowed from another language, as cliché is from French or loot from Hindi
  • An onomatopoeic word, a word which imitates natural sounds, like the bird name cuckoo
  • Formation using phono-semantic matching, that is, matching a foreign word with a phonetically and semantically similar, pre-existing native word or root

Back-formation
Main article: Back-formation

In linguistics, back formation is the process of forming a new word by removing actual or supposed affixes from other words. For example, the word televise is a back-formation from television.

References
  1. Aronoff, Mark (1983). "A Decade of Morphology and Word Formation". Annual Review of Anthropology. 12: 360. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.12.100183.002035.
  2. Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2018). An Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure (2nd edition). Edinburgh University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-4744-2896-5.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  3. He, Zili (1990). "Knowledge of Idiomaticity: Evidence from Idiom Calquing and Folk Literalization". Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics. 15 (1): 33.
  4. "face". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  • Hadumod Bussmann (1996), Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, London: Routledge.
  • Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen, [Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 21], Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, vol. 1, pp. 1142-1178.
  • Ghil'ad Zuckermann (2003). Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change). ISBN 978-1-4039-3869-5.
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