Word formation process in English

1. WORD FORMATION
PROCESS
Thennarasu Sakkan

2. Word Formation Process
How new words are being formed in the
language
The process consists of a combination of
morphemes that are rule-governed (a new
word is formed)

3. Major Word Formation Processes
(Processes that are formed frequently or
commonly in English language)

4. 1. AFFIXATION
Affixation is the morphological process whereby
an affix is attached to a root or stem.
sing + er = singer
un + real = unreal
pāṭu + kāraṉ = pāṭṭukkāraṉ
English uses only prefixes and suffixes

5. 2. COMPOUNDING
A compound is a word containing a stem that is
made up of more than one root. For
example;
girl + friend = girlfriend
+ paper wallpaperwall =
+ stick lipstickLip =
+ sit babysitbaby =

6. 3. REDUPLICATION
Process of forming new words either by doubling an
entire word (total reduplication) or part of a word
(partial reduplication).
partial
reduplication
Humpty - dumpty
hocus - Pocus
English makes use of reduplication very occasionally
Total reduplication is extremely rare!
Reduplication is a morphological process in which
a root or stem or part of it is repeated.

7. 4. SUPPLETION
 Suppletion is the replacement of
one stem with another which has no
phonological similarity.
am vs. was
go vs. went
naan vs. ennai
cākiṟāṉ vs. cettāṉ

8. MINOR WORD FORMATION
PROCESSES
(Occur less frequently in the English language)

9. 5. ACRONYM
Words that are formed from the initials of several
words.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
NASA (= National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
radar (radio detecting and ranging)
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization)
Acronyms which are pronounced as a word.

10. 6. BLENDING
Process of creating a new word by combining
the parts of two different words, usually the
beginning of one word and the end of
another.
motor + hotel = Motel (a roadside hotel)
camera + recorder = camcorder (video recorder)
breakfast + lunch = brunch

11. 7. CLIPPING
Process of creating new words by shortening parts
of a longer word.
doctor doc
dormitory dorm
Clipping (a method of forming) a shortened word
that does not differ semantically from the longer
version.
refrigerator fridge

12. 8. BORROWING
 Borrowing is the process whereby new words
are formed by adopting words from other
languages together with the concepts or ideas
they stand for (cf. Brun, 1983).
mango from Spanish
garage from French;
Pizza from Italian
Iskool, Kaappi from English

13. 9. COINAGE
Coinage is the invention of totally new words.
Example, whatsApp, facebook, instagram,

14. 10. SYMBOLISM
Symbolism (or morpheme internal change)
consists in altering the internal phonemic
structure of a morpheme to indicate
grammatical functions (cf. Pei, 1966).
For example, in order to form the plurals of
goose and tooth in English, the phoneme /u:/ is
replaced by the phoneme /i:/, thus yielding the
plural forms geese and teeth respectively.

15.  Example in English:
 man -> men
 woman -> women
 sing -> sang
 swim -> swam
 teach -> taught

16. 11. Functional shift
Functional shift (conversion or zero derivation) is the
process by which new words are created by using a
word in new functions (i.e., by shifting, changing or
converting its original grammatical class to another
class), without any change in its form (cf. Godby et
al.).
For example, when the word water is used in the
following sentence Give me some water please it is
used as a noun, which is probably its original use. But
when water is used in the sentence The children water
the plants every morning.

17. Any Questions???