Word formation concepts

Etymology: Etymology refers to the study of the origin and history of words. It involves analyzing the root of a word and tracing its development over time. By understanding the etymology of words, we can better understand their meanings and usage in different contexts. For example, the word “telephone” comes from the Greek roots “tele-” meaning “far” and “-phone” meaning “sound,” which helps us understand its meaning as a device for transmitting sound over long distances.

Coinage: Coinage refers to the creation of a new word or phrase, often by combining existing words or parts of words in novel ways. For example, the word “smog” is a combination of “smoke” and “fog,” and was coined in the early 20th century to describe the polluted air in cities.

Borrowing: Borrowing involves taking words from other languages and incorporating them into the vocabulary of another language. For example, the English language has borrowed many words from French, such as “restaurant,” “menu,” and “cul-de-sac.”

Compounding: Compounding involves combining two or more existing words to create a new word with a different meaning. For example, the word “football” is a compound word made up of “foot” and “ball.”

Blending: Blending involves combining two or more words, usually by overlapping or truncating their sounds, to create a new word with a different meaning. For example, the word “brunch” is a blend of “breakfast” and “lunch.”

Clipping: Clipping involves shortening an existing word to create a new word with a similar meaning. For example, the word “bike” is a clipped form of “bicycle.”Backformation: Backformation involves creating a new word by removing what appears to be a morpheme from an existing word. For example, the noun “editor” was created from the verb “edit” by removing the “-or” suffix.

Conversion: Conversion involves changing the part of speech of a word without changing its form. For example, the word “email” can be used as both a noun and a verb.

Acronyms: Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of a phrase or name. For example, the acronym “NASA” stands for “National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

Derivation: Derivation involves adding affixes, such as prefixes and suffixes, to an existing word to create a new word with a different meaning. For example, the word “unhappy” is derived from “happy” by adding the prefix “un-.”

Prefixes and suffixes: Prefixes and suffixes are affixes that are added to the beginning or end of a word, respectively, to change its meaning. For example, the prefix “un-” changes the meaning of the word “happy” to its opposite, while the suffix “-ness” changes the word “kind” into “kindness.”
Infixes: Infixes are affixes that are inserted into the middle of a word to change its meaning. Infixes are not commonly used in English, but they are used in some other languages. For example, the Tagalog word “galing” meaning “skillful” can be changed to “nakagaling” meaning “able to have been skillful” by adding the infix “-um-” before the first syllable.