assignment on word formation

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Chapter 6: Morphology- Word formation

The grammar of words: word building, chapter preview, 6.1 introduction.

Speakers keep their languages alive and usable by changing the vocabulary of their languages (and, less easily, their grammar) according to what they need to express.

6.2 Word formation

Word formation concerns the processes that allow us to create new words with grammatical resources already available within a language. These processes must of course obey the rules of the language, i.e. its grammar. The word emailer is a well-formed word of English, as are other possible words like downloader or rebooter , because they follow the same word-formation rule of English that allows words like writer or daydreamer .

Activity 6.1

Assuming, as we did in the preceding chapter, that words are made up of morphemes, word formation involves a patterning of morphemes within words, whose rules we can find out. Let’s use some data to see what we mean by morpheme patterning.

We observe that:

• Morphemes must occur in certain positions within a word. For example, the {plural} morpheme in rooms , spelt – s , must occur at the end of the word, not at the beginning (* sroom ) or in the middle of it (* roosm ).
• The word class to which lexical morphemes belong is important for their ordering within complex words. The forms darkroom , songbird and birdsong are well-formed, whereas the form * roomdark is not.
• Certain bound forms must occur before others. The form commitments is acceptable, whereas the form *commitsment is not.
• Bound forms cannot be combined with one another. Whereas birdsong , with two free forms, is well-formed, neither *unments nor *mently are.

Observations like these help us tell apart different types of morphemes, which in turn helps us tell apart different word formation processes.

In word formation, the building blocks are of two types, and so are the constraints.

The building blocks

• Stem : a morpheme, or a word, to which other morphemes can attach.
• Affix : a morpheme that attaches only to a stem.

How can these two concepts help us explain some of the observations above? We can see, from the data in (4.1), that the words commitment and happily are well-formed, whereas * mently is not. Using the concepts just introduced, we can now explain why this is the case. Both commitment and happily are complex words, i.e. words comprising more than one morpheme. Both words also comprise a stem and an affix: commitment comprises the stem commit to which the affix – ment attaches, while happily comprises the stem happy to which the affix – ly attaches. In contrast, if we treat * mently as a complex word, it seems to comprise two affixes (- ment and – ly ) attached to one another, rather than a stem and an affix. But our definition of affix says that affixes only attach to stems, not to other affixes.

Activity 6.2

Activity 6.3

There is another technical term used to refer to the fundamental stem, as it were, of a word. In the word commitments, this stem is commit , the basic word from which the complex word commitments is built. We then say that the root of the word commitments is commit . The root of a complex word is itself a word from which all affixes have been removed. We can visualise this word formation process as follows, where the arrow indicates the result of word building:

This example shows that a root can be a stem, but that not all stems are roots.

Activity 6.4

The constraints

• Hierarchy : the internal structure of complex words is hierarchical.
• Well-formedness : each step in word formation must produce a well- formed word of the language.

These two constraints help us make sense of word formation. Going back to our analogy of building a wall, they reflect the commonsense observation that walls are built layer by layer, and that each brick added to a wall in fact builds a small wall of its own by fitting neatly among its neighbours. We follow a similar reasoning with word building: complex words are built up step by step from stems and/or affixes, and each intermediate word must itself be a well- formed word. As shown in example (6.2), a word like commitments is formed by attaching the affix -ment to the root/stem commit , forming the word commitment , a new well-formed stem to which -s in turn attaches. In addition, knowing that dark is an Adj and room is a noun in the complex word darkroom , and that Adj precedes N in English, we can explain why darkroom is well-formed whereas * roomdark is not.

6.3 Major word formation processes

The most productive word formation processes in English are affixation , compounding and conversion , the ones that we deal with in greater detail in this chapter.

In morphology, productivity means the degree to which a word- formation process is used in a language. We might use an analogy of productive worker bees – the most productive worker bee is the one that makes the most honey. So also the most productive word formation rules are the ones that are used most frequently to create new words in a language or language variety. Generally, productivity is directly proportional to compositionality , the degree to which the meaning of a new word is predictable from the meanings of its constitutive morphemes. That is, “more productive” entails “more compositional”, and vice versa. For example, an affix like {plural} – s is extremely productive, in that new nouns in English can be made plural by using it. It is also compositional, in that it consistently contributes the meaning ‘more than one ’ to the new word. If emailer is a noun, then emailers is its plural.

However, we should note that compositionality is not an absolute matter. It is not the case that processes, or words meanings, are either compositional or non-compositional. Rather, compositionality is understood as a cline: at one end of this cline, we find transparent word meanings which are easily deduced from the meanings of the morphemes that make up the word; at the other end of this cline, there are opaque meanings which are not easily inferred from the morphemes making up the word. We will see below several examples of degree in compositionality.

6.3.1 Affixation

Affixation is one of the most productive word formation processes in English. In affixation , an affix attaches to a stem. All the words in the sentence Teachers dislike yawning students are affixed words. We can analyse affixes based on two criteria: according to their distribution, and according to their meaning.

Distribution of affixes

We said above that affixes must attach to a stem, but we did not clarify the order of attachment of stem and affix. We now add that there are different types of affix, according to their distribution. For example:

• Prefixes precede the stem.
• Suffixes follow the stem.

We need this clarification in order to explain why the two words unhappy and happily in (6.1) are well-formed, whereas *happyun and *lyhappy are not: un- is a prefix, and – ly is a suffix. That is, un- must precede the stem to which it attaches, while -ly must follow its stem. Note the use of a dash following or preceding these affixes. This is essential to make clear whether we’re referring to a prefix or a suffix.

Activity 6.5

Meaning of affixes

According to meaning, affixes can be of two types.

• Derivational affixes form a new word with a new lexical meaning.
• Inflectional affixes form a variant of the word they attach to, adding a grammatical meaning.

You will notice that this difference in the kinds of meanings conveyed by affixes parallels the difference that we discussed in the previous chapter, concerning lexical and grammatical words. Like lexical words which express ideas/concepts, derivational affixes have semantic content. Derivational affixes are so named because when they attach to a root/stem, they derive a new word, i.e. a word with a new lexical meaning. In contrast, inflectional affixes, like grammatical words, carry grammatical meaning. They mark grammatical properties such as tense, number, person and case, and do not change the lexical meaning of the words they attach to.

This difference between lexical and grammatical meaning explains why certain words are regularly given an entry of their own in dictionaries, whereas other words share the same entry. For example, the words commit and commitment , though related, are in fact two words, with two different lexical meanings that entitle each to a separate dictionary entry. In contrast, inflected words (e.g. rooms) are listed under the same entry as their root, given that they represent grammatical variants of the same word.

In derivational affixation (or derivation , for short), the word class of the stem and the word class of the derived word may or may not be the same. This means that derivational affixes may be class-maintaining or class- changing . Consider these two words:

(6.3) unhappy         commitment

Affixing un – to the Adj happy derives a new Adj ( unhappy ); un – is a class- maintaining derivational affix. Affixing – ment to the verb commit also derives a new word ( commitment ), but this time the lexical class of the derived word changes to a noun; – ment is a class-changing derivational affix.

Inflectional affixes, as we saw in (6.1), change the grammatical meaning of the words they attach to. Consequently, inflectional affixation (or inflection ) is always class-maintaining. For example, inflectional affixation with plural -s changes the grammatical meaning of the singular noun room to plural rooms , but the lexical category remains unchanged. Both room and rooms are nouns. Similarly, affixation with -ed changes the grammatical meaning of walk from present tense to past tense walked , but the lexical category remains unchanged. Both walk and walked are verbs. If we assume that lexical meaning is more central than grammatical meaning, we can see why inflectional affixes regularly follow derivational affixes in the formation of words. One example is the word commitments , discussed in section 6.2 above.

Using the two criteria of distribution and meaning, we can distinguish English affixes in the following way:

Figure 6.2. Types of affix in English

Figure 6.2 shows that the derivational affixes of English can be either prefixes or suffixes. For example, un- in unhappily is a derivational prefix, while -ly in the same word is a derivational suffix. In contrast, the inflectional affixes of English are all suffixes. In fact, contemporary English has only eight inflectional affixes: four bound to verbs, two bound to nouns, and two bound to adjectives.

Activity 6.6

Can you identify the eight inflectional affixes of contemporary English?

Other languages, however, have inflectional prefixes as well as suffixes. One example is Swahili (the major African lingua franca). In many languages, nouns must belong to different grammatical classes, called genders . You may be familiar with gender from languages like French, which has two (masculine and feminine) or German, which has three (masculine, feminine and neuter). In these languages, gender is marked by suffixes. Swahili has several different genders (e.g. for ‘human’, ‘other living things’, ‘liquids’, etc.) and all are marked with inflectional prefixes. As in other gendered languages, adjectives qualifying a noun must show the same gender inflection as the noun. Here is one example from Swahili with a noun and an adjective for the gender sometimes called “Class 6” (in Swahili, the adjective follows the noun):

Figure 6.3. Example of gender inflection in Swahili

Affix identification

In section 5.4.3, we listed three criteria to identify morphemes, namely sound, grammar and meaning. The same criteria can of course be used to identify different affixes. Let’s see how the three criteria apply to the affix -ly in the words sharply , kindly and happily . If all three criteria are obeyed, then we are dealing with the same affix. If any one criterion is not met, then we are dealing with different affixes.

• Sound . In all three words, the affix is pronounced the same way, [li] (conventions to represent pronunciation are dealt with in the next chapter). In other cases, the pronunciation of an affix may be predictable by rule. Predictable variation of this kind also satisfies the sound criterion.
• Grammar . The affix attaches to the same stem class, in the same position (as a prefix or as a suffix), and the lexical category of the resulting word must be the same for all the words under consideration. In this case, -ly is suffixed to an Adj to form an Adv in all three words.
• Meaning . The affix establishes a regular meaning relationship between the stem and the word resulting from the affixation. In this case, the meaning of the newly derived word can be paraphrased as ‘in a manner’, where the Adj replaces the blank. For example, sharply means ‘in a sharp manner’.

Note that the meaning paraphrase must contain the stem of the word, in this case the adjectives sharp , kind and happy , in order to make the meaning relationship between the stem and the derived word absolutely clear. We can now generalise our observations about the formation of the words sharply, kindly and happily to all other words containing the same affix by means of a shorthand rule, like this:

(6.4)     Adj + – ly → Adv, ‘in a _ manner’

In rule notation of this kind, the plus sign represents sequential ordering of morphemes, and the arrow indicates the result of that ordering. This rule summarises all the information that we need, in order to identify the affix – ly . You can use this rule to check for yourself that sharply contains the same affix as words like brightly, lightly or beautifully .

The observations and analysis that we developed in this section of course apply to any complex word formed through affixation, not just the three adverbs under discussion here. Otherwise, our conclusions would be useless in a scientific account of language.

Activity 6.7

6.3.2 Compounding

Affixation involves attaching one or more affixes to a stem. In contrast, compounding involves attaching a stem to another stem. In the following sentence, the words in italics are compounded words:

(6.5) Janice spilled the salad dressing on her brand-new laptop .

Notice that spelling is irrelevant for the identification of compounds. Compounds may be spelt with hyphens as in brand-new , without hyphens as in salad dressing , or as single words as in laptop . What is crucial is the meaning relationship between the stems making up the compound word.

Form of compounds

Each of the stems in a compound is itself a word of the language, and therefore belongs to a particular word class. However, the word class of each stem does not necessarily correspond to the word class of the compound word itself, as shown in the table below:

Figure 6.4. Word classes of compounds and their stems

Figure 6.4 shows that the word class of the compound word may be the same as the word class of one of its stems, often the right-hand stem (as in pickpocket, seasick, spoonfeed, and overshadow), but that this need not always be the case (as in barefoot, rundown and pullover). There is wide variability in the correspondence of word class between stems and compound, and it is this flexibility that contributes to the lively productivity of compounding as a word-formation process.

Languages like English allow simple juxtaposition of stems to form a compound, as in the examples above. This is the commonest compounding process in these languages. But other compounding processes exist, such as linking stems by means of grammatical words as in mother of pearl , chief of staff or black and white . Examples are expressions like a mother of pearl necklace or a black and white photograph . Other languages prefer linking stems in this way, for example Romance languages like French or Portuguese. What’s important is that the words so linked, whether by simple juxtaposition or through the use of linking words, acquire a specific meaning of their own, that is different from the meaning of each of the stems that make up the compound. Compound words, like derived words, have dedicated entries in dictionaries.

Activity 6.8

We saw in Activity 6.4 that the word disgraceful contains more than one stem. This being so, explain why this word is not a compound.

Meaning of compounds

A compound word encapsulates a specific concept. The meaning of many compounds is non-compositional and may lie anywhere from transparent to opaque on a compositionality cline. What this means is that we cannot predict the exact meaning of a compound by assuming a particular relationship between the stems that build it. Take, for example, the compounds meatball and handball . They both have the structure N + N → N, and they both mean something that is related to meat and ball in the first case, and to hand and ball in the second. But whereas meatball means ‘a ball made of meat’, handball doesn’t mean ‘a ball made of hand(s)’. Similarly, handbag means ‘a bag to be carried in your hand’, whereas handball does not mean ‘a ball to be carried in your hand’.

Activity 6.9

Explain why this is an example of language play:

If olive oil is made by pressing olives, how is baby oil made?

As illustrated above, the meaning of some compounds is opaque because of the idiosyncratic relationships between the stems forming the compound. But compound opacity can also result from meaning shifts in the stems of a compound. The compound blackboard , for example, was created at a time when all school boards were black, i.e. the stem black was used in its literal sense. Nowadays, however, we can talk about green blackboard s and even about white blackboards (although the word whiteboard has been coined for the latter), without feeling that we are being paradoxical about the colour of the board. The reason is that the stem black no longer designates the colour ‘black’ in this compound. Together with the stem board , it identifies a particular kind of object instead.

Despite the opaque meaning that the first stem contributes to these compounds, there is a sense in which compounds like blackboard or darkroom do have a transparent meaning, in that a blackboard is a board, and a darkroom is a room. The same cannot be said of the meaning of compounds like pickpocket or pullover . In compounds of the former type, the second stem is central to the meaning of the whole compound. We can paraphrase the meaning of compounds like handbag or shoulder-bag by saying that they are bags of a particular kind. Similarly, we can paraphrase the meanings of compounds like seasick and car-sick by saying that they both involve being sick in some way. Compounds of this type are called headed compounds : the second stem is the head of the compound, and the first is its modifier.  Two properties can be observed among these compounds, relating to:

• Meaning : the modifier narrows down the meaning of the head.
• Word class : the compound word belongs to the same word class as its head.

By these two properties, the meaning of a headed compound can be said to refer to a kind-of the meaning of its head. For example, a handbag is a kind of bag (for more on kind-of relations between word meanings, see section 9.5.2). The meaning of these compounds tends to lie on the transparent segment of the compositionality cline, compared to the meaning of non-headed compounds like pickpocket or pullover .

The productivity of compounding is borne out by the frequency with which so-called long compounds are formed. Long compounds are expressions formed by successive compounding of other compounds (this kind of compounding is an example of recursion . In English, 3-word and 4-word compounds are very common. Two examples are, with their stems numbered for ease of reference:

Because long compounds are formed by compounding other compounds, we need to take account of hierarchy in their formation. Often, decisions about the order in which the stems attach to one another result in quite different interpretations of the meaning of the final compound. We would all agree that example (6.6a) can only mean ‘a service dealing with vehicle breakdown’, not ‘a breakdown service for vehicles’. That is, (6.6a) is formed by attaching stems 1 and 2 to each other, and then stem 3. Similarly, (6.6b) can only mean ‘a professional troupe for children’s entertainment’, not ‘an entertainment troupe made up of professional children’). That is, (6.6b) is formed by attaching stems 3 and 4 to each other, followed by stems 2 and 1, in that order.

But how would we parse a long compound like Singapore noodles soup ? Do we mean ‘a kind of soup with noodles that is served in Singapore’, or ‘a soup containing Singapore noodles’? The two interpretations can be made clear using square brackets for the stems that are parsed together, like this:

a. [Singapore] [noodles soup]

b. [Singapore noodles] [soup]

The choice of interpretation may well depend on what we understand a “concept” to be, in the sense discussed above for the meaning of compounds. Singapore noodles may be a concept for certain speakers, in which case the parsing in (6.7a) is the one that immediately comes to mind. For other speakers, the compound may be ambiguous , i.e. mean two different things according to the alternative analyses in (6.7).

An illuminating episode concerning compound parsing involved one of the authors of this book as main character. As a newcomer to Asia, I saw a poster describing a red dragon boat team . My first reaction was to wonder “What colour is the dragon??” Would you have any trouble assigning a colour to the dragon too, or would you find the issue irrelevant? The explanation for my confusion is that, for me, dragon boat was not a compound concept, so I didn’t know whether to parse red dragon first, or dragon boat first. Think for yourself how you would parse a long compound like kitchen towel rack , which is always ambiguous because there is no single “basic” compound concept involved in its formation.

Activity 6.10

Do you find these long compounds ambiguous? Explain why you think so.

busy family schedule

toy car factory

wooden door latch

Here is a schematic summary of the word types discussed so far:

6.3.3 Conversion

The last of the three highly productive word formation process that we wish to discuss here is conversion. Conversion involves a change in the word class of a word without any change in the form of the word. Examples of converted words appear in italics below:

(6.8) If you bookmark your favourite websites, they’ll cookie every download .

Used originally as nouns, the words bookmark and cookie are currently used also as verbs. The converse is true of the word download , which started life as a verb and is now used also as a noun. The productivity of conversion is seen in the vast number of identical word forms that serve as different word classes. A few examples include judge, fast, party, impact, and email . Out of context, the word class of converted words cannot be determined. In English, virtually any word can be converted to a noun. This is why we can talk about the rich , a have-not , or the whys, ifs and buts of an argument.

Conversion differs from both affixation and compounding in that new words are formed not through the addition of morphemes (whether affixes or stems) but simply by changing their word class. Because of this, conversion adds new simple words to the language, from other simple words, whereas affixation and compounding add complex words.

When dealing with word formation processes, it may sometimes be useful to find out the original word class of a word. Etymology (from the Greek etymon , ‘true meaning’ and logos , ‘science’) deals with the historical evolution of word meanings. Any good dictionary, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or the Merriam-Webster, for British and American uses of English, respectively, will provide this information. Incidentally, a lot of people think that the original meaning of words is their ‘true meaning’, as the Greek word above suggests. If so, we would all be very wrong in our current use of many words. Take nice , for example. At the time English imported this word from Latin through French in the Middle Ages, it mean ‘ignorant, foolish’ – certainly not how we use this word today.

6.4 Other word formation processes

We now discuss briefly four other word formation processes that are common in various languages. All of them share one characteristic that sets them apart from the three major processes discussed so far: they all shorten words.

6.4.1 Backformation

Backformation is so named because it is the opposite of affixation: it involves removing from a word a part of it that is perceived as an affix. The word is taken “back”, as it were, to its stem “form”.

The interesting feature of backformed words is that the supposed affix is in fact not an affix at all, and there is therefore no stem to go back to. By analogy with other legitimately affixed words of the language, backformation in fact creates a new word. One classic example of backformation will help explain how it works. The word television was created as-is to designate what we all know it to mean. By analogy with pairs of words like supervision-supervise, revision-revise , the word television was (wrongly) assumed to be a derived word too, and the new verb televise was backformed from it. Many backformed words create verbs from nouns in similar ways. Examples include hawk from hawker , edit from editor , and electrocute from electrocution .

Backformation isn’t always clear-cut, and at times may cause hesitation in the use of certain word forms. For example, when you find your bearings do you orientate or orient yourself? And are you then orientated or oriented ?

6.2.2 Clipping

In contrast to backformation, clipping simply cuts a word short, without reference to morphological structure. Examples of clipped words include exam from examination , maths from mathematics , and pub from public house . Many students taking English Language refer to their course as Elang . Many of us surf the net rather than the internet , and ride in cars rather than motorcars . These examples show that clipping can affect any part of the original word, its beginning, end or middle. The words fridge and flu , from refrigerator and influenza , for example, retain the middle, while clipping off the beginning and end of the words.

Activity 6.11

Can you explain the language play in the sign below, painted on the side of an electrician’s van?

Let us remove your shorts

6.4.3 Acronymy

Acronymy involves using the initial letters of a sequence of words or morphemes to form a new word. We mentioned the word television above, as the name of a familiar object, but the likelihood is that you don’t watch television , you watch its acronym TV instead. Other examples of acronyms are KL for Kuala Lumpur , MMR for (vaccination against) measles, mumps, rubella , DOS for disk operating system , or UNESCO for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation .

These examples in fact conflate two types of acronyms. Some, like KL , are pronounced by the names of the letters that compose them, whereas others, like UNESCO , can be pronounced as a word. The former are sometimes called initialisms , whereas the latter are acronyms proper. The word CD- ROM is a mixture of both, its first part an initialism and its second part an acronym. Words like PhD ( Philosophy Doctor ) or radar ( radio detecting and ranging ) are also taken as acronyms, although they both take two initial letters from one of their words, rather than just one (“ Ph” from Philosophy and “ ra” from radio ).

Activity 6.12

1 . Can you find the rule for these shortenings?

2. Now try to predict the shortenings for the following expressways:

Central Expressway

Tampines Expressway

3. Think about naming practices of this kind in your own country, for roads, institutions, services, etc. Any interesting examples?

Once acronyms become words in their own right, they behave like ordinary words, exhibiting the features of the word class to which they are assigned. We can thus pluralise nouns like radar and CD-ROM , to talk about radars and CD-ROMs , respectively. Spelling, particularly of proper acronyms, also normalises to lowercase letters. This is the case for radar , as it is for scuba and laser , from self-contained underwater breathing apparatus and light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation , respectively.

These examples make it easy to understand why acronymy is an economical way of using words, and why, therefore, acronyms are extremely common in any media where speed of communication is seen as desirable, e.g. chatrooms, email, instant messaging systems. Other recent examples of acronyms include SARS for severe acute respiratory syndrome , DVD for digital video disc , URL for uniform resource locators and SMS for short message service.

Activity 6.13

• Collect a file of commonly used acronyms that you use on email or when messaging your friends.
• Make a list of acronyms used in the news (either on TV/radio or in print).

6.4.4 Blending

A blend can be seen as the compounding of clipped words, in that it takes segments from words and joins them together in a new word that retains meaning characteristics from the original words. The word smog , for example, is a blend of smoke and fog , and means a ‘blend’ of smoke and fog. Similarly, brunch is a blend of breakfast and lunch, a modem is a blend of a modulator and demodulator, while a dramedy blends drama and comedy.

Other examples of blends are the names by which local varieties of languages are known. Examples of labels involving English include Hinglish (Hindi English), Japlish (Japanese English), Swenglish (Swedish English), and Spanglish (Spanish English). These blends reflect the dual contribution of their two referents to form the language variety in question. Within this set of labels, the word Singlish is also a blend, although its first clipping refers to a country (Singapore) rather than a language. The same applies to Manglish (Malaysian English), the variety of English spoken in Malaysia.

6.5 Morphological analysis of complex words

Several of the word formation processed discussed in this chapter can, and in fact do, operate on the same word. This flexibility is part of the productivity of these word formation processes. We can, for example, find words like ATMs , formed through acronymy and affixation, or like piano-players , where compounding and affixation apply. Let’s now see how complex words like these are analysed.

6.5.1 Interpretation of meanings

Insight into the meaning of a complex word is best gained by means of a paraphrase that explicitly describes its meaning. Paraphrase makes clear not only the grammatical identity of each of the component morphemes in a complex word, but also the grammatical relations among them. As highlighted above, paraphrases must mention the morphemes that constitute a word, so that the meaning of the word becomes clear. For example:

Figure 6.6. Examples of paraphrases of complex words

6.5.2 Representation of structure

The internal structure of words may be represented schematically by means of a diagram. In linguistics, diagrams that represent grammatical structure have become known as tree diagrams , although they in fact suggest an upside down, or inverted “tree”, with branches that grow downwards rather than upwards. By analogy with actual trees, tree diagrams have branches , straight lines that link units at successive levels of analysis, and nodes , the points at which the branching take place. Each node of the diagram bears a label, which clearly identifies the relevant unit for the intended analysis. Labelled tree diagrams are commonly used in morphology and in syntax, and their purpose is to enable us to visually grasp the linguistic structure of words, phrases and sentences in terms of their linear and hierarchical organisation.

When drawing a morphological tree diagram, we can work bottom-up , starting at the bottom of the tree, labelling each morpheme in each word, and work our way upwards. Or, we can work top-down , starting with the word as a whole and breaking it down into its constitutive morphemes. In either case, we must bear in mind that word analysis obeys the two constraints stated in section 4.2 above: the analysis reflects the hierarchical step-by-step process of word formation, and must build well-formed words at each stage of word formation.

Here are the complete diagrams for three words, the nouns ATMs and piano-players , and the verb emailed. For these diagrams, we chose, arbitrarily, to use the abbreviations der . and infl . for derivational and inflectional , and an arrow to indicate conversion. Other conventions can be used in diagrams, so long as their meaning is made perfectly clear.

The diagrams (6.9)-(6.11) give us all the information that we need in order to understand the internal structure of the words, in what could be called the words’ formation “history”. The information in brackets is in fact redundant, and is shown here just for clarity. There is no need to repeat, for example as in (6.10), that player is a derived stem: its suffix is already specified as derivational. The diagrams also show that inflection applies last, in all three word formations. All words in the examples are therefore inflected words, regardless of other processes in their formation.

Activity 6.14

4.5.3 A note on spelling and morphological analysis

Written representations of language add an additional level of arbitrariness to it. We have also insisted that linguistics is concerned primarily with spoken language , rather than written/printed forms of it. “Creative spellers” do manage to get their written messages through, if their original spoken form can be recovered from the written/printed material. One example is the following letter written by a child to Santa Claus, where the intended meaning is clear despite the unexpected spelling:

(6.12) I want a bored game.

While the observation that spelling is a secondary representation of language remains true, it is also true that spelling is not entirely irrelevant to linguistic analysis. Being conservative by nature, not least because it reinforces the dominance of the sense of sight over hearing, spelling preserves the visual coherence of morphologically-related words that may have lost their family resemblance in speech. Speech-faithful spellings like the following can be easily read, and might be advocated by spelling reformists:

(6.13) ilektrik ilektrishan ilektrisiti ilektrikal

The counterargument to such reformation is that the alternative spellings ilektrik, ilektrish and ilektris would fail to represent the unity of the morpheme electric , found in the conventional spelling of all four words.

Food for thought

Let’s face it,

English is a crazy language. There is no egg in the eggplant No ham in the hamburger

And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted

But if we examine its paradoxes we find that Quicksand takes you down slowly

Boxing rings are square

And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing? If the plural of tooth is teeth

Shouldn’t the plural of phone booth be phone beeth? If the teacher taught,

Why didn’t the preacher praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables

What the heck does a humanitarian eat!? Why do people recite at a play

Yet play at a recital? Park on driveways and Drive on parkways?

How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day And as cold as hell on another?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy

Of a language where a house can burn up as It burns down,

In which you fill in a form By filling it out

And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers And it reflects the creativity of the human race (Which of course isn’t a race at all).

That is why

When the stars are out they are visible

But when the lights are out they are invisible. And why it is that when I wind up my watch It starts

But when I wind up this poem It ends.

Richard Lederer

Further reading

Deterding, David H. and Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria R. (2001). Chapter 2. Morphology. In The grammar of English. Morphology and syntax for English teachers in Southeast Asia . Singapore: Prentice Hall, pp. 6-17.

Hudson, Grover (2000). Chapter 15. Six ways to get new words. In Essential introductory linguistics . Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 239-251.

Attribution

This chapter has been modified and adapted from The Language of Language. A Linguistics Course for Starters under a CC BY 4.0 license. All modifications are those of Régine Pellicer and are not reflective of the original authors.

ENG 3360 - Introduction to Language Studies Copyright © 2022 by Régine Pellicer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• English Grammar
• Word Formation

Word Formation - Learn What It Is, Types and Rules with Examples

How are words formed? Are there any rules by which words are formed? Let’s find out. This article will walk you through what word formation is, the various types of word formation and the rules to be adhered to when forming words. The number of examples given will make your learning process more effective and easier. Check it out.

Table of Contents

What is word formation, types of word formation with examples, rules to be followed when forming words, test your understanding of word formation, frequently asked questions on word formation in english.

The English language is known for its wonderful quality of the way in which words and sentences are formed and used. Formation of new words from an existing root word by adding a syllable or another word is the general process; however, there are multiple ways in which it can be done.

The formation of words is classified into four types based on how the process of formation is carried out. They are:

• By adding prefixes
• By adding suffixes
• Converting from one word class to another
• Forming compound words

Let us look at each type of word formation in detail.

Adding Prefixes

The term ‘prefix’ refers to one or more alphabets added to the stem of a word, mostly to make it negative. The most commonly used prefixes include ‘in-’, ‘un-’, ‘dis-’, ‘im-’, ‘ir-’, etc. Look at the examples given below for a clearer understanding of how prefixes are used to form new words.

Examples of Word Formation by the Addition of Prefixes

• Discipline – indiscipline
• Just – unjust
• Tidy – untidy
• Respect – disrespect
• Understand – misunderstand
• Comfortable – uncomfortable
• Comfort – discomfort
• Responsible – irresponsible
• Honest – dishonest
• Happy – unhappy
• Polite – impolite
• Experience – inexperience
• Practical – impractical
• Important – unimportant
• Legal – illegal
• Ethical – unethical
• Potent – impotent

Adding Suffixes

A suffix is a short syllable added at the end of a base word. The addition of suffixes usually changes the word class of the particular word. The most common suffixes include ‘-ment’, ‘-ness’, ‘-ity’, ‘-ous’, ‘-tion’, ‘-sion’, ‘-al’, ‘-able’, ‘-ible’, ‘-ive’, ‘-ly’, ‘-ate’, ‘-er’, ‘-or’, etc. Check out the following examples to see how suffixes are added.

Examples of Word Formation by the Addition of Suffixes

• Comprehend (verb) – comprehension (noun) – comprehensible (adjective)
• Inform (verb) – information (noun) – informative (adjective)
• Invest (verb) – Investment (noun) – Investor (noun)
• Write (verb) – writer (noun)
• Authorise (verb) – authorisation (noun)
• Move (verb) – movement (noun)
• Add (verb) – addition (noun)
• Happy (adjective) – happiness (noun)
• Conserve (verb) – conservation (noun)
• Wide (Adjective) – widen (verb)
• Manage (verb) – manageable (adjective) – manager (noun)
• Courage (noun) – courageous (adjective)
• Brave (adjective) – bravery (noun)
• Profit (noun) – profitable (adjective)
• Quick (adjective) – quickly (adverb)
• Happy (adjective) – happily (adverb)
• Sad (adjective) – sadness (noun)

The process of conversion focuses solely on changing the word class of the particular word. If you have noticed, you would have seen how some nouns are used to perform the role of a verb or an adjective acting like a noun just by the addition of another word or slightly altering the spelling of the actual word.

Examples of Word Formation by Conversion

• The rich should help the poor.

Adjectives such as ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ are used as nouns by using them with the article ‘the’.

• Everyone is talented.

‘Talented’ – a past participle is used as an adjective in the above sentence. The word is formed by adding the suffix ‘ed’ to the end of the noun ‘talent’.

• There will definitely be a lot of ups and downs in life.

Prepositions ‘up’ and ‘down’ are used as nouns by adding ‘s’ to the end of it.

• He texted me about the meeting only at the last minute.

The noun ‘text’ used to refer to a text message sent on a phone is used as a verb in the sentence by adding an ‘ed’ to the end of the word.

• The financial aid had to be approved before we could make a decision.

The noun ‘finance’ is used as an adjective by adding ‘ial’ to the end of it and the verb ‘decide’ is used as a noun by removing ‘de’ and adding ‘sion’ to the word.

Forming Compound Words

Compound words are formed by combining one part of speech with another to form a specific word class. There are many ways in which compound words are formed. Verbs are combined with adjectives to form compound verbs, a present participle is combined with a noun to form a compound noun, two nouns are combined to form a compound noun, an adjective and a noun are combined to form a compound noun, an adverb is combined with a noun to form a compound noun, an adjective is combined with a past participle to form a compound adjective and so on. Take a look at the following examples and go through the articles on compound nouns , compound words and compound adjectives to understand how they work.

Examples of Word Formation by Compounding

• Over (adverb) + load (noun) – Overload
• White (adjective) + wash (verb) – Whitewash
• Black (adjective) + board (noun ) – Blackboard
• Cup (noun) + board (noun) – Cupboard
• Short (adjective) + hand (noun) – Shorthand
• Swimming (present participle) + pool (noun) – Swimming pool
• Three (adjective) + legged (past participle) – Three-legged
• Break (verb) + Down (preposition) – Breakdown
• Up (preposition) + town (noun) – Uptown
• Copy (verb) + writer (noun) – Copywriter
• Sun (noun) + rise (verb) – Sunrise
• Count (verb) + down (preposition) – Countdown
• Flash (verb) + mob (noun) – Flash mob
• Master (noun) + piece (noun) – Masterpiece
• Round (adjective) + table (noun) – Round-table

Formation of words can be a very interesting exercise, but you have to be really careful when you are adding inflections or affixes. There are a few things you will need to bear in mind when you are forming words. Take a look at the following points to learn what they are.

• Before making any change to the stem of the word, try to analyse what is the kind of meaning you want the word to convey and what role the word will have to play in the sentence.
• In most cases, the beginning of the base word remains the same. Only when prefixes are added the word has a syllable added to the beginning of it. Notice that even in this case, the word is retained as such.
• When suffixes are added, there are many instances where you will have to remove the last one or more alphabets of the word and add the suffix. However, there are words like ‘movement’ where the suffix is just added without any change in the spelling of the base word.
• Here is one way to easily know which suffix has to be added to form a particular word class – most often, nouns end in ‘er’, ‘or’, ‘ist’, ‘ian’, ‘ion’, ‘ment’, ‘ness’, and ‘ity’; verbs end in ‘ise’, ‘ate’ and ‘en’; adjectives end in ‘able’, ‘ible’, ‘ive’, ‘ic’, ‘ed’, ‘ing’ and ‘al’; and adverbs normally end in ‘ly’.
• When words are formed by conversion, be very careful. Make sure you know that you are converting them accurately and using them in the sentence properly.
• When forming compound words, see to it that you hyphenate them if necessary, use the right combination of words and do not just mix and match any word.
• Changing from one tense to another also can also be considered a type of word formation, as the word is inflected to indicate the twelve different tenses in the English language.
• Forming degrees of comparison can also be put under word formation. In this case, the comparative and superlative degrees are formed by adding ‘er’ and ‘est’ to the end of the adjective. The comparative and superlative degrees of polysyllabic words are formed by using ‘more’ and ‘most’, respectively, along with the adjective.

Exercise 1 – Add Prefixes and Suffixes

Add prefixes and suffixes to the following words.

1. Passion____

2. Remember____

3. ____conscious

4. Sense____

5. ____acceptable

6. Entertain____

7. ____representation

8. Neat____

9. Invent____

10. ____interpret

Answers for Exercise 1

1. Passionate

2. Remembrance

3. Unconscious/Subconscious

4. Sensible/Senseless

5. Unacceptable

6. Entertainment

7. Misrepresentation

8. Neatly/Neatness

9. Invention

10. Misinterpret

Exercise 2 – Conversion of Words

Go through the following words and convert them as directed.

1. Money (convert into adjective)

2. Brave (convert into noun)

3. Clean (convert into noun)

4. Prayer (convert into adjective)

5. Resemblance (convert into verb)

6. Slow (convert into adverb)

7. Treat (convert into noun)

8. Confession (convert into verb)

9. Vary (convert into adjective)

10. Beauty (convert into verb)

Answers for Exercise 2

1. Monetary

3. Cleanliness

4. Prayerful

5. Resemble

7. Treatment

9. Various/variable

10. Beautify

Exercise 3 – Form Compound Words

Go through the words in the box given below and use them to form ten compound words.

1. _______ confident

2. Washing _______

3. Time _______

4. Under _______

5. _______sufficient

6. Up_______

7. _______set

8. Suit_______

9. _______over

10. _______thrift

Answers for Exercise 3

1. Overconfident

2. Washing machine

3. Timetable

4. Underestimate

5. Self-sufficient

8. Suitcase

9. Makeover

10. Spendthrift

What is word formation?

Word formation is the process by which new words are formed by adding an affix, another word or converting from one word class to another by removing and adding alphabets.

What are the four types of word formation?

The four types of word formation include:

• Addition of prefix
• Addition of suffix
• Conversion from one word class to another

Give some examples of word formation.

Here are some examples of the various types of word formation for your reference:

• Practical – impractical (prefix)
• Purpose – purposeful (suffix)
• Silent – silence (conversion)
• Dining + room – Dining room (compound word)
• Small – smaller – smallest (degrees of comparison)

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Types of Word Formation in English

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In linguistics (particularly morphology  and lexicology ), word formation refers to the ways in which new words are formed on the basis of other words or morphemes . This is also known as derivational morphology .

Word formation can denote either a state or a process, and it can be viewed either diachronically (through different periods in history) or synchronically  (at one particular period in time).

In  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language,  David Crystal writes about word formations: 

"Most English vocabulary arises by making new lexemes out of old ones — either by adding an affix to previously existing forms, altering their word class , or combining them to produce compounds . These processes of construction are of interest to grammarians as well as lexicologists. ... but the importance of word-formation to the development of the lexicon is second to none. ... After all, almost any lexeme, whether Anglo-Saxon or foreign, can be given an affix, change its word class, or help make a compound. Alongside the Anglo-Saxon ​ root in ​ kingly , for example, we have the French root in royally and the Latin root in regally . There is no elitism here. The processes of affixation, conversion, and compounding are all great levelers."

Processes of Word Formation

Ingo Plag explains the process of word formation in Word-Formation in English :

"Apart from the processes that attach something to a base ( affixation ) and processes that do not alter the base ( conversion ), there are processes involving the deletion of material. ... English Christian names , for example, can be shortened by deleting parts of the base word (see (11a)), a process also occasionally encountered with words that are not personal names (see (11b)). This type of word formation is called truncation , with the term clipping also being used."

(11a) Ron (-Aaron) (11a) Liz (-Elizabeth) (11a) Mike (-Michael) (11a) Trish (-Patricia) (11b) condo (-condominium) (11b) demo (-demonstration) (11b) disco (-discotheque) (11b) lab (-laboratory)

"Sometimes truncation and affixation can occur together, as with formations expressing intimacy or smallness, so-called diminutives :"

(12) Mandy (-Amanda) (12) Andy (-Andrew) (12) Charlie (-Charles) (12) Patty (-Patricia) (12) Robbie (-Roberta)

"We also find so-called blends , which are amalgamations of parts of different words, such as smog ( sm oke/f og ) or modem ( mo dulator/ dem odulator ). Blends based on orthography are called acronyms , which are coined by combining the initial letters of compounds or phrases into a pronounceable new word (NATO, UNESCO, etc.) Simple abbreviations like UK or USA are also quite common."

Academic Studies of Word-Formation

In the preface to the Handbook of Word-Formation, Pavol Stekauer and Rochelle Lieber write:

"Following years of complete or partial neglect of issues concerning word formation (by which we mean primarily derivation, compounding, and conversion), the year 1960 marked a revival—some might even say a resurrection—of this important field of linguistic study. While written in completely different theoretical frameworks (structuralist vs. transformationalist ), both Marchand's Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation in Europe and Lee's Grammar of English Nominalizations instigated systematic research in the field. As a result, a large number of seminal works emerged over the next decades, making the scope of word-formation research broader and deeper, thus contributing to better understanding of this exciting area of human language ."

In "Introduction: Unravelling the Cognitive in Word Formation." Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation, Alexander Onysko and Sascha Michel explain:

"[R]ecent voices stressing the importance of investigating word formation in the light of cognitive processes can be interpreted from two general perspectives. First of all, they indicate that a structural approach to the architecture of words and a cognitive view are not incompatible. On the contrary, both perspectives try to work out regularities in language. What sets them apart is the basic vision of how language is encapsulated in the mind and the ensuing choice of terminology in the description of the processes. ... [C]ognitive linguistics concedes closely to the self-organizing nature of humans and their language, whereas generative-structuralist perspectives represent external boundaries as given in the institutionalized order of human interaction."

Birth and Death Rates of Words

In their report "Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death," Alexander M. Petersen, Joel Tenenbaum, Shlomo Havlin, and H. Eugene Stanley conclude:

"Just as a new species can be born into an environment, a word can emerge in a language. Evolutionary selection laws can apply pressure on the sustainability of new words since there are limited resources (topics, books, etc.) for the use of words. Along the same lines, old words can be driven to extinction when cultural and technological factors limit the use of a word, in analogy to the environmental factors that can change the survival capacity of a living species by altering its ability to survive and reproduce."

• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language . Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Onysko, Alexander, and Sascha Michel. “Introduction: Unravelling the Cognitive in Word Formation.” Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation , 2010, pp. 1–26., doi:10.1515/9783110223606.1.
• Petersen, Alexander M., et al. “Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 15 Mar. 2012, www.nature.com/articles/srep00313.
• Plag, Ingo. Word-Formation in English . Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Stekauer, Pavol, and Rochelle Lieber. Handbook of Word-Formation . Springer, 2005.
• Making New Words With Affixation
• What Are Derivational Morphemes?
• Word Stems in English
• Inflectional Morphology
• What Is Semantic Transparency?
• Reduplicative Words
• Phonesthemes: Word Sounds and Meanings
• The Etymology of Words and Their Surprising Histories
• Definition and Examples of Word Boundaries
• English Grammar
• 100 Key Terms Used in the Study of Grammar
• How Derivation is Used in Grammar
• A Linguistic Look at Spanish
• What Is an Exocentric Compound?
• Cognate: Definition and Examples
• What Is Compounding in the English Language?

Introduction

Parts of speech

Clause combining

Information structure

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Word formation

Test yourself: Word formation

New words enter the English language in a range of ways. One common source of new words is to borrow them from other languages. For example, café is originally a French word that was borrowed into English in the late 19th century. The most frequent strategy for creating new words from English language resources is the use of derivational morphology. However, there are several more ways that words are formed. These include: backformation, base modification, conversion (also called "shape sharing"), compounding, clipping, blending, reduplication and initialism.

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Backformation

Backformation is a process by which word is mis-analysed as having an affix because it has a similar form to a word with an affix. The "affix" is then removed to make a new word; for example, editor historically is a word with one morpheme only, but, because of words like baker and actor (verb + nominaliser suffix) the word was reanalysed as edit + or , resulting in the formation of the more recent verb edit .

Base modification

A number of English lexemes have different senses depending on how the word is stressed. For example the noun REcord exists in a pair with the verb reCORD . Other words that do this include: addict , console , compress , conduct , contract , discharge , export , recall , permit , and torment .

Conversion is when a word is changed from one part of speech to another without changing form or pronunciation, for example, the noun input used as a verb (to) input . There are many noun / verb pairs in English that are related by conversion. Consider the following body parts as examples: head , face , shoulder , arm , hand , finger , stomach , leg .

Compounding

Compounding is when two bases are joined together to make a new word. These can be the same part of speech (for example, the two verbs break and dance forming the compound verb breakdance ), or different (for example, the noun stress and the adjective related forming the compound adjective stress-related ).

Clipping involves omitting part of the base of a word, so the shortened version becomes a word in its own right (for example, barbeque → barbie , or microphone → mike ).

Blending is when part of one word is joined to part of another word (for example, gi gantic + e normous → ginormous ).

Reduplication

Reduplication is the process of forming compound words by repeating all or part of a word (for example, no-no , higgledy-piggledy or mish-mash ).

Initialisms

If the new word can be pronounced as it is spelt, it is called an acronym (for example, A boriginal and T orrres S trait I slander C ommission → ATSIC ).

If the letter names are still pronounced, it's called an abbreviation (for example, d igital v ideo (or v ersatile ) d isc → DVD ).

Grammarpedia English Grammar Resource | Copyright © 2008-12 Dr. Tonya Stebbins | Web Development: Mark Planigale | Updated: 2011-02-15 | Provide feedback or report an error

Word Formation - Compounding Words, Blending and Clipping

• Heather Marie Kosur
• Categories : Esl lesson plans for all grade levels
• Tags : Teaching english as a second language

Word Formation

Word formation occurs when compounding, clipping or blending existing words to create new words. Below we will cover the definition of these terms and give you several examples of each.

Compounding Words

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Compounding words are formed when two or more lexemes combine into a single new word. Compound words may be written as one word or as two words joined with a hyphen. For example:

• noun-noun compound: note + book → notebook
• adjective-noun compound: blue + berry → blueberry
• verb-noun compound: work + room → workroom
• noun-verb compound: breast + feed → breastfeed
• verb-verb compound: stir + fry → stir-fry
• adjective-verb compound: high + light → highlight
• verb-preposition compound: break + up → breakup
• preposition-verb compound: out + run → outrun
• adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet → bittersweet
• preposition-preposition compound: in + to → into

Compounds may be compositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word is determined by combining the meanings of the parts, or non-compositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word cannot be determined by combining the meanings of the parts. For example, a blueberry is a berry that is blue. However, a breakup is not a relationship that was severed into pieces in an upward direction. Compound nouns should not be confused with nouns modified by adjectives, verbs, and other nouns . For example, the adjective black of the noun phrase black bird is different from the adjective black of the compound noun blackbird in that black of black bird functions as a noun phrase modifier while the black of blackbird is an inseparable part of the noun: a black bird also refers to any bird that is black in color while a blackbird is a specific type of bird.

Clipping Words

Clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced or shortened without changing the meaning of the word. Clipping differs from back-formation in that the new word retains the meaning of the original word. For example:

• advertisement – ad
• alligator – gator
• examination – exam
• gasoline – gas
• gymnasium – gym
• influenza – flu
• laboratory – lab
• mathematics – math
• memorandum – memo
• photograph – photo
• public house – pub
• raccoon – coon
• reputation – rep
• situation comedy – sitcom
• telephone – phone

The four types of clipping are back clipping, fore-clipping, middle clipping, and complex clipping. Back clipping is removing the end of a word as in gas from gasoline . Fore-clipping is removing the beginning of a word as in gator from alligator . Middle clipping is retaining only the middle of a word as in flu from influenza . Complex clipping is removing multiple parts from multiple words as in sitcom from situation comedy .

Blending Words

Blending is the word formation process in which parts of two or more words combine to create a new word whose meaning is often a combination of the original words. Below are examples of blending words.

• advertisement + entertainment → advertainment
• biographical + picture → biopic
• breakfast + lunch → brunch
• chuckle + snort → chortle
• cybernetic + organism → cyborg
• guess + estimate → guesstimate
• hazardous + material → hazmat
• motor + hotel → motel
• prim + sissy → prissy
• simultaneous + broadcast → simulcast
• smoke + fog → smog
• Spanish + English → Spanglish
• spoon + fork → spork
• telephone + marathon → telethon
• web + seminar → webinar

Blended words are also referred to as portmanteaus.

Word Formation Sample Downloads

For more complete lists of English words formed through compounding, clipping, and blending, please download the following free printable vocabulary lists:

• Compound Noun List: English Compound Nouns
• List of English Clipped Words
• List of English Blend Words

This post is part of the series: Word Formation: Creating New Words in English

The articles in this series define and exemplify the most common word formation processes, or the creation of new words, in English including derivation, back-formation, conversion, compounding, clipping, blending, abbreviations, acronyms, eponyms, coinages, nonce words, borrowing, and calquing.

• Word Formation: Derivation and Back-Formation
• Word Formation: Conversion
• Word Formation: Compounding, Clipping, and Blending
• Word Formation: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Eponyms
• Word Formation: Coinages, Nonce Words, Borrowing, and Calquing

Word Formation Processes

In linguistics, there are many ways for creating a new word. In this lesson, we will get to know all the word-formation processes in the English language.

• What are Word Formation Processes?

As languages evolve and develop all the time, new words emerge to help speakers communicate better. In this lesson, we are going to talk about the word formation processes or WFP to find out how a new word enters a language.

• Word Formation Processes in English

This is a list of common word-formation processes in English:

• Compounding
• Back-formation
• Abbreviation

Now, let us discuss them one by one.

1. Loan-word

Borrowing or loan word refers to the process where a foreign word is used in the language without being translated . The English language has adopted a large number of words from other languages. Remember that the word does not lose its meaning in the target language.

• Loan-Words: Types

There are two different types of loan words. Let's take a look at them:

• Foreign words with the same spelling

This happens when a word is borrowed from a foreign language and its orthography stays the same.

ballet from (French) to (English)

patio from (Spanish) to (English)

hamster from (German) to (English)

cookie from (Dutch) to (English)

yogurt from (Turkish) to (English)

• Foreign words with different spelling

In this case, the orthography of the word changes in the target language.

chauffeur from (French) to (Spanish) chofer

football from (English) to (Hungarian) futbal

check from (English) to (Finnish) sˇekki

Loan-translation , also known as calque , is a translation method in which a word or phrase is translated literally , word-for-word , into another language. It's important to note that calques are usually semantic or syntactic translations , meaning that they retain the meaning or structure of the word in the original language, rather than being phonetically matched.

• Calque: Types

There are five types of calque which have been listed below with examples:

• Phraseological calque:

When idiomatic phrases or sets of expressions are translated word-for-word.

It goes without saying (English) translated from ça va sans dire (French)

Here, This English phrase is derived from a direct literal translation of a French phrase.

schau stehlen (German) translated from steal the show (English)

• Syntactic calque:

This type of calque only occurs at a structural level in a sentence where the structure of two different languages is involved. Remember that no lexical change happens in this type.

to find guilty = encontrar culpable (instead of ''declarar culpable'') from Spanish to English.

Here, a third language is made which could be called 'Spanglish'.

in order to: en orden à (instead of ''para'') from French to English.

• Semantic calque:

Semantic calque happens when we transfer the additional meaning of the words of our source language into the target language.

'green light' calques the French 'feu vert'

Here, 'feu' means 'light' and 'vert' means 'green'.

'superman' calques the German 'Übermensch'

'Adam's apple' calques the French 'pomme d'Adam'

• Phonological calque:

In this type of calque, the sound of the source language word is projected in the target language. Take a look at these similar-sounding Chinese words:

马赛克 Mǎsàikè from Mosaic (English)

卡通片 Kǎtōng from Cartoon (English)

• Typographic calque:

This happens when typographical rules that only exist in the source language are transferred into the target language. For example, the rule of capital letters in English has entered Spanish, as well as the use of italics for emphasis and certain uses of quotation marks .

Sam wasn't the only person in that room.

Here, We must use italics for emphasis.

3. Compounding

When two separate words are combined together to form a single new word , compounding happens. This happens in English and German more than in French and Spanish.

• Compounding: Types

There are three types of compound words:

• Open compounding : When there is a space between two elements.

peanut butter

• Hyphenated compounding : When there is a hyphen between two compounded elements.

never-ending

left-handed

• Closed compounding : When the two elements are written together.

fingerprint

• The Plural Form of Compound Nouns
• Compound nouns are usually pluralized by adding the inflection -s to the end of the word.

a bookcase → two bookcase s

a post office → two post office s

• In compound nouns that are made from a noun and an adverb , the first part (the noun) becomes plural.

a passer-by → several passer s -by

a Listener-in → several Listener s -in

• Compound nouns that end in - 'in-law' can be pluralized on both the first and the final part.

mother-in-law → mothers -in-law or mother-in- laws

sister-in-law → sisters -in-law or sister-in- laws

4. Blending

Blending is when a word is formed by mixing two other words together.

brunch : breakfast + lunch

smog : smoke + fog

• Blending: Types

There are two different types of blending:

• Attributive blends in which one part is the head and the other one is attributive .

Snobject : a snobbery-satisfying object

Here, 'object' is the head.

Fruitopia : a kind of drink

Here, 'Fruit' is the head.

• Coordinate blends combine two words with equal positions and have two heads .

biopic : biography + picture

camcorder : camera + recorder

glimmer : gleam + shimmer

5. Clipping

Clipping or shortening involves cutting down some parts of a word and forming a shorter word that is a synonym for the original word. Clipping is different from abbreviation as it is the shortened form of written words . Here are some examples:

gasoline = gas

condominium = condo

• Clippings as Slang or Jargon

Some linguists believe that clippings originated as slang or jargon among students and teachers in schools, officers and soldiers in the army, or doctors and nurses in the medical profession. Here are some examples:

examination = exam

mathematics = math

laboratory = lab

veteran = vet

captain = cap

manicure = mani

pedicure = pedi

Clipping is a type of WFP

• Clipping: Types

Depending on the part of the word that is reduced, there are four types of clipping:

• Final clipping : (the most common type) When the final part of the word is shortened:

fanatic = fan

• Initial clipping : when the final part is kept and the first part is reduced:

robot = bot

parachute = chute

alligator = gator

• Medial clipping : when a word is gradually shortened due to the process of elision under the influence of rhythm

Fantasy = Fancy

madam = ma’am

forecastle = fo'c'sle

• Complex clipping : (clipped compounding) When a word is clipped and compounded with another word. Remember that complex clipping is a type of blending.

science-fiction: Sci-fi

Here, It was compounded and then clipped.

situation comedy: sitcom

As you can see, It was compounded and then clipped.

English speakers tend to clip each other’s names . For example, instead of saying 'Alexander', they shorten it to 'Alex' or just 'Al'. There are many more examples such as 'Jen' for 'Jennifer' or 'Rob' for 'Robert'.

• 6. Hypocorisms

It is a type of clipping mostly used in British and Australian English when a longer word is reduced to one syllable and - 'ie' or – 'y' is added to the end. It is mainly used in 'child-talk', 'nicknames', and everyday life conversations.

Moving picture: movie

Television: telly

Sick leave: sickie

Bookmarker: bookie

• 7. Backformation

This word-formation process happens when a word (usually a noun) is reduced to another part of speech (normally a verb). This word-formation process originated in Latin nouns ending with '- ion ' that entered the English language. Take a look at some examples:

Option (noun) → to opt

As you can see in the example, the Latin word 'option' was taken over in English and many years later, the verb 'opt' was created.

Insertion (noun) → to insert

opinion (noun) → to opine

resurrection (noun) → to resurrect

If there is a noun ending in - er (or something close in sound), then we can create a verb:

worker → to work

editor → to edit

Back-formation is different from clipping . Back-formation may change the word's class or meaning, whereas clipping makes shortened words from longer words, but does not change the class or meaning of the word.

8. Conversion

This word-formation process is also called zero derivation and happens when we create a new word with another part of speech without changing its form. For example:

green (noun) → green (adjective)

The adjective 'green' is derived from the noun 'green' that means a grass land.

cheat (verb): cheat (noun)

• Conversion: Types

As you can see below, there are three types of conversion:

• phrasal verb to noun

to print out → a printout

to take over → a takeover

• verb to noun

must (verb) → must (noun)

As you can see, 'Must' is mainly used as a verb but it is trendy to use 'must' as a noun.

hit (verb): hit (noun)

• noun to verb

bottle (noun) → to bottle

The noun 'bottle' is used as a verb these days.

mail (noun) → to mail

• adjective to verb

clean (adjective) → clean (verb)

empty (adjective) → empty (verb)

Coinage is a type of word-formation process in which a new word is created , either by inventing a completely new word or by adapting an existing word in a new way. This can happen because of advances in technology, movies, literature, music, and popular culture. For instance:

Words that are formed by coinage are usually written in lowercase letters when they are used in context, but when we want to refer to the source of the word, it becomes a proper noun and has to be written in uppercase letters.

• 10. Eponyms

This is a type of coinage where the word is derived from the names of people or places. Eponyms are usually written in lowercase letters, but when they are used as proper nouns , they must be written in uppercase letters. Like:

Here, 'jeans' comes from the Italian city of Genoa where this type of cloth was first made

Here, The condition is named after James Parkinson who described the shaking palsy.

• 11. Affixation

Affixation involves the use of prefixes and suffixes which are small words put before or after some words to change their meaning and part of speech. Here are some examples:

create → creat ion

Here, the suffix - ion shows the result of a process.

agree → dis agree

Here, the prefix dis - shows the opposite meaning of the word.

• 12. Infixes

Infixes are affixes inserted into the word stems. There are a few infixes in English and they are normally used in informal speech or technical texts. Here are some examples:

sophisti ma cated (sophisticated)

saxo ma phone, (saxophone)

edu ma cation (education)

h iz ouse (house)

Here, -iz- is an infix from hip-hop culture.

shi izn it (shit)

Here, -izn- is an infix from hip-hop culture.

Tmesis is quite different from infixes. Infixes are tiny meaningless words but tmesis is a meaningful word inserted into another noun. For example:

Halle bloody lujah!

Abso goddamn lutely!

Un f^^kin believable!

13. Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase that is used to represent the full form of the word or phrase. Here are some examples:

USA (United States of America)

CEO (Chief Executive Officer)

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)

km (kilometer)

St . (street)

• Abbreviation: Types

There are five types of abbreviations. Let’s take a look at each type:

• Acronyms : When we put the initial letters of a set of words together or separate the initial letters of a word, we make an acronym. An acronym is always pronounced as a word .

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

sonar (sound navigation and ranging)

UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)

• Initialism : An initialism is formed by the first letters of a group of words that are pronounced letter by letter , not as a word.

HR (Human Resources)

UN (United Nations)

URL (uniform resource locator)

FYI (for your information)

• Contraction : When we reduce the size of the word, by omitting the middle letters.

Sgt . (Sergeant)

Mr . (Mister)

amt . (amount)

• Shortening : when only the first letters or first syllables of a word are kept.

Prof . (Professor)

approx . (approximately)

Sun . (Sunday)

Co . (Company)

• Syllabic abbreviations : When an abbreviation is formed from the initial syllables of a group of words and pronounced as a word.

Interpol (International Police)

Comintern (Communist International)

• 14. Analogy

Analogy happens when a new word is created based on an existing word that has a similar form or meaning . This process involves extending the meaning or form of an existing word to create a new word that is similar in structure or meaning. Take a look at this example for a better understanding:

'Yuppie' is a new form of the earlier word \'Hippie'.\

'Yuppies' were those kinds of hippies that were politically active. By analogy, we could make a similar word to a word like 'Hippie' .

Sometimes, we can use two or more of these processes at the same time to make a word. For instance, partial calque or semi-calque is the combination of calque and loan words together. Take a look at some examples:

liverwurst (English) from (German) leberwurst

Here, 'wurst' remains the same but 'leber' is translated into English.

apple strudel (English) from (German) apfelstrudel

Here, 'strudel' remains the same but 'apfel' is translated into English.

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Loan words and calque, compounding and blending, abbreviations.

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Helping students with word formation exam tasks

Word formation is not only a task that you encounter in most language exams, but also a skill that our students need for everyday language use, be it written or spoken.

In this blog post, we are going to look at what’s being tested in the word formation task, how we can exploit more the short text of the task, how students can record vocabulary to maximise exam success and how to get students to work collaboratively with some games to spice up the preparation. Even if you’re a seasoned veteran of preparing students for word formation, I’m sure you’ll take away a fresh perspective here and an idea there to augment your routine.

What is being tested?

In Cambridge main suite exams (Preliminary, FCE and CAE), the word formation task appears in the Use of English part of the written exam. In this task, students are given a short text with 8 gaps and some root words. They have to formulate new words using the roots to make the sentences (and the whole text) logical and coherent. It tests students’ lexico-grammatical knowledge as well as their reading skills. In order to be able to fill in the gaps, learners need to understand the text as a whole and know how to formulate words.

Here’s an extract from Formula B2 Exam File which describes the task:

Formula B2 Exam File

Treat it as a text

How can we help our students master this task? Well, first of all, it’s a good idea to treat word formation texts just like any other kind of text we make our students read: activate schemata and do a gist reading task .

Here is an example task from the Formula C1 Student’s book:

Formula C1 Students’ Book

As you can see, the text deals with an interesting topic. It would be a shame only to use it as a Use of English task. Instead, you could:

• Only show students the title of the text and get them to talk about it . What do they think? What could be the reasons positive thinking might not work? Do they tend to think positively?
• Then, give students the text and cover the words on the right . When I’m teaching online I do this by zooming in or using the annotate tools on Zoom to draw a square covering the words on the right.
• Ask the students to read the text quickly (tell them not to worry about the gaps at this point) and discuss what they have found out. Is it surprising? Once you’ve done this, you can start using the task as an exam preparation activity.

You might argue that doing a lead-in to activate schemata is not realistic in an exam situation, so why bother doing it in our lessons? Doesn’t it give our learners a false impression as to how long they have in the exam for such a task? I don’t think so! It’s important for students to read through the text quickly before starting to fill in the gaps because they need to understand the general meaning. However, if you just tell your students to read the text quickly without a task, it’s highly unlikely that they will really focus on the general meaning. My advice is: start slow and build autonomy gradually . Going through the steps I listed before the first time you are doing the task and then gradually making the lead-in and gist stages shorter trains our students to read for general meaning and can significantly increase their chance of getting a high score.

Make it bite-sized

Instead of spending 2-3 lessons in a row on word formation, it’s a good idea to make it bite-sized and revisit the task type frequently to decrease cognitive load and build exam habits. If you don’t use a preparation book, bear this in mind! If you are using a course book like Formula, the work is done for you because tasks like word formation get frequently revisited.

Try to promote word-formation from the get-go , every time you teach or revise vocabulary. Here are some tips:

• When you are teaching new vocabulary, devote an extra minute or two to brainstorm words that can be derived from the same root. Challenge your students and give them 1 minute to come up with as many as they can! For example, if you are teaching ‘apply for university’ –» What other words can we form from ‘apply’? Applicant, application, applicable, applied, etc.
• You can also tell your students to have an extra column in their notebooks and set it as a homework task (or group work in class) to brainstorm and find other forms. For example, if it’s an adjective, what’s the antonym? Can you form the opposite by adding a prefix? What would be the adverb? What about the negative adverb?
• When revising vocabulary , don’t just settle with recalling the terms, ask for learners to form other words from them. Then they can make sentences with the new forms so that they can see the differences in meaning and form, too.
• You can do a quick task like this at the beginning of each lesson , even if it’s only 5 minutes. You’ll soon see the results!

Learner training

Just like with other exam tasks, learner training is key. In the lesson about positive thinking, before revealing the words, you can ask your students to look at the text and try to guess the words that are missing from the gaps. I usually separate my learners into two groups:

Group A has to write the type of word that is missing in each gap.

Group B has to think of words that would fit the gaps . They don’t have to be very creative but they need to fit the text grammatically.

Then I pair up students from the two groups and they have to compare their answers,  discussing their choices.

After this, you can reveal the words in the task and get students to complete the task. They can do it in pairs or individually, it’s up to you. If it’s the first time my students have encountered this type of task, I usually opt for collaborative work. If they know the drill, I get them to do it individually first and then compare their answers. Make sure you tell them to justify their answers and look for contextual clues.

Another awareness-raising activity would be to give the students the task with incorrect solutions . They have to work in pairs and discuss why the answers are incorrect.

The trick here is to give your learners wrong answers that are likely to be given by exam candidates. This way, students can use the text to find out why the answers are wrong and what would be the small modification that would need to be made (e.g. in number one, you need an adverb –» undoubtedly).

I have found that this task is great to promote the importance of contextual cues . Based on the mistakes they identify, they can come up with a checklist for the task, things to watch out for. The Formula Exam File provides you with a checklist for each exam task, too:

Don’t forget to have fun!

Exam preparation courses can easily end up being quite tedious and repetitive, especially if they go on for a whole academic year. Therefore, it’s important for us to look for ways to ‘spice things up’ a bit. Here are two games that can work well to motivate learners, especially if they are competitive:

Word formation tennis

Line up your students in two lines, facing each other. Take a ball or another object and give it to the first student. Say the root form of a word, e.g. attend. Students have to pass the ball and every time they pass it, they have to say a word that derives from the root ‘attend’.

If a student runs out of ideas, they lose a life. However, they can start the next round. I like this game because it requires minimal preparation and is a good way to raise the energy level in the classroom.

Jamboard Word formation

If you are teaching in a socially distanced or online classroom, passing a ball around might not be an option. In that case, you can use Google Jamboard for a quick brainstorm game.

All you have to do is create a Jamboard and write a word on each slide. Divide students into teams. Each team chooses a colour for their sticky notes and a person who is going to use the timer. They have only 90 seconds (or longer, your call) on each slide and they have to add sticky notes with words derived from the routes. Make sure they don’t all start with the same slide. When the time is up, they have to go to the next slide and continue there. If they reach a slide that another team has worked on, they need to make sure they don’t repeat any of their words. The winner is the team with the most correct sticky notes.

If you are teaching on Zoom , you don’t even need a person with a timer, you can use the ‘broadcast message’ function to remind students that they need to move on to the next slide.

You can find a template for this game here . If you want to use it in your lessons, just make a duplicate and you can edit it to add words that you want to focus on.

I hope this blog post has given you some ideas and will help you train your students to be successful at the word formation exam task. And of course, it doesn’t end with the task! This skill can be useful in their everyday English communication, especially when writing.

Click here if you’d like to know more about Formula, Pearson’s 3-level flexible, unique and enjoyable route to Cambridge exam success.

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Word Formation Processes | 9 Essential WFP

The ‘Word Formation Process’ is regarded as the branch of Morphology, and it has a significant role in expanding the vocabulary that helps us communicate very smoothly. The main objectives of the word-formation process are to form new words with the same root by deploying different rules or processes.

In other words, we can say that the word-formation process is a process in which new words are formed by modifying the existing terms or completely changing those words.

9 Essential Word Formation Processes

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Let us see the fundamental word-formation processes in linguistics:

‘Derivation’ is a significant word-formation process that attaches derivation affixes to the main form to create a new word. Affixes (prefixes or suffixes) are regarded as bound morphemes.

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful syntactical or grammar unit of a language that cannot be divided without changing its meaning. In contrast to the free morpheme, a bound morpheme doesn’t have any independent meaning, and it needs the help of a free morpheme to form a new word.

Let us see some examples of derivation in the below table:

Back Formation

‘Back-Formation’ is a word-formation process that eliminates the actual derivational affix from the main form to create a new word. However, Back-Formation is contrary to derivation in terms of forming new words. Let us see some examples of Back-Formation in the below table:

In conversion, a word of one grammatical form converts into another without changing spelling or pronunciation. For example, the term ‘Google’ originated as a noun before the verb .

A few years ago, we only used the term as a noun (search it on Google), but now we say ‘Google it. Let us see some examples of conversion in the below table:

Compounding

‘Compounding’ is a word-formation process that allows words to combine to make a new word. Compounding words can be formed as two words joined with a hyphen. Let us see some examples in the below table:

‘Clipping’ is another essential word-formation process that reduces or shortens a word without changing the exact meaning. In contrast to the back-formation process, it reserves the original meaning.

Clipping is divided into four types. They are:

• Back Clipping
• Fore Clipping
• Middle Clipping
• Complex Clipping

Every Clipping has different roles in words when they are assigned. Back Clipping removes the end part of a word; Fore Clipping removes the beginning part of a word; Middle Clipping reserves the middle position. Finally, Complex Clipping removes multiple pieces from multiple words.

Let us see some examples in the below table:

In the ‘Blending’ word-formation method, the parts of two or more words combine to form a new word. Let us see some examples in the below table:

Abbreviation

‘Abbreviation’ is another famous and widely used word-formation method used to shorten a word or phrase. In the modern era, ‘Abbreviation is becoming more popular. Nowadays, people used to use it everywhere. Let us see some examples in the below table:

An Acronym is a popular word-formation process in which an initialism is pronounced as a word. It forms from the first letter of each word in a phrase, and the newly formed letters create a new word that helps us speedy communication. For example, ‘PIN’ is an initialism for Personal Identification Number used as the word ‘pin.’

However, let us see some other famous examples of acronyms in the below table for a better understanding:

‘Borrowing’ is another word-formation process in which a word from one language is borrowed directly into another language. Let us see some English words which are borrowed from another language:

Now we know that Word-Formation Processes are the methods by which words are formed by deploying different types of rules. We can create new words by following the above word-formation methods.

We need to do one thing: we have to follow the fundamental rules or processes of word formation.

Azizul Hakim is the founder & CEO of englishfinders.com . He is a passionate writer, English instructor, and content creator. He has completed his graduation and post-graduation in English language and literature.

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Word Formation Examples & Exercises

These word formation examples show how English words change form. They demonstrate the use of many of the word endings in the  List of Suffixes   with examples from different word families.

Study the various related words in each family. Then check your understanding of how to use those words with a gap-fill exercise.

Detailed Word Formation Examples

To  emphasize   means to call attention to something or show that it is important. We can put  emphasis  on an idea by stressing its value or by explaining it thoroughly. 

Speaking emphatically is stating something in a definite (and often loud) way. It leaves no room for uncertainty.

To  employ  usually means to give a job to someone—to pay them for their work. 

The nouns are employment  (or unemployment) , employer for  a person who gives jobs to people, and employee for a person who receives work. Adjectives are employed (or unemployed ) and ( un ) employable .

To  neglect  is to not find the time to take care of your responsibilities.  (If you  neglect  your garden, the grass and weeds will grow and it may become a jungle, or plants may die for lack of water.) Someone who often n eglects  parts of his or her job is  negligent . His  negligence  can cause the company problems.

T olerant  is an adjective meaning  'willing to accept different people or ideas.' ( Intolerant  means being unwilling to accept differences.) Its adverb is  tolerantly.  Its verb is to  tolerate , and its nouns are  toleration, tolerance, and intolerance.

(In) tolerable  means (un)bearable. It describes conditions a person can (or if negative cannot)  tolerate . 

To  verify  is to find out or prove if something is true. (It comes from French and Latin: true + make). We can make four adjectives from it. V erifiable is  something that can be checked and confirmed as true. U nverifiable  is something that cannot be proved. V erified is  something that has been checked or shown to be true ,  and  unverified  is something that has not. There is also a noun:  verification.

More Word Formation Examples

Achievement  is a noun meaning an accomplishment: having reached a goal. Can you guess the verb? (Hint: remove the noun-making suffix.)

Take the verb ( achieve)  and add the suffix - er  to get the noun for a person who achieves. (Add the prefix over - for a person who is too focused on achievement. An  underachiever  is a person who is not reaching his potential.) Add the suffix  -able  to the verb for one adjective, and add the negative prefix  un - to that for a second adjective.

We can use the verb  to  excite  to   form three kinds of adjectives (with ‘– able, ’ ’- ed, ’ and ‘– ing ’), and their negatives. It also is the base for two adverbs ( ‘ excit ably’ and  ‘ excitedly.’ ) We can do the same with many other verbs.

Add ‘– ment’ to the verb for one noun, and ‘– ability’ for another. That’s 11 words made from excite—and if you understand suffixes you should be able to guess their meanings.

(Actually, there are quite a few more if you add the similar forms of ‘overexcite.’  There is also the noun ‘excitation,’ which often refers to electrical current or nerve stimulation.

Adjectives formed with  -ing (the present participle) describe causes. Adjectives formed with -ed describe the feelings they cause.  Examples: An exciting trip makes a child excited. People are (unsurprisingly!) surprised by surprising news. Boring teachers often have bored students, and terrifying experiences leave people terrified.

The verb (or noun)  ‘ help ´  demonstrates other common endings for adjectives and for the adverbs and nouns made from them.  Helpless  means without help;  helpful  means giving a lot of help (“full” of help.) 

From these, we  get the adverbs helplessly or helpfully and the nouns helplessness or helpfulness . (A man with a broken arm looked on helplessly as his friend tried to lift a heavy box. He appreciated  the helpfulness of his neighbor, who picked up the other end of the box.)

Similar word builder formations:  thought > thoughtful> thoughtfully or thoughtfulness or thought> thoughtless> thoughtlessly.   Meaning > meaningful (and meaningfully) or meaningless.  Rest > restful or restless> restlessly or restlessness.  S leep > sleepless> sleeplessly,  tire >tired or tireless> tirelessly, word >wordless> wordlessly, etc.

Word Formation (Gapfill) Exercises

Fill in each gap by typing in the best word from the word family listed for each number. For #1. use forms of ‘excite’, 2. achieve, 3. surprise, 4. tolerate, 5. rest, 6. employ, 7. help, 8. emphasize, 9.neglect, 10 tire. 

(Look at the word formation examples above if you are not sure which form to use. See the yellow box for the forms of surprise.) Then press “check” to see if your answers are correct. If not, try again. Be sure to check your spellings.

Example: 1. Calm people like Jane are not usually  excitable ,  but she chattered  excitedly   about her new boyfriend .

Review Word Formation

Boost your vocabulary by recognizing word families . Learn how suffixes can change the use (& part of speech) of related words.

Do you wonder what a prefix means? Check out this alphabetical listing of about 50 of the most useful English prefixes, with their meanings & examples.

Knowing a few  roots & prefixes  can help you figure out meanings of new words. These worksheets show you how, step by step.

For more word formation exercises, see  Word Family Practice .

Home > Learn English Vocabulary > Word Formation Examples and Exercises.

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Word formation

There are four main kinds of word formation:

prefixes ( un usual , multi purpose )

suffixes ( employ er , reason able )

conversion ( email , microwave - verbs from nouns)

compounds ( backache , easy-going )

Click on a topic to learn more about word formation.

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