WORD FORMATION

It has been estimated that average speakers of a language know from 45,000
to 60,000 words(Ingo Plag,2003). Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of
language (any part of a word that cannot be broken down further into smaller
meaningful parts, including the whole word itself). The word 'items' can be broken
down into two meaningful parts: 'item' and the plural suffix '-s'; neither of these can
be broken down into smaller parts that have a meaning. Therefore 'item' and '-s' are
both morphemes. While morphology is the study of the internal structure of words,
and of the rules by which words are formed or word formation ( Fromkin et. al 2007).
Word formation processes can be either derivational morpheme, inflectional
morpheme or others like compounding, clipping, onomatopoeia, backformation,
blending, acronym, stress shift and etc.

Derivation is the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new
words. For instance the word ‘global-ize’ , ‘make-er’ ,'-ize' and '-er' are derivational
suffixes). Derivation is viewed as using existing words to make new words.
Derivational can be either prefixes or suffixes such as pre-,un-,con-(prefixes) or –ly,-
ist,-ment(suffixes). The process in derivational morpheme and the example of words
that been derived can be seen in the table below:

Affix Word
Prefix:

1) ‘non-‘ Non-verbal, Non-Muslim

2) ‘un-‘ Unhappy, untie, unclear

3) ‘re-‘ Redo, reuse, rewrite

4) ‘pre-’ Pre wedding, Pre launch

 Suffix:

1) ‘-ity’ Obesity, electricity, continuity

2) ‘-ous’ Famous, glamorous, Dangerous

3) ‘-able’ Comfortable, Readable, Attainable

4) ‘-ly’ Sharply, Widely, Hardly

Egoist ,Fusionist, Pianist

5) ‘-ist’

6) ‘-ment’ Improvement, Excitement, Entertainment

Inflection is the process by which affixes combine with roots to indicate basic
grammatical categories such as tense or plurality (e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' and'-ed'
are inflectional suffixes). Inflection is viewed as the process of adding very general
meanings to existing words, not as the creation of new words.

Inflectional category Regular affix used to express category

1) Number -s, -es: boy/boys, beach/beaches
2) Possessive -'s, -': Ilyana’s cat
3) Comparative -er: short/shorter
4) Superlative -est: long/longest
5) 3rd person singular present -s, -es: Nana writes, Nana sings
6) past tense -ed: book/booked
7) perfect tense -ed: reach/reached(has reached)
8) continunous tense ing: buy/buying

Besides derivational and inflectional morphemes in word formation, there are other
word formations. One of them is clipping. Clipping is the word formation process
which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (Marchand: 1969).
Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening." Clipping creates shortened
words from longer words, but does not change the part of speech or the meaning of
the word. Clipping in word formation can be categorized into four parts as the table
below:

Types Of Clipping Example of words

1) Back clipping Pop(popular music),exam(examination),doc(doctor)
2) Fore-clipping Phone(telephone),varsity(university),coon(raccoon)
3) Middle clipping Tec(detective),flu(influenza)
cablegram (cable telegram), op art (optical art), org-man
4) Complex clipping
(organization man)

Besides clipping, there is backformation in word formation. Backformation may

change the part of speech or the word's meaning. It is a suffix identifiable from other
words and cut off of a base which has previously not been a word; that base then is
used as a root, and becomes a word through widespread use. The example is as
below:

Words Changes in word(backformation)

1) Pronunciation Pronunciate, pronounce
2) Specialization Special, Specialize
3) Attainable Attain, Able
4) Invention Invent, Inventor

Apart from clipping and backformation there is also abbreviations and acronyms in
word formation. Abbreviation are similar in nature to blends because of both blends
and blending abbreviation involves loss of material. Abbreviation are commonly
formed by taking initial letters of multi-word sequence to make up a new word.

For examples:

BA – Bachelor of Arts

DC – District of Columbia

EC – European Community

FAQ – Frequently asked question

 ASAP – as soon as possible

The orthographic and phonetics of the abbreviation are indicated in the table below:

Spelling Pronunciation Example of words

1) In capitals As individual letters ASAP,CIA,FBI,VAT
2) In capitals As a regular word ASAP,CARE,NATO,START
3) In lower- As regular word
asap,radar,vat
case letters