Building new words by adding affixes to the stem of the
word
found in groups like `present – pres`ent, `conduct – con`
duct, `abstract – abstr’act, etc. These words were
French borrowings with the original stress on the last
syllable. Verbs retained it, while in nouns and adjectives
it was shifted. The place of stress helps to distinguish
verbs and nouns or pronouns in speech
Distinctive stress
implies vowel-interchange (to sing – song, to live – live)
and consonant-interchange (use – to use [z], advice –
to advise). Consonant interchange may be combined
with vowel interchange: bath – to bathe. Sound
interchange only serves to distinguish one long-
established word from another.
Sound interchange
the omission of a word or words considered essential
for grammatical completeness but not for the
conveyance of the intended lexical meaning:
pub←public house, daily←daily newspaper,
sale←cutprice sale, taxi←taximotor cab (ellipsis+
apocopy in the last word).
Ellipsis
consists in a complete or partial repetition of the stem
or of the whole word (bye-bye), often with a variation of
the root vowel or consonant (ping-pong)
Reduplication (Repetition)
MORPHOLOGY : THE
Sound imitation ( PROCESS OF
way of word-formation which consists in imitating the
sounds made by animals, birds, insects, men and Onomatopoeia) BUILDING NEW
different objects: bang, giggle, quack.
WORDS IN ENGLISH
a way bulding words by merging parts of words (not
morphemes) into one new word. Thus, the
noun smog is composed of the parts of the
nouns smoke and fog, the noun brunch –
of breakfast and lunch, motel – of motor and hotel.
Such words are called blends, fusions, telescope words.
Blends are built either by merging two clipped stems (
dramedy←drama+comedy) or merging one full and one Blending
clipped stem (teleplay←television+play). Most blends
are nouns, but sometimes verbs and adjectives are
formed by blending: flush←flash+blush,
fantabulous←fantastic+fabulous.
a way of word-building by which a new word is formed
by cutting off a real or supposed suffix: burglar→to
burgle, enthusiasm→to enthuse. It is called back-
formation, because the process of derivation is
opposite to the traditional one.
Back-formation (Reversion)
Prefixation
Suffixation
They can be divided into convertive and non-convertive
according to their ability to convert the word into
another part of speech
Affixation According to the part of speech formed affixes (
suffixes, to be exact) are divided into noun-forming (-er, -
ness, -ship, -hood, -ance, -ist, etc.), adjective-forming (-
ful, -less, -ic, - al, -able, -ate, -ish, -ous, etc.), verb-
forming (-en, -ate, -fy, - ize, etc.), adverb-forming (-ly, -
wide, etc.).
According to their origin affixes are classified into
native and borrowed. The native suffixes are -er, -ed, -
dom, -en, -ful, -less, -hood, -let, -ly, -ness, -ship, -some, -
Affixes can be classified according to different
teen, -th, -y, ward, -wise, -lock. Prefixes: un-, mis-, up-,
principles
under-, over-, out-.
According to their productivity (the ability to form new
words) affixes may be divided into productive (-er, -ish, -
less, etc.) and non-productive (-ard, -ive, -th, -ous, fore-,
etc.).
According to their connotational characteristics affixes
may be emotionally coloured (stinkard, drunkard,
gangster, youngster, etc. – derogatory emotional
charge) and neutral (-er, able, -ing); stylistically marked (
ultra-, -oid, -eme, -tron, etc. – bookish) and neutral (-er,
able, -ing).
making a new word by changing the part of speech
characteristics of the word without changing its
morphemic shape
Conversion
The word, which is converted into another part of
speech, changes its paradigm (nurse, n – s, ‘s → to
nurse, v - -s, -ed, -ing).
consists in making new words by combining two or
more stems which occur in the language as free forms.
According to the type of composition compounds are
divided into those formed by juxtaposition without
Composition linking elements (skyblue), into compounds with a
linking vowel or consonant (Anglo-saxon, saleswoman)
and compounds with a linking element represented by a
preposition or conjunction (up-to-date, bread-and-
butter).
1) two simple stems: pen-knife, bookcase;
Compound words may be divided into several groups.
2) one derived stem: chainsmoker, cinema-going;
According to the structure of their ICs compounds are
classified into those containing:
3) one clipped stem: B-girl, H-bomb;
4) one compound stem: wastepaper-basket.
building new words by subtraction of a part of the
original word
a) by clipping some part of the word
produced in two main ways:
b) by making a new word from the initial letters of a
word group
1) clipping the final part of the word (apocope):
lab←laboratory;
Shortening (Clipping or
2) clipping the initial part of the word (aphaeresis):
Curtailment) phone←telephone;
According to the position of the omitted part
3) clipping the middle part of the word (syncope):
specs←spectacles;
4) clipping both the initial and the final part of the word:
flue←influenza.
ccording to their reading, initial shortenings, or 1) abbreviations which are pronounced as a series of
abbreviations letters: FBI, CIA, NBA (National Basketball Association),
etc.

2) abbreviations which are read as ordinary English

words (acronyms): UNO, NATO, radar (radio detection
and ranging), etc.