Unit 3: Word-building

Questions Main ideas/Details

1. Shortening - Shortening is the process and the
result of forming a word out of the
initial elements of a word
combination.
- Shortening consists in the reduction
of a word to one of its parts whether
this part has previously been a
morpheme.
- Shortening may be regarded as a
type of root creation because the
resulting new morphemes are capable
of being used as free forms and
combine with bound form
- They can take functional suffixes,
e.g. (sing) bike – (pl.) bikes. Most of
the shortened words produce verbs,
e.g. to phone, they also serve as basis
for further word-formation by
derivation or composition: fancy n –
fanciful adj – fancifully adv – fancy-
ball n – fancy-dress n, etc.
- Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed
words) are produced in three main
ways:
1. Clipping: is to make a new word
from a syllable (rarer, two) of the
original word. (different meaning)
+ initial clipping: phone from the
telephone, fend from defend, story
from history, tend from attend,...
+ final clipping: lab from laboratory,
ad from advertisement, ed from
editor,...
+ intitial-final-clipping: flu from
influenza, frig from refrigerator,
tec from detective,...
+ medial clipping: maths from
mathematics, specs from
spectacles, fancy from fantasy,
ma’am from madam.
2. Abbreviation: (initial
shortenings) to make a new
 word from the initial letters of a
group.
+ They are found among formal
words, colloquialisms, and slang.
E.g:
+ UNESCO: the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organnization
+ BBC: Bristish Broadcasting
Corporation
+ LOL: laugh out loud
3. Blending: is a special type of
shortening in which parts of words
into one to form a new word.
E. g:
+ breakfast + lunch = brunch
+ channel + tunnel = chunnel
2. Minor types of modern word- 1. ONOMATOPOEIA
bulding - Are made by imitating different
kinds of animals of sounds that may
be produced by animals insects,
human being and inanimate objects.

- The same kind of animal represented

by quiet different sound groups in
different languages.
Ex: English dogs bark or howl
English cock ries cock-a-
doodle-doo

- Especially bird and insects are also

produced by sound-imitation:
Ex: crow, cucckoo, cricket, humming-
bird

- Sound-imitation as a way of word-

formation

- May imitate through their sound

from certain inacoustic features ,
qualities of inamimate object, action
The meaning of word related to the
sound group to the object

Ex: To glance, to glide, to slide:

sound the nature of smooth, easy
movement over a slippery

2. REDUPLICATION
- made by doubling a stem, either
without any phonetic changes or
with variation of the root-vowel or
consonants.
E.g. bye-bye, ping-pong, chit-chat
- Stylistically speaking, most words
made by reduplication represent
informal groups: colloquialism and
slang.
E.g: walkie-talkie, riff-raff, chi-chi

3. BACK – FORMATION
(Reversion)
- The earliest example of this type of
word – building is the verb to beg that
was made from the French borrowing
beggar, to burge from burglar, to
cobble from cobbler.
- In all these cases the verb was made
from the noun by subtracting what
was mistakenly associated with the
English suffix – er.
Example: If the suffix ''-er'' is
removed from the word ''teacher,''
the verb ''teach'' is created.
- The pattern of the type to work –
worker was firmly established in the
subconscious of English – speaking
people at the time when these
formations appeared, and it was taken
for granted that any noun denoting
profession occupation is certain to
have a corresponding verb of the
same root.
- So, in the case of the verb to beg, to
burgle, to cobble the process was
reversed: instead of a noun made from
a verb by affixation, a verb was
produced from a noun by subtraction.
That is why this type of word building
received the name of back-formation
or reversion.