Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla

Facultad de Lenguas

Licenciatura en la Enseñanza del Inglés

Summary: Word Formation

Profesor Gaspar Ramírez - Cabrera

Student Gonzalez Aquino Sandra Kristhel

Activity #01

17/01/2024
 Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
Facultad de Lenguas
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza de Inglés

Materia: Morfología y Sintaxis

Profesor: Gaspar Ramírez - Cabrera
Alum. González Aquino Sandra Kristhel

Wednesday, January 17th 2024

WEEK 1: WORD
FORMATION

1. Now, you have to read chapter on word formation processes. Then, write down a summary in which you include
all the processes mentioned in the document.

We can very quickly understand a new word in our language (a neologism) and accept the use of different
forms of that new word. This ability must derive of regularity in the word-formation processes in a language.
Basic processes by which new words are created: Etymology is the study of the origin and history of a
word; lots of words in daily use today were, at one time, considered barbaric misuses of the language
and the author prefer to view the constant evolution of new words and new uses of old words as a
reassuring sign of vitality and creativeness. Coinage, that is, the invention of totally new terms; New
words based on the name of a person or a place are called eponyms and some eponyms are technical
terms, based on the names of those who first discovered or invented things. Borrowing, that is, the
taking over of words from other languages; In some cases, the borrowed words may be used with quite
different meanings and a special type of borrowing is the loan-translation or calque, there is a
direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language. Compounding, is a joining
of two separate words to produce a single form and known as compounding, is very common in
languages such as German and English. Blending, the combination of two separate forms to produce a
single new term is also present in the process called blending and however, blending is typically
accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word. The
element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is a process described as clipping; this occurs when a
word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form, usually beginning in casual speech;
hypocorisms, in this process, a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then -y or -ie is added to
the end. Backformation is a word (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a
verb), for example when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction), is generally known
as conversion and some words can shift substantially in meaning when they change category through
conversion. Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words and more
typically, acronyms are pronounced as new single words, as in NATO, NASA or UNESCO. the most
common word- formation process, this is called derivation, a large number of small “bits” of the
English language which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small “bits” are
generally described as affixes. The affixes have to be added to the beginning of the word, these are
called prefixes. Other affixes have to be added to the end of the word and are called suffixes. Finally
speak of the infix occasionally used in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused
English speakers.

We can very quickly understand a new word in our language (a neologism) and accept the use of different
forms of that new word. This ability must derive from regularity in the word-formation processes in a
language. Basic processes by which new words are created: etymology is the study of the origin and history
of a word; lots of words in daily use today were, at one time, considered barbaric misuses of the language,
and the author prefers to view the constant evolution of new words and new uses of old words as a
reassuring sign of vitality and creativeness. Coinage, that is, the invention of totally new terms; new words
based on the name of a person or a place are called eponyms and some eponyms are technical terms, based
on the names of those who first discovered or invented things. Borrowing, that is, the taking over of words
from other languages; in some cases, the borrowed words may be used with quite different meanings and a
special type of borrowing is the loan-translation or calque, there is a direct translation of the elements of a
word into the borrowing language. Compounding is the joining of two separate words to produce a single
form and known as compounding, is very common in languages such as German and English. Blending, the
combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term is also present in the process called
blending however, blending is typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it
to the end of the other word. The element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is a process described
as clipping; this occurs when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form, usually beginning
in casual speech; hypocorisms, in this process, a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then -y or -ie is
added to the end. Backformation is when a word (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type
(usually a verb), for example: when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction), is generally
known as a conversion and some words can shift substantially in meaning when they change category
through conversion. Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words, and
more typically, acronyms are pronounced as new single words, as in NATO, NASA, or UNESCO. The most
common word-formation process, is called derivation, a large number of small “bits” of the English language
which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small “bits” are generally described as
affixes. The affixes have to be added to the beginning of the word, these are called prefixes. Other affixes
have to be added to the end of the word and are called suffixes. Finally, speak of the infix occasionally used in
fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers.