LEXICOLOGY.

COURSE 2.
BASE-ENRICHING WORD BUILDING PROCESSES

 A. Affixation;
 Prefixation
 Suffixation
 Parasynthesis

 B. Compounding
 C. Blending

 D. Telescoping

 E. Reduplication

Conclusions
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 master definitions and related terminology with
understanding
 describe the word building mechanisms creating new
words or lexical formations through an addition of (a)
letter(s) to already existing words;
 recognize types of affixes, classify them and distinguish
between affixes and possibly similar groups of
phonemes;
 distinguish between and use blended, telescoped or
reduplicative words knowledgeably
 AFFIXATION
 Prefixes: a letter /sound or group of letters or sounds which
are added to the beginning of a word, and which change the
meaning or the function of the verb” (Richards, Platt, Platt,
1993: 286) /prefixoids
 Infixes: both prefixes and suffixes when preceded or
followed by other similar units will change their initial
status:
 knowledge  knowledgeable  knowledgeably
 tangle  entangle  disentangle

 Interfixes or linking elements: galvanoscope

 Suffixes: one/more letters or sounds which are added to the
end of a word, and which result in a change of the meaning
or of the function of the word / suffixoids
 PREFIXATION
“...prefixes more extensively used than suffixes” (Wood 1969: 116)
 Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon (Germanic)
 pan- (all, worldwide) pan-Slavic, pan-orthodox
 proto- (first, original) : proto-language, prototype
 syn-(with, along with, together): synclinal, syntax
 tele- (distant): telephone, television,

 circum- around, about circumpolar

 a-, ab-, abs-, from: abuse, abnormal

 bi- twice: bilingual, bipartition

 co-, com-, con- with: co-ordinate, commute, connect

 de- down, separation, depriving of: depend, depart, deform

 non- negative meaning: non-sense

 sub- under: subdue, support, subject, sub-technical

for- off, away: forget, forbid, forsake
mis- badly: mistake, mislead
ith- against: withdraw, withstand
PREFIXES
Semantically:
 negative: illegal, irresponsible

 reversative/privative: disconnect, disinfect

 orientation/attitude: pro-American

 locative: transatlantic

 time and order: ex-king, foreword

 pejorative: pseudo-intellectual

 degree and size: archbishop /archangel

PREFIXOIDS
Formations as prefixes and as other parts of
speech
They feel fine at after-school “The Day After” was a nice
movie

Her great-granddaughter is They felt great!

tiny

They provide all-inclusive They are all at home

offers as well
 SUFFIXATION
Lexical/derivational Grammatical/inflexional suffixes
suffixes
worker: -er (noun- He works here. (-s: 3rd person singular
forming suffix) ending for present tense – indicative of
main verbs)
organize: -ize (verb- He asked for water. (-ed – past tense)
forming suffix)
Upwards: -wards He had his works published in q new
(adverb-forming edition last year. (-s: plural inflection)
suffix)
mountaineer: -eer He is working now. (-ing – present
(noun-forming suffix) participle + be = progressivity)
cupful: -ful (noun- John’s (possession)
forming suffix)
Ibsenism: -ism (noun- children (irregular plural inflection)
forming suffix)
SUFFIXES
Productively:
 abstract noun-forming:
-age: ‘state of’ - bondage, butlerage
-al: ‘action/result of’ - removal, arrival
 concrete noun-forming:
-ard: ‘having as dominant characteristic’ - braggard, coward
-eer: ‘skilled in’, ‘engaged in’ - puppeteer, engineer
 noun/adjective-forming:
-ist: ‘skilled in’, ‘practising’ - cyclist, stylist, economist
-ite: ‘adherent to’, ‘member of’ - Luddite, shamanite
SUFFIXES
 Adjective forming:
-esque: ‘related to’ - romanesque, burlesque
-less: ‘without’, often an antonym of –ful - hopeless, helpless,
jobless

 Verb forming:
-ify: ‘make, form into’ - classify, verify, simplify

 Adverb-forming:
-ward(s): involves direction - backward(s), forward, onward
SUFFIXOIDS
As suffixes As other parts of speech
Humankind is in danger His kind nature is obvious

The book is leather-bound They are bound to stay here

one more day

Photophobia has a history Phobias have been accepted as

in our family. diseases.
 PARASYNTHESIS
prefix + base + suffix:
 unforgettable = [[un- + [forget] + -able]]

 deforestation = [[de- + [forest] + -ation]]

prefix + infix + base + infix + suffix

 unforgivingness = [[[un- +[-for +[give] + -ing-] +
-ness]]]
 overindebtedness = [[[over- + [-in- +[debt ]+ -ed-] +
-ness]]]
 COMPOUNDING
“the coining of new words process by way of combining
linguistic elements on the basis of a determinant /
determinatum relationship called syntagma.” (Marchand
1969).
 Orthography
 solid-styledcompounds: pineapple
 hyphened compounds: light-hearted
 open-styled compounds: grandfather’s clock

 Structure
 Juxtaposition [the mere joining of the elements]: pinpoint
 Composition [with a linking element]: statesman
 preposition/conjunction-linking – son-in-law
COMPOUND NOUNS
 Noun + noun: motor boat, turban stone (headstone)
 Adjective + noun: blackboard, blackbird

 Verb + noun: pickpocket, playboy

 Verb + verb: make-believe

 Adverb + noun: through train

 Verb + adverb: drawback

 Adverb + past participle: by-gones

 Other combinations: editor-in-chief, forget-me-not,

mother-in-law, merry-go-round,
 COMPOUND ADJECTIVES
 Adjective + adjective: dark blue, light crimson
 Numeral + noun: first-hand (knowledge), second-hand (goods),
 Verb + particle: broken-down (bike), hard-up (/poor immigrant),
 Verb + noun: cut-price
 Noun + adjective: colour-blind, world-famous, bullet-proof
 Adverb + adjective: evergreen
 Adverb + indefinite participle: easy-going, record-breaking
 Adverb + past participle: far-fetched
 Adjective + indefinite participle: good-looking
 Adjective + noun: long-distance,last-minute
 Adjective + past participle: remote-controlled
 Noun + past participle: air-borne, hand-made, air-conditioned
 Noun + present participle: back-breaking, time-consuming,
 Adjective + noun + -ed: blue-eyed, stiff-necked, public-spirited
 COMPOUND VERBS
 Adjective + verb: whitewash
 Adverb + verb: broadcast

 Noun + verb: waylay

 Verb + verb: drip-dry

 BLENDING

 Starts from strings of words with a definite meaning

whose randomly selected letters, syllable-like elements
or syllables which are thus arranged as to coin other
simpler words to convey the meaning of the reduced
string.
 Supreme Allied Commander Europe  Saceur
 SNOBOL  the name of the computer language resulted
from the capitalized elements of StriNg Oriented symBOlic
Language
 TELESCOPING [PORTMANTEAU
WORDS]
 coinages made up of parts of words and words:
i) the first element in a clipped form and the full form of
the second element:
docudrama [< docu(mentary) + drama]
melodrama [< melo(dy) + drama]
telecommunications [< tele(phone) + communications]
Amerindian [< Amer(ican) + Indian]
ii)the first element in full and the second element in a
clipped form:
gasohol [< gaz + (alc)ohol],
bookvertising [< book + (ad)vertising]
 PORTMANTEAU WORDS
 coinages made up of parts of words only, resulting from the associations which:
join the 1st element front part and the 2nd part of the second element:
stagflation, word first recorded in 1965, [< stag(nation) + (in)flation)]
camcorder [ < cam(era) + (re)corder]
bankini [< ban(d) + (bi)kini] and burkini [< burk (a) + (bi)kini]
heliport [< heli(copter) + (air)port]
simulcast [< simul(taneous) + (broad)cast]
avoid the overlapping of identical elements:
orature [< ora(l) + (litera)ture]
atomic bomber [< atomic bomb + (bomb)er]
avoid the overlapping of identical elements:
chunnel [< channel + tunnel)]
drop the final part of each element:
Alcan [< Al(aska) + Can(ada)] Mexicali [<Mexi(co) + Cali(fornia)]
join a prefix with the first elements of a word:
telecon [< tele + con(versation)]
 REDUPLICATION
 semantically, reduplication denotes
 (a) a word building process,
 (b) its result as a whole
 (c)its elements:
[i]  æ : riff-raff, shilly-shally, zig-zag, wishy-washy
[ii] short /o/: tick-tock, ping pong, dingdong
[iii]  culture-vulture, brain-drain
 Formally, they result from:
 Vowel change: flip-flop
 Consonant change: flower-power, nitty-gritty

 (emphatic) repetition: ylang-ylang, mot-mot

 Etymologically, they may be:

 native: pitter-patter
 borrowed: ylang-ylang, mot-mot
 CONCLUSIONS
 Affixation – adds letters/groups of letters proclitically/
enclitically
 Compounding joins together two or more bases through
juxtaposition (by connecting vowels or consonants), or
through a hyphen, to create/associate new meanings to old
base words.
 Telescoping fuses full words with word parts , in various
combinations
 Blending selects letters/groups of letters from meaningfully
well-established chunks of words.
 Reduplication, is a variant of compounding, i.e. base -
repeated in its unaltered form or with a vowel or consonant
change
 REFERENCES
 Marchand, Hans, 1960/1969, The Present-Day
Categories and Types of English Word-Formation,
Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz
 Popescu, Floriana, 2019, A Paradigm of Comparative
Lexicology, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing
 Richards, Jack, and Richard W. Schmidt. 1993. The
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics. London: Longman.
 Wood, Frederick, 1969, A Concise History of the English
Language. London: Macmillan.