New Word Formation
Language serves as a communication tool. One of the unique characteristics of human language is "creativity," which refers to a native speaker's capacity to generate and comprehend new linguistic forms. When it comes to the history of the English language, the two main trends that have occurred since the Restoration have been an increase in vocabulary and a modification in word meaning. The need to give names to new inventions and discoveries, or to convey new concepts, perceptions, and meanings, will inevitably lead to the one.
We regularly add new words to our mental lexicon, demonstrating creativity in our lexical knowledge, even though it is most noticeable when it comes to sentence construction.
Language develops alongside knowledge. English has always demonstrated a willingness to adopt vocabulary from other languages and to create new words when those already in use are insufficient. The English language has expanded its vocabulary in a variety of ways and gained new terms. The process of adding new words to one's vocabulary does not constitute the only method. The creation of new words adds to the linguistic resources as well.
Vocabulary in a language is dynamic and there is always a scope for new words. New Word Formation means creating a completely new word in a language.
Methods of forming new words
In a language, words are formed from the existing base words. and that can be done by any of the following methods
1. Affixation (Derivation)- Affixation is the process of forming new words by adding a word/words either before or at the end of a root word.
prefixes- adding word/words before a word.
Example- bi (prefix)+cycle (root)=bicycle (new word)
Anti (prefix)+ Clock (root)= Anticlock (new word)
suffixes- Adding a word/words at the end of a word.
Example- love (root)+ly (suffix)= lovely (new word)
Happy (root)+ness (suffix)=happiness (new word)
2. Conversion- Conversion is the process of forming new words where words belonging to one part of speech are created from an existing word belonging to another part of speech without changes to pronunciation or spelling. It is also called zero derivation. This is because nothing is added, nothing is taken away.
Example- Her name (noun) is Ritu. - They name (verb) their daughter Ritu.
Please, talk (verb) to me. - We had a good talk (noun).
3. Compounding- Compounding is the process of forming new words by combining two words with their meaning but the newly formed word has a completely different meaning.
Example- green (colour) + house (place to live in)= Greenhouse (a glass house to grow plants)
Moon (satellite) + walk (movement)= moonwalk (a technique of dance)
4. Blending- Blending is the process of forming new words by merging two or more words into one and removing a few letters from the middle.
Example- smoke+fog=smog (new word) (-kef- is removed from the mid)
Breakfast+lunch= brunch (new word) (-eakfastl- is removed from the mid)
5. Clipping- Clipping is the process of forming new words by dropping one or more syllables from a longer word or phrase with no change in its meaning. Clipping is the shortened form of a word.
Example- motorbike=bike (new word) (-motor- is dropped)
refridgerator=fridge (new word) (-re- and -rator- are dropped)
6. Coinage- Coinage is the process of forming new words by inventing a completely new name in business, commercial, technology, music, cinema, etc.
Example-Nylon
7. Eponym- Eponym is the process of forming new words based on the name of a person or a place.
Example-Sandwich is named after the Earl of Sandwich.
Bluetooth is named after Harald Bluetooth.
8. Borrowing- Borrowing is the process of forming new words by borrowing a word from another language.
Example- Greek word 'pandemos' is used to form ‘pandemic’ (new word) in English.
‘yoga’‘(new word from Hindi)
‘Tycoon’ (new word from Japanese)
9. Acronyms- Acronyms is the process offorming new words by selecting the first letter from each word from the group of words in a name or a phrase.
Example- Central Board of Secondary Education-CBSE (new word)
All India Radio-AIR (new word)
10. Back- Formation- Back-formation is the process of forming a new word by removing affixes. In other words, backformations are shortened words created from longer words.
Example-
11. Reduplication- Reduplication is the process of forming new words either by doubling an entire word or part of a word. English makes use of reduplication very rarely.
Example- Humpty- dumpty
Hustle- bustle
Hotch- potch
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