NEW WORDS FORMATION

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 of new words. New Word Formation means introducing 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- It is the process of word formation by adding a word/words either before or end of a root word is called Affixation.

•       prefixes- adding word/words before a word.

Example- bi+cycle=bicycle (new word)

                   Anti+ Clock= Anticlock (new word)

•       suffixes- Adding a word/words at the end of a word.

Example- love+ly= lovely (new word)

Happy+ness=happiness (new word)

2.    Conversion- It is the process of word formation by converting one part of speech into another is called conversion.

Example- honest (adjective)- honesty (Noun) (new word)

Prove (verb)- Proof (Noun) (new word)

3.    Compounding- It is the process of word formation by combining two words with their own meaning to form a new word with a completely new meaning.

It is categorized in two ways: An endocentric compound consists of a head and modifier. For e.g. the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, which shows that house is intended for a dog. Exocentric compounds do not have a head and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For e.g. the English compound white- collar is neither a kind of collar not a white thing.

 

Example- green + house= Greenhouse (new word)

Back + ground= background (new word)

4.   Blending- It is the process of word formation by merging two or more words into one and removing few letters.

Example- smoke+fog=smog (new word)

Work + alcoholic=workaholic

5. Clipping- It is the process of word formation by dropping one or more syllables from a longer word or phrase with no change in meaning. Clipping is the shortened form of a word.

Example- motorbike=bike (new word)

Mathematics=maths (new word)

6.  Coinage- A process of new word formation that involves the creation and general use of new words through sources like commercial products, technology, music, cinema, etc. is called Coinage.

Example-Nylon

Google

7.    Eponym- The process of word formation by forming a new word based on the name of a person or a place is called eponym.

Example-Sandwich is named after the Earl of Sandwich

Bluetooth is actually named after Harald Bluetooth

8.    Borrowing- It is the process of word formation by borrowing a word from another language.

Example- 1. Greek word 'pandemos' is used to form ‘pandemic’ (new word) in English.

                  2. Latin word ‘persona’ is used to form ‘person’ (new word) in English.

9.    Acronyms- It is the process of word formation. This process of new word formation is used for a group of words in a name or a phrase. In this process, a new word is formed by selecting first letter from each word in a name or a phrase.

Example- Central Board of Secondary Education-CBSE (new word)

    All India Radio-AIR (new word)

1.              Back- Formation: It refers to the process of creating a new lexeme (word) by removing actual or supposed affixes. In other words, backformations are shortened words created from longer words. For e.g. The word resurrection was borrowed from Latin, the word resurrect was then back formed hundreds of years later from it by removing –ion suffix.