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There are four main kinds of word formation: prefixes, suffixes, conversion and compounds.
What are Prefixes
Prefixes are the part of the word which we add before the base or stem of the word.
Examples of Prefixes:
Monosyllable, monolingual
Mono- means one or single
Multinational, multifunctional
Post-secondary, postgraduate
Post means after
Unnatural, unrealistic
Un- means not or opposite to something.
Multi means many or more than one
What are Suffixes
We add suffixes after the base or stem of a word. The main purpose of a suffix is to show what class of word it is (e.g. noun or adjective).
Examples of Suffixes:
Mannerism, Marxism
-ism and -dom are used to make nouns
Deployer, mentor
-er and -or are used to make nouns to tell about people who do something.
Shorten, Clarify
-en and -ify are used to make verbs
Profitable, manageable
-able is used to make adjectives
Undoubtedly, generally
-ly is a common type of suffix we use to form adverbs.
Conversion
Conversion is a kind of word formation process which involves changing of a word from one kind of word class to another. For example, the verbs to water and to iron are formed from the nouns water and iron:
Can you water her garden? (verb from noun water, meaning to apply water to plants)
She is ironing her dress. (verb from noun iron)
If you are careless, there are some downloads which can damage your smartphone. (noun from verb download)
It will be a big if unless we perform the job. (noun from conjunction, meaning ‘not certain’)
He is a rougue out and out. (nouns from prepositions)
We also use conversion if we change a proper noun into a common noun:
Has anybody seen my Tagores? (copy of a book by Tagore)
Compounding
Compounding is a kind of word formation process by we link together two or more base word or stem word to create a new word. Generally, the first item is the main feature of the second word. For example, the two base words back and ache has been combined to form a compound noun backache. Two base words post and card has been combined to form compound noun postcard.
Compounds can be found in all word classes. The most common types of Noun-compounds are: : car park, Ocean colour
Adjective-compounds: heart rending, tension free, air strike
Verb-compounds: heat stroke, fear strike, chain-smoke
Adverbs: good-mannerly, nevertheless
Sometimes we are in a fix about where to use the -between the words of a compound. A person may find it difficult to know whether he should separate words or to join words. If such situation arises, it is best recommended that you take a good learner's dictionary to be sure of it.
What is Abbreviation
Abbreviation is a kind of word formation process which involves shortening of a word. Abbreviation is done in three main ways: 1. clipping 2. acronyms 3.blends.
When we try to shorten or clip one or more syllables from a word, we use clipping. Generally clipping is used to shorten the proper name or noun.
Ad for advertisement, advert
Lab for laboratory
Matt for Matthew
Acronyms are a kind of abbreviation which are formed by combining the initial letters of two or more words in such a way that produces consonant and vowel sequences which are found in words. Acronyms are pronounced generally as words are pronounced.
RAM which is acronym of random access memory. RAM is a term describing a computer’s memory.
Initials are mostly similar to acronyms but there is some difference. Initials are pronounced as sets of letters pronouncing separately, which is unlikely of words:
WHO stands for and which is initials of World Health Organisation. WHO is pronounced W–H–O
CD stands for compact disc and it is initials of compact disc. CD is pronounced C–D.
Blends is another kind of abbreviation. We form blends combining parts of existing words to form a new word:
Blog is an example of blends which is a blend of web and log
Motel is an example of blends which is a blend of motor and hotel
Smog is an example of blends which is a blend of smoke and fog
Back-formation
Back formation is a kind of word formation which we form words by removing part of a word. The part we remove is usually something which we think is a suffix or sometimes a prefix. We do this what formation when we form verbs out of nouns.
For example: to liaise. Here we back-formed to liaise from the noun liaison. to intuit. Here we back-formed to intuit from the noun intuition. To enthuse here we back-formed To enthuse from the noun enthusiasm:
Loan words and new words
Loan words
Loan words means words borrowed from other languages prevalent in any part of the world. To cite examples of some recent loan words, it is best described as for food taken from other languages. The loan words of food include sushi, tapas, chapatti, pizza etc. While using loan words, we do not generally change the formation of them. In some cases, we do inflect them if they are countable nouns but singular like pizzas, chapattis. We also in some cases pronounce differently other than the original pronunciation. They are pronounced more like English words rather than their original pronunciation.
New words
Some prefixes are made to create new words. We are very familiar with some recent English prefix in modern English. For example, the prefix e- is used to create new words to make words related to internet like e-book, e-commerce, e-learning and more like this. In most of the cases, any noun may combine with any other noun and they create new noun compounds like computer virus, carbon copy etc.