Introduction to linguistic (5)

Introduction to linguistic (5)

• 1.
  Introduction to Linguistic(5) Words and word-formation processes
• 2.
  Coinage/Neologism (1) • Aneologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ("coined") — often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context. • The term "neologism" was itself coined around 1800; so for some time in the early 19th Century, the word "neologism" was itself a neologism.
• 3.
  Coinage/Neologism (2) • Wordslike aspirin and nylon, originally invented trade names, are others. Familiar recent examples are kleenex and xerox, which also began as invented trade names, and which have quickly become everyday words in the language.
• 4.
  Borrowing/Loan-word (1) • Oneof the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply labeled borrowing, that is, the taking over of words from other languages. • Throughout its history, the English language has adopted a vast number of loan-words from other languages, including alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch), croissant (French), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian), pretzel (German), robot (Czech), tycoon (Japanese), yogurt (Turkish) and zebra (Bantu)
• 5.
  Borrowing/Loan-word (2) • Otherlanguages, of course, borrow terms from English, as can be observed in the Japanese use of suupaamaaketto (supermarket) and rajio (radio), or Hungarians talking about sport, klub and futbal, or French discussing problems of le parking, over a glass of le whisky, during le weekend. • A special type of borrowing is described as loantranslation or calque. In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into borrowing language.
• 6.
  Borrowing/Loan-word (3) • Aninteresting examples is the French term un gratte-ciel, which literally translates as ‘a scrape-sky’, and is used for what, in English, is normally referred to as a skyscraper. • The English word superman is thought to be a loan-translation of the German Ubermensch, and the term loan-word itself is believed to have come from the German Lehnwort.
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  Compounding • In someof those examples we have just considered, there is a joining of two separate words to produce a single form. Thus, Lehn and Wort are combined to produce Lehnwort in German. • This combining process, technically known as compounding, is very common in languages like German and English. Obvious English examples would be bookcase, fingerprint, sunburn, wallpaper, doorknob, textbook, wastebasket and waterbed.
• 8.
  Blending • This combiningof 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 other word. • In some parts of the USA, there is a product which is used like gasoline, but is made from alcohol so the blended term for referring to this product is gasohol. • Other examples are smog (smoke/fog), brunch (breakfast/lunch), motel (motor/hotel), and telecast (television/broadcast.
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  Clipping • The elementof reduction which is noticeable in blending is even more apparent in the process described as clipping. • This occurs when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form, often in casual speech. • The term gasoline is still in use, but occurs much less frequently than gas, the clipped form. Common examples are ad (advertisement), fan (fanatic), plane, prof, lab and flu.
• 10.
  Backformation • A veryspecialized type of reduction process is known as backformation. Typically, a word of a different type (usually a verb). • A good example of backformation is the process whereby the noun television first came into use and then the verb televise was created from it. • Other examples of words created by this process are edit (from editor), donate (from donation), opt (from option), emote (from emotion) and enthuse (from enthusiasm).
• 11.
  Conversion (1) • Achange in the function of a word, as, for example, when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction) is generally known as conversion. • A number of nouns, such as paper, butter, bottle, vacation, can, via the process of conversion, come to be used as verb, as in the following sentences: He’s papering the bedroom walls; Have you buttered the toast?; We bottled the home-brew last night; They’re vacationing in France.
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  Conversion (2) • Thisprocess is particularly productive in modern English, with new uses occurring frequently. The conversion can involve verbs becoming nouns, with guess, must and spy as the sources of a guess, a must and a spy. • Or adjectives, such as dirty, empty, total, crazy and nasty, can become the verbs to dirty, to empty, to total, or the nouns a crazy and a nasty. Other forms, such as up and down, can also become verbs, as They up the prices or We down a few beers.
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  Acronyms • Some newwords are formed the initial letters of a set of other words. These acronyms often consist of capital letters, as in NATO, NASA or UNESCO, but can lose their capitals to become everyday term such as laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), radar (radio detecting and ranging) and scuba (self contained underwater breathing apparatus).
• 14.
  Derivation (1) • Theprocess which is accomplished by means of a large number of small ‘bit’, these small ‘bits’ are called affixes, of the English language which are not usually given separate listing in dictionaries is called derivation. • A few examples are the elements un-, mis-, pre-, the examples of prefixes that is affixes have to be added to the beginning of the word,-ful, -less, -ish, -ism, -ness, the examples of suffixes that is affixes which have to be added to the end of word, which appear like unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish, terrorism, and sadness.
• 15.
  Derivation (2) • Thenext type of affix, not normally to be found in English, but fairly common in some languages. This is called infix, it is an affix which is incorporated inside another word.