Main Types of Word Formation

Linguistics
Word Formation

1. MAIN TYPES OF WORD BUILDING -Awais Raza Memon Institute of English Language and Literature University of Sindh, Jamshoro

2. Main Types of Word Building Inflection Derivation: (Affixation, Conversation, Compounding)

3. Inflection Contributes a morpheme to ensure that word is appropriate for the given grammatical context. Example: In a case, when there is third person subject and present tense. The verb agreeing with it must take the –s ending; anything else is forbidden. He likes to eat. ✔ He likeing to eat.❌

4. Inflection (cont’d) Another example of inflection: Monosyllabic and disyllabic adjectives with weak second syllable must take the comparative degree of suffix –er if it is followed by ‘than’ indicating comparision. Monosyllabic Adjectives Disyllabic adjectives Tall – Taller than Jane ✔ Thirsty – Thirstier than John ✔ Nice – Nicer than Jane ✔ Dirty – Dirtier than John ✔ Nicest/Tallest than Jane ❌ Thirstiest/Dirtiest than John ❌

5. Inflection (Cont’d) Feature of Obligatoriness: The application of it depends on syntactic conditions and not on personal preference. a) Verbal Suffix: Function: Examples: -s 3 rd person, singl. pres. He snore-s -ing Progressive aspect He is snor-ing -ed Past tense He snor-ed b) Noun Suffix: Function: Example: -s Noun plural maker Road-s c) Adjective Suffix: Function: Examples: -er Comparative (N/Adj.) Slow-er, Soon-er -est Superlative (N/Adj.) Slow-est, Soon-est In English, suffixes are seen to bring inflection in words.

6. Derivation Drive to create new lexical items using pre-existing morphemes and words. To create a new lexical item (vocabulary item) out of pre-existing material.

7. Derivation (Cont’d) Forms of derivation: (a) Affixation (b) Conversion (c) Compounding Derivation can add new lexical items to open word-classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb)

8. Derivation (Cont’d) AFFIXATION: By adding affixes, new words are formed. Examples: Co- = Co-operate -ation = regulation -er = teacher Derivational Prefixes Derivational Suffixes Co- Ex- Mis- Re- Un- -ation -er -ment -al

9. Derivation (Cont’d) CONVERSION / ZERO DERIVATION It is done without changing or altering the word-form. The existing word may realize more than one lexical item. Example: a. The goat will jump over the fence. b. What a jump! In sentence a. ‘jump’ is a verb. In sentence b. ‘jump’ is used as a noun.

10. Derivation (Cont’d) More examples of conversion:- From Adjective to Noun: #Green party #Green ##Leather Jacket ##Leather

11. Derivation (Cont’d) COMPOUNDING: NEW LEXICAL ITEM IS FORMED BY COMBINING TWO BASES. EXAMPLES: Noun + Noun Noun + verb Adjective+verb Adjective+noun moonlight book keeper clear-sighted easy chair keyboard watchmaker hardworking White House sunlight housekeeper easygoing blueprint inkpot heart broken newborn softball

12. Derivation (Cont’d) Most compound words are headed. Head is mostly on right side. Head is syntactically dominant. Easy chair = head = chair = noun. Usually, syntactic head is also the semantic head, such are called Endocentric Compounds. Bulldog, bedroom = type of dog, type of room.

13. The End.