Morphosyntax 1 – Lecture 3 – Word formation processes
- Creating new vocabulary
1. meaning extension (mouse)
2. lexical borrowing (chopstick)
3. conversion (zero-derivation or functional shift) (fish)
4. Root creation (coinage) – echoic (cuckoo), trade names (Kleenex)
5. Clipping [(tele)phone]
6. Blending (brunch)
7. Acronyms (NATO) and abbreviations (LSD)
8. Back formation (televise)
9. Compounding - combines two base morphemes to create a word with a new meaning
that is not necessarily a sum of the meanings of the individual words (hothouse)
primary stress and secondary stress - white house X Whitehouse
various combinations of parts of speech
several ways of compounds classification:
a/ primary X synthetic compounds
b/ neoclassical compounds
c/ endocentric X exocentric compounds
d/ compounds with X without a connecting element
e/ syntactic X asyntactic compounds
f/ coordinative X subordinative compounds
phrasal words - complex items that function as words, yet whose internal structure is
that of a clause or a phrase rather than of a compound
the noun jack-in-the-box X brother-in-law → brothers-in-law
*jacks-in-the-box
X
jack-in-the-boxes
an adjective - a dyed-in-the-wool Republican
a verb - a couldn’t-care-less attitude
old fashioned class of lexical items - governor general – a phrasal word or a lexicalised
phrase?