Unit Four: Word Formation I

1 Morphemes, the smallest functioning units in the composition of words. They are abstract units, which are realized in speech by discrete units known as morphs, the minimal carriers of meaning. Morphemes can be classified into:

1) Free morpheme, stand alone as a word, also called free root 2) Bound morpheme, function together with root of word; it includes bound root and affix. 3) Lexical morpheme, used for the construction of new word as in compound word 'blackbird' 4) Grammatical morpheme, used to express grammatical relationship between a word and its context such as the suffixes in a word and inflectional endings

2 Allomorphs/Alternative Morphs, to be realized by more than one morphs, according to their position in a word.

1) vowel alternation man-men 2) addition ox-oxen 3) vowel alternation and addition child-children 4) alternation marking number datum-data/formulas-formula 5) zero or unrealized sheep-sheep 6) consonant variance books/s/-bags/z/-matches/-iz/

3 Relevant Components In Word

1) root, a basic form of a word which can not be further analyzed without total loss of identity. It carries the essential meaning of the word, a meaning that never changes as 'tain' in retain/detain/contain/pertain/maintain/sustain/attain/obtain

2) stem, a part of a word to which affixes of any kind can be added. It may consist of a single root morpheme as in iron or of two root morphemes as in 'handcuff' or of a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes eg .nationalists-nationalist/national/nation/nat

3) affixes, forms that are attached to words or word elements to modify meaning or function. They are classified into two

a inflectional, attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationship, also called inflectional morphemes such as markers of numbers, cases, tenses, and degrees. b derivative, added to other morphemes to create new words such as prefixes and suffixes.

classification of morphemes

Unit Five: Word Formation II

1 Affixation/Derivation, by means of adding affixes to stems. It includes pre/suffixation

2 Compounding/Composition, by means of joining two or more stems into one word. It occurs mainly in nouns, adjectives and verbs. There are three kinds of compounds:

a) solid (bedtime) b) hyphenated (above-mentioned) c) open (fire engine)

3 Conversion/Functional Shift, a process of changing word from one class to another, involving the change of grammatical function and range of meaning as in 'She papered the room green'. There are two kinds of conversion:

a) Full: release(v) to release (adj) b) Partial: wealthy(adj) to the wealthy (n) c) Miscellaneous: But me no but

4 Blending/Portmanteau Word, a formation by combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word. They fall into four major groups:

1) head+tail; brunch-breakfast+lunch/motel-motor+hotel/smog-smoke+fog 2) head+head; interpol-international+police/psywar-psychological+warfare 3) head+word; medicare-medical+care/Eurasia-Europe+Asia 4) word+tail;workfare-work+welfare/lunarnaut-lunar+astronaut

5 Clipping/Shortening, to shorten a longer word by cutting a part off the origin a) front clipping; bus-omnibus/phone-telephone/plane-airplane b) back clipping; ad-advertisement/lab-laboratory/photo-photograph c) front and back clipping; flu-influenza/fridge-refrigerator/script-prescription d) middle clipping; bike-bicycle/maths-mathematics/specs-spectacles e) phrase clipping; pub-public house/pop-popular music/zoo-zoological garden f) journalistic clipping;Dept.-Depatment/Cwlth-Commonwealth/H.K.-HongKong g) back clipping+suffix; hanky-handkerchief/comfy-comfortable/agro-aggression

6 Acronymy, a process of forming new words by joining the initial letters of names or phrases

1) Initialism/alphabetism, word so formed and pronounced letter by letter

a letters represent full words; VIP-very important person/UFO-unidentified flying object UN-the United Nations/p.c.-postcard b letters represent elements in a compound or parts of a word TV-television/ID-identity card/PLS-please

2) Acronym, word formed by the initial letters or parts of the elements involved and pronounced as a normal word

Laser-light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation Radar-radio detecting and ranging AIDS-acquired immune deficiency syndrome

3) Semi-acronym, formed with the initial letter of the first word plus the whole of second N-bomb-nuclear bomb/G-man-government man/V-Day-Victory Day

7 Back-formation, a reversed process of suffixation in which a shortened word derives by deleting the supposed suffix;

beg-beggar/edit-editor/televise-television/laze-lazy-drowse-drowsy type-typewriter/baby-sit-baby-sitter/lip-read-lip-reading/mass produce-mass-production

8 Name Adoption/Words from Proper Names, a phenomenon in which a proper noun turns into a common word and is used in circulation

sandwich/mackintosh/diesel/protean/watt/volt/ampere/quisling/bloomers (names of people) China/champagne/utopia/nylon/frisbee/xerox (names of objects or places)

9 Onomatopoeia/Echo Word, a device to form a word by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it; crow-cock/bark-dog/quack-duck/croak-frog/grunt-pig/buzz-bees murmur/babble/giggle/whistle/titter/bang/crash/thump/thud/tick/rumble/crack

10 Analogical Creation, a way to coin word by following an existing word already established

1) Single Word; telethon/talkathon-marathon//starquake/youthquake-earthquake chairperson/woman/one-chairman//cheese/beef/shrimpburger-hamburger

2) Phrase; sound/air/language/visional/cultural pollution-environment pollution swim/stay/stand in-sit in//botel/airtel/-motel

Unit Six: Word Meaning

1 Meaning Definition; a reciprocal relation between name and sense. In other word, meaning is what form stands for; a word meaning entails reference, concept and sense

Meaning is elusive in a language, depending upon speakers, hearers and context for their intention, interpretation and significance/value.

1) reference, the relationship between language and the world or the connection between the linguistic sign (symbol) and an object (referent) The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary and conventional. It is the result of generalization and abstraction and it can be specific with a help of context.

2) concept, a notion of word related directly to referent beyond language; it is the result of human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the mind of speaker. Concept and meaning are closely connected but not identical. Meaning belongs to language and is so restricted to language use

3) sense, the meaning of 'meaning', denoting the relationships inside the language. The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.

A word may entail several senses. For example, 'mother' is defined as a female adult parent which has three senses of female, adult and parent from the word meaning composition theory. Expressions in different dialects of one language may have the same sense:pavement (Br E) and sidewalk (Am E) have the same sense. The following are the examples of three senses of the word 'foot' in its different relations with contexts:

He scored with his left foot (part of the leg below the ankle) They made camp at the foot of the mountain (base or bottom of something) I ate a foot long hot-dog (unit of length, one third of a yard)

When we examine a word meaning, we must keep in mind that a word has in it the semantic information, semantic relations in addition to its pronunciation and morphological entity.

There is a famous sign theory concerning word meaning in which word meaning is interpreted as consisting of concept, symbol and referent. It is also called semiotic triangle.

2 Motivation and Its Types

Motivation, the logical explanation of the relationship between the structure of word and its meaning. In English, the relationship between the form and meaning of some words can be well accounted for. They are called motivated words. Motivation occurs in different ways:

1) phonetic/onomatopoeic motivation, words whose sounds suggest their meanings because they are coined by imitating the natural sounds or noises associable. Words of this kind are called echoic words such as 'splash' by stirred water, 'crash' by breaking up plane, 'bleat' by goats and 'croak' by frogs

2) morphological motivation, words whose meanings derive from the total sum of the morphemes involved. These words are often polymorphemic such as teacher/teach+er, motherland/mother+land and reading-lamp/reading+lamp.

3) semantic motivation, words whose figurative sense derives from its literal sense through mental association suggested by the conceptual meaning of a word. Examples are as 'the mouth of the river' in which the opening part of the river is associated with the mouth of a human being and 'the pen is mightier than the sword' is where pen and sword are used to suggest writing and war respectively.

4) etymological motivation, words whose meanings are related directly to the origins. In these words, history explains their meanings. For example, 'laconic' means brief or short, because it derives from Lacons, a tribe of people well-known for their brevity of speech and their manners of using as few words as possible for their expression. Other words such as those commonized from proper nouns fall into this category.

5) psychological motivation, words whose sense-shift and form change are gained through the mental working out of curiosity, interest, impatience or tabooism. For example, writers play on words; poets express themselves using imaginary lexis; common people display their ingenuity of eloquence or simplicity by idioms, euphemism, figurative speeches and other rhetorical devices. And taboos and certain dialectal expressions are attended to to reflect a sort of national psychological condition or culture. All the above produce certain fitting words for the required sense. And words derived from the formation process such as shortening, blending and backformation are typical.

Motivation can also be classified into variance in which the word meaning is related with another cognate such as peace---pacific; contact, attack, attach, tag---touch and recessive in which the relationship between the word meaning and word form becomes vague as in bother---both; doubt---double.

3 Types of Meaning

1) grammatical, that part of word meaning which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as part of speech, singular and plural forms and tense, voice and their inflectional variations

2) lexical, that of a word as is rendered in the dictionary. It entails

a. conceptual/denotative meaning which is the given meaning in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning

b. associative meaning which, as the secondary meaning supplements to the conceptual meaning, comprises the following:

a) connotative, the overtones or associations suggested by the conceptual meaning. It is unstable, varying considerably according to culture, historical period and the experience of the individual.

b) stylistic, that a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use. Words have their stylistic features which make them appropriate for different contexts. They are marked as common, formal and informal which include colloquialism, slang, vulgarism, jargon and argot. And five degrees of formality are suggested as frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate

c) affective, that indicates the speaker's attitude. Words of some kind have their emotive charge which can be used to overtly and explicitly convey personal affections. They include appreciative and pejorative words

d) collocative, that suggested by the association in its collocation. 'handsome' and 'beautiful' are close in meaning, but they vary with collocation. 'green' has different associative meanings when used to collocate with different range of nouns as in green on the job/green fruit/ green with envy/green-eyed monster

Appendix: Triangular Semiotics

Thought/concept

Symbol/word object/referent

Unit Seven: Sense Relations and Semantic Field

Words are arbitrarysymbols and independent identities so far as their outer facet--spelling and pronunciation is concerned. But they are related in one way or another in sense. These sense relations are characterized by polysemy, homonymy, synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy

1 Polysemy, a condition in which a word has two meanings or over. A word, when first coined, usually is monosemic but in the course of development, it acquires new meanings and becomes polysemic. There are two approaches to polysemy

1) diachronic, examining the word concerned as a process going from the past to the present. The first meaning is the primary meaning and the later acquired are derived meanings; the primary is the basic and all the rest are derived from the precedent

2) synchronic, viewing polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word in a certain historical period of time. The basic meaning is the core of the word meaning and becomes the central meaning and the derived meanings are secondary. The central meaning is the dominant

There are two processes by which the word meaning changes:

1) radiation, a semantic process in which the primary meaning stands at the center and the secondary meanings proceed out of it in every direction like rays

2) concatenation, a semantic process in which the meaning of a word moves gradually away from its first sense until, in many cases, there is not a sign of connection between the sense that is finally developed

2 Homonymy, a term used to refer to words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in sound or spelling.;

1) Classification