skills

Morphology

Morph,allomorph,morpheme ,morpheme classes ,word ,root

cranberry problem ,phonological conditioning,portmanteau

zero ,diachronic explanation ,suppletion ,bibliography

exercises ,word - lexeme

The next larger unit after the syllable is obviously the word. It is interesting that this unit, which seems so

simple in everyday language is so complicated if we try to analyse it linguistically. Normally we would

say that all units between two spaces in a written text are words. But if we decide on take and took being

two words, what about put (present tense) and put (past tense)? As can be seen by these examples the

concept of word contains two levels. It may refer

·  to the physical unit, the written or spoken form, which is called word form

·  to the semantic entity, which is normally an entry in the dictionary and therefore called cit ation form.

The meaningful unit behind a word is called the lexeme. A lexeme includes all inflected forms of a

word. Like the phoneme it is a kind of abstraction or class of forms and is indicated by small

capitals, as in the following examples: TAKE (the lexeme) - takes, taking, took, taken (the word

forms)

It is conventional to choose one of the inflected forms to represent it, such as the infinitive of the verbs

given above or the singular of nouns. (In Latin dictionaries, on the other hand, verbs are listed in their sg

pres tense forms; thus, the verb 'to love' is listed as amo 'I love' not as amare 'to love'.)

The lexeme can be represented by a simple (eye) or complex word (eyeless), by a word group (black eye)

or even by an idiom (to be all eyes ´to wait eagerly for sb.´). Here we come across another complication:

In all cases where the lexeme contains two or more units separated by a space such as middle class family

life, flying boat model test, the day before yesterday, can we still say that the whole is a word?

Thus it is necessary to develop a number of criteria to decide this question:

·  Orthographic: a word is what occurs between spaces in writing.

·  Semantic: a word has a coherent meaning; it expresses a unified concept. Thus in compounds the

total meaning is different from the sum of the meanings of the two words. Cp paperback (which is a

book rather tahn a back) to a paper back, a hothouse (which is still a house but not always hot) to

any hot house etc.

·  Phonological: (a) a word occurs between potential pauses in speaking. Though in normal speech we

generally do not pause, we may potentially pause between words but not in the middle of words; (b)

a word spoken in isolation has one and only one primary stress (with some exceptions, such as

compound adjectives).

·  Morphological: a word has an internal cohesion and is indivisible by other units; a word may be

modified only externally by the addition of suffixes and prefixes. So back door does not allow an

internal, only an external addition: a dirty back door - *a back dirty door Grammatical: words fall

into particular classes.

·  Syntactic: a word has external distribution or mobility; it is moved as a unit, not in parts (e.g. as

subject or object).

The first two criteria are not very conclusive in delimiting words since spacing between words, as well as

hyphenation practices, are often quite arbitrary in English and phrases consisting of several words may

also have semantic unity. We can see the usefulness of these criteria if we look at some problematical

examples of word delimitation:

grapefruit meets all the criteria for wordhood; compare however passion fruit, which has

the same structure but is separated.

travel agency Semantically a single concept but it is written and pronounced (two primary

stresses) as more than one word.

good-for-nothing has the appearance of a phrase written as one word and moved as a single unit

(not separated in the sentence).

son-in-law is a single word when made possessive (sons -in-law's), but a phrase when

pluralized with internal modification (sons-in-law).

money-hungry is treated syntactically as a single word, but it has two primary stresses, and is

hence phonologically a phrase.

look over both phonologically and syntactically a phrase, because material may intercede

between the parts (Look over the information - look the informtion over). But it

seems to express a single semantic notion: the same is expressed by the single

word examine.

morph

If we consider the elements in words like (she) works, worked, worker, workhouse, we find in a first step

in the analysis recurrent forms: work, -s, -ed, -er, house. These are called morphs, i.e. phonological

representations of an element, a segment, which is not yet classified.

morpheme

By comparing these morphs with the same forms in other words we find that they all have their own

meaning: work + s (marks the 3rd person singular), work + ed (a marker for past tense), work + er (a

marker for "person who does the activity expressed in the verb”), work + house (a special house). All

these words are made up of at least two meaningful units. We call these morphemes, i.e. the smallest

meaningful unit of a language. The branch of linguistics which deals with these morphemes is called

morphology. This comprises both grammatical forms, e.g., work, works, working, and word formations,

e.g. worker, workhouse. The importance of the factor „meaningful“ is shown by the following examples:

If we compare words such as worker, baker or corner, hammer, we can see that worker and baker can be

split up into the meaningful units work + er or bake + er, whereas the analysis of corner and hammer

does not result in the elements corn + er or ham(m) + er, because in both cases -er has no meaning (and

neither corn- nor ham- have anything to do with either ´grain´ or ´meat´). The relationship between

morphs and morphemes can be shown in the following examples:

morphs morphemes morphs morphemes

smaller 2 2 fish 1 2

better 1 2 children 2 2

writers 3 3 men´s 2 3

authors 2 2 worked 2 2

mice 1 2 wrote 1 2

unique morphemes - cranberry problem

Words can have one morpheme: girl, two: girls, three: hunters, four: reactivate, unfriendliness. However,

sometimes the morpheme status is not quite clear: In words like cranberry , raspberry, huckleberry,

boysenberry there is clearly a morpheme -berry which shows the semantic category of these words. The

first elements, however, have no meaning apart from a differentiating one. They can be paralleled to the

Latin roots –late, -fer etc , and so are bound roots. Some linguist call these unique morphemes.

morpheme classes - free - bound - lexical - derivational - inflectional

If we analyse the words unhappy, disloyal, helpless, inhabitant, works, worked, we can see that the

morphemes happy, loyal, help and inhabit can stand all by themselves, they are consequently free

morphemes. The morphemes un-, dis-, -less, -ant, -s and -ed are always bound to another word,

consequently they are called bound morphemes. The morphemes happy, loyal, help, inhabit have a

complex meaning which is explained in dictionaries. They are lexical morphemes (or lexemes), the

morphemes un-, dis-, -less, -ant derive new words from existing ones, that is why they are derivational

morphemes. The morphemes -s and -ed represent a grammatical function, which is explained in a

grammar; they are grammatical or inflectional morphemes.

Words like house, love, fine are free and lexical, is, to, and are free and grammatical, elements like un-, -

less-, -ceive are bound and lexical, -s in walks, -ed in walked, -ing in walking are bound and grammatical.

These combinations have the following names:

content word

Free lexical forms such as house, love, fine are called content words. These are nouns, verbs, adjectives

and as such form a relationship between language and the world by refering to things and persons (nouns),

activities and situations (verbs) and characteristics (adjectives). These are autosemantic, i.e., they have an

independent sense.

function word

Contrary to these function words, i.e. free grammatical forms like is (walking), to, and, are synsemantic,

i.e., their meaning is partly or exclusively dependent on their context.

affix - prefix - suffix

Affixes occur either as prefixes or suffixes. They are always bound and can be lexical (derivational) as all

prefixes: un- in unhappy, or grammatical as all inflectional endings, suffixes such as –ed in worked.

Suffixes can also be derivational as –less in hopeless.

inflectional ending

Other inflectional endings (i.e. bound grammatical suffixes) are –s in walks, -ed in walked, - ing in

walking

Morpheme types in English

grammatical lexical

free bound free bound

function word inflectional affix content word derivational affix

can, to, and, she -ed, -s, -er house, garden, door hopeful, unhappy

Inflexional and derivational endings

inflexional derivational

They are explained in the grammar. They are explained in the dictionary.

They are only suffixes. They can be both prefixes and suffixes.

They never change the word-class. They can change the word-class.

They can be applied to every member of a class:

e.g. plural-s can be attached to almost all nouns.

They are restricted in their use. There is unwise but

not *unexcellent.

They form a small inventory They are much more numerous.

They have just a very general meaning, e.g. plural

= more than one

They have often quite specific meanings, e.g., -er

in stranger

They belong to a closed class (just eight) Their class is open, e.g. -burger is a new quasisuffix

root

This carries the principal lexical or grammatical meaning. It is normally a free form as avoid, grown,

heart , class, which can or cannot be expanded to derivations (unavoidable, overgrown, disheartened,

classify). Occasionally it can also be a bound form such as –ceive in receive, conceive, perceive, deceive,

apperceive, -mit in commit, admit, omit, remit, submit, transmit, -vert in convert, revert, subvert, intravert,

pervert and –fer in confer, defer, refer, transfer.

allomorphs

Just as allophones are variants of a phoneme, so allomorphs are realisations or variant of morphemes.

They occur in all types of morphemes: in lexical morphemes such as official from office, in roots as in

reception from receive, in derivational morphemes as in impossible vs. incorrect and in grammatical

endings, such as voiced /d/ in loved vs. unvoiced /t/ in walked.

phonological conditioning - morphological conditioning - grammatical conditioning

If these allomorphs ar e determined by a preceding phoneme, they are called phonologically conditioned

allomorphs. If there is no phonemic conditioning, they are called morphologically conditioned

allomorphs, i.e. a certain lexical morpheme constitutes the realisation of a certain affix. Another

conditioning is the so-called grammatical conditioning, which changes the bases and not the affixes. This

is the case in plural or past tense forms knives, thieves, houses and wept, slept, where the ending

conditions voiced word final consonant viz. shortening of the basis. This can be demonstrated in the

English plurals and past tense morphemes:

phonologically conditioned morphologically conditioned

plural [z] after voiced consonants and vowels:

beds, knees

[s] after voiceless consonants: tulips, parents

[Iz] after sibilants (Zischlaute): horses,

bushes

Umlaut: feet, geese, teeth, mice

-en: oxen, children

zero-allomorph: fish, deer

Latin/Greek loans: fungi, antennae,

phenomena, theses

past tense [d] after voiced consonants and vowels:

rubbed, judged, entered

[t] after voiceless consonants: stopped,

kicked, laughed

[Id] after [t, d]: wanted, decided

portmanteau morpheme: took, gave

zero-allomorph: put, cut

Grammatical conditioning of English plurals

grammatically

conditioned plurals

elves, dwarves, calves, knives, leaves, loaves, lives, selves, sheaves, thieves,

wolves, woves; houses [ÈhaUzIz], blouses [ÈblaUzIz]

regular plurals beliefs, chiefs, proofs, safes

alternatives wharf – wharves, hoofs – hooves, scarfs – scarves, cloths – clothes (with

difference in meaning)

portmanteau

For cases like took or mice linguists suggested the term portmanteau morphs, i.e. one morph realises more

than one morpheme or function. In these cases took contains the meaning of ´take + the meaning of past

tense´ and mice contains both the morpheme ´mouse + the plural morpheme´. This is also the case in your

(cars), which has three morphemes (2nd person, plural, possession) or in Latin amo (first person, singular,

present, active).

zero-allomporph

A further abstraction is the concept of the zero-realisation (no visible affix, but a specific meaning) in

plurals such as fish and deer and past tense forms such as cut and put.

diachronic explanation

All these irregularities are non-productive inflections and can be better explained diachronically, i.e. if we

compare the present-day system with the OE one. Then, as in German, all of the irregularities were still

productive or at least much more common. This goes for the –en-plural in oxen and children (cp. German

Frauen, Straßen, Hallen), for the Umlaut in men, geese or mice, which affected a lot more nouns in older

English, e.g. also the plural of cows, brothers, books (cp. German Kühe, Brüder, Bücher). The irregular

verbs with mutation (called Ablaut) such as give – gave, come – came, find – found were a lot more

common and could be grouped into (seven) classes (cp. the related German strong verbs). Grammatical

conditioned forms are the result of sound changes in English: knives, leaves is a remnant of OE

phonological rules (voicing of consonants in voiced surrounding) and kept, met go back to a shortening of

vowels before a consonant cluster.

suppletion

In a couple of words some grammatical functions are not represented by inflectional endings but rather by

completely different words. This is called suppletion and occurs in all European languages with more or

less the same concepts/meanings.

Gradation of ´good´: good – better; gut – besser; bon – meilleur; Russian: xoros&o (good) - luc&s&e (better)

Forms of to be: be, am, are, is, was – sein, bin, ist, sind, war – etre, suis, est, sommes, etait

Past tense of ´to go´: go – went; aller – il va; Spanish: ir (to walk) – fue (went)

Word formation

introduction

immediate constituents

stem

productivity

grammatical and word formation rules

derivation

prefixation

allomorphs

homonymic prefixes

synonymic prefixes

suffixation

changes of the root

homonymic suffixes

semi-suffixes

dead suffixes

hybrids

burger problem

contrastive analysis

compound

compound or phrase

meaning relationsships

underlying sentences

amalgamated compounds

conversion

syntactic conversion

approximate conversion

partial conversion

importance of conversion in English

misunderstandings

English conversion - German derivation

reduplication

subtractive word formation

clipping

backformation

blends

acronyms

coinage

bibliography

exercises

This deals with the formation of new words with the help of lexical morphemes (lexemes, derivational

morphemes). This feature is very important in every language, which can be seen when one compares the

ratio between simple and complex words by choosing a specific semantic field , e.g., things about the

house (front door, refrigerator, TV set) or by counting them in a page of a dictionary. If a language did not

have the possiblity of word formation and if it had only simple words, speakers would be forced to use

individual forms different from one another, which would increase the number of different forms to such

an amount that nobody could remember them any more. Word formations are the semantic „bridges“

between the various concepts.

How do we understand word formations, e.g. what makes us know at once that a windmill is a mill

powered by the wind and not a mill which produces wind? If we try to analyse the constituents of the

word unfriendliness, we could do this in the following way: un + friend + li + ness; this linear analysis,

however, does not show the internal relationship between the various parts, which could be demonstrated

in the following way:

[un[[friend][li]]ness] or un friend li ness

immediate constituents - stem - base

The parts of the word that are in closer connection with one another are called the immediate constituents.

The last remaining part which cannot be split up into other elements is called the stem, the part or parts

which form the basis for a word formation is called the base. The stem in English is normally a free form

but it can also be a bound root like in pi-ous, jeal-ous. In our example friend is both stem and base for

friendly, which is base for unfriendly etc.

productivity

An important factor in word formation is the productivity of word formation processes. This may range

from very limited to quite extensive, depending upon whether they are found in just a few words and no

longer used to create new words (such as be- in behold, become, besmear) or whether they are found in

many words and still being in use (such as the prefix un-).

A survey of productive types shows the following distribution: derivations 20%, compounds 41%,

abbreviations (blends, clippings, acronyms) 5 % each and conversions also 5%.

We can differentiate between are three types of productivity:

actual English words

These are existing word formations, prefixations such as unable, unkind, suffixations as whiten, soften and

compounds as sandstone.

potential English words

These would be possible by word formation rules but they are not realised in the language, e.g.there is no

prefixation such as unexcellent, no suffixation such as slowen or greenen and no compound granite stone.

One reason for this non-realisation (blockage) may be the fact that there is already an existing word for the

concept in question: there is no stealer, because there is already thief, warmness has not been realised

because there had already been warmth. Phonological reasons are potential tongue-twisters as in miserlily,

Vancouverer

non-English words

Unlike the latter these are not even possible by word formation rules. There are both phonological and

morphological constraints on word formation. An example of the former is English –en attached to

adjectives to form verbs (whiten, soften, madden). This is only possible in monosyllabic adjectives ending

in an obstruent. That is why derivations such as abstracten, bluen, angryen are not possible. The latter

shows in the impossibility of unhealth because un- cannot be attached to nouns, nor is there selfishless

because –less can only be attached to nouns and not to adjectives. Unsad, unpessimistic do not exist

because of the semantic reason that there is no negation of the negative partner in an antonymic pair.

Compare also Humpty-Dumpty´s famous “unbirthday present” in Alice in Wonderland.

nonce formations

Many word formations are created as spontaneous ad hoc or nonce formations such as and either uses just

once or get out of use very soon. Others are institutionalised and finally find their way into the

dictionaries. That there are rules behind word formations in a similar way as there are rules behind

grammatical forms can be shown by the following example: If we know what a soleme (a non existing

word) is, we can also derive solemic, the verb solemicize and the process solemicization.

word formation vs. grammar rules

Here are some similarities and differences between rules in grammar and word formation:

·  Similarities: Both can be generalised and apply for more than one or very few instances. Both have

restrictions which can sometimes be formulated.

·  Differences: Grammatical rules are far more generally applicable than word formation rules: A rule

such as ´past tense is formed by adding –ed to verbs´ is much more general than a rule such as ´graded

adjectives can be negated by the prefix un-´. In grammar irregular verbs are considered to be

exceptions. In word formation rules, however, these „exceptions“ are more widespread and are much

more difficult to be explained either structurally or historically. Besides, inflectional morphemes are a

closed system of forms, lexical and derivational ones are an open system.

Apart from that the question which affix attaches to which root is quite unpredictable. Sometimes it must

be stated separately for each root. Here is an example of how word formation rules for suffixations of

verbs look like:

Word formation rules according to Quirk et al.

suffix added to meaning example

-er/-or mainly personal nouns agentive

instrumental

driver, worker

computer, receiver

-ant nouns agentive

instrumental

inhabitant

disinfectant

-ee personal nouns passive employee

-ation a) abstract nouns

b) collective nouns

state, action

institution

exploration

organization

-ment nouns (chiefly abstract) state, action amazement

-al nouns (chiefly count abstract) action refusal, dismissal

-ing a) abstract nouns

b) concrete nouns

activity

result of activity

driving

building

-age non-count abstract nouns (result of) activity drainage

We turn now to the individual word formation processes, which can be roughly subdivided into derivation

(affixation), conversion, compounding, coinage and the substractive word formations.

derivation - affixation

This is the attachment of a morpheme to a free form either as a prefix or as a suffix. Unlike German (e.g.

ab-ge-worfen) there is no infixation in English with the possible exception of such humourous forms as

im-bloody-pssible, abso-blooming-lutely or the historically fixed forms hand-i-work, hand-i-craft.

The addition of a derivational affix produces a new word with one or more of the following changes:

·  Orthographic: pity > pitiful, deny > denial

·  Phonological: reduce > reduction, fuse > fusion, drama > dramatize, relate > relation

·  Semantic: This may be sometimes rather simple as the negation expressed in un- (unhappy), but

sometimes rather complex such as fashionable which unlike impressionable is not just ´able to be xed

´.

·  Grammatical: Words are shifted from one word class to another.

prefixation

Prefixes normally cause a change of meaning (negative: unhappy; reversative: untie; locative: transplant).

Exceptions are the non-productive prefixes which make nouns (adjectives) into verbs:

·  be- in bedevil, bewitch, behead, befriend

·  en-/-em in enjoy, enscircle, entrap, enslave, enlarge, embark, empower.

The spelling is sometimes hyphenated: pro-communist, anti-social, pre-war; especially in multiple

prefixes: anti-disestablishment. There are native prefixes such as be-, fore-, mis-, un-, but more common

are foreign ones such as dis-, non-, anti-, ex-, pseudo-, ab-,

homonymic prefixes

Some prefixes have the same form with a different meaning. Compare unfair - untie, uninstall, dislike –

disinfect (negative vs. reversative), interweave – interfere, income – invalid, pro-British - prologue

synonymic prefixes

On the other hand, some prefixes have the same meaning in different forms: unhappy, disloyal, nonsmoker,

illegal, abnormal, non-scientific are all negative. (But there is a slight difference to unscientific,

cp. also uninterested – disinterested)

allomorphs

Some prefixes are assimilated (cp. p. 22) to the stem und thus form variants in complementary

distribution: independent, impossible, irregular, illegal; endanger, empower

List of prefixes

negation un-, non- unfair, unwise, unforrgettable; unassuming,

unexpected;nonconformist, nonsmoker, nonpolitical, nondrip

privation un-, dis- undo, untie, unzip, unpack, unleash; disconnect, disinfest, disown,

disheartened, discoloured

time pre-, post- prewar , preschool, pre-nineteenth century, premarital; postwar,

postclassical, postpone, post-structuralist

place inter-, sub-, trans- international, interact, inetermarry; subway, subconscious,

subdidive; transplant, transatlantic

degree hyper-, ultra- hypercritical, hyperactive, hypersensitive; ultraviolet, ultramodern,

ultraconservative, ultramarine

number bi-, poly-, mono- bilingual, bicycle; polysyllabic, poyglot; monolingual,

monotransitive

Suffixation

Suffixes normally change the word-class; exceptions are suffixes such as –dom in kingdom or –hood in

childhood, neighbourhood, knighthood, -ship in friendship, fellowship, championship, membership,

kinship, where there is a change of the semantic class. In many cases suffixes trigger a change of the root

(either consonant or vowel), which can be formulated by phonological rules:

Allomorphs of basis in suffixation

type of change basis suffixaton

change of final

consonant

atrocious

habit

invade

office

atrocity

habitual

invasion

official

ai > I

i: > e

eI > Q [«]

aU > Ã

«U > 

others:

admire, divine, vice

serene, sincere, supreme

insane, profane, major

pronounce, abound

phone, tone, melodiouis

Japan, photograph

admiration, divinity, vicious

serenity, sincerity, supremacy

insanity, profanity, Majority

pronunciation, abundance

phonic, tonic, melody

Japanese, photographic

historical changes appear

divine

pronounce

apparent

divinity

pronunciation

hybrids

Native suffixes combine only with a native base, and there is no change of stress: hopeful, goodness.

Foreign suffixes, however, can combine with a foreign base as in utterance or with a native base as in

eatable. These are called hybrids.

homonymic suffixes

More than prefixes suffixes can have different meanings, which is especially manifest in –er:

Meanings of –er

added to meaning examples

dynamic verbs agent: the person who does what is

expressed in the verb

Baker, singer, lover, reader, writer,

trader

dynamic verbs instrument: a machine which does what is

expressed in the verb

Computer, receiver, transmitter

dynamic verbs a thing to slip into slipper

place names a person from x Londoner, New Yorker

Other examples are: coastal (adjective) – withdrawal (noun), cupful – careful, wooden (adjective) –

shorten (verb)

semi-suffixes

are basically free forms, which are almost used as suffixes (same position and semantically empty) as -

craft in witchcraft, statecraft, -proof in fireproof, waterproof, -wise in lengthwise, -monger in ironmonger,

fishmonger, scandalmonger, - wright in playwright, -like in childlike, -man in walkman, -burger in

cheeseburger, fishburger etc.

dead suffixes

Forms such as -dom, -hood, -th: kingdom, boyhood, length are no longer productive in Modern English.

false division

A historically false division may result in rather productive suffixes as in

·  -burger from hamburger > cheeseburger, fishburger, chickenburger etc.

·  -oholic from alcoholic > workoholic, wordoholic, chocoholic

·  -athon from marathon > workathon, telathon

Survey of suffixes in English

adjective > noun -ism

-ity

-ness

idealism, realism, imperialism, romanticism

sanity, vanity, rapidity, banality, ability, chastity, curiosity

happiness, meanness, clerverness, usefulness, brightness, darkness

verb > noun -al

-er

-ment

refusal, dismissal, denial, survial, approval, trial, proposal

worker, writer, driver, employer, swimmer, preacher, traveller

arrangement, amazement, judgement, astonishment, treatment

adjective/noun >

verb

-en

-ify

-ize

ripen, widen, deafen, sadden, harden, lengthen, deepen

beautify, diversify, codify, amplify, simplify, glorify, nullify

symbolize, hospitalize, publicize, popularize, modernize

noun > adjective -ful

-ish

-able

useful, delightful, helpful, careful, awful, rightful, sinful, cheerful

foolish, selfish, snobbish, modish, hellish, Swedish, Jewish

acceptable, readable, drinkable, livable, comfortable, changeable

adjective/noun >

adverb

-ly

-wise

-ward

happily, strangely, oddly, basically, semantically

clockwise, lengthwise, weatherwise

homeward, eastward

contrastive analysis: diminutive suffixes - feminine suffixes

There is a big difference in some areas of suffixation between German and English, e.g., in diminutive

suffixes. These are very rare in English and occur only in few words: booklet, piglet, gosling, kitchenette,

cigarette, whereas they can be freely added to German nouns (with stylistic restrictions) Häuschen,

Fensterchen, Gärtlein.

In English feminine suffixes are added to only about ten stems: waitress, stewardess, duchess, but are

generally used in German: Lehrerin, Professorin, Erzieherin, Köchin. With political correctness the two

languages have gone opposing ways: English has abolished the „discrimating“ female forms: stewardess

became flight attendant, fireman became firefighter, charwoman became cleaner; German has to add it to

every profession, e.g. Bürgerinnen und Bürger, StudentInnen and by that becomes more clumsy and

elaborate.

conversion - zero-derivation - functional shift

Derivation without a derivational affix, i.e., this can be compared to a derivation with the help of a suffix

as the arrival from to arrive, only that here as in the return + 0 from to return no suffix or rather a zerosuffix

is attached. This is then a shift of word-class without a derivational element. However, many

frequently used words such as change, cure, love ,cry , turn, start, stop, rest, set do not show any traces of

a derivation from one word class to another (noun to verb or verb to noun?). Thus for some linguists word

class is neutral or latent and shows only in the context of the word in question.

Sometimes the question arrises which word class is the original and which the derived one. Possible

criteria are:

·  Historical: In written documents the cook is earlier than to cook (proved by OED)

·  The original word class is shown by typical endings such as these noun-endings: to landscape, to

requisition, to whitewash.

·  Semantic elements: to net is described as ´to catch with a net´ and not the net as ´an instrument for

netting´

·  Frequency: the basic word has a higher frequency than the conversion

Conversions affect every word-class, e.g.

·  adjectives > verbs: to idle, to calm, to clean, to dry, to empty, to open, to total;

·  adjectives > nouns: a daily, a bitter, a natural, a regular, the rich, a double

·  verbs > nouns : a look, a call, a cut, a cough, a doubt, a rise, a smell, a smile, a spy. This is especially

productive in verb-object-combinations: to have a look, to give a damn, to take a walk, give it a turn,

have a stare at, make a guess, have a cry and in prepositional heads: in the long run, on the wax, at a

gulp

·  nouns > verbs: to bridge, to butter, to knife, to mail, to queue, to shoulder, to iron, to service, to X -ray,

to blacklist to skin, to weed; the fall, a lift denotes action itself; the sweat, a catch are result of the

action and a spy is the actor.

·  adverbs > adjectives (the then president), > verbs (to down the tools), > nouns (the ins and outs)

·  function words > nouns: the how and why, many ifs and buts

·  interjections > verbs: to hurrah, to bravo

·  suffixes act as free forms: patriotism, nationalism and other isms

There is a stress shift when phrasal verbs become nouns and adjectives: to Ècome Èback > a Ècomeback, to

Èrun Èoff > a Èrunoff, to Ètake oÈover > a Ètakeover; a Èthrow-away thing, a Èbuilt-in wardrobe

syntactic conversion

Conversion functions even within word-classes and makes intransitive into transitive verbs: run > to run a

business, stand > to stand the robbers against the wall, and trasitive into intransitive verbs: to read > this

book reads well, to scare > I don´t scare easily.

English conversion – German affixation

Conversion occurs in other languages as well (cp. German lachen - das Lachen) and is not directly

dependent on the loss of grammatical suffixes in English. The main reason for the higher frequency of this

process in English is the low productivity of characteristic prefixes and suffixes, e.g. in noun > verb

conversions en- (enslave), -ify (magnify, beautify), - ize (nationalize). Altogether the important role of

conversion in English is another factor of the analytical character of the language, i.e., (word-class)

functions are not attached to but integrated in the word.

This process in many ways makes English more flexible and economic. To carpet the living room is much

more concise than das Wohnzimmer mit einem Teppichboden ausstatten. In most cases of English

conversion German requires a specific derivation or phraseology which has to be learned and remembered

individually:

·  a prefix as in to grease – einfetten,

·  a suffix as in kassieren – to cash, gruppieren – to group

·  the Umlaut as in häuten – to skin, schälen – to peel

·  a whole phrase as in in Kontakt treten – to contact,

·  a causative verb as in fliegen lassen – to fly a kite

·  a completely different word as in to house – unterbringen, to mail – verschicken.

mis-understandings

Of course, the loss of formal elements entails sometimes the loss of function or meaning, consequently a

headline such as "Interest rate rises slow retail sails", with slow as verb, is much clearer in German, where

the prefix in ver-langsamen points to the verb directly.

approximate conversion

Some conversions do show a slight difference in form, especially a voiced fricative in the verb as in:

advice - to advise, house - to house, use - to use, increase - to increase, belief - to believe, thief - to thieve;

teeth - to teethe. It is doubtful whether there is still conversion in pairs with even more changes, like the

glass - to glaze, breath - to breathe, blood - to bleed, food - to feed.

Another case of this borderline conver sion are the two-syllable words like import, export

partial conversion

Here the word is transfered into its new class only partially, i.e., it shows just some characteristics of this

class: So I can say The wealthy are with us, but not I know *a wealthy. I can say the wealthier, but not

some wealthies.

compounds

A compound is a combination of two free forms, which exist in all word-classes:

·  nouns: good shot, door knob, playboy, pickpocket, cut-throat, madman, software, background,

outcast, downpour, drop-out, sit-in

·  adjectives: narrow-minded, midnight blue, bittersweet, back -street, tow-away, man-eating, aesygoing,

handwoven, double-barrelled

·  verbs: to house-break, to tape-record, to babysit, to outdo, to overcook

There are two borderline cases of compounds:

neoclassical

·  neoclassical formations such as telescope, telegraph, microscope, microphone, a combination of two

bound forms which are nevertheless no affixes. These are all-important in naming technical

inventions and processes.

·  Combinations of two free forms, where at least one form behaves almost like a prefix or suffix: ingroup,

policeman [-m«n]

compound or phrase

Unlike in German, where the spelling is both necessary and sufficient condition for a compound, the

question in English if a combination is just a phrase like black bird or a compound like blackbird is not as

easily to be solved. A compund has to meet one or more of the following conditions:

·  Spelling: Compounds are either written together: bedroom, foodstuff, hedgehog, written with a

hyphen (more in BrE than in AmE): tax-free, living-room, or written separately: reading material,

common room, minced meat. Some compounds even allow for all three spellings: flowerpot, flowerpot,

flower pot

·  Accent: The primary accent is normally on the first part (the determinant): Èchewing gum, Èdrinking

water, Èhothouse, but there are exceptions with double stress (cp. $):Èhigh Ètreason, Èhot Èwar, Èminced

Èmeat

·  Syntax: If the determinant is an adjective, this loses its syntactic features, i.e. it can no longer be

graded or used predicatively: a wetter day - *a smaller talk, a very wet day - *a very small talk, the

day is wet - *the talk is small

·  Internal coherence, i.e. endings such as plurals are added to the second part: man-servants. Phrases are

internally modified (at any of the word boundaries): lookers-on, mothers-in-law, in-group, sit-in,

passers-by. Borderline cases are phrase compounds such as lady-in-waiting, dog-in-the-manger,

forget-me-not, has-been, son-in-law which are internally modified in the plural: sons-in-law, but

externally modified in the possessive: my son-in-law´s new car.

·  External mobility: Compounds move in a sentence as a whole, not in parts. Compare the difference

between the compound cross-examination and the phrase to check out in the following sentences:

The lawyer conducted the cross-examination. – The cross-examination was conducted by the lawyer.

He checked out the witness. – He checked the witness out.

·  Constituents: In compounds modifiers describe the second rather than the first part: a dirty book case

is not a case for dirty books, a round door knob is not a knob for round doors; a narrow door way but

not *a wooden door way, a mahagony book case but not *a rare book case

meaning relationships

Semantically compounds are normally not the sum of their constituents but they rather generate a new

meaning, e.g. hothouse, which is not just a combination of hot + house but takes on a completely new

meaning: ´a greenhouse with a warmer temperature´.

The relationships between the two consituents in a compound are manifold and sometimes not easy to see.

Homeland is a land which is one´s home, homemade is something made at home, homebody is somebody

who stays at home, homestead is a place which is a home, homework is done at home, and homerun is too

complicated to describe in just a few words. Airplane is a vehicle that travels through the air, airfield is a

field where airplanes land and air hose is a hose that carries air.

There is a widely-accepted system to describe this internal relationship, which suggests three types of

compounds:

determinative - endocentric

This is by far the most frequent type: the first part (determinant) determines the second (determinatum):

flower girl, haircut, rainfall, washing machine. These are also called endocentric because all formal

characteristics of the compound are the same as those of one of its constituents.

copulative

The compound shows characteristics of both the first and the second part: actor-manager, study-bedroom,

bread and butter, bitter-sweet, sleepwalk, freeze-dry

Bahuvrihi - exocentric

This strange name is a remnant of 19th century comparative linguistics and suggests that the referent of the

compound is outside the elements used, that one characteristic of the referent is highlighted by the

compound. They are mostly compounds refering to a person with this specific characteristic: a paleface is

a person with a pale face, a killjoy is a person who kills the joy etc.

Quirk´s underlying sentences

Another method of analysing the semantic relationship between the parts of a compound is suggested by

the Quirk grammar, namely paraphrases by underlying sentences: Types such as sunrise or rattlesnake

contain the subject and the verb: the sun rises, the snake rattles, so does washing machine (a machine

washes), compounds such as word formation or air-conditioning contain the verb and an object: to form

words, sth. that conditions the air. This is especially productive with an agential noun: songwriter is

somebody who writes songs; words like factory worker or night flight have an adverbial: somebody who

works in a factory, a flight at night. The latter is a verbless compound, the same as windmill (a mill

powered by wind) or honey-bee (a bee that produces honey). This method seems to be quite efficient

method especially in language teaching.

amalgamated compounds (Verdunkelte Komposita)

If we analyse compounds diachronically, we can see that there are a number of words in present-day

English which used to be compounds in older English. The most striking examples are lady and lord ,

which are based on the former compounds hlaf (loaf) + dige (´knead´, cp. dough): the ´kneader of the

bread´ and hlaf + weard (´warden`): the warden of the bread.

Reasons for these processes are a shift of stress and/or a change of meaning of one or both parts, so that

the units are no longer associated with their roots, or even the extinction of one element (as *dige which

does no longer exist). The first step in this process was obviously the dissociation of at least one of the

elements in meaning (people no longer understood it), so that there was no longer a morphological

boundary. In this way the constituents were weakened and the stems were shortened.

They have either been completely amalgamated as sherrif (shire + reeve) or daisy (day´s eye), or one part

is still recognizable as in holiday (holy day) or shepherd (sheep herd). Some are obscured only in their

pronunciation: breakfast (to break the fasting of the night), cupboard (a board for cups), Christmas,

forehead. Other examples are: garlic (gar (spear) – leech), goodbye (God be with you), gospel (good spell

(message)), gossip (good sib (relatives)), hussy (house – wife), marshal (mere – scealc (horse – boy)),

nickname (an eke (also) name), steward (stig (climb) – warden), stirrup (stig – up), woman (wife – man).

German examples: Wimper (wint-brawe), ruchlos (ruoche = Sorge), Meineid („Falsch“-eid)

reduplication

In English this word formation is often found in children´s language or used for humorous effect. There

are three different kinds:

·  exact reduplication: papa, mama, goody-goody, so-so, hush-hush

·  mutation: criss-cross, zig-zag, ping-pong, tick -tock, mish-mash, wishy-washy, clip-clop, riff-raff

·  rhyme: helter-skelter holterdiepolter´´, hodge-podge ´Eintopf´, fuddy-duddy ´verknöchert´, razzledazzle

´Trubel´, boogie-woogie

This kind of word formation plays a bigger role in some languages other than English, e.g. in Pidgin

English, where it is used as an intensifier: washwash ´a thorough dunking´, wheelwheel ´a bicycle´.

subtractive word formation

Unlike the word formations discussed so far, where bound or free forms are added together, the following

are all products of parts of the word being taken away. This is also called negative word formation. As this

process has been gaining in importance and productivity in recent years, it is also sometimes called

„modern word formation“

clippings

However, this is a very old word formation process. Nobody would see clippings in the following words:

mean (< gemaene), fight (< gefeohte), sight (< gesihþ), mend (< amend), peal (< appeal), fend (< defend),

sport (< disport), spite (< despite), stress (< distress), bus (< omnibus), cab (< cabriolet), chap (<

chapman), gin(ger), Miss(tress), mob(ile), pub(lic house), pants (< pantaleons), (peri)wig, (cara)van. More

recent instances of clippings where the long form is disappearing are zoo or fax, where few people know

that they are derived from zoological garden or facsimile.

fore-clipping The front part of a word is clipped: chute, gator, phone, plane, van, varsity

back-clipping The back part is clipped: ad, auto, bike, coke, co-op, deli, doc, exam, fan, gas, gent, gym,

hippo, lab, mike, memo, net, photo, porn, pro, pep, pram, prefab, vet, zoo; pop; demob

back+fore clipping In very rare cases both parts are clipped: flu, fridge, tec, poly

Clippings of phrases occur in women´s lib(eration), high tech(nology), narc(otic agent or addict);

clippings which leave just a prefix are ex(-husband), bi(-sexual)

Clippings are almost exclusively nouns and belong mainly to everyday informal conversations and to

newspaper texts. Here they meet the tendency of newspaper headlines to use the shortest forms possible.

Their use in casual language is especially clear with names like Al, Fred, Randy, Tom, Andy, Archie,

Barny, which show that the speaker is on a familiar basis with the addressee. An additional informal touch

is provided by the suffix –ie/-y as in Aussie, Bolshy, booky, brolly, cabby, comvy, granny, Jerry, loony,

movie.

Another area for clippings are colloquialisms in technical and special languages, such as school and

education: coll, chem, dorm, grad, frat, lab, log, medic, prep, prof, soph, tech, the military: cap, loot,

sarge or criminal language: con, dinah, pen, poke

backformation

These formations look like clippings in that the last part of the word is being clipped. Unlike clippings,

however, backformations are always clipped at the morpheme boundary, they always change the wordclass,

and what is more, they are based on the erroneous opinion that the backformation is the base of the

expanded word, where really the expanded form is the base of this process. A major source of this in

English has been (agent) nouns ending in –er/-or such as editor, swindler or stoker. As there are thousands

of derivations with this suffix it was assumed that these words too had been formed by adding –er/-or.

Backformations in English

backformation by removal of

agentive suffix –er, -or

baby-sit < babysitter

burgle< burglar

edit < editor

globetrot < globetrotter

orate < orator

peddle < peddler

swindle < swindler

sculpt < sculptor

hawk < hawker

matchmake < matchmaker

sightsee < sightseer

typewrite < typewriter

by removal of other suffixes donate < donation

enthuse< enthusiasm

homesick < homesickness

dagnose < diagnosis

resurrect < resurrection

vivisect < vivisection

televise television

transcript < transcription sedate <

sedative

self-destruct < self-destruction

blends

They consist of clipped parts of two words and thus could be considered as „compounds“ of clippings.

Again, one cannot predict where these elements are clipped. They are not as frequent as clippings and

occur frequently in science, but also in advertisements. As with clippings there are a few words which are

no longer recognised as such word formations by most speakers such as chortle (chuckle + snortle) or

motel (motor + hotel).

brunch breakfast + lunch motel motor + hotel transistor transfer -resistor

bit binary + digit motorcade motor +

cavalcade

chloroform chlorine+formyl

chunnel channel + tunnel permafrost permanent +

frost

docudrama document + drama

heliport helicopter +

airport

smog smoke + fog electrocution electro+execution

sitcom situation

+comedy

modem modulator +

demodulator

telex teleprinter - exchange

acronyms - alphabetisms - initialisms

This is the most extreme form of clipping because the complete rest of the word is clipped apart from the

first (sometimes the first two) letter of a word. Acronyms are not formed in a systematic way; a letter may

be skipped or the first two letters of a word may be chosen, in order to produce a form which conforms to

English phonotactics. They occur especially in the language of politics, administration, military and

science and thus are restricted to written language (often in newspapers) or the spoken form of technical

languages. There are various types:

In alphabetisms the letters are pronounced separately as in TV, UN, USA, MP, C.O.D.,CD (compact disc),

GI (=government issue), IRA, FBI, COD (concise Oxford dictionary) , PC (personal computer or political

correctness), CNN, a.m., p.m., B.C., A.D.

The letters are treated as a new word in Nato, Unesco, VAT, radar, laser, hi-fi, Jeep (=GP = general

purpose vehicle). This is especially obvious in acronyms with a suffix: yuppie, dinks where it can be seen

these have become lexicalised words of the language.

A subtype of acronyms are allusions to existing words: Start, Salt, wasps (white Anglo-Saxon

protestants), Aids (acquired immune deficiency syndrom), sad (students against drugs), BASIC (Beginners

All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)

coinage

One last type of word formation with even less productivity are words which are derived from names,

which is especially common in cases where industry requires a new and attractive name for a product as in

brand names: kleenex, Coca-Cola, Levis, kodak, Orlon ´a crease-resistant fabric´, tabasco, Teflon, xerox.

Usually older coinages are derived from the names of inventors or discoverers such as bourbon, sandwich,

watt, lynch, boycott, hoove. Sometimes proper nouns even change into verbs such as to lynch, to canter ´to

move with ease´. Very often these nouns take a (nominal, verbal or adjectival) suffix: sadism, chauvinism;

to tantalize ´ to tease or make frustrated,´ to pasteurize; quixotic, platonic, spartan, machiavellian.