Word formation
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Word formation refers to creation of new words.
Usually largely a morphological exercise.
Compare and contrast with
- derivation and inflection (variations with clear and predictable meaning)
- though it can be said that these are not separate but merely the more predictable and more productive means of word formation, not
- semantic change and pragmatic change (change in meaning)
Concepts related to word formation include (in no particular order):
- agglutination - adding morphemes together
- The first association is often the morphological means of (base+affix) word formation.
- Many languages primarily have agglutination in the form of affixing some common functional bound morphemes.
- Note that in typologies, agglutivative languages/systems has the more specific meaning of adding one bit of meaning per affix, contrasted with fusional languages/systems, which often add multiple per affix, and also contrasted with languages that just remove the spaces from phrases.
- incorporation - agglutination-like compound where, for example, a direct object/participle is combined with (usually) a verb.
- clipping (also truncation, shortening) [2] is about removing part of a word without changing the meaning. There are some possible distinctions, such as:
- use of abbreviated form. Many are used in a narrow, jargon-like context, although they may become more generally used (exam, lab, vet)
- use of such a brief form in combinations (not unusually from words that are abbreviated themselves, such as ad from advertisement)
- back-formation[3] - adding to the set of inflections (the paradigm) by removing or substituting affixes
- often following a pattern, see e.g. how English changed changed how it dealt with Latin words over time
- differs from e.g. clipping, in that clipping does not change the meaning, and back-formation is a new inflection
- blending - refers generally to creation from multiple things, for example acronyms, clipping, and more.
- portmanteau - for example smog (smoke+fog)
- acronym - for example laser (from Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but note that laser has
- conversion (a.k.a. zero derivation) - use of an existing word in a new meaning, often in a new lexical category. For example the green in golf.
- compounding - (see also compounds)
- compounds
- some languages can do this structurally
- often fairly compositional, e.g. earthquake, but also frequently not butterfly, but the patterns and habits to this vary per language
- Coining often refers to an individual and/or directed attempt to establish a word, often a neologism, rather than a more natural development.
- neologism - a completely new word (may follow little more than a language's basic letter/phonetic structure). (Sometimes used more broadly in the 'any new word' sense)
- e.g. laser (which used to be an acronym), agitprop (portmanteau of agitation propaganda, though now carrying a wider meaning)
- folk etymology
- an incorrect reading of a word sounding or looking like it has a specific inflection, which it does not (often because they're loanwords)
- leading to new words (via backformation)
Cross-language
- loanword - copying a word from another language
- calque - translating a phrase word for word, for example to lose face (from Chinese to English), "disque dur" (from English to French)
- Semantic loan[4]
- borrowing where the word already exists, but grows a new meaning(verify)
- e.g. English called a specific input device a computer mouse (for its shape). French then adopted it into souris.
- reborrowing[5] -
- phono-semantic matching - borrowing a word into a language by matching it to an existing, semantically similar native word/root.