English linguistics
Words and word-formation processes in the English LanguageIn our daily use of language we often are not aware of word-formation processes which create, invent, produce or form new words in a language. Most of the times we have no problems with understanding these new words (=neologism). Furthermore we know immediately the various forms of that new word and include them all in our vocabulary. Sometimes we even may build them ourselves.This ability to adopt, understand, and use such a new word results from the fact that these word-formation processes are based on certain rules and regulations. Some of them are mentioned and explained at the following pages and examples are given of how the results of those processes are used in the English language. These processes have been at work for some time, and many words in daily use today were, at one time, considered to be misuses of the language. Nowadays it is quite difficult to understand why in the early nineteenth century a word like handbook was called a „tasteless innovation". Yet many terms we create cause similar outcries. But nevertheless, these processes are very
Another way of combining two seperate forms in order to produce a new word is called blending. It is achieved by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word. To combine the effects of smoke and fog, you talk about smog. Some other examples are bit (binary/digit), brunch (breakfast/lunch), motel (motor/hotel), and the Chunnel (channel/tunnel) which connects England and France. drill. Another example is ,toh', which means to chisel, and ,trnoh', which means a chisel. The most frequent word-formation process is known as derivation, which is achieved by adding affixes to any kind of word. Affixes, which are bound morphemes, can be divided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes. In the English language only the first and the second type of affixes appears. The third one is rather common in several other languages like e.g. Kamhmu, which is spoken in South Asia. One of the least common word-formation processes in English is coinage, which means the invention of totally new words. The most typical sources are trade names for a company's product which become general terms. Examples are aspirin, nylon, Levi`s, kleenex and teflon. Sometimes there may be a technical origin [e.g. te(tra)-fl(uor)-on] for such terms, but after their first coinage, they tend to become everyday words in the language.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1931
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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