Types of Word building

Types of word building. Derivation (Affixation). Word-building patternS

Lecture 4

There are the following types of word-building: affixation (derivation) (unfriendly), conversion (water n – water v), composition (early-riser, evil­doer), contraction (shortening) (coke:: coca-cola; flu:: influenza), onomatopoeia (cock-doodle-doo, wham, crack), reduplication (walkie-talkie), and reversion (beggar – to beg).

Derivation (Affixation)

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.

From the etymological point of view affixes are clas­sified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Some Native Suffixes

Noun-forming	-er	work er, min er, teach er, paint er, etc.
-ness	cold ness, loneli ness, loveli ness, etc.
-ing	feel ing, mean ing, sing ing, read ing, etc.
-dom	freedom, wisdom, king dom, etc.
-hood	child hood, man hood, mother hood, etc.
-ship	friend ship, companion ship, master ship, etc.
-th	leng th, bread th, heal th, tru th, etc.
Adjective-forming	-ful	care ful, joy ful, wonder ful, sin ful, skil ful, etc.
-less	care less, sleep less, cloud less, sense less, etc.
-y	coz y, tid y, merr y, snow y, show y, etc.
-ish	Engl ish, Span ish, redd ish, child ish, etc.
-ly	lone ly, love ly, ug ly, like ly, lord ly, etc.
-en	wood en, wooll en, silk en, gold en, etc.
-some	hand some, quarrel some, tire some, etc.
Verb-forming	-en	wid en, redd en, dark en, sadd en, etc.
Adverb-forming	-ly	warm ly, hard ly, simp ly, careful ly, cold ly, etc.

Borrowed affixes, especially of Romance origin are numerous in the English vocabulary. It would be wrong, though, to suppose that affixes are borrowed in the same way and for the same reasons as words. An af­fix of foreign origin can be regarded as borrowed only after it has begun an independent and active life in the recipient language, that is, is taking part in the word-making processes of that language. This can only occur when the total of words with this affix is so great in the recipient language as to affect the native speakers' sub­consciousness to the extent that they no longer realize its foreign flavour and accept it as their own.

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i.e. words coined and used only for this particular occa­sion. The latter are usually formed at the level of liv­ing speech and reflect the most productive and pro­gressive patterns in word-building. When a literary critic writes about a certain book that it is an unput-downable thriller, we will seek in vain this strange and impressive adjective in dictionaries, for it is a nonce-word coined on the current pattern of Modern English and is evidence of the high productivity of the adjec­tive-forming borrowed suffix -able and the native pre­fix un-.

Consider, for example, the following:

Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, sad-lookingish cove with an eye like a snake.

The adjectives thinnish and baldish bring to mind dozens of other adjectives made with the same suffix: oldish, youngish, mannish, girlish, fattish, longish, yellowish, etc. But sad-lookingish is the author's creation aimed at a humorous effect, and, at the same time, proving beyond doubt that the suffix -ish is a live and active one.

The same is well illustrated by the following popu­lar statement: "I don't like Sunday evenings: I feel so Mondayish". (Mondayish is certainly a nonce-word.)

One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes, which, nevertheless, are no longer used in word-derivation (e. g. the adjec­tive-forming native suffixes -ful, -ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latin origin -ant, -ent,

-al which are quite frequent).

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