Word formation processes
Inflection: Modifies tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case.
(Play, Plays)
Derivation: Changes de word class
(Slow-slowness)
Affixation
Prefixation
Suffixation
Compound adverbs
Suppletion
Zero derivation
Compound nouns
- Noun + noun: bath towel; boy-friend; death blow.
- Verb + noun: pickpocket; breakfast.
- Noun +verb: nosebleed; sunshine.
- Verb +verb: make-believe.
- Adjective + noun: deep structure; fast-food.
- Particle + noun: in-crowd; down-town.
- Adverb + noun: now generation.
- Verb + particle: cop-out; drop-out.
- Phrase compounds: son-in-law.
Compound verbs
- Noun + verb: sky-dive
- Adjective + verb: fine-tune
- Particle + verb: overbook
- Adjective + noun: brown-bag
Compound adjectives
- Noun + adjective: card-carrying; childproof
- Verb + adjective: fail safe
- Adjective + adjective: open-ended
- Adverb + adjective: cross-modal
- Particle + adjective: over-qualified
- Noun + noun: coffee-table
- Verb + noun: roll-neck
- Adjective + noun: red-brick; blue-collar
- Particle + noun: in-depth
- Verb + verb: go-go; make-believe
- Adjective/Adverb + verb: high-rise
- Verb + particle: see-through; tow-away
Compounding
Total suppletion
(Good-Better)
Partial suppletion/Ablaut
(Sing-Sang)
Kind of word formation involving
the creation of a word
(of a new word class)
from an existing word
(of a different word class)
without any change in form,
which is to say, derivation using only zero.
Other words formation processes
Clipping: A word is reduced to a shorter form (FIFA)
Blending:
(breakfast + lunch → brunch/ MERCOSUR)
Coining
inventing a new term from another (hypermarket)
Borrowing
(kindergarten, pretzel,
hamburger, iceberg /German/)
Back-formation
Reduplication
Loan-word: a word is borrowed from another language without translating
it into the target language.
(tour-de-force is borrowed directly
from French, which means
a masterly or brilliant feat.)
Loan-translation/calque: when you take a phrase in French and then literally translate root-for-root or word-for-word into English (Blue-blood - sangre azul)
LAURA PÉREZ.
4º B
Nominalization
Adjetivation
Verbalization
Adverbalization