10. Word-building

Word-formation is the process of creating new words from the material available in the language according to its structural and semantic formulas and patterns. For instance, the noun driver is formed after the pattern V + -er, i.e. a verbal stem + the noun-forming suffix -er. The meaning of the derived noun driver is related to the meaning of the stem drive- ‘to direct the course of a vehicle’ and the suffix -er meaning ‘an active agent’: a driver is ‘one who drives’ (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine, etc.). Word-formation is a morphological naming because it uses morphemes existing in the language.

There are two major types of word-formation: word-derivation and word-composition.

Words created by word-derivation have only one derivative base. The basic ways of forming-words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Affixation (progressive derivation) is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes, e.g. cleanness from clean, to overdo from to do, etc. Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different part-of-speech paradigm, e.g. a fall from to fall, to slave from a slave.

Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms, e.g. door-handle, house-keeper.

Apart from principal there are some minor types of modern word-formation, i.e. shortening, blending, acronymy, sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive stress and back-formation.

Affixation includes suffixation and prefixation. Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words either to a different part of speech or transfer a word to a different lexico-semantic group: employ – employee, director – directorship. Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Prefixes modify the lexical meaning of the base. They don’t shift words to a different part of speech: to write – to rewrite.

Suffixes and prefixes may be classified along different lines.

Classification of suffixes

Suffixes are classified according to:

I. part-of-speech they form:

1. Noun-forming suffixes: -age (bondage, breakage, mileage, vicarage); -ance/ -ence (assistance, ref-erence); -ant/-ent (disinfectant, student); -dom (kingdom, freedom, official-dom); -ее (employee); -eer (profiteer); -er (writer, type-writer); -ess (actress, lioness); -hood (manhood); -ing (building, meaning, washing); -ion/-sion/ -tion/-ation (rebellion, tension, creation, explanation); -ism/-icism (heroism, criticism); -ist (novelist, communist); -ment (government, nour-ishment); -ness (tenderness); -ship (friendship); -(i)ty (sonority); -y (smarty); -ian (vulgarian).

2. Adjective-forming suffixes: -able/-ible/-uble (unbearable, audible, soluble); -al (formal); -ic (poetic); -ical (ethical); -ant/-ent (repentant, dependent); -ary (revolutionary); -ate/-ete (accurate, complete); -ed/-d (wooded); -ful (delightful); -an/-ian (African, Australian); -ish (Irish, reddish, childish); -ive (active); -less (useless); -like (lifelike); -ly (manly); -ous/-ious (tremendous, curious); -some (tiresome, lovesome); -y (cloudy, dressy).

3. Numeral-forming suffixes: -fold (twofold); -teen (fourteen); -th (seventh); -ty (sixty).

4. Verb-forming suffixes: -ate (facilitate); -er (glimmer); -en (shorten); -fy/-ify (terrify, speechify, solidify); -ise/-ize (equalise); -ish (establish).

5. Adverb-forming suffixes: -ly (coldly); -ward/-wards (upward, northwards); -wise (likewise).

II. lexico-grammatical character of the base they are added:

1. deverbal suffixes (are added to a verbal base) -er, -ing, -ment, -able;

2. denominal suffixes (are added to a noun base) -less, -ful, -ist, -some (awesome);

3. deadjectival suffixes (are added to an adjective base) -en, -ly, -ish, -ness;

III. number of meanings:

1. monosemantic -ess [female] tigress, tailoress;

2. polysemantic -hood 1) ‘condition or quality’ falsehood, womanhood; 2) ‘collection or group’ brotherhood;

IV. denotational meaning:

• denoting the agent of an action -er (sinner);

• denoting nationality -ian, -ese (Italian, Vietnamese);

• denoting collectivity -edge (knowledge), -dom (kingdom), -ry (peasantry);

• denoting gender -ess, -ine (empress, feline);

• quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability);

• with the meaning of diminutiveness -y (birdy), -let (cloudlet, goblet), -ling (squirreling);

V. connotational meaning:

• stylistically neutral -able, -er, -ing;

• stylistically marked, for example, terminological: -oid (hominoid, android), -tron (cyclotron), -i/form (cruciform), -id (adverbid, arachnid); with derogatory meaning: -ard (dullard), -ster (oldster);

VI. productivity:

1. productive, such as: -er, -ize, -ly, -ness;

2. semi-productive, such as: -eer (profiteer), -ette (bachelorette), -ward (seaward), -dom (computerdom);

3. non-productive -ard (drunkard), -th (length), -man (ice-man);

VII. origin:

• the native affixes -dom, -ed, -en, -fold, -ful, -hood, -ing, -ish, -less, -let, -like, -lock, -ly, -ness, -oc, -red, -ship, -some, -teen, -th, -ward, -wise, -y;

- the borrowed affixes (-able/-ible, -ant/-ent), French (-age, -ance/-ence, -ancy/ -ency, -ard, -ate, -sy), Greek (-ist, -ism, -ite), etc.

Classification of prefixes

Prefixes may be classified on the same principles as suffixes.

Synchronically prefixes may be classified:

I. according to the class of words they preferably form:

a) verb-forming, e.g. en-/em- (embed, enclose); be- (befriend); de- (dethrone);

b) noun-forming prefixes, e.g. non- (non-smoker), sub- (sub-total), ex- (ex-champion);

c) adjective-forming prefixes, e.g. un- (unfair); il- (illiterate);

d) adverb-forming prefixes, e.g. -un (unfortunately), -up (uphill);

II. as to the type of lexical-grammatical character of the base they are added to into:

a) deverbal, e.g. rewrite, outstay, overdo, etc.;

b) denominal, e.g. unbutton, detrain, ex-president, etc.;

c) deadjectival, e.g. uneasy, biannual, etc.;

III. number of meanings:

1. monosemantic co- “joint, with, accompanying” coordinator, cooperation, co-worker, co-auther;

2. polysemantic un- 1) “not, opposite of” unnecessary, unequal, 2) “reverse action, deprive of, release from” undo, untie;

IV. as to the generic denotational meaning:

a) negative prefixes, such as: un¹-, non-, in-, dis¹-, a-, e.g. ungrateful, unemployment, non-politician, non-scientific, incorrect, disloyal, disadvantage, amoral, asymmetry;

b) reversative or privative prefixes (these prefixes describe actions being reversed or of antonymic character), such as un²-, de-, dis²-, e.g. untie, unleash, decentralise, disconnect;

c) prefixes of time and order, such as fore-, pre-, post-, ex-, e.g. foretell, foreknowledge, prewar, postsurvey, post-classical, ex-soldier;

d) prefix of repetition: re-, e.g. rebuild, re-write;

e) locative prefixes, such as super-, sub-, inter-, trans-, e.g. superstructure, subway, inter-continental, transatlantic;

V. connotational meaning:

• stylistically neutral, e.g. unnatural, unknown, unlace, outnumber, oversee, resell, undernourish, etc.;

- stylistically marked, for example, pejorative prefixes (pejorative prefixes are highly evaluative in the negative sense), such as mis-, mal-, pseudo-, e.g. miscalculate, misinform, maltreat, pseudo-classicism, pseudo-scientific; those possessing quite a definite terminological value, e.g. pseudo-classical, superstructure, ultra-violet, unilateral, bifocal, etc.;

VI. as to the degree of productivity:

- highly-productive (de-, re-, pre-, non-, un-, anti-. sub-, over-, under-, pro-);

- productive (co-, a-, mal-, arch-, out-, sur-, counter-);

- non-productive (in-, il- , ir-, im-, mis-, dis-, be-, en-).

VI. diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin:

a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under-, etc.;

b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re-, etc.;

c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper-, etc.

Hybrids are words that consist of etymologically different morphemes. Models are many: a native root + borrowed word-building morphemes, e.g. to dislike (Latin prefix + native root); borrowed root + native affix, e.g. peaceful (native root + French suffix), around (English prefix + French root); all elements are borrowed but from different languages, e.g. violinist (Italian root + Greek suffix), unmistakable (English prefix + Scandinavian root + Latin suffix).

Conversion (affixless word-derivation, zero derivation) consists in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. For instance, yellow in “The leaves were turning yellow” – the adjective denotes colour. Yet in “The leaves yellowed” the converted unit no longer denotes colour, but the process of changing colour, so that there is an essential change in meaning. Besides these two words yellow (adj) – to yellow (v) differ in the paradigm. Thus it is the paradigm that is used as a word-building means. Hence, we may define conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm. As soon as the word has crossed the category borderline, the new word automatically acquires all the properties of the new category, so that if it has entered the verb category it is used in all the forms of tense and has the forms of the participle and the gerund.

Among the main varieties of conversion are:

1) verbalization (the formation of verbs), e.g. water – to water, ape – to ape, doctor – to doctor, score – to score, wireless – to wireless, vacuum – to vacuum;

2) substantivation (the formation of nouns), e.g. to run – run, the rich and the poor, the wounded, a savage, a commercial, a criminal, a grown-up, a final (exam), tangibles, a vertical.

3) adjectivization (the formation of adjectives), e.g. a kindly gentleman, the down escalator;

4) adverbialization (the formation of adverbs), e.g. to go home, to work hard.

One should take into consideration synchronic and diachronic criteria when speaking of conversion. Homonymous word were absent in Old English, cf. lufu – lufian. So it’s necessary to discriminate between homonymous parts of speech such as smoke, work, note, drink, rest, change, answer, hate, sorrow and parts of speech derived according to the conversion model such as smile, dream, move, nose, laugh, place, hand, pity, praise, chance.

Compounding or word-composition is the means of word-formation in which words are made up of two immediate constituents which are both derivative bases, e.g. lamp-shade, ice-cold, looking-glass, daydream, hotbed, speedometer, peace-fighter, care-free, long-legged, ash-tray, a run-away, etc.

Derivative bases in compounds can have different degrees of complexity:

- both bases are simple (weekend, girlfriend);

- one base is simple, the other is derivative (a shoemaker);

- one base is compound and the other is either simple or derivative (fancy-dress > fancydress-ball, fancydress-maker).