CREATING NEW WORDS

CREATING NEW WORDS

Neologisms or creations from nothing > blurb by Gelett Burgess (American humorist), 1907 > blatant by Edmund Spenser, ca 1596 > Kodak by George Eastman, founder of the camera company, 1888

Eponyms or words based on names Personal names

> guy from Guy Fawkes (the Gunpowder Plot, 1606), who was held up for ridicule, hence `a person of grotesque appearance' (early 19th c.); the neutral sense of guy originates in AmE (mid 19th c.) > sandwich, from John Montague, Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), who spent twenty-four hours gambling with no other food than slices of cold meat between slices of toast Names in literature, folklore, mythology > casanova from the Italian adventurer, Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-98), author of memoirs, in French, describing his escapades and amours in most countries of Europe > chimera from a fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail (or according to others with the heads of a lion, a goat, and a serpent), killed by Bellerophon > panic from Pan, the god of misdeed in ancient Greek mythology, who was held responsible for noises which caused fear in the flocks by night Geographical names > denim short for serge de N?mes, from N?mes, a manufacturing town in Southern France; originally a woollen fabric (serge), now cotton > jean from Genoa, where the cloth was first made,a s in jeans > spa from Spa, a watering-place in the province of Li?ge, Belgium, celebrated for the curative properties of its mineral springs Commercial brand names > kleenex from Kleenex? 1925 > xerox from Xerox? 1952

Blends or portmanteau words; for examples see the handout on analogy

Acronyms or words based on initial sounds > ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange > laser = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation > radar = Radio Detecting and Ranging > modem = MOdulator-DEModulator

Initialisms or words consisting of individually pronounced letters > BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation > PC = Personal Computer > pc = politically correct

Shortening (cf back formation on the handout on analogy) > ad, advert = advertisement > phone = telephone > mob = mobile vulgus

Compounding and derivation compounding involves joining roots derivation involves adding affixes

Types of morphemes

1. Roots 1.1. free: away, air, back, get, joy, kill, pack, port, fact 1.2. bound: dic/dict, grad/gress, mit/mis, prim, spond, volv

2. Affixes 2.1 inflectional: -s, ed, -er, -ing, -en 2.2. derivational 2.2.1. prefixes:contra-/counter-, ec-/ex-/e-, trans-, pro-, re2.2.2. suffixes: -al/-ial/-ical/-ual, -ary, -ation/-ion-tion, -ive

Functions of suffixes nouns from nouns: kinship, streamlet, manhood, seascape nouns from adjectives: happiness, freedom, diversity, falsehood nouns from verbs: participant, employee, singer

adjectives from adjectives: greenish, goodly adjectives from nouns: wooded, useful, childlike, friendly adjectives from verbs: washable, bothersome

verbs from nouns: hyphenate, moralize, vaccinate verbs from adjectives: sadden, beautify, legalize

adverbs from adjectives: quickly adverbs from verbs: afterwards, lengthwise

Tasks for the tutorial

1. Creating words Use the morphemes given as examples of types of morphemes to create as many English words as you can. Consult the Oxford English Dictionary to check that the words are English and that you know what they mean.

2. What do roots mean? The words in each of the following lists are derived from the same roots (the underlined forms represent variants of the same root). How do we get from the `basic' meaning of the root to the meaning of the word? If you do not know the word, check the Oxford English Dictionary. ann `year': annals, anniversary, annual, annuity, superannuated, biennial, millennium auto `self, same': autarchy, autocrat, automobile, autonomy, autobiography, tautology cast `cut, purify, fortify': caste, castle, castigate, casttrate, incest, chaste, chastise sal `jump': salient, exult, insult, assault, somersault, assail via `way, road': deviate, impervious, obvious, previous, trivial, viaduct, voyage, envoy

3. What do affixes mean? Divide the following words into root(s) and affixes. Try to specify the meaning of each affix. bookshops lioness malformation polytheism egocentric lukewarm

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