Introduced to the language slithy, formed from lithe and Wordplay coinages by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky. The earliest blends in English only go back to the 19th century, with Glitter and literati) 'Hollywood social set', mockumentary ( mock and Other examples include glitterati (blending New kind of thing having properties of both, but also combined Swastika and the swoosh, and thus conceptually blends them into one The meaning contains an implicit analogy between the The blend is a perfect merger of form, and also ofĬontent. Not a morpheme, either in the word swastika or Part remains whole and recognizable in the blend, but the tika part is The word swooshtika 'Nike swoosh as a logo symbolizing Regard for where one morpheme ends and another begins. The morphemes do not overlap.īlending, part of one word is stitched onto another word, without any One morpheme follows the next and each one hasīoundaries. For example, weįorm derivation out of the sequence of morphemesĭe+riv+at(e)+ion. Usually in word formation we combine roots or affixes along theirĮdges: one morpheme comes to an end before the next one starts. It is especially creative in that speakers take two wordsĪnd merge them based not on morpheme structure but on sound structure. This process is calledĪffixation, a term which covers both prefixation and suffixation.īlending is one of the most beloved of word formation processes inĮnglish. The most common type of derivation is the addition of one or more affixes to a Two elements that almost match, but differ in their vowels.Īgain, the second element is typically a nonsense form:ĭerivation is the creation of words by modification of a root without Examples:Īnother word type that looks a bit like rhyming compounds To children), technically called hypocoristic language. Process is associated in English with child talk (and talk addressed Not really a word-it is just a nonsense item added to a root word to There are words that are formally very similar to rhyming compounds,īut are not quite compounds in English because the second element is These words are compounded from two rhyming words. These subtypes are not mutually exclusive. With part of speech, but rather the sound characteristics of the There are a number of subtypes of compounds that do not have to do Other examples are ice-creamĬone, no-fault insurance and even more complex compounds like pick-up truck,įormed from pick-up and truck, where the first component, These are formedīy successively combining words into compounds, e.g. Some compounds have more than two component words. Note that the last two are actually nouns, Sometimes these compounds areĭifferent in the part of speech of the whole compound vs. 'particle' means a word basically designating spatial expression thatįunctions to complete a literal or metaphorical path), as in Run, blackbird, hard drive), verb-noun ( pick-pocket,Ĭut-purse, lick-spittle) and even verb-particle (where The list above shows mostly noun-nounĬompounds, which is probably the most common part of speechĬombination, but there are others, such as adjective-noun ( dry
With unfamiliar spaces or hyphens between the components.Īnother thing to note about compounds is that they can combine words
If you read older literature you might see someĬompound words that are now written as one word appearing To clock-work and finally to one word with no break The to originally was the preposition to with an older meaning 'at '. In the 19th century, today and tomorrow were sometimes still written to-day and to-morrow. Usually in the direction from separate words (e.g. Over time, the convention for writing compounds can change, The way the word is written does not affect its status as aĬompound. With a space between the elements with a hyphen between theĮlements or simply with the two roots run together with no separation. Note that compounds are written in various ways in English:
Iatrogenic, and many thousands of other classical words. Compounds formed inĮnglish from borrowed Latin and Greek morphemes preserve thisĬharacteristic. So compounds are composed of bound roots. In Greek and Latin, in contrast to English, roots do not typically standĪlone. Some compounds have a preposition as one of the component words as in the
#Another word for things one is knowledgeable about free#
Mailman (composed of free root mail and free root man)įireplug (a regional word for 'fire hydrant') Independent words that can occur by themselves. Typically free morphemes, so that means native compounds are made out of In Linguistics, compounds can be either native or borrowed. Kemmer Types of Word Formation ProcessesĬompounding forms a word out of two or more root morphemes. Words in English: Types of Word Formation Words in English public website