Morphology morph allomorph morpheme morpheme classes word root cranberry problem phonological conditioning portmanteau zero diachronic

explanation suppletion bibliography exercises word - lexeme The next larger unit after the syllable is obviously the word. It is interesting that this unit, which seems so simple in everyday language is so complicated if we try to analyse it linguistically. Normally we would say that all units between two spaces in a written text are words. But if we decide on take and took being two words, what about put (present tense) and put (past tense)? As can be seen by these examples the concept of word contains two levels. It may refer to the physical unit, the written or spoken form, which is called word form to the semantic entity, which is normally an entry in the dictionary and therefore called cit ation form. The meaningful unit behind a word is called the lexeme. A lexeme includes all inflected forms of a word. Like the phoneme it is a kind of abstraction or class of forms and is indicated by small capitals, as in the following examples: TAKE (the lexeme) - takes, taking, took, taken (the word forms) It is conventional to choose one of the inflected forms to represent it, such as the infinitive of the verbs given above or the singular of nouns. (In Latin dictionaries, on the other hand, verbs are listed in their sg pres tense forms; thus, the verb 'to love' is listed as amo 'I love' not as amare 'to love'.) The lexeme can be represented by a simple (eye) or complex word (eyeless), by a word group (black eye) or even by an idiom (to be all eyes to wait eagerly for sb.). Here we come across another complication: In all cases where the lexeme contains two or more units separated by a space such as middle class family life, flying boat model test, the day before yesterday, can we still say that the whole is a word? Thus it is necessary to develop a number of criteria to decide this question: Orthographic: a word is what occurs between spaces in writing. Semantic: a word has a coherent meaning; it expresses a unified concept. Thus in compounds the total meaning is different from the sum of the meanings of the two words. Cp paperback (which is a book rather tahn a back) to a paper back , a hothouse (which is still a house but not always hot) to any hot house etc. Phonological: (a) a word occurs between potential pauses in speaking. Though in normal speech we generally do not pause, we may potentially pause between words but not in the middle of words; (b) a word spoken in isolation has one and only one primary stress (with some exceptions, such as compound adjectives). Morphological: a word has an internal cohesion and is indivisible by other units; a word may be modified only externally by the addition of suffixes and prefixes. So back door does not allow an internal, only an external addition: a dirty back door - *a back dirty door Grammatical: words fall into particular classes. Syntactic: a word has external distribution or mobility; it is moved as a unit, not in parts (e.g. as subject or object).

The first two criteria are not very conclusive in delimiting words since spacing between words, as well as hyphenation practices, are often quite arbitrary in English and phrases consisting of several words may also have semantic unity. We can see the usefulness of these criteria if we look at some problematical examples of word delimitation: grapefruit travel agency good-for-nothing son-in-law money-hungry look over meets all the criteria for wordhood; compare however passion fruit, which has the same structure but is separated. Semantically a single concept but it is written and pronounced (two primary stresses) as more than one word. has the appearance of a phrase written as one word and moved as a single unit (not separated in the sentence). is a single word when made possessive (sons -in-law's), but a phrase when pluralized with internal modification (sons-in-law). is treated syntactically as a single word, but it has two primary stresses, and is hence phonologically a phrase. both phonologically and syntactically a phrase, because material may intercede between the parts (Look over the information - look the informtion over ). But it seems to express a single semantic notion: the same is expressed by the single word examine.

morph If we consider the elements in words like (she) works, worked, worker, workhouse , we find in a first step in the analysis recurrent forms: work, -s, -ed, -er, house. These are called morphs, i.e. phonological representations of an element, a segment, which is not yet classified. morpheme By comparing these morphs with the same forms in other words we find that they all have their own meaning: work + s (marks the 3rd person singular), work + ed (a marker for past tense), work + er (a marker for "person who does the activity expressed in the verb), work + house (a special house). All these words are made up of at least two meaningful units. We call these morphemes, i.e. the smallest meaningful unit of a language. The branch of linguistics which deals with these morphemes is called morphology. This comprises both grammatical forms, e.g., work, works, working, and word formations, e.g. worker, workhouse. The importance of the factor meaningful is shown by the following examples: If we compare words such as worker, baker or corner, hammer, we can see that worker and baker can be split up into the meaningful units work + er or bake + er, whereas the analysis of corner and hammer does not result in the elements corn + er or ham(m) + er, because in both cases -er has no meaning (and neither corn- nor ham- have anything to do with either grain or meat). The relationship between morphs and morphemes can be shown in the following examples: smaller better writers authors mice morphs 2 1 3 2 1 morphemes 2 2 3 2 2 fish children mens worked wrote morphs 1 2 2 2 1 morphemes 2 2 3 2 2

unique morphemes - cranberry problem Words can have one morpheme: girl, two: girls, three: hunters, four: reactivate, unfriendliness . However, sometimes the morpheme status is not quite clear: In words like cranberry , raspberry, huckleberry, boysenberry there is clearly a morpheme -berry which shows the semantic category of these words. The

first elements, however, have no meaning apart from a differentiating one. They can be paralleled to the Latin roots late, -fer etc , and so are bound roots. Some linguist call these unique morphemes. morpheme classes - free - bound - lexical - derivational - inflectional If we analyse the words unhappy, disloyal, helpless, inhabitant, works, worked, we can see that the morphemes happy, loyal, help and inhabit can stand all by themselves, they are consequently free morphemes. The morphemes un-, dis-, -less, -ant, -s and -ed are always bound to another word, consequently they are called bound morphemes. The morphemes happy, loyal, help, inhabit have a complex meaning which is explained in dictionaries. They are lexical morphemes (or lexemes), the morphemes un-, dis-, -less, -ant derive new words from existing ones, that is why they are derivational morphemes. The morphemes -s and -ed represent a grammatical function, which is explained in a grammar; they are grammatical or inflectional morphemes. Words like house, love, fine are free and lexical, is, to, and are free and grammatical, elements like un-, less-, -ceive are bound and lexical, -s in walks, -ed in walked, -ing in walking are bound and grammatical. These combinations have the following names: content word Free lexical forms such as house, love, fine are called content words. These are nouns, verbs, adjectives and as such form a relationship between language and the world by refering to things and persons (nouns), activities and situations (verbs) and characteristics (adjectives). These are autosemantic, i.e., they have an independent sense. function word Contrary to these function words, i.e. free grammatical forms like is (walking), to, and, are synsemantic, i.e., their meaning is partly or exclusively dependent on their context. affix - prefix - suffix Affixes occur either as prefixes or suffixes. They are always bound and can be lexical (derivational) as all prefixes: un- in unhappy, or grammatical as all inflectional endings, suffixes such as ed in worked. Suffixes can also be derivational as less in hopeless. inflectional ending Other inflectional endings (i.e. bound grammatical suffixes) are s in walks, -ed in walked, - ing in walking Morpheme types in English grammatical free function word can, to, and, she bound inflectional affix -ed, -s, -er free content word house, garden, door lexical bound derivational affix hopeful, unhappy

Inflexional and derivational endings inflexional They are explained in the grammar. They are only suffixes. They never change the word-class.

derivational They are explained in the dictionary. They can be both prefixes and suffixes. They can change the word-class.

They can be applied to every member of a class: e.g. plural-s can be attached to almost all nouns. They form a small inventory They have just a very general meaning, e.g. plural = more than one They belong to a closed class (just eight) root

They are restricted in their use. There is unwise but not *unexcellent. They are much more numerous. They have often quite specific meanings, e.g., -er in stranger Their class is open, e.g. -burger is a new quasisuffix

This carries the principal lexical or grammatical meaning. It is normally a free form as avoid, grown, heart , class, which can or cannot be expanded to derivations (unavoidable, overgrown, disheartened, classify). Occasionally it can also be a bound form such as ceive in receive, conceive, perceive, deceive, apperceive, -mit in commit, admit, omit, remit, submit, transmit, -vert in convert, revert, subvert, intravert, pervert and fer in confer, defer, refer, transfer. allomorphs Just as allophones are variants of a phoneme, so allomorphs are realisations or variant of morphemes. They occur in all types of morphemes: in lexical morphemes such as official from office , in roots as in reception from receive, in derivational morphemes as in impossible vs. incorrect and in grammatical endings, such as voiced /d/ in loved vs. unvoiced /t/ in walked. phonological conditioning - morphological conditioning - grammatical conditioning If these allomorphs ar e determined by a preceding phoneme, they are called phonologically conditioned allomorphs. If there is no phonemic conditioning, they are called morphologically conditioned allomorphs, i.e. a certain lexical morpheme constitutes the realisation of a certain affix. Another conditioning is the so-called grammatical conditioning, which changes the bases and not the affixes. This is the case in plural or past tense forms knives, thieves, houses and wept, slept , where the ending conditions voiced word final consonant viz. shortening of the basis. This can be demonstrated in the English plurals and past tense morphemes: phonologically conditioned plural [z] after voiced consonants and vowels: beds, knees [s] after voiceless consonants: tulips, parents [Iz] after sibilants (Zischlaute): horses, bushes morphologically conditioned Umlaut: feet, geese, teeth, mice -en: oxen, children zero-allomorph: fish, deer Latin/Greek loans: fungi, antennae, phenomena, theses portmanteau morpheme: took, gave zero-allomorph: put, cut

past tense [d] after voiced consonants and vowels: rubbed, judged, entered [t] after voiceless consonants: stopped, kicked, laughed [Id] after [t, d]: wanted, decided

Grammatical conditioning of English plurals grammatically elves, dwarves, calves, knives, leaves, loaves, lives, selves, sheaves, thieves, conditioned plurals wolves, woves; houses [haUzIz], blouses [blaUzIz] regular plurals beliefs, chiefs, proofs, safes alternatives wharf wharves, hoofs hooves, scarfs scarves, cloths clothes (with difference in meaning)

portmanteau For cases like took or mice linguists suggested the term portmanteau morphs, i.e. one morph realises more than one morpheme or function. In these cases took contains the meaning of take + the meaning of past tense and mice contains both the morpheme mouse + the plural morpheme. This is also the case in your (cars), which has three morphemes (2 nd person, plural, possession) or in Latin amo (first person, singular, present, active). zero -allomporph A further abstraction is the concept of the zero-realisation (no visible affix, but a specific meaning) in plurals such as fish and deer and past tense forms such as cut and put. diachronic explanation All these irregularities are non-productive inflectio ns and can be better explained diachronically, i.e. if we compare the present-day system with the OE one. Then, as in German, all of the irregularities were still productive or at least much more common. This goes for the en-plural in oxen and children (cp. German Frauen, Straen, Hallen ), for the Umlaut in men, geese or mice, which affected a lot more nouns in older English, e.g. also the plural of cows, brothers, books (cp. German Khe, Brder, Bcher ). The irregular verbs with mutation (called Ablaut) such as give gave, come came, find found were a lot more common and could be grouped into (seven) classes (cp. the related German strong verbs). Grammatical conditioned forms are the result of sound changes in English: knives, leaves is a remnant of OE phonological rules (voicing of consonants in voiced surrounding) and kept, met go back to a shortening of vowels before a consonant cluster. suppletion In a couple of words some grammatical functions are not represented by inflectional endings but rather by completely different words. This is called suppletion and occurs in all European languages with more or less the same concepts/meanings. Gradation of good: good better; gut besser; bon meilleur; Russian: xoros&o (good) - luc&s&e (better) Form s of to be: be, am, are, is, was sein, bin, ist, sind, war etre, suis, est, sommes, etait Past tense of to go: go went; aller il va; Spanish: ir (to walk) fue (went)

Word formation introduction immediate constituents stem productivity grammatical and word formation rules derivation prefixation allomorphs homonymic prefixes synonymic prefixes suffixation changes of the root homonymic suffixes semi-suffixes dead suffixes hybrids burger problem contrastive analysis compound compound or phrase meaning relationsships underlying sentences amalgamated compounds conversion syntactic conversion approximate conversion partial conversion importance of conversion in English misunderstandings English conversion - German derivation reduplication subtractive word formation clipping backformation blends acronyms coinage bibliography exercises This deals with the formation of new words with the help of lexical morphemes (lexemes, derivational morphemes). This feature is very important in every language, which can be seen when one compares the ratio between simple and complex words by choosing a specific semantic field , e.g., things about the house ( front door, refrigerator, TV set ) or by counting them in a page of a dictionary. If a language did not have the possiblity of word formation and if it had only simple words, speakers would be forced to use individual forms different from one another, which would increase the number of different forms to such an amount that nobody could remember them any more. Word formations are the semantic bridges between the various concepts. How do we understand word formations, e.g. what makes us know at once that a windmill is a mill powered by the wind and not a mill which produces wind? If we try to analyse the constituents of the word unfriendliness, we could do this in the following way: un + friend + li + ness; this linear analysis, however, does not show the internal relationship between the various parts, which could be demonstrated in the following way:

[un[[friend][li]]ness] or un friend li ness

immediate constituents - stem - base The parts of the word that are in closer connection with one another are called the immediate constituents. The last remaining part which cannot be split up into other elements is called the stem, the part or parts which form the basis for a word formation is called the base. The stem in English is normally a free form but it can also be a bound root like in pi-ous, jeal-ous. In our example friend is both stem and base for friendly , which is base for unfriendly etc. productivity An important factor in word formation is the productivity of word formation processes. This may range from very limited to quite extensive, depending upon whether they are found in just a few words and no longer used to create new words (such as be- in behold, become, besmear) or whether they are found in many words and still being in use (such as the prefix un-). A survey of productive types shows the following distribution: derivations 20%, compounds 41%, abbreviations (blends, clippings, acronyms) 5 % each and conversions also 5%. We can differentiate between are three types of productivity: actual English words These are existing word formations, prefixations such as unable, unkind , suffixations as whiten, soften and compounds as sandstone. potential English words These would be possible by word formation rules but they are not realised in the language, e.g.there is no prefixation such as unexcellent, no suffixation such as slowen or greenen and no compound granite stone. One reason for this non-realisation (blockage) may be the fact that there is already an existing word for the concept in question: there is no stealer, because there is already thief, warmness has not been realised because there had already been warmth. Phonological reasons are potential tongue-twisters as in miserlily, Vancouverer non-English words Unlike the latter these are not even possible by word formation rules. There are both phonological and morphological constraints on word formation. An example of the former is English en attached to adjectives to form verbs (whiten, soften, madden). This is only possible in monosyllabic adjectives ending in an obstruent. That is why derivations such as abstracten, bluen, angryen are not possible. The latter shows in the impossibility of unhealth because un- cannot be attached to nouns, nor is there selfishless because less can only be attached to nouns and not to adjectives. Unsad, unpessimistic do not exist because of the semantic reason that there is no negation of the negative partner in an antonymic pair. Compare also Humpty-Dumptys famous unbirthday present in Alice in Wonderland. nonce formations Many word formations are created as spontaneous ad hoc or nonce formations such as and either uses just once or get out of use very soon. Others are institutionalised and finally find their way into the dictionaries. That there are rules behind word formations in a similar way as there are rules behind

grammatical forms can be shown by the following example: If we know what a soleme (a non existing word) is, we can also derive solemic, the verb solemicize and the process solemicization. word formation vs. grammar rules Here are some similarities and differences between rules in grammar and word formation: Similarities: Both can be generalised and apply for more than one or very few instances. Both have restrictions which can sometimes be formulated. Differences: Grammatical rules are far more generally applicable than word formation rules: A rule such as past tense is formed by adding ed to verbs is much more general than a rule such as graded adjectives can be negated by the prefix un-. In grammar irregular verbs are considered to be exceptions. In word formation rules, however, these exceptions are more widespread and are much more difficult to be explained either structurally or historically. Besides, inflectional morphemes are a closed system of forms, lexical and derivational ones are an open system. Apart from that the question which affix attaches to which root is quite unpredictable. Sometimes it must be stated separately for each root. Here is an example of how word formation rules for suffixations of verbs look like: Word formation rules according to Quirk et al. suffix added to meaning -er/-or -ant -ee -ation -ment -al -ing -age mainly personal nouns nouns personal nouns a) abstract nouns b) collective nouns nouns (chiefly abstract) nouns (chiefly count abstract) a) abstract nouns b) concrete nouns non-count abstract nouns agentive instrumental agentive instrumental passive state, action institution state, action action activity result of activity (result of) activity example driver, worker computer, receiver inhabitant disinfectant employee exploration organization amazement refusal, dismissal driving building drainage

We turn now to the individual word formation processes, which can be roughly subdivided into derivation (affixation), conversion, compounding, coinage and the substractive word formations.

derivation - affixation This is the attachment of a morpheme to a free form either as a prefix or as a suffix. Unlike German (e.g. ab-ge-worfen ) there is no infixation in English with the possible exception of such humourous forms as im-bloody-pssible, abso-blooming-lutely or the historically fixed forms hand-i-work, hand-i-craft. The addition of a derivational affix produces a new word with one or more of the following changes: Orthographic: pity > pitiful, deny > denial Phonological: reduce > reduction, fuse > fusion, drama > dramatize, relate > relation Semantic: This may be sometimes rather simple as the negation expressed in un- (unhappy), but sometimes rather complex such as fashionable which unlike impressionable is not just able to be xed. Grammatical: Words are shifted from one word class to another. prefixation Prefixes normally cause a change of meaning (negative: unhappy; reversative: untie; locative: transplant ). Exceptions are the non-productive prefixes which make nouns (adjectives) into verbs: be- in bedevil, bewitch, behead, befriend en-/-em in enjoy, enscircle, entrap, enslave, enlarge, embark, empower . The spelling is sometimes hyphenated: pro-communist, anti-social, pre-war; especially in multiple prefixes: anti-disestablishment . There are native prefixes such as be-, fore-, mis-, un-, but more common are foreign ones such as dis-, non-, anti-, ex-, pseudo-, ab-, homonymic prefixes Some prefixes have the same form with a different meaning. Compare unfair - untie, uninstall, dislike disinfect (negative vs. reversative), interweave interfere, income invalid, pro-British - prologue synonymic prefixes On the other hand, some prefixes have the same meaning in different forms: unhappy, disloyal, nonsmoker, illegal, abnormal, non-scientific are all negative. (But there is a slight difference to unscientific , cp. also uninterested disinterested) allomorphs Some prefixes are assimilated (cp. p. 22) to the stem und thus form variants in complementary distribution: independent, impossible, irregular, illegal; endanger, empower List of prefixes negation un-, nonprivation time place degree number un-, dispre-, postinter-, sub-, transhyper-, ultrabi-, poly-, monounfair, unwise, unforrgettable; unassuming, unexpected;nonconformist, nonsmoker, nonpolitical, nondrip undo, untie, unzip, unpack, unleash; disconnect, disinfest, disown, disheartened, discoloured prewar , preschool, pre-nineteenth century, premarital; postwar, postclassical, postpone, post-structuralist international, interact, inetermarry; subway, subconscious, subdidive; transplant, transatlantic hypercritical, hyperactive, hypersensitive; ultraviolet, ultramodern, ultraconservative, ultramarine bilingual, bicycle; polysyllabic, poyglot; monolingual, monotransitive

Suffixation Suffixes normally change the word-class; exceptions are suffixes such as dom in kingdom or hood in childhood, neighbourhood, knighthood , -ship in friendship , fellowship, championship, membership,

kinship, where there is a change of the semantic class. In many cases suffixes trigger a change of the root (either consonant or vowel), which can be formulated by phonological rules: Allomorphs of basis type of change change of final consonant ai > I i: > e e I > Q [] aU > U > others: historical changes in suffixation basis atrocious habit invade office admire, divine, vice serene, sincere, supreme insane, profane, major pronounce, abound phone, tone, melodiouis Japan, photograph appear divine pronounce suffixaton atrocity habitual invasion official admiration, divinity, vicious serenity, sincerity, supremacy insanity, profanity, Majority pronunciation, abundance phonic, tonic, melody Japanese, photographic apparent divinity pronunciation

hybrids Native suffixes combine only with a native base, and there is no change of stress: hopeful, goodness. Foreign suffixes, however, can combine with a foreign base as in utterance or with a native base as in eatable. These are called hybrids. homonymic suffixes More than prefixes suffixes can have different meanings, which is especially manifest in er: Meanings of er added to meaning dynamic verbs agent: the person who does what is expressed in the verb dynamic verbs instrument: a machine which does what is expressed in the verb dynamic verbs a thing to slip into place names a person from x examples Baker, singer, lover, reader, writer, trader Computer, receiver, transmitter slipper Londoner, New Yorker

Other examples are: coastal (adjective) withdrawal (noun), cupful careful , wooden (adjective) shorten (verb) semi-suffixes are basically free forms, which are almost used as suffixes (same position and semantically empty) as craft in witchcraft, statecraft, -proof in fireproof, waterproof, -wise in lengthwise, -monger in ironmonger, fishmonger, scandalmonger, - wright in playwright, -like in childlike, -man in walkman, -burger in cheeseburger, fishburger etc. dead suffixes Forms such as -dom, -hood, -th: kingdom, boyhood, length are no longer productive in Modern English.

false division A historically false division may result in rather productive suffixes as in -burger from hamburger > cheeseburger, fishburger, chickenburger etc. -oholic from alcoholic > workoholic, wordoholic, chocoholic -athon from marathon > workathon, telathon Survey of suffixes in English adjective > noun -ism idealism, realism, imperialism, romanticism -ity sanity, vanity, rapidity, banality, ability, chastity, curiosity -ness happiness, meanness, clerverness, usefulness, brightness, darkness verb > noun -al refusal, dismissal, denial, survial, approval, trial, proposal -er worker, writer, driver, employer, swimmer, preacher, traveller -ment arrangement, amazement, judgement, astonishment, treatment adjective/noun > -en ripen, widen, deafen, sadden, harden, lengthen, deepen verb -ify beautify, diversify, codify, amplify, simplify, glorify, nullify -ize symbolize, hospitalize, publicize, popularize, modernize noun > adjective -ful useful, delightful, helpful, careful, awful, rightful, sinful, cheerful -ish foolish, selfish, snobbish, modish, hellish, Swedish, Jewish -able acceptable, readable, drinkable, livable, comfortable, changeable adjective/noun > -ly happily, strangely, oddly, basically, semantically adverb -wise clockwise, lengthwise, weatherwise -ward homeward, eastward contrastive analysis: diminutive suffixes - feminine suffixes There is a big difference in some areas of suffixation between German and English, e.g., in diminutive suffixes. These are very rare in English and occur only in few words: booklet, piglet, gosling, kitchenette, cigarette, whereas they can be freely added to German nouns (with stylistic restrictions) Huschen, Fensterchen, Grtlein. In English feminine suffixes are added to only about ten stems: waitress, stewardess, duchess, but are generally used in German: Lehrerin, Professorin, Erzieherin, Kchin. With political correctness the two languages have gone opposing ways: English has abolished the discrimating female forms: stewardess became flight attendant, fireman became firefighter, charwoman became cleaner; German has to add it to every profession, e.g. Brgerinnen und Brger, StudentInnen and by that becomes more clumsy and elaborate.

conversion - zero-derivation - functional shift Derivation without a derivational affix, i.e., this can be compared to a derivation with the help of a suffix as the arrival from to arrive, only that here as in the return + 0 from to return no suffix or rather a zerosuffix is attached. This is then a shift of word-class without a derivational element. However, many frequently used words such as change, cure, love ,cry , turn, start, stop, rest, set do not show any traces of a derivation from one word class to another (noun to verb or verb to noun?). Thus for some linguists word class is neutral or latent and shows only in the context of the word in question. Sometimes the question arrises which word class is the original and which the derived one. Possible criteria are: Historical: In written documents the cook is earlier than to cook (proved by OED) The original word class is shown by typical endings such as these noun-endings: to landscape, to requisition, to whitewash. Semantic elements: to net is described as to catch with a net and not the net as an instrument for netting Frequency: the basic word has a higher frequency than the conversion Conversions affect every word-class, e.g. adjectives > verbs: to idle, to calm, to clean, to dry, to empty, to open, to total ; adjectives > nouns: a daily, a bitter, a natural, a regular, the rich, a double verbs > nouns : a look, a call, a cut, a cough, a doubt, a rise, a smell, a smile, a spy. This is especially productive in verb-object-combinations: to have a look, to give a damn, to take a walk, give it a turn, have a stare at, make a guess, have a cry and in prepositional heads: in the long run, on the wax, at a gulp nouns > verbs: to bridge, to butter, to knife, to mail, to queue, to shoulder, to iron, to service, to X -ray, to blacklist to skin, to weed; the fall, a lift denotes action itself; the sweat, a catch are result of the action and a spy is the actor. adverbs > adjectives (the then president ), > verbs (to down the tools), > nouns ( the ins and outs) function words > nouns: the how and why, many ifs and buts interjections > verbs: to hurrah, to bravo suffixes act as free forms: patriotism, nationalism and other isms There is a stress shift when phrasal verbs become nouns and adjectives: to come back > a comeback, to run off > a runoff, to take oover > a takeover; a throw-away thing, a built-in wardrobe syntactic conversion Conversion functions even within word-classes and makes intransitive into transitive verbs: run > to run a business, stand > to stand the robbers against the wall, and trasitive into intransitive verbs: to read > this book reads well, to scare > I dont scare easily. English conversion German affixation Conversion occurs in other languages as well (cp. German lachen - das Lachen) and is not directly dependent on the loss of grammatical suffixes in English. The main reason for the higher frequency of this process in English is the low productivity of characteristic prefixes and suffixes, e.g. in noun > verb conversions en- (enslave), -ify (magnify, beautify), - ize (nationalize). Altogether the important role of conversion in English is another factor of the analytical character of the language, i.e., (word-class) functions are not attached to but integrated in the word. This process in many ways makes English more flexible and economic. To carpet the living room is much more concise than das Wohnzimmer mit einem Teppichboden ausstatten . In most cases of English conversion German requires a specific derivation or phraseology which has to be learned and remembered individually: a prefix as in to grease einfetten, a suffix as in kassieren to cash, gruppieren to group the Umlaut as in huten to skin, schlen to peel a whole phrase as in in Kontakt treten to contact, a causative verb as in fliegen lassen to fly a kite

a completely different word as in to house unterbringen, to mail verschicken.

mis-understandings Of course, the loss of formal elements entails sometimes the loss of function or meaning, consequently a headline such as "Interest rate rises slow retail sails", with slow as verb, is much clearer in German, where the prefix in ver-langsamen points to the verb directly. approximate conversion Some conversions do show a slight difference in form, especially a voiced fricative in the verb as in: advice - to advise, house - to house, use - to use, increase - to increase, belief - to believe, thief - to thieve; teeth - to teethe. It is doubtful whether there is still conversion in pairs with even more changes, like the glass - to glaze, breath - to breathe, blood - to bleed, food - to feed. Another case of this borderline conver sion are the two -syllable words like import, export partial conversion Here the word is transfered into its new class only partially, i.e., it shows just some characteristics of this class: So I can say The wealthy are with us , but not I know *a wealthy. I can say the wealthier, but not some wealthies.

compounds A compound is a combination of two free forms, which exist in all word-classes: nouns: good shot, door knob, playboy, pickpocket, cut-throat, madman, software, background, outcast, downpour, drop-out, sit-in adjectives: narrow-minded, midnight blue, bittersweet, back -street, tow-away, man-eating, aesygoing, handwoven, double-barrelled verbs: to house-break, to tape-record, to babysit, to outdo, to overcook There are two borderline cases of compounds: neoclassical neoclassical formations such as telescope, telegraph, microscope, microphone, a combination of two bound forms which are nevertheless no affixes. These are all-important in naming technical inventions and processes. Combinations of two free forms, where at least one form behaves almost like a prefix or suffix: ingroup, policeman [-mn]

compound or phrase Unlike in German, where the spelling is both necessary and sufficient condition for a compound, the question in English if a combination is just a phrase like black bird or a compound like blackbird is not as easily to be solved. A compund has to meet one or more of the following conditions: Spelling: Compounds are either written together: bedroom, foodstuff, hedgehog , written with a hyphen (more in BrE than in AmE): tax-free, living-room , or written separately: reading material, common room, minced meat . Some compounds even allow for all three spellings: flowerpot, flowerpot, flower pot Accent: The primary accent is normally on the first part (the determinant): chewing gum, drinking water, hothouse, but there are exceptions with double stress (cp. $):high treason, hot war, minced meat Syntax: If the determinant is an adjective, this loses its syntactic features, i.e. it can no longer be graded or used predicatively: a wetter day - *a smaller talk, a very wet day - *a very small talk, the day is wet - *the talk is small Internal coherence, i.e. endings such as plurals are added to the second part: man-servants. Phrases are internally modified (at any of the word boundaries): lookers-on, mothers-in-law, in-group, sit-in, passers-by. Borderline cases are phrase compounds such as lady-in-waiting, dog-in-the-manger, forget-me-not, has-been, son-in-law which are internally modified in the plural: sons-in-law , but externally modified in the possessive: my son-in-laws new car. External mobility: Compounds move in a sentence as a whole, not in parts. Compare the difference between the compound cross-examination and the phrase to check out in the following sentences: The lawyer conducted the cross-examination. The cross-examination was conducted by the lawyer. He checked out the witness. He checked the witness out. Constituents: In compounds modifiers describe the second rather than the first part: a dirty book case is not a case for dirty books, a round door knob is not a knob for round doors; a narrow door way but not *a wooden door way, a mahagony book case but not *a rare book case meaning relationships Semantically compounds are normally not the sum of their constituents but they rather generate a new meaning, e.g. hothouse, which is not just a combination of hot + house but takes on a completely new meaning: a greenhouse with a warmer temperature. The relationships between the two consituents in a compound are manifold and sometimes not easy to see. Homeland is a land which is ones home, homemade is something made at home, homebody is somebody who stays at home, homestead is a place which is a home, homework is done at home, and homerun is too

complicated to describe in just a few words. Airplane is a vehicle that travels through the air, airfield is a field where airplanes land and air hose is a hose that carries air. There is a widely-accepted system to describe this internal relationship, which suggests three types of compounds: determinative - endocentric This is by far the most frequent type: the first part (determinant) determines the second (determinatum): flower girl, haircut, rainfall, washing machine. These are also called endocentric because all formal characteristics of the compound are the same as those of one of its constituents. copulative The compound shows characteristics of both the first and the second part: actor-manager, study-bedroom, bread and butter, bitter-sweet, sleepwalk, freeze-dry Bahuvrihi - exocentric This strange name is a remnant of 19th century comparative linguistics and suggests that the referent of the compound is outside the elements used, that one characteristic of the referent is highlighted by the compound. They are mostly compounds refering to a person with this specific characteristic: a paleface is a person with a pale face, a killjoy is a person who kills the joy etc. Quirks underlying sentences Another method of analysing the semantic relationship between the parts of a compound is suggested by the Quirk grammar, namely paraphrases by underlying sentences: Types such as sunrise or rattlesnake contain the subject and the verb: the sun rises, the snake rattles, so does washing machine (a machine washes), compounds such as word formation or air-conditioning contain the verb and an object: to form words, sth. that conditions the air. This is especially productive with an agential noun: songwriter is somebody who writes songs; words like factory worker or night flight have an adverbial: somebody who works in a factory, a flight at night. The latter is a verbless compound, the same as windmill (a mill powered by wind) or honey-bee (a bee that produces honey). This method seems to be quite efficient method especially in language teaching. amalgamated compounds (Verdunkelte Komposita) If we analyse compounds diachronically, we can see that there are a number of words in present-day English which used to be compounds in older English. The most striking examples are lady and lord , which are based on the former compounds hla f (loaf) + dige (knead, cp. dough): the kneader of the bread and hla f + weard (warden`): the warden of the bread. Reasons for these processes are a shift of stress and/or a change of meaning of one or both parts, so that the units are no longer associated with their roots, or even the extinction of one element (as *dige which does no longer exist). The first step in this process was obviously the dissociation of at least one of the elements in meaning (people no longer understood it), so that there was no longer a morphological boundary. In this way the constituents were weakened and the stems were shortened. They have either been completely amalgamated as sherrif (shire + reeve) or daisy (days eye), or one part is still recognizable as in holiday (holy day) or shepherd (sheep herd). Some are obscured only in their pronunciation: breakfast (to break the fasting of the night), cupboard (a board for cups), Christmas, forehead. Other examples are: garlic (gar (spear) leech), goodbye (God be with you), gospel (good spell (message)), gossip (good sib (relatives)), hussy (house wife), marshal (mere scealc (horse boy)), nickname (an eke (also) name), steward (stig (climb) warden), stirrup (stig up), woman (wife man). German examples: Wimper (wint-brawe), ruchlos (ruoche = Sorge), Meineid (Falsch-eid)

reduplication In English this word formation is often found in childrens language or used for humorous effect. There are three different kinds: exact reduplication: papa, mama, goody-goody, so-so, hush-hush mutation: criss-cross, zig-zag, ping-pong, tick -tock, mish-mash, wishy-washy, clip-clop, riff-raff rhyme: helter-skelter holterdiepolter, hodge-podge Eintopf, fuddy-duddy verknchert, razzledazzle Trubel, boogie-woogie This kind of word formation plays a bigger role in some languages other than English, e.g. in Pidgin English, where it is used as an intensifier: washwash a thorough dunking, wheelwheel a bicycle. subtractive word formation Unlike the word formations discussed so far, where bound or free forms are added together, the following are all products of parts of the word being taken away. This is also called negative word formation. As this process has been gaining in importance and productivity in recent years, it is also sometimes called modern word formation clippings However, this is a very old word formation process. Nobody would see clippings in the following words: mean (< gemaene), fight (< gefeohte), sight (< gesih), mend (< amend), peal (< appeal), fend (< defend), sport (< disport), spite (< despite), stress (< distress), bus (< omnibus), cab (< cabriolet), chap (< chapman), gin(ger), Miss(tress), mob(ile), pub(lic house), pants (< pantaleons), (peri)wig, (cara) van. More recent instances of clippings where the long form is disappearing are zoo or fax, where few people know that they are derived from zoological garden or facsimile. fore-clipping The front part of a word is clipped: chute, gator, phone, plane, van, varsity back-clipping The back part is clipped: ad, auto, bike, coke, co-op, deli, doc, exam, fan, gas, gent, gym, hippo, lab, mike, memo, net, photo, porn, pro, pep, pram, prefab, vet, zoo; pop; demob back+fore clipping In very rare cases both parts are clipped: flu, fridge, tec, poly Clippings of phrases occur in womens lib(eration), high tech (nology), narc(otic agent or addict); clippings which leave just a prefix are ex(-husband), bi(-sexual) Clippings are almost exclusively nouns and belong mainly to everyday informal conversations and to newspaper texts. Here they meet the tendency of newspaper headlines to use the shortest forms possible. Their use in casual language is especially clear with names like Al, Fred, Randy, Tom, Andy, Archie, Barny, which show that the speaker is on a familiar basis with the addressee. An additional informal touch is provided by the suffix ie/-y as in Aussie, Bolshy, booky, brolly, cabby, comvy, granny, Jerry, loony, movie. Another area for clippings are colloquialisms in technical and special languages, such as school and education: coll, chem, dorm, grad, frat, lab, log, medic, prep, prof, soph, tech, the military: cap, loot, sarge or criminal language: con, dinah, pen, poke backformation These formations look like clippings in that the last part of the word is being clipped. Unlike clippings, however, backformations are always clipped at the morpheme boundary, they always change the wordclass, and what is more, they are based on the erroneous opinion that the backformation is the base of the expanded word, where really the expanded form is the base of this process. A major source of this in English has been (agent) nouns ending in er/-or such as editor, swindler or stoker. As there are thousands of derivations with this suffix it was assumed that these words too had been formed by adding er/-or. Backformations in English backformation by removal of agentive suffix er, -or

baby-sit < babysitter burgle< burglar edit < editor globetrot < globetrotter

orate < orator peddle < peddler swindle < swindler sculpt < sculptor

by removal of other suffixes

hawk < hawker matchmake < matchmaker donate < donation enthuse< enthusiasm homesick < homesickness dagnose < diagnosis resurrect < resurrection

sightsee < sightseer typewrite < typewriter vivisect < vivisection televise television transcript < transcription sedate < sedative self-destruct < self-destruction

blends They consist of clipped parts of two words and thus could be considered as compounds of clippings. Again, one cannot predict where these elements are clipped. They are not as frequent as clippings and occur frequently in science, but also in advertisements. As with clippings there are a few words which are no longer recognised as such word formations by most speakers such as chortle (chuckle + snortle) or motel (motor + hotel). brunch bit chunnel heliport sitcom breakfast + lunch motel binary + digit motorcade channel + tunnel permafrost helicopter + airport situation +comedy smog modem motor + hotel motor + cavalcade permanent + frost smoke + fog modulator + demodulator transistor chloroform docudrama electrocution telex transfer -resistor chlorine+formyl document + drama electro+execution teleprinter - exchange

acronyms - alphabetisms - initialisms This is the most extreme form of clipping because the complete rest of the word is clipped apart from the first (sometimes the first two) letter of a word. Acronyms are not formed in a systematic way; a letter may be skipped or the first two letters of a word may be chosen, in order to produce a form which conforms to English phonotactics. They occur especially in the language of politics, administration, military and science and thus are restricted to written language (often in newspapers) or the spoken form of technical languages. There are various types: In alphabetisms the letters are pronounced separately as in TV, UN, USA, MP, C.O.D.,CD (compact disc), GI (=government issue), IRA, FBI, COD (concise Oxford dictionary) , PC (personal computer or political correctness), CNN, a.m., p.m., B.C., A.D. The letters are treated as a new word in Nato, Unesco, VAT, radar, laser, hi-fi, Jeep (=GP = general purpose vehicle). This is especially obvious in acronyms with a suffix: yuppie, dinks where it can be seen these have become lexicalised words of the language. A subtype of acronyms are allusions to existing words: Start, Salt, wasps (white Anglo-Saxon protestants), Aids (acquired immune deficiency syndrom), sad (students against drugs), BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) coinage One last type of word formation with even less productivity are words which are derived from names, which is especially common in cases where industry requires a new and attractive name for a product as in brand names: kleenex, Coca-Cola, Levis, kodak, Orlon a crease-resistant fabric, tabasco, Teflon, xerox. Usually older coinages are derived from the names of inventors or discoverers such as bourbon, sandwich, watt, lynch, boycott, hoove. Sometimes proper nouns even change into verbs such as to lynch, to canter to move with ease. Very often these nouns take a (nominal, verbal or adjectival) suffix: sadism, chauvinism; to tantalize to tease or make frustrated, to pasteurize; quixotic, platonic, spartan, machiavellian .