INTRODUCTION
In recent years, linguists have extended the domains of morphology to include not only an analysis of the structure of existing words but also rules that guide the creation of new words. In the last three units, we noted an open ended tendency of English words in the sense that there appears to be no upper limit to the number of affixes or the length of forms that may function as bases for the formation of new words. We shall observe in this unit a tendency of existing words to combine to form compounds. It is this productive nature of morphology that this unit will examine.
3.1 Compounding
Apart from the derivation of new words by the addition of affixes many English words can be formed from two or more bases. This is the process of compounding and the resulting words are called compounds. In other words, a compound word contains at least two morphemes which can stand on their own as words. In the following example: words are formed from roots and bases.
a.
flash +
light
Verb
Noun
flashlight
Noun
b.
play + mate
Verb Noun
playmate
Noun
c.
kind + heart + -ed
Adjective Noun
kindhearted
Adjective
d.
Wind Noun
+
break + -er
Verb
wind breaker
Noun
Note
Compounding is a very important way of creating new words in English.
According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1975:444) ‘there is no one formal criterion that can be used for a general definition of compounds in English’ but some observations about them can be made. For instance, the elements that make up English compounds have some syntactic relations. Quirk and Greenbaum (1975:444) analyses the compounds ‘playboy’ and ‘call-girl’ as follows:
playboy - the boy plays i.e. subject + verb
call girl - someone calls the girls i.e. verb +object
Thus although the two compound words ‘playboy’ and ‘call-girl’ ‘are superficially similar yet the relations of their elements are different. ’
3.2 Creativity
Creativity has sometimes been used in the same sense as productivity to refer to the capability of human language users to produce an infinite number of words and utterances using the word formation rules of languages which are themselves finite. In morphology, creativity can be rule-governed when the formation of new words follow the rules and principles learnt and internalized by the user of the language as, for instance, when abstract nouns are formed from verbs in English by the addition of the suffix – ion/ition as in ‘addition’ and ‘information’ .
Creativity can also be rule-bending when users bend the rules and at times do violence to the everyday meaning of words in an attempt to create new words. Creativity of this kind does not follow dutifully the word formation rules of the language. It is this kind of creativity that allows writers to coin new words to express their peculiar situations and communicate in a more memorable way, at times idiomatically. Many compound words and neologisms are formed in this way. Examples are the Nigerian creations ‘go-slow’, for-one-nine’ and ‘ecomoging’ a word inflected from ECOMOG which means ‘conveying’ of votes from place to place’ (Newswatch, March 16, 1992:6).
Our preoccupation so far has been with rule-governed word formation. In this unit, we treat as creativity any word formation process that is rule- bending on the one hand or resulting from the contact of English with another language. We will also treat the minor word formation processes in English: clipping, blending and acronymy as creative rather than productive processes because there are inherent in them some elements of rule-bending which are not consistent in all the cases but require for different words different treatments as we will see later.
3.3 Neologisms
These are words that are coined to express some new phenomena or the attitude of the speaker or writer. A typical example is snail-mail referring to the postal service as opposed to the modern electronic mail. Extension of meaning could be said to be a characteristic feature of neologisms. In the case of snail-mail above, the characteristic slow speed of the snail is extended to the speed of postal services. After the last elections in Nigeria, the Nigerian kind of democracy was described as nairacracy suggesting a kind of government by those who have a lot of ‘naira’. This is certainly bending the rule by attaching the noun- forming suffix -cracy to a word for the Nigerian currency - naira to form a neologism.
Neologisms constitute a very fertile way of expanding the vocabulary. Many neologisms, also often referred to as, nonce words however take time to catch on but are usually understood in the environment where they were first coined. In Nigeria, for instance, the word Ramatism has come to mean a very dynamic and progressive way of dealing with a situation. This word coined from Muritala Ramat Mohammed’s middle name like many neologisms has a history. The word deadline, for instance, during the American civil war was the ‘line round the
perimeter fence beyond which soldiers were not allowed to go’. A soldier who wandered beyond that line risked being shot for desertion’ (Katamba 1993:73).
Many neologisms are compounds which are semantically opaque. In present-day English the words walk-man and tallboy are ready examples. A tallboy is not a kind of boy but a piece of furniture, while a walk-man is not a kind of man but a type of stereo equipment. The print media in Nigeria constitute a very fertile spot for neologisms. The following neologisms are from Newswatch Magazine and the Sunday Punch:
(i) the pepper soup coup – the tragic uprising of April 22, 1992 led by young officers in the Nigerian army (Newswatch, June 4, 1992:10)
(ii) Buharigate – the Buhari kind of scandal recalling the Water gate scandal and referring to scandal in high political circles (The Sunday Punch, August 15 1999:1).
(iii) Afghanistanism is used to depict a situation in which a writer takes a mental flight from home, ignoring the burning issues at his backyard (Newswatch, October 24, 1998:4)
(iv) … Mandelamania, the celebration of Nelson Mandela
(Newswatch, June 4, 1990:8)
(v) Buharimomics – Buhari’s kind of economy (Newswatch March 4, 1985:10)
3.4 Clipping
In informal style, English words are formed by the deletion of one or more syllables from a word. This process, referred to as clipping can occur at the beginning as in the example phone created from telephone. It also occurs and more commonly so at the end as in the case of photo created by the deletion of – graph from photograph. At other times clipping occurs at both ends. This process is somehow rare but is attested in a word like flu created from influenza where the initial syllable - in and the final ones –enza are deleted to create the word flu. Other clipped words include Mum and Dad, from Mummy and Daddy; lab from laboratory, pub from public house, exam from examination, cable from cablegram, bus from omnibus and zoo from zoological garden.
3.2 Blending
Blending involves clipping of a special kind. Letters, not syllables, of words are extracted and used to from new words. Blends are also informal and have only short life spans. Some of them have however, been fully assimilated as in the following examples:
Breakfast + Lunch = brunch
Motor + Hotel = motel
Smoke + Fog = smog
Transfer + Resistor = transistor
An examination of the examples above shows that the selection of elements to form blends tends to be idiosyncratic as it does not appear to follow set down rules as regards the number of segments or letters selected from the input words. Perhaps the selection obeys (apparently unconsciously) the phonotactic rules of English because the example smog for instance could not have been *smfog since the sequence / sf / and / smf / are not acceptable clusters in English. Similarly, brunch could not have been *brlunch.
3.6 Acronymy
Acronymy is the process of creating new words from the initial letters of existing words. Sometimes acronyms are created from parts of words larger than letters. This is quite a productive process as new acronyms are freely and daily produced particularly for the names of organizations.
Acronyms can be pronounced as sequences of letters as in O.A.U. for Organization of African Unity, C.O.D. for Cash on Delivery and U.N. for the United Nations, and the letters represent full words. Sometimes the letters of an acronym represent elements of a compound or are just parts of a word as in T.V, or Tee vee for television and GHQ for General Headquarters.
Some acronyms are pronounced as words such as radar for radio detecting and ranging, UNICEF for United Nations Children’s Fund; VAT for Value Added Tax, UNESCO for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and FIFA for Federation of International Football Association.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 1
Find three examples of compound words for each of a, b, c, and d. In a &b for instance root morphemes are combined into compounds. In c & d the bases are combined to form new words containing affixes.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE (SAE) 2
Underline the words and expressions which you consider creative in the following passages and give your reasons for saying so.
[Extracts from Zaynab Alkalis’ The Stillborn]
(i) ...This well is common property, dug by one but to be used by all’ (p.84).
(ii) .. You are not the only one who knows how to use other people’s
things, so you must learn to share as we do’ .
(iii) Li snatched at her jar and her scarf, which was thrown at her and
ran towards the old man. As she was running away, insults
followed her: ‘unsaddled horse!’ ‘The vulture that isn’t
anybody’s chicken’! ‘Rich man’s plaything!’ (p.85)
(iv) … Only then would she assume the role of the ‘man of the house’
in her father’s compound (p.85).
(v) ‘You need not worry, daughter-of-my-mother. Shuwa, like the rest of the children in this house, asks no questions. For them there is only one father, Kaka. The HM is just some drunken fool who comes home from time to time to harass their mother for drink- money (p.86).
4.0 CONCLUSION
English has other interesting word formation processes namely:
compounding, blending, clipping and acronymy. All of these show how to create new words in English by bending the morphological rules of
English in a language contact situation.
5.0 SUMMARY
A compound word contains at least two morphemes which can stand on their own as words
Creativity refers to the capability of human language users to produce an infinite number of words and utterances using the word formation rules of languages.
Neologisms are words that are coined to express some new
phenomena or the attitude of the speaker or writer e.g money
laundering and enweremgate coined for use in Nigeria
English words can be formed by the deletion of one or more syllables from a word. This process, referred to as clipping can occur at the beginning or end of a word and sometimes at both ends as in flu from influenza and photo from photograph.
Blending involves the extraction of letters, not syllables, of words which are used to form new words as in motel from motor and hotel
Acronymy is the process of creating new words from the initial letters of existing words as in UNICEF or RADAR
6.0TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT (TMA)
1. What are neologisms?
2. Find ten new words currently coined in the Nigerian print media.
3. Explain the terms clipping, blending and acronymy. Which of them do you consider the most creative in English word
formation and why?
7.0 REFERENCES / FURTHER READINGS
Gonzales, X. C. (2014) English Grammar Master in 30 Days: A Step by Step Guide for a
Strong English foundation. https://www.pdfdrive.com/english-grammar-master-in-30- days-a-step-by-step-guide-for-a-strong-english-foundation-e46522541.html
Katamba, F. (1993) Morphology. London: Macmillan: Lagos: Longman
Nida, E. (1949) Morphology: the descriptive analysis of words. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Tomori, S. H. O. (1977) The morphology and syntax of present-day
English: an introduction. Ibadan: Heinemann .
Quirk, R. and Greenbaum, S. (1976)A University Grammar of English.
London: Longman
Seaton, A. and Y. H. Mew (2008) Basic English Grammar for English Language Learners. Irvin CA. Saddleback
Udofot, I. (1999) An introduction to the morphology of English.
Uyo: Scholar’s Press.
Weal, E. (2016) English Grammar: Step by Step. Palo Alto, CA: Tenaya Press
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