(toc) #title= (Table of Content)
Conversion
Conversion, as a morphological process, involves neither the addition nor subtraction of any morpheme. This derivational process simply involves a change in the function of a word, be used as a noun or vice versa, without adding any suffix.
Examples include verbs changing into nouns, e.g.: Talk - The talk was lengthy. Cheat - The boy is a cheat. Guess - He made a guess. Nouns too may be converted into verbs, e.g. bottle (she bottles up her anger); also, referee (He referees the match). This process makes the creation of new words a daily occurrence. Conversion processes establish the extent to which lexical items can be related in terms of meaning.
Ajulo (1994:65) opines that once it is decided that different meanings of a single lexical item are likely to be related, it is necessary to determine precisely how such meanings are related. In general, he proposes four principal types of relation out of which three are relevant to our discussion on conversion –
(1) Derivation, (2) Replacement, (3) Figurative Extension, and (4) Peripheral Clustering. All are relevant except ‘Replacement’. Derivation refers to all the essential components of an underlying base which are incorporated into another meaning, belonging to a distinctly different semantic domain.
For example, compare man in the following two contexts (a) I saw a man approaching (b) They man the house in case of emergency. The meaning of man is included within the meaning of the first man, which refers to a human being and the second man, which refers to an activity. The two belong to entirely different semantic domains.
Figurative extension of meaning involves a radical shift in semantic domains in which the semantic relations between base and extended meaning depend upon either a ‘supplementary’ or ‘secondary’ component or a reinterpreted diagnostic component. For example, if you hear a wife addressing her husband in a sentence such as “You are a dog”, the meaning of dog obviously does not have as a referent a particular quadruped of a canine class. Rather, this meaning of a dog is roughly equivalent to the abstract contemptible, and in this meaning dog belongs to the semantic domain of such words contemptible, base, mean, worthless, despicable with which it overlaps meanings. Peripheral clustering involves linked sets of diagnostic components, which form a semantic chain binding a series together. There may also be certain common components which serve to unite such a set.
Compare, for example, paper in the following contexts:
I know a famous company that manufactures paper. Fred just bought the paper from the vendor. Professor Adam’s paper was the first to be presented at the conference. Biodun will paper his defaced and cracked walls soon. What is observable in the four contextual uses of the single English lexical item paper would seem to make it clear that the meanings of the first three italicized items above constitute central-peripheral meanings, while the meaning of the last italicized item is a derivation of the first.
The question deducible from this analysis is which of the ‘papers’ can be considered the central or base meaning of ‘paper’? Thus it is established that it is almost impossible to provide a semantically neutral text. To resolve this seeming crack, linguists prefer to examine the nature of lexical meanings and their distribution in English not only in terms of their specific ‘semantic’ uses as individual item but also in terms of their relations to certain features of certain critical area of experience in which lexical items have been used. This entails the observation of the sum of its syntactic features or possible grammatico-semantic (and phonological) manifestations.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Explain what you understand by conversion, in morphological terms.
Compounding
This is another morphological process in which two or more words are put together to act as a single lexical word with a distinct meaning. Examples are girlfriend, boyfriend, blackbird, blackboard, etc.
Different word combinations are possible: (i) Noun + Noun compounds: windmill, paperback, steamboat, steam engine, iron filing, test tube, gas jar, electron theory, filter paper. (ii) Noun + Adjective compound: accident-prone, power-mad, bloodthirsty, praise worthy, colour – blind, rent-free. Other possible combinations are Adjective + Noun, Verb + Noun, Noun + Verb, Verb + Preposition.
The combinations involving nouns and adjectives are very common in English, whereas, compounds containing verbs and prepositions are less productive and subject to constraints. The compound of load (offload the truck is possible, but the combination “off bed” is not possible). Odebunmi (2006:45) observes that in forming compounds, two or more words are combined, with or without hyphenation: for example, schoolboys, blackbird, call-girl, playboy, etc. Compounds may be solid, hyphenated or two-word in form e.g. offshore (solid); shore-boat (hyphenated); ill luck (two-word). It is important to note that compounds are constantly generated by good users of English to do their specific bidding in informal situations. In most of these instances, the structure of compounds may go beyond two-word level: for example: 1. a not-too-brilliant idea 2. chop-I-chop party 3. a-do-or-die affair
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Give 10 examples each of solid, hyphenated and two-word compounds
Back Formation
This reduction process occurs when a word (root morpheme or combination of morphemes) that is usually a noun is reduced to form another word belonging to a different word-class. For example, enthuse (verb) formed from enthusiasm (noun) televise (television), opine (opinion), posit (position), etc.
In backformation, a shorter word is created from a longer one by a subtraction method most especially where a structure gap exists in language. Usually, backforms are derived from conceptual or agentive nouns, and are turned into verbs.
Reduplication
This is the compounding of identical (goody-goody) or slightly different morphemes (wishy-washy). Usually, the difference in the different morpheme types in single phonemes at either initial or medial positions. Their use is usually informal. In reduplication, there is a process of addition leading to the compounding by repetition of a part or the whole of a stem morpheme. There is an identity relationship between the items so repeated in terms of their phoneme makeup, as well as their morphologically shapes. In English, such examples as wishy-washy, walkie-talkie, tick-tock, hanky-panky illustrate reduplication as a morphological process.
There are other morphologically processes that are equally important; not only to English but also to all other languages. The difference between the two elements comprising reduplication may be phonologically: the initial consonants in both elements differ, as in walkie-talkie, or in the medial vowels e.g. criss-cross. Reduplicatives have certain common uses as noted by Ajulo (ibid: 24): (a) to imitate sounds: e.g. tick-tock (‘of clock’), ping-pong (of hitting table or lawn tennis ball), rat-a-tat (knocking on door), bow-bow (of dog).
b) to suggest alternating movements, for example: seesaw, flip-flop, ping-pong. c) to disparage by suggesting instability, nonsense, insincerity, vacillation, etc. higgledy-piggledy, hocus-pocus, hodge-podge, wishy-washy, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, mumbo-jumbo. d) to intensify, for example, teeny-weeny, tip-top, willy-nilly.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
What do you think appears to link backformation and reduplication as morphological processes?
Nominalization
Words other than nouns or pronouns converted from other word classes and are made to behave as nouns are called nominalizations. They include verbs and adjectives – determiners, ordinals, or genitive phrases. As converted nouns, they function as the headword in the group in which they occur.
These can be in any of the following forms. Gerundive nominalizations are morphologically marked by the –ing suffix, e.g. Writing is a lot easier than singing. Eating vegetables has been a good habit. John’s paintings of yesteryears are no longer available. Infinitival nominalization – the verbs are usually marked by ‘to’ e.g. to be, to sing, to err, to sleep, etc.
This may function like a noun as follows: Ugly/Absurd is the best way to describe the incident. Red is his usual colour. The rich also cry. The young must be protected. The suffix –ness can be added to an adjective to form a noun: thoughtful + ness = thoughtfulness; careful + ness = carefulness big/good + ness = bigness/goodness; kind + ness = kindness as in His kindness has earned him an award. His goodness endures forever. The bigness of a problem is not equal to defeat. People’s thoughtfulness makes them do good things. Other adjectives functioning as nouns include: all, both, some, such, first, a few, etc.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4
Discuss three possible nominalisation processes you have come across in this unit.
Acronyms
It is possible to create new words from the initial letters of a set of other words. Words formed in this way are called acronyms. Acronyms often consist of capital letters, as in: NYSC (derived from ‘National Youth Service Corp) WAEC (derived from ‘West African Examination Council’) UNO (derived from ‘United Nations Organization’) OAU (derived from ‘Obafemi Awolowo University’) UNESCO (derived from United Nations, International Children’s Emergency Fund) AIDS (derived from Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) RADAR (derived from ‘radio detecting and ranging’) and LASER (derived from ‘light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation’) SARS (derived from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) WHO (derived from World Health Organization) When an acronym gains much currency in a speech community, it can lose its capital letters as we see in laser and radar.
Coinage or Neologism
This is a morphological process of creating new words to name previously nonexistent objects or phenomena that result from cultural contact. The coined word, with the passage of time, gains currency within a speech community. Invented trade names such as Xerox and Kleenex are recent additions to the English language. They have quickly become everyday words in the language. The word Xerox used to refer only to a company that produces a type of photocopying machine. Recently, the word has come to be used to refer to the process of photocopying in general. Also, the Kleenex used to refer to a brand of facial tissue, but now it has come to denote facial tissue in general. Again, the word crane is a name for a very large bird with a very long neck. But now there is a heavy-duty machine called a crane which is used.
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