Various Ways of Word Creation
Various Types and Ways of Forming Words
The available linguistic literature on the subject cites various types and ways of forming words. Earlier books, articles and monographs on word-formation and vocabulary growth in general both in Russian language and in foreign languages, in the English language in particular, used to mention morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. At present the classifications of the types of word-formation do not, as a rule, include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification of word-formation means based on the number of motivating bases which many scholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes of word-building means: To Class I belong the means of building words having one motivating base. To give an English example, the noun catcher composed of the base catch- and the suffix –er, through the combination of which it is morphologically and semantically motivated. Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are all based on compounding. Most linguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to English word-formation consider as the chief processes of English word-formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Apart from these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-formation, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred to Word-Formation. Another classification of the types of word-formation worked out by H. Marchand is also of interest. Proceeding from the distinction between full linguistic signs and pseudo signs he considers two major groups: 1) words formed as grammatical syntagmas, combinations of full linguistic signs which are characterized by morphological motivation such as do-er, un-do, rain-bow; and 2) words which are not grammatical syntagmas, which are not made up of full linguistic
The available linguistic literature on the subject cites various types and ways of forming words. Earlier books, articles and monographs on word-formation and vocabulary growth in general both in Russian language and in foreign languages, in the English language in particular, used to mention morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. At present the classifications of the types of word-formation do not, as a rule, include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification of word-formation means based on the number of motivating bases which many scholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes of word-building means: To Class I belong the means of building words having one motivating base. To give an English example, the noun catcher composed of the base catch- and the suffix –er, through the combination of which it is morphologically and semantically motivated. Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are all based on compounding. Most linguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to English word-formation consider as the chief processes of English word-formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Apart from these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-formation, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred to Word-Formation. Another classification of the types of word-formation worked out by H. Marchand is also of interest. Proceeding from the distinction between full linguistic signs and pseudo signs he considers two major groups: 1) words formed as grammatical syntagmas, combinations of full linguistic signs which are characterized by morphological motivation such as do-er, un-do, rain-bow; and 2) words which are not grammatical syntagmas, which are not made up of full linguistic