Language Change Flashcards
What are coinages?
Made-up words
E.g. Häagen-Dazs
What are compounds?
Two or more whole words joined together
What is affixation?
Words formed by adding prefixes and suffixes
E.g. hyper market, hyperactive
What is clipping?
A part of a previously existing word
E.g. phone, Mac, telly
What is blending?
Parts of two or more words making one new word
E.g. spork, blog, docusoap
What is borrowing?
Words from foreign languages
E.g. latte, karaoke
What is an acronym?
Words made up of the initial letters of other words that can be pronounced as one word
E.g. AIDS, LASER, UNICEF
What are initialises?
Words made up of the initial letters of other words which are spoken as initials
E.g. HIV, NUT, GCSE
What are eponyms?
Company names used generically
E.g. coke, hoover
What is semantic shift?
A straightforward change from one meaning to another
E.g. gay
What is broadening?
The word refers to more than it used to
E.g. troll
What is narrowing?
The word refers to less than it used to
E.g. skyline
What is pejoration?
The meaning has worsened
E.g. notorious
What is amelioration?
The meaning has improved
E.g. naughty
Guy Deutscher
Reasons for language change
(Economy)
The tendency to save effort and is behind the short-cuts speakers often take pronunciation
