Word Formation Processes

Question 1

acronym

Answer 1

is the process of forming a new word – which is then pronounced as a word – by taking the first character of each word in the phrase that it represented

eg. NASA

Question 2

back-formation

Answer 2

is the process of forming a new word by removing affixes from an existing word

e.g. edit (from editor), burgle (from burglar), televise (from television), and choreograph (from choreography)

Question 3

blending

Answer 3

is the process of forming a new word by combining two individual lexemes, one of which will be clipped

e.g. brunch

Question 4

borrowing

Answer 4

is the process of forming a new word by borrowing a loanword from another language

eg makan in Singlish, coup de grace, karaoke, kamikaze

Question 5

compounding

Answer 5

is the process of forming a new lexeme - which has more than one stem - by combining two individual lexemes that remain morphologically intact

e.g. killjoy, fireworks, waistline, textbook

Question 6

initialism

Answer 6

is the process of forming a new word - whose characters are then pronounced individually - by taking the first character of each word in the phrase that is represented

e.g. FBI, OTOT

Question 7

neologism

Answer 7

is a relatively recent and isolated word that is widely-recognised and has become accepted as part of mainstream language (usually to fill lexical gaps)

e.g. meme, couch potato

Question 8

affixation

Answer 8

is the process of forming a new word by adding a prefix or a suffix that precedes or succeeds the root morpheme respectively

Question 9

clipping

Answer 9

is the process of forming a new word by omitting one or more morphemes

e.g. bot (robot), biz (business), exam (examination)

Question 10

deletion

Answer 10

is the process of not inflecting a word for tense and/or number when grammatically required

e.g. copula deletion: She no good

Question 11

regularisation

Answer 11

is the process of inflecting a word for tense and/or number using the general inflectional affixes instead for irregular verbs and/or irregular nouns respectively

Question 12

semantic amelioration

Answer 12

is the process of a word becoming more positive - or neutral - in its connotation

Question 13

semantic pejoration

Answer 13

is the process of a word becoming more negative in its connotation

Question 14

semantic narrowing

Answer 14

is the process of a word becoming more limited in its connotation

Question 15

semantic widening

Answer 15

is the process of a word becoming more expansive in its connotation

Question 16

semantic bleaching

Answer 16

is the process of a word becoming weaker in its illocutionary force as a result of its excessive use

Question 17

semantic inflation

Answer 17

is the process of a word being used in a hyperbolic manner where its actual illocutionary force is in excess of its conventional illocutionary force

Question 18

conversion

Answer 18

is the process of forming a new word by it being used as a different part of speech without any change in its form

Question 19

double negation

Answer 19

is the use of two negative words in the same utterance with the intent of intensifying its illocutionary force rather than them nullifying each other

Question 20

reduplication

Answer 20

is the repeated use of the same word with the intent of intensifying its illocutionary force or creating a constant

e.g. dont play play