TOPIC 10 – Lexicon. Characteristics of word-formation in English.

Prefixation,
suffixation and compounding.

Languages are complex systems of linguistic signs. As Noam Chomsky would say, they
are composed of a limited set of rules which, in combination with the lexical categories,
allow speakers and hearers to express a universe of meaning. In this unit, we will work
on the lexical categories mentioned. However, lexicon is probably what is most particular
to a language and, the word stock of a language is in constant change thanks to vocabulary
gains and losses, to borrowings and calques, and to the process of word-formation are a
synonym of language renewal and evolution.
In this unit, a survey of different procedures for word-formation in English is proposed.
The first section will deal with lexicon and, more precisely, with lexicography, the
evolution of the modern dictionary and dictionaries in America. The second section
will review a series of basic concepts is morphology and word-formation so as to
analyse the word-formation processes implied in the creation of plurals, verbs, adverbs
and adjectives. Then, the following three sections will be devoted to prefixation,
suffixation and compounding.

Lexicography is the procedure which deals with arranging and describing items of
vocabulary in such works as dictionaries, glossaries, thesauri, synonym guides and usage
guides. Traditionally, lexicography has been divided into two types: alphabetic
lexicography whose best product is the dictionary, and thematic lexicography which
arranges words by topic.
It is hard to ascertain what the first dictionary in history was, because we find lists of
words as far back as the Middle Ages. But these lists of words were two-language
dictionaries: Latin words with English translations. The first English dictionary (A table
Alphabetical, by Robert Cawdrey) was published in 1603. It contained difficult words
that readers might be expected to stumble over. In the second half of the seventeenth
century frequent words were included too. But the great figure of lexicography in the
eighteenth century was Dr. Samuel Johnson. His dictionary was intended to regulate the
English language, so it contributed to the growth of lexicography and practiced separating
and numbering word meaning. In the late eighteenth century, synonyms were added to
the entries of dictionaries. However, the greatest lexicographical effort in England was
the Oxford English Dictionary in the nineteenth century with the inclusion of contextual
evidence of the terms.
In America, the great pioneer in lexicography was Noah Webster with An American
Dictionary of the English Language (1828).

Morphology is the domain that studies the internal construction of words. According to
Plag (2002) it is the study of the ways in which new complex words are built on the basis
of other words or morphemes. Brinton (2005) describes it as the means by which morphs
combine or are altered to form new words. The rules by which words are construed are
important for two reasons: in order to recognize the grammatical class of a word by its
structure, and because they reveal a flexibility in the application of grammatical rules.
According to several studies, a word is the smallest unit of syntax that has distinctive
meaning and can occur by itself at the phrase level. This definition leads to the concept
of word form which can be described as the concrete realization of the unit. In this sense,
word form may also be used to refer to the lexeme which is the single meaningful unit
regardless of the number of words it contains. A lexeme includes all inflected forms of a
word.
A morpheme is, according to Crystal (1985), the smallest bit of language which has a
meaning. The morpheme may be equivalent to a word, but may be a smaller unit. The
phonetic or orthographic realization of a morpheme is called morph. The main features
of a morpheme are: it is internally indivisible, it has internal stability, it is transportable.
According to the meaning we distinguish between lexical morphemes and grammatical
morphemes. Lexical morphemes express lexical meaning, whilst grammatical
morphemes express relations within the sentence. Focusing on form, we may classify
them into free morphemes (which occur on their own) and bound morphemes (which
are attached to others). The morphemes that must be attached before the central
meaningful element of the word are called prefixes. The ones that follow the root are
called suffix. To designate all bound morphemes, we speak of affixes.
A distinction has traditionally been made between inflection and derivation. Plag (2000)
summarises it in this way: “Derivation encodes lexical meaning (reduce > reduction); is
not syntactically relevant; often changes the part of speech; is often semantically opaque;
is often restricted in its productivity, and is not restricted to suffixation. On the other hand,
inflection encodes grammatical categories (workers, works, picked); is syntactically
relevant; ca occur inside derivation, is semantically transparent; is fully productive and is
always suffixational”.
English, then, has several procedures for word-formation. Affixation and compounding
(the combination of two bases) are the most frequent. However, there are other minor
processes, which vary in their relevance: conversion (word class change), truncation or
clipping (names are shortened). We also find blends, which are amalgamations of parts
of different words (modem = modulator/demodulator). There are two main types of
blends: acronyms (combination of the initial letters of compounds or phrases into a
pronounceable new word), or abbreviations (a shortened form of a word or phrase).
There is also backformation which is the reverse of affixation (editor > edit), as well as
reduplicatives, eponyms, and onomatopoeic coinages. Sometimes, if not many, none
of these procedures is applied, and a new word is taken up from a foreign language. Then,
we speak of borrowing and loanwords.
There are two numbers in English: singular, which denotes one and is also used for mass
nouns and proper nouns, and plural, which denotes more than one (the dual case only
remains in both, either and neither).
Regarding the regular plurals, in speech, there are three different pronunciations,
depending on the final sound of the base: /z/ after bases ending in sibilants (horse >
horses), and after bases ending in vowels and voiced sounds other than /z/ (bed > beds).
/s/ after bases ending in voiceless sounds other than /s/ (bet > bets). In spelling, the “-s”
suffix is written after most nouns including nouns in silent “e” (college > colleges), but
there are some exceptions such as the addition of “e” (the ending is spelled –es) after
nouns ending in sibilants –s, -z, -x, -ch, -sh, -ze. Another exception is the treatment of –
y: always “-ys” after vowels (day > days), and “-ies” after consonants (spy > spies). The
third exception is the doubling of consonants in a few words: quiz > quizzes or in some
abbreviations p-pp (pages). The regular plural suffix in “-o” has two spellings: “-os” and
“-oes”. In compounds, the plural is formed in three different ways: it may be in the first
element, in both first and last element, and plural in the last element.
According to irregular plurals, we can classify them into five different categories: zero
plural (fish, sheep, cereal), vowel alteration (woman > women), -en plural (children,
oxen), foreign plurals (formulas or formulae, antennas or antennae), and voicings (bath >
baths, calf >calves, house > houses).
Nouns in English are formed by means of affixation (prefixation, suffixation), derivation,
and compounding, as well as from other methods. Exclusive DENOMINAL prefixes are:
arch-, mini-, maxi-, step-, mal-, pro-. Nominal suffixes are often employed to derive
abstract nouns from verbs (deverbal: -ing > begging, -ant > defendant, -ion > exploration)
adjectives (deadjectival: -ity > curiosity, -ness > cleverness) and nouns (denominal: -ite
> Israelite, -ist > violinist). Compounding has many possible combinations to form new
nouns. The most frequent are: N+N (airplane, lipstick), V+N (cut-throat), A+N (soft-toy),
Prt+N (afternoon), Prt+V (outcast), V+Prt (take-away), N+’s+N (bachelor’s degree), V+-
ing+N (spending money), N+V+-ing (handwriting), N+V (sunrise), N+V+-er
(hairdresser).
In order to analyse the formation of verbs we need to take into account the distinction
between inflection and derivation. Regarding inflection, English verbs present a series of
productive forms: present tense (3rd p sg “-s”), past tense (-ed), past participle (-ed),
present participle (-ing), negation (-not / n’t). Regarding derivation, English has some
available procedures in order to form new verbal forms: prefixation (be- > becalm, en-
endanger), suffixation (-ate > methanate, -en > strengthen, -ify > identify, -ize > legalize),
compounding through N+V (skydive), A+V (whitewash), V+V (freeze-dry), Prt+V
(outdo), A+N (mainstream), N+N (breath-test), V+N (shunpike).
The formation of adverbs in English is more restricted than that of other word classes. In
fact, only suffixation is the productive procedure for their formation. Examples of suffixes
used to form new adverbs are: -ly (happily), -wards (backwards), -wise (education-wise),
-style/-fashion (American-style).
Adjectives are formed through inflection (comparative and superlative suffixes to
express degree), prefixation (a- > afloat, astride), suffixation (-able > breakable, -al >
cultural, -ary > complementary, -ed > wooded, -esque > burlesque, -ful > forgetful, -ic >
economic, -ish > sharpish, -ive > explosive, -less > speechless, -ly > monthly, -ous >
famous), and compounding through N+A (duty-free), A+A (bittersweet), N+N (seaside),
A+N (redneck), V+Prt (see-through), N+V+-ing (heart-breaking), A+V+-ing
(easygoing), N+V+ -en (housebroken), A+V+ -ed (thick-skinned).

In this section, we will talk about prefixation, suffixation and compounding. According
to Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), prefixes are placed before the base, and they do not
generally alter its word class, except for the so-called conversion prefixes (a-, be-, en-).
Prefixes fall into a number of semantic classes in English, depending upon the meaning
that they contribute to the root. Thus, according to Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), and
Brinton (2005), the semantic classification of English prefixes shows the following
categories: time and order (fore-, pre-, post-, ex-, re-), number (uni-, mono-, bi-, di-, tri-,
multi-, poly), place (super-, sub-, inter-, trans-), degree or size (arch-, super-, out-, under,
sub-, ultra-), privation (un-, de-, dis-), negation (un-, non-, dis-, a-), attitude (counter-, co,
pro-, mal-). Suffixation is one of the most productive procedures for word-formation in
the English language. Suffixes can be either native, coming from Old English, or
borrowed during any of the periods of Latin and Greek influences over English, especially
in the neoclassical period. Suffixes have two functions: to change the meaning of the root
(diminutive suffixes, feminine suffixes, abstract suffixes) and to change the part of speech
of the root. Some classifications of suffixes have been proposed. Quirk and Greenbaum
(1973) claim that it is convenient to group them not only by the class of word they form
(noun suffixes, verb suffixes, etc.), but also by the class of base to which they are added.
In this sense, they distinguish between denominal (when they are added to nouns), de-
adjectival, and deverbal. They also state that, in general terms, English suffixes are
unstressed, the only exceptions being the ending –ation.
According to Brinton (2005), compounding is the combination of two or more free roots.
Unlike phrases, a compound is considered a single word although it can be written as a
single word or as two words. Compounds may also involve conversions and
backformations. Another problem of historical interest is amalgamated compounds.
These are words which in origin are compounds, but which in the course of time have
become fused and no longer separable into two distinct parts (midwife). Apart from the
different procedures for compounding in order to form nouns, adjectives, verbs, and
adjectives, there are also compound prepositions: into, onto, because of; compound
pronouns: somebody, anyone; and compound conjunction: whenever, so that.
There are several activities that teachers can use to implement this unit into the classroom,
for instance, we can make students find examples of real word formation in a dictionary
and make up two or three wrong alternatives, e.g. “punishment”, “punishness” and
“punishation”. They read them out to another group, seeing if they can fool them about
which one is the real one.
Something similar can also be done with written exercises where students fill the gaps
with a mix of the real and wrong answers and other groups see if they can spot which is
which.
Word formation is an extensive, open field for research, since language continues to
evolve and lexicon is probably the area where changes are more frequent. The exchange
of information and data all over the world has geometrically grown in the last decades,
thanks to the Information Technologies, and the language is where this change in our
lives is reflected. The unit provides a through account of the word-formation processes
available in contemporary English Language; taking into account the limitations of time
and space that must be considered for a competitive exam. As teachers, we may introduce
this topic in the English classroom so as to make our students aware of all these processes
and let them know how English language works regarding its word-formation and its
evolution. In conclusion, the topic covered in this unit shows that language is not a closed,
abstract system of signs which can be prescribed by academies. Instead, language is a
living corpus, integrated by human beings (both living and dead). Heidegger said that
language made us humans. We may add that, in fact, language is what makes us alive.

Bibliography
BRINTON, L.: The Structure of Modern English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000.
QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM, S., LEECH, G. and SVARTVIK, J.: A Grammar of
Contemporary English. London: Longman, 1972.