Modern English Word-Formation

Administration; in 1957 they issued a pamphlet giving the number of Social

Security accounts associated with each of the 1500 most common family names.

The third and final class of words consists of nonce words, those invented to fill a specific need, and appearing only once (or perhaps only in the work of the author favoring the word). Few philologists feel comfortable about admitting these. Nonce words range from coinages by James Joyce and

Edgar Allan Poe (X-ing a Paragraph) to interjections in comic strips

(Agggh! Yowie!). Ross Eckler and Daria Abrossimova suggest that misspellings in print should be included here also.

In the book “Beyond Language”, Dmitri Borgmann proposes that the philologist be prepared to admit words that may never have appeared in print. For example, Webster's Second lists eudaemony as well as the entry

"Eudaimonia, eudaimonism, eudaimonist, etc." From this he concludes that

EUDAIMONY must exist and should be admitted as a word. Similarly, he can conceive of sentences containing the word GRACIOUSLY'S ("There are ten graciously's in Anna Karenina") and SAN DIEGOS ("Consider the luster that the San Diegos of our nation have brought to the US"). In short, he argues that these words might plausibly be used in an English-language sentence, but does not assert any actual usage. His criterion for the acceptance of a word seems to be its philological uniqueness (EUDAIMONY is a short word containing all five vowels and Y).

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 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 (e.g. the noun doer is composed of the base do- and the suffix -er), which Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. They are all based on compounding (e.g. compounds letter-opener, e-mail, looking-glass).

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, there is a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-formation, sound interchange, distinctive stress, onomatopoeia, blending, clipping, acronymy.

Some of the ways of forming words in present-day English can be restored to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands – these are called productive ways of forming words, other ways of forming words cannot now produce new words, and these are commonly termed non-productive or unproductive. R. S. Ginzburg gives the example of affixation having been a productive way of forming new words ever since the Old English period; on the other hand, sound-interchange must have been at one time a word- building means but in Modern English (as we have mentioned above) its function is actually only to distinguish between different classes and forms of words.

It follows that productivity of word-building ways, individual derivational patterns and derivational affixes is understood as their ability of making new words which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding, in particular their ability to create what are called occasional words or nonce-words[20] (e.g. lungful (of smoke), Dickensish (office), collarless

(appearance)). The term suggests that a speaker coins such words when he needs them; if on another occasion the same word is needed again, he coins it afresh. Nonce-words are built from familiar language material after familiar patterns. Dictionaries, as a rule, do not list occasional words.The delimitation between productive and non-productive ways and means of word-formation as stated above is not, however, accepted by all linguists without reserve. Some linguists consider it necessary to define the term productivity of a word-building means more accurately. They hold the view that productive ways and means of word-formation are only those that can be used for the formation of an unlimited number of new words in the modern language, i.e. such means that “know no bounds” and easily form occasional words. This divergence of opinion is responsible for the difference in the lists of derivational affixes considered productive in various books on

English lexicology.

Nevertheless, recent investigations seem to prove that productivity of derivational means is relative in many respects. Moreover there are no absolutely productive means; derivational patterns and derivational affixes possess different degrees of productivity. Therefore it is important that conditions favouring productivity and the degree if productivity of a particular pattern or affix should be established. All derivational patterns experience both structural and semantic constraints. The fewer are the constraints, the higher is the degree of productivity, the greater is the number of new words built on it. The two general constraints imposed on all derivational patterns are: the part of speech in which the pattern functions and the meaning attached to it which conveys the regular semantic correlation between the two classes of words. It follows that each part of speech is characterized by a set of productive derivational patterns peculiar to it. Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and individual derivational affixes: (1) highly productive, (2) productive or semi-productive and (3) non-productive.

R. S. Ginzburg[21] says that productivity of derivational patterns and affixes should not be identified with the frequency of occurrence in speech, although there may be some interrelation between then. Frequency of occurrence is characterized by the fact that a great number of words containing a given derivational affix are often used in speech, in particular in various texts. Productivity is characterized by the ability of a given suffix to make new words.