18
a. Definition of Word Formation
Bauer defines word formation as the process whereby new words are coined to denote new, or newly salient, concepts and secondly a transpositional function
Bauer, 2004. Moreover, Akmajian, Demers, Farmer and Harnish 2001 state that new words enter a language through the process in word formation. It can be
concluded that word formation is related to the creation of new words.
b. Types of Word Formation
Word formation involves morphemes, affixes and words to form the new words. The processes involve the addition, the deletion and the modification of the
internal structure of a word, for instance, the addition of the morphemes, affixes and the modification of the bases. In this study, there are 11 word formation types
proposed based on the theories from Aronoff and Fudeman 2011, Bauer 1983, Campbell 2004, Katamba 1993 and O’Grady and de Guzman 2011.
The first type is borrowing. It is the linguistic process of taking words from another language and making them part of its own vocabulary Campbell, 2004: 62.
Further, Campbell states that the vocabulary that has been borrowed is called loanwords. Borrowing is not restricted to only words or lexical items taken from one
language into another, but it is related to any linguistic material – phonological rules, grammatical morphemes, syntactic patterns, semantic associations, discourse
strategies and any linguistic material that can be borrowed Campbell, 2004: 62. There are terms to distinguish between the language which borrows and the language
which is borrowed. Recipient language is the language which borrows, whereas
19
donor language is the language which is borrowed from Campbell, 2004: 62. The example is a loanword cuisine. Cuisine is an English word which is borrowed from
French. Therefore, English is a recipient language and French is a donor language. There are two types of borrowing according to Akmajian et al. 2001, namely direct
and indirect borrowing. For direct borrowing, the speakers of English often borrow words from other languages, such as kindergarten German, croissant French and
sushi Japanese Akmajian et al., 2001: 27. On the other hand, indirect borrowing occurs “when an expression in one language is translated literally into another
language” Akmajian et al., 2001: 28. Akmajian et al. 2001 employ the term firewater as the example of indirect borrowing. Firewater is the literal translation of
Native American word meaning “alcohol”. Regarding the reasons why borrowing happens, languages borrow from one another because of need and prestige
Campbell, 2004: 64. Campbell 2006 states that the speakers of a language need the new terms to go along with the acquisition when they acquire some new items or
concepts from abroad p. 64. Besides, the other main reason is that words are borrowed from another language since the foreign terms are highly esteemed
Campbell, 2004: 64. The second type is cliticization. Cliticization is the linguistic process
occurring when grammatical words are unable to stand alone phonologically and they must ‘lean’ on an adjacent word Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 36. The adjacent word
is known as a host, whereas the grammatical words that undergo cliticization are called clitics O’Grady de Guzman, 2011. The well-known examples of clitics are
20
the contracted forms of the English auxiliary verbs, am becomes ‘m, is becomes ‘s and are becomes ‘re Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 41. The example is ‘m in the
sentence I’m leaving now. Moreover, clitics are classified by their positions to the hosts. Proclitic is a clitic attached to the beginning of a host and enclitic is one
attached to the end of the host Katamba, 1993: 245. Katamba 1993: 245 provides the example of proclitic in a French article l’ when it is attached before a vowel-
commencing noun like ami as in l’ami. The example of enclitic is the morpheme –‘s which marks a possessive noun in English, as in Russell’s car. Moreover, enclitic is
also known genitive suffix. Katamba 1993 proposes that a genitive suffix is attached to the end of whatever word precedes the last noun of a genitive noun
phrase, as in the morpheme –‘s in Russell’s car. The third type is coinage or word manufacture. It occurs “when a word is
created ex nihilo, with no morphological, phonological or orthographic motivation” Bauer, 1983: 239. The phenomenon commonly occurs in the case of product names
where the industry requires the attractive names for the products, such as Kodak, Kleenex and Teflon O’Grady de Guzman, 1996: 160.
The fourth type is acronyms. Acronym is formed by taking the initial letters of the words in a phrase or title and using them as a new word Bauer, 1983: 237.
The common examples of acronyms are related to the names of organizations, such as UNICEF for United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and NATO for
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Acronyms are to be distinguished from initialisms, which are pronounced as the series of letters rather than a word O’Grady
21
de Guzman, 2011: 141, for instance DC for District of Columbia and CD for compact disc. Initialism is the fifth type of word formation types.
The sixth type is blend. Blend occurs when “a new lexeme is formed from parts of two or possibly more other words in such a way that there is no transparent
analysis into morphs” Bauer, 1983: 234. In other words, a blend is formed from the combination of two words or more. The examples of blends in English are smog from
smoke + fog; motel from motor + hotel, spork from spoon and fork. The seventh type is clipping. Clipping is the process whereby a lexeme is
shortened but it still remains the same meaning and becomes a member of the same form class Bauer, 1983: 233. According to Bauer 1983, the way in which the
lexeme is shortened can be in the beginning of the base, as in bi bisexual, mike microphone, in the final part of the word, as in Cong Viet Cong and in the
middle of the word, as in jams pyjamas p. 233. Another example of common phenomena in clipping is the process of shortening the title Professor into Prof.
Besides, clipping also occurs in the process of shortening names – Elizabeth becomes Liz; Susan becomes Sue. Clipping is sometimes called abbreviations Fromkin,
Rodman Hyams, 2010: 97. The eighth type is backformation. Backformation is “the creation of a word
by removing what appears to be an affix” Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 122. It happens because of an incorrect morphological analysis Fromkin, Rodman
Hyams, 2010: 97. Therefore, the incorrect morphological analysis is considered “correct” for the speakers. Televise came into English as back-formation from the
22
word television based on analogy with –ion pairs, such as actaction, reviserevision Fromkin, Rodman Hyams, 2010: 97. The word edit is also formed by
backformation from the word editor. The ninth type is conversion. Conversion is “the change in form of class of a
form without any corresponding change of form” Bauer, 1983: 32. Bauer states that conversion does not require any corresponding change of form. It implies that
conversion does not need the change of form or the addition of affixes to make the changes of word class. The common type of conversion is the change from an
adjective to a noun, such as found in poor to the poor and a verb from a noun, to button from button the shirt. The verb poor does not require the addition of affixes
to undergo conversion into a noun. The tenth type is derivation. Derivation is the morphological process that
results in the formation of new lexemes Bauer, 1983: 27. The creation of new lexemes involves the process of changing the category andor the meaning of the base
to which it applies O’Grady Dobrovoisky, 1989. Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams 2010 state that bound morphemes are called derivational morphemes. When they
are added to a root morpheme or stem, a new word with a new meaning is derived. The form that results from the addition of a derivational morpheme is called a derived
word. Moreover, derivation involves the addition of affix to the base form. The affix that is attached to the base form is called a derivational affix. Further, one of the
derivational affixes in English is suffix –er. It is mostly used to yield a verb to a noun, for instance, work verb + -er = worker noun.
23
The eleventh type is inflection. According to Aronoff and Fudeman 2011: 47, inflection involves the formation of grammatical forms of a single lexeme, such
as past, present, future, singular, plural, masculine, feminine, neuter and other forms. In English, it is often expressed by the affixes, such as in work + -s. There are seven
inflection types according to Aronoff and Fudeman 2011: 171-177. The seven inflection types are affixation, apophony or internal change, partial suppletion,
reduplication, root-and-pattern, stem alternations and suppletion. Affixation is the process of adding an affix to a root or a stem to form a new lexeme or an inflected
form or a stem of an existing lexeme Aronoff Fudeman, 2011.
Table 2.1 English Inflectional Morphemes Adapted from O’Grady and de Guzman 2011
English Inflectional Morphemes Examples
-s third-person singular present
He wait-s at school.
-ed past tense
He wait-ed at school.
-ing progressive
He is wait-ing his parents.
-en past participle
He has eat-en five donuts.
-s plural
He ate the donut-s.
-er comparative
Russell has long-er hair than Sam.
-est superlative
Russell has the long-est hair.
As seen in Table 2.2, the English inflectional affixes refer to the English tenses past tense, progressive, past participle, noun inflectional affixes plural and
adjective inflectional affixes comparative and superlative. O’Grady and de Guzman actually lists morpheme –‘s that marks the noun referring to the possession. However,
Katamba 1993: 249 argues that morpheme –s that marks the possessor of something known as genitive suffix does not include in the inflectional morphemes. In fact, it
24
belongs to cliticization and it is known enclitic. Therefore, the researcher omitts the genitive suffix morpheme –s as the criterion to classify the data into inflection.
The next inflection type is apophony or internal change. It is the process that involves the vowel changes within a root Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 173. The
second term of apohony, umlaut, is used to describe apophony found in the singular- plural noun pairs, as in goose-geese or foot-feet. The third inflection type is
suppletion. Suppletion is “said to take place when the syntax requires a form of a lexeme that is not morphologically predictable” Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 176.
The examples of English suppletion are the verbs is, am, are, was, were and be. There are also suppletions with pronouns, as found in I and me or he and him. In certain
cases, English has also partial suppletion. Aronoff and Fudeman 2011 state that partial suppletion occurs when the initial phonemes of the word remain the same,
but there are internal changes and changes to the end of the word p. 177. The example of partial suppletion is think; thought. The fourth inflection type is
reduplication. Reduplication is formed when “a continuous substring from either the beginning or the end of a word is copied”. Reduplication is commonly found in
Indonesia, for example, the Indonesian plural form, kuda-kuda means ‘horses’ or rumah-rumah means ‘houses’. The fifth type is root-and-pattern. Root-and-pattern
involves “the internal variations in vocalic and syllabic patterns, while the consonantal frame stays fairly stable” Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 174. Root-and-
pattern is commonly found in the Semitic language family, for instance, in Hebrew, lomed ‘he studies’ and lamad ‘he studied’. The sixth inflection type is stem
25
alternation. The example of stem alternation is the present stem and perfective stem in Latin, po:t present and po:ta:v mean ‘drink’ Aronoff Fudeman, 2011: 177.
Since inflection is commonly marked by the addition of affixes as derivation does, there are various criteria proposed by Aronoff and Fudeman 2011: 168-169 to
help distinguish between inflection and derivation. First, inflection does not change grammatical category and meaning, whereas derivation does. The word apples, which
is added to a suffix –s, is still a noun although it is a plural form. The verb work which is added to the derivational suffix –er undergoes change its grammatical
category into a noun worker. Second, the derivational affixes tend to occur closer to the root or stem rather than the inflectional affixes. In other words, an inflectional
affix cannot be combined directly with the base when there is a derivational affix. Moreover, in this study, the researcher used 11 word formation types based
on the theories proposed by Aronoff and Fudeman 2011, Bauer 1983, Campbell 2004, Katamba 1993 and O’Grady and de Guzman 2011 which have been stated
previously.
7. Communication