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Harnish 2001 a dd that the spelling of a clipped word “has been shortened but its
pronunciation is not necessarily altered. Here are some examples of clipping:
doc
, which stands for doctor;
lab
, which stands for laboratory; and
blog
, which stands for web log.
Lehmann 1976, p. 146 states that clippings can be applied to affixes, especially suffixes. He names the process suffix clipping. The application of the
process is when a suffix -
ician
is taken from the supposed base and fitted onto geometry so that it becomes geometrician. Other similar examples are beautician
and mortician. From the fact, the researcher assumed that some clippings are also applied in certain affixes the researcher selected as the objects of the research.
c. Blend
According to Bauer 2003, a blend is “a new lexeme formed from parts of
two or more other lexemes.” It is not necessary to form blends from meaningful
parts of the morphemes. Even, most of them are unrecognisable. Blends are also called portmanteau words.
Brunch
is an example of blends. It stands for two lexemes, i.e.
breakfast
and
lunch
. The blends
brunch
got the first two letters of the lexeme
breakfast
and four last letters of the lexeme
lunch
. Other examples of blends are
smog
, which stands for
smoke
and
fog
, and
modem
, which stands for
modulator
and
demodulator
. Sometimes, blends are combined with compounding to create words as seen in
e-mail
, which stands for
electronic mail
, and
perma- press
, which stands for
permanent press
.
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d. Backformation
Backformation is a process removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language t
o create a new word O’Grady et al., 2010. Therefore, it is often called as the opposite of affixation. The example is the word
editor
. It ends in
–
or
which is similar to a suffix forming nouns from verbs. Therefore, some people thought that the base of
editor
was
edit.
In fact,
editor
is lexicalised before
edit
since
edit
is a product of backformation. Another example of backformation is
baby-sit
. Nearly similar to the previous example, it is a verb formed from a noun
baby-sitter
. The fact that backformation is the opposite of affixation made the
researcher wonder whether it is possible to combine those two morphological processes. Since backformation deals with suffix, there is still possibility to
combine its product with prefix. Backformation is also used by the researcher to analyse some verbs which are not products of affixation.
e. Acronyms
Acronyms are word-forming processes of which each letter spelling the word are from other complete words. Although each acronym product has some
words constructing it, speakers ignore the origin elements and admit the new product as independent Akmajian et al., 2001, p. 25. According to Akmajian et
al., this type of word formation is widely used to form computer term s. O’Grady
et al. 2010 state that acronym is quite common in military and scientific
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terminology. One example of acronyms is
radar
. Not many people know that it is actually not an independent word.
Radar
stands for
radio detection and ranging.
Other examples of acronyms are computer terms
LAN
, which stands for
Local Area Network
and
DOS
, which stands for
Disc Operating System
. The use of acronyms which is more widely spread will make people get
accustomed to the acronyms and ignore what they stand for. Therefore the researcher is also interested in the morphological process. Referring to the fact
that English speakers admit the new product as independent, the researcher is interested in whether affixation can occur in such words. It is quite interesting to
analyse whether acronyms can be affixed and transformed into other syntactic categories or they are stuck and any change impossibly occurs in acronyms.
f. Coinage and eponyms
