Backformation Acronyms Minor Word Formation Processes

15 existing items, usually the first part of one and the final part of the other‖ p. 140. The examples of blends are brunch from breakfast and lunch, motel from motor and hotel, and smog from smoke and fog. O‘Grady and de Guzman 2010 also find that crossbred animals are commonly named by using blends. For example, liger or tigon from lion + tiger, zedonk or zonkey from zebra + donkey, and cama from camel + llama. There are some ways to create a blend word. Liu and Liu 2014 classify blends into three types. The first one is head + word. For instance, the word emotag is the blending from the head of the word emotion with complete word tag. The second type is head + tail, as it is found in the word wedsite, the combination of the head of the word wedding and the tail of the word website. The last type is word + tail blending. The example is the word viewser from the head of the word viewer and the tail of the word user.

g. Backformation

According to O‘Grady and de Guzman 2010, a process of removing a real or supposed affix of a word in order to create a new one is called backformation. Yule 2010 states, ―typically, a word of one type usually a noun is reduced to form a word of another type usually a verb‖ pp. 56-57. Some examples of noun to verb backformation are ―donate from donation, resurrect from resurrection, enthuse from enthusiasm, and orient from orientation ‖ O‘Grady de Guzman, 2010, p. 140

h. Acronyms

O‘Grady and de Guzman 2010 define acronyms as words which are formed by taking some or all initial letters of the words and pronounced as a 16 word. The same as clipping, acronyms have a function of shortening long words to become a simpler word. Hence, acronyms are often found in our daily life. Izura and Playfoot 2012 state that ―acronyms represent a significant and idiosyncratic part of our everyday vocabulary. The demands of a highly technical society have dramatically increased the proportion of acronyms encountered in everyday language ‖ p. 862. O‘Grady and de Guzman 2010 explain that acronyms are commonly used in naming organizations and in military and scientific terminology. Some examples of acronyms are AIDS from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, PIN from Personal Identification Number, and RAM from Random-Access Memory. However, some words are sometimes not recognized as acronyms. O‘Grady and de Guzman 2010 find three examples of words that actually acronyms. They are radar from radio detecting and ranging, scuba from self- contained underwater breathing apparatus, and laser from light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Pahlavannezhad, Akhlaghi, and Ebrahimi 2012 state that ―this created word can perform the role of noun in a sentence‖ p. 168. Long noun phrases consisting more than two words are often shortened by using acronyms as it is showed from the examples.

i. Initialisms