2.4 Word-formation
Affixation, as mentioned before, is a process used in inflections and derivatives, which constitute word families. Therefore, it is a process used to form new words from a root, and that is why they are also part of the word formation feature.
New words, though, are not only formed through affixation; there is also compounding, which consists in combining two or more words into one. As they come from independent words, the spelling of compound words varies. They can be used as a single orthographic word, but the independent words can also be divided by a hyphen, or they can appear as two separate orthographic words with one meaning. Sometimes the same compound words can take different spellings, and some others they only occur in one of the three different possibilities mentioned before.
Other processes to form new words are blending, conversion and clipping. Blending is when two words are put together into a single orthographic word, but do not keep their original form: the first letters of one word and the last letters of another one. Conversion is the process in which the same orthographic word changes of grammatical function, for example, from noun to verb or preposition to verb. Finally, clipping is forming new words by shortening them, that is, a clipped word comes from a longer version of itself.
LAS Activity 204. Word formation (PORTFOLIO)
Instructions
- Download the following Word file ‘LAS Activity 204’. Match the different processes to form new words with their corresponding examples, and then add examples of your own.
- Once you finish this activity, save it as PDF, name it LAS_204_Last
Name_FirstName , and upload it in Eminus in the corresponding section in ‘Actividades’.