_Morphology

Word-Formation -- an Introduction

At the turn of the 20th century, new word-formation processes were scrutinized with a highly critical eye: new words were widely perceived as debased, even barbaric. Today, linguists not merely accept the diachronic development of language as such, but view language evolution and word-formation processes as an indication of a language’s creativeness and vivacity.

Source of the picture: mythicjourneys.org

Most generally, compounding and – of course – derivation represent the two major, most productive word-formation processes in English. However, there are further processes significant to producing new words. Let us take a closer look at how new words come into being by analyzing the underlying morphological operations involved.

Exercises on word-formation

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