Blends in the System of English Word-Formation

smoke + fog - smog

spoon + fork - spork

stagnation + inflation - stagflation

The beginnings of two words are combined. For example, cyborg is a blend of cybernetic and organism.

Two words are blended around a common sequence of sounds. For example, the word Californication, from a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is a blend of California and fornication.

Multiple sounds from two component words are blended, while mostly preserving the sounds' order. Poet Lewis Carroll was well known for these kinds of blends. An example of this is the word slithy, a blend of lithe and slimy. This method is difficult to achieve and is considered a sign of Carroll's verbal wit.

When two words are combined in their entirety, the result is considered a compound word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound, not a blend, of bag and pipe.

Many corporate brand names, trademarks, and initiatives, as well as names of corporations and organizations themselves, are blends. For example, Wiktionary, one of Wikipedia's sister projects, is a blend of wiki and dictionary. Also, Nabisco is a blend of the initial syllables of National Biscuit Company.

Blends are also commonly used by the media and fans to describe celebrity supercouples. It originally started with «Bennifer», which stood for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Now, it has branched out to cover major couples such as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, known together as «TomKat», Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, known together as «Brangelina», and Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, known together as «Vaughniston». Character couples on popular television series being known by similar monikers have become more common.

Compound-blends can be classified on the basis of the relationships between their elements in the same way as ordinary compounds, although uncertainties and ambiguities may be greater because of the missing elements; isguestimate, for example, an appositional combination of guess and estimate, or an adjective - noun contraction of guessed estimate.

A Subject - Verb blend's example isscreamager (`screaming teenager'): `The Rolling Stones are on a high stage, and below on a low stage are 34 burly bouncers facing a wooden barricade and 4,000 screamagers' (Daily express 12 August 1964,6/5).

Verb - Object blends are breathalyser (`breath analyser'), bus-napper (`bus kidnaper'): `…my daughter concluded that some kind of «busnappers» must be hard at work in the district. Keytainer (`key container' a small case for carrying keys'); passenveyor (`passenger conveytor').

Appositional blends of the coordinative kind are much more common than the incidence of corresponding full compounds might lead us to expect. Some examples of blending:

Balloon + parachute - ballute

Breakfast + lunch - brunch

Escalator + lift - escalift

Rudder + elevator - ruddevator

Smoke + fog - smog

Transmitter + receiver - transceiver

Compressor + expander - compander

Elevator + aileron - elevon

Examples denoting animals and plants which are hybrids:

Cattle + buffalo - catalo, or cattalo

Lion + tiger - liger

Zebra + mule - zebrule

Celery + lettuce - celtuce

Plum + apricot - plumcot

Tangerine + lemon - tangemon

A few coordinative noun blends are combinations of synonymous words, like:

Need + necessity - needcessity

Insinuation + innuendo - insiinuendo

Appositional blends which are non coordinative, that is, in which the first element specifies or qualifies the second, are:

Bromide + idiom - bromidiom (a commonplace or hackneyed expression)

Refugee + Jews - refujews

Sham + amateur - shamateur

Slang + language - slanguage

Squire + person - squarson (a land owning person)

Blends that could be classified as Instrumental:

Automobile + mania - automania

Beer + nightmare - beermare

Condensation + trail - contrail

Simulation + lighting - simulighting (simulation caused by lightning)

The following contain a Locative element:

Channel + tunnel - chunnel

Day + nightmare - daymare

Night + landscaping - nightskaping

Sea + evacuation - seavacuation (evacuation by sea)

Television + demagogue - telegogue

Bomb + pamphlet - bomphlet (pamphlet like a bomb)

Plastic + astronaut - plastinaut

Another not uncommon blends are Adjective - Noun blends:

Binary + digit - bit

Permeable + alloy - permalloy

Positive + electron - positron

Privileged + intelligentsia - privilegentsia

Spiced + hum - spam

Blends containing a derived adjective as first element:

Medical + care - medicare

Nuclear + complex - nuplex

Submarine + isle - submarisle

Conclusion

Thus we can conclude that word formation as a means of the language development was widely studied by many linguists: foreign and native: and all of them agree that it is one of main ways of language replenishment and enriching.

Linguists state that word formation is that branch of lexicology which studies the derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language, in this case English builds new words. We realize that the influx of new words has never been more rapid, than in the last few decades. It is due to advances in technology and communication.

Word formation ranges from prefixation and suffixation. We can conclude that the growth of the vocabulary reflects not only the general progress made by mankind but also the peculiarities of the way of life, of the speech community in which the new words appear, the way its science and culture tend to develop. Borrowing words from other languages word building provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.

Word formation has some features that can be considered from various points of view: morphemic, structural or semantic. From the morphemic aspect the analyses are limited to stating the number and type of morphemes that make up the word, or how the words are made. A structural word formation analyses proceeds further: it studies the structural correlation with other words, the structural patterns or rules on which words are build.

According to linguists words in their turn comprise various structural types.

1. Simple words

2. Derivied words

3. Compounds

New vocabulary units are as a rule monosemantic and most of them are marked by peculiar stylistic value. They primarily belong to the specialized vocabulary. Natural words and phrases are comparatively few. Terms used in various fields of science and technique make the greater part of new words. One of the features of word-formation is an aspect of productivity. All types of word-formation can be divided into productive and non-productive. Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for affixes: Highly productive, productive or semi productive, non-productive. Productive affixes are those used to form new words in the period in question. Non-productive affixes are the affixes which are not able to form new words in the period in questions.

In English there are two main ways of making new words: Internal and external.

Internal way means updating language vocabulary due to its internal potential. It is a productive way of word manufacturing.

Internal way includes conversation, affixation, compounding, abbreviation, desaffixation. External way means leanwords. The main types of word building include inflection and derivation. Inflection is driven by the requirement to form a word with the appropriate form in particular grammatical contest. Derivation is motivated by the desire to create new lexical items using preexisting morphemes and words. It is possible to create new lexical items by recycling preexsisting material. This is derivation. It takes one of these forms; affixation, conversion, sress placement or compounding.

Conversion is a way of word-formation without affix use as a result of wich is formed categorically different word conterminous in some forms with initial word. Affixation is a way of word formation by addition of word-formation affixes to word stem. Conversion is a way of word-formation at which words are formed by rejection of a suffix or an element externally similar to a suffix.

Abbriviation means formation of new words by reduction (truncation of word steam).As a result new words are formed with the incomplete, truncated word stem (or stems), called abbreviations. Compression is the formation of compound words on the basis of word-combinations and sentances by decreasing the level of components of an initial word-combination or sentence.

In English word formation there are also minor types of word building. They include blending, redublication, clipping, sound intherchange, distinctive stress, back-formation and others.

Clipping consists in the reduction of a word in one of its parts. There are three types of clipping; back clipping or apocopation is the most common type, in which the beginning is retained. The unclipped original may be either a simple or a composite. Fore-clipping or aphaeresis retains the final part. In middle clipping or syncope, the middle of the word is retained. Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound often remains intact. Accepted by the speakers of the language clipping can acquire grammatical catigories (used in plural forms).

Back-formation refers to the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely a new word) by removing actual or supposed affixes.

formation language development word

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