Derivation
Derivation refers to the process of forming new words by adding affixes, such as prefixes or suffixes, to a base or root word. This process often changes the grammatical category or meaning of the original word. In linguistics, derivation plays a crucial role in word formation and expanding the vocabulary of a language.
7 Key excerpts on "Derivation"
eBook - ePub- R.L. Trask, Peter Stockwell(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Derivation Constructing new words by adding affixes to existing words. In most languages, Derivation is one of the principal ways of obtaining new words from existing words, and its study is one of the major branches of morphology. The key point is to distinguish Derivation from inflection. When we add certain affixes to a lemma like write, producing forms like writes, writing and written (and also, in a more complex manner, wrote), we do not get any new words, but only grammatically distinct forms of the same word: this is inflection. You wouldn't expect to find different dictionary entries for all these forms: there would just be the one entry for all of them, under write. However, other affixes produce genuinely different words, such as rewrite, underwrite and writer, and these are examples of Derivation. This time you would expect to find separate dictionary entries for these words, though a small dictionary might not bother with rewrite, since its meaning is so obvious. Like many languages, English is rich in both Derivational prefixes and Derivational suffixes. Examples of the first are re-, anti-, syn-, counter-, non-, un-, trans-, pre- and mis-. Examples of the second are -ness, -ity, -less, -wise, -ize, -dom, -ly (two different ones), -er and -(at)ion. Multiple affixes are possible, though normally there are strict rules governing the order in which affixes may be added. Starting from happy, we can derive first unhappy and then unhappiness. Starting with derive, we can obtain first Derivation, then Derivational, and finally the very obscure technical term in linguistics transDerivational. Starting with exist, we can successively derive existent, existence, existential and existentialism. In every case, at every stage, the result is a new word which deserves its own entry in the dictionary. In transformational grammar, the complete set of stages linking the deep structure of a sentence to its surface structure is also called Derivation...
eBook - ePubApplying Linguistics in the Classroom
A Sociocultural Approach
- Aria Razfar, Joseph C. Rumenapp(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...This frequently happens when a verb or adjective is changed into a noun. We will study the implications of “nominalization” in a later chapter, because it can have severe social repercussions, but for example here, take the word “populate.” As a verb it is rarely used. Perhaps in video games like SimCity, ecology, urban planning, and so forth one may talk about populating the environment. However, in common usage, populate isn’t really frequent. “Population,” however, is a very frequently occurring word. We talk about the population of a country, a city, or a classroom, but we changed it into a noun by adding “-tion.” Furthermore, there is “populace,” a different noun. They have different meanings, but they been derived from the same root word. In contrast to a root, the “stem” is a word that has Derivational affixes, but has not yet been inflected. So a word like “reactionary” is made up of a root word and Derivational affixes, but is still considered a stem. Derivation is an effective process, changing words into different words. In traditional English schooling, prefixes and suffixes are more or less taught in the same way. However, as we have seen, inflection and Derivation are two distinct processes, and their implications can be significant for both language learning and for language analysis. It is also important that we are careful not to limit our concept of “word” to those which are written on paper. Even in sign languages the signs have inflections and Derivations. Changing a sign may add important information, grammatical or lexical, to the sign. Analyzing Morphological Structure There are many ways to study morphology. We will provide one way that may be useful, namely by creating a morphological chart (Table 6.1). Charts like this can be used to explain how morphemes are combined in words...
eBook - ePubSign Languages
Structures and Contexts
- Joseph Hill, Diane Lillo-Martin, Sandra Wood(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In addition to inflectional and Derivational morphology, word formation is a component of morphology. Word formation encompasses the various ways that new words are added to a language. We will discuss sign language examples of each of these types of morphology in reverse order in the subsequent sections. 3.2 Word formation New words constantly enter the vocabulary of a language, and other words may decline in usage. Words also change their meaning over time. All of these are natural processes of language, and not the “corruption” of a language by “kids these days” as often bemoaned. There are a number of processes that are used by languages when they need new words. Oftentimes, the existing words are used in a new way. Sometimes a word is used by itself with a new meaning, such as “mouse” to refer to a computer’s pointing device. At other times, words combine into new, compound words. Compounds in English include “blackboard,” “low-fat,” and “motion sensor” (note that spelling might be with a space, hyphen, or no space – spelling is not a good indication of compound status). Words can also be borrowed from another language; when this happens, they are generally pronounced in such a way as to fit the language they are borrowed into, such as when the original language form includes sounds that the borrowing language doesn’t have. An example is the word “champagne,” borrowed from French, which is pronounced in English with different vowels from those used in French, and a different final n-sound. Frequently, the association between a word and its meaning is completely arbitrary, such as the fact that “cat” refers to domesticated felines in English. When new words enter a language, they may also be arbitrary, but they are also frequently motivated in some way, either by a kind of iconicity or by rules of word formation...
eBook - ePub- José Ignacio Hualde, Antxon Olarrea, Erin O'Rourke, José Ignacio Hualde, Antxon Olarrea, Erin O'Rourke(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...11 Derivation and Compounding SOLEDAD VARELA 1 Derivation: types, suffixation, prefixation 1.1 Types of Derivation In the word-formation process known as Derivation, we can distinguish between: (a) affixal Derivation in which there is addition of affixes to a lexeme (in-constante ‘inconstant,’ transporta-ble ‘transportable’); and (b) nonaffixal Derivation or back-formation based on the elimination of some morphological part of the lexeme (retén ‘stop, checkpoint’ from retener ‘to retain’). Akin to this second procedure are the so-called thematic or postverbal forms in which a verb lexeme is converted into a noun just by adding an unstressed vowel to the root. This final vowel may coincide with the theme vowel of the verb, as in guard-a-r ‘to guard’ > guard-a ‘guard,’ although most times the derived noun shows up with a different vowel: atrac-a-r ‘to attack’ > atrac-o ‘robbery’; empuj-a-r ‘to push’ > empuj-e ‘pressure.’ In some cases the same verbal root admits any of the three vowels: costar ‘to cost’ > cost- e, cost- o, cost- a (s) ‘cost.’ 1 In all Spanish dialects, word formation by means of affixation is prevalent. 1.2 Suffixation: categorial and semantic selection Lexical Derivation through suffixation is the most productive, general, and varied of Spanish word-formation procedures. Spanish has a large number of suffixes with variable meanings, and all the main lexical categories (V, N, A) accept this type of Derivation. Moreover, resource-to-suffixation is common to all language varieties – technical and scientific, legal and administrative, as well as literary – and to all registers or levels of formality, and suffixed words appear pervasively both in speech and writing. In the suffixation process, the “word marker” of the base noun is always suppressed. Word markers are morphological segments which are specifically associated with nominal Derivation...
eBook - ePubLinguistics for Language Teachers
Lessons for Classroom Practice
- Sunny Park-Johnson, Sarah J. Shin(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In English, loan words include terms that refer to foods (smorgasbord, wok, satay), popular culture (paparazzi, karaoke, bikini), and politics (apartheid, realpolitik, pogrom). As people from different cultures come into contact with one another, more and more words get added to the lexicon through borrowing. In addition, newly coined computer-related terms (download, hyperlink, RAM, realtime) also belong to the category of open class, as do existing words that have taken on additional meanings in online contexts (friend, unfriend, ping). Function morphemes, on the other hand, provide information about the grammatical relationships between words in a sentence (e.g., articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns). Function morphemes constitute a closed class, a lexical category in which members are fairly rigidly established and additions are made very rarely. The right column in Table 4.1 shows that bound morphemes can also be further divided into Derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the meaning or the part of speech of the word. Derivational morphemes in English are content morphemes and include both prefixes and suffixes. Table 4.2 provides some additional examples of Derivational morphemes in English. Derivational morphemes have the following properties: a) Change the part of speech and/or the meaning of a word (e.g., -ment in statement, re- in rewrite). b) Are not required by syntax (e.g., The use of un- in unhappy changes the meaning of the sentence He is unhappy but is not required to make the sentence grammatical). c) Are selective about what they can combine with (e.g., we can add -hood to brother to get brotherhood, but we cannot add -hood to friend to get * friendhood)...
eBook - ePub- Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...And we distinguish one language variety from another not only by their different phonological rules (accents), but also by their different morphological rules and lexicons, or vocabularies. Morphological rules also change over time, and morphological change is an important area of study in historical linguistics. Understanding word structure is important for lexicographers (dictionary-makers) who not only catalog new words that come into the language but who study etymology, or the origins of words; for foreign language teaching; for product naming. Knowledge of morphology is also essential for literacy education, and words and their structure are fundamental in writing, from poetry to technical writing. References Davis, H., & Matthewson, L. (1999). On the functional determination of lexical categories. Revue québécoise de linguistique, 27, 30–69. Dixon, R.M.W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Van Eijk, J.P., & Hess, T. (1986). Noun and verb in Salish. Lingua, 69 (4), 319–331. Hess, T., & Hilbert, V. (1995). Lushootseed grammar book 1: The language of the Skagit, Nisqually, and other tribes of Puget Sound. Seattle, WA: Lushootseed Press. Mithun, M. (1999) The languages of Native North America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rickford, J.R. (1999) African American Vernacular English. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Young, R., & Morgan, W. (1987) The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press....
eBook - ePub- Mark Aronoff, Kirsten Fudeman(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...With the exception of the circumfixal subject marker, the relationship between meaning and form is one to one: the meaning of the word as a whole is the sum of its parts. Linguists refer to this type of morphology as agglutinative. One characteristic of agglutinative morphology, identified by Horne (1966), is that affixation is not obligatory. We see this in Kujamaat Jóola in that a bare root is used for the positive imperative: (2) ri ‘eat!’ ‘come!’ tεk ‘hit!’ The order of morphemes in any language is typically fairly rigid, and Kujamaat Jóola is no exception. The following diagram schematizes the basic structure of the verb. At its core is the lexical stem, which may be simple or derived. The stem is followed by what Sapir refers to as position 1 suffixes, including aspectual, modal, and negative markers, as well as a Derivational directional suffix and the second members of the past subordinate and first person plural inclusive circumfixes. Position 1 suffixes are followed by the position 2 suffixes: the passive marker, object pronominals (direct, indirect, or both), and noun emphasis marker. Finally, the third position is filled by verb reduplication and the simple subordinate marker. Immediately preceding the verb stem are the subject markers and relative pronouns (position 1 prefixes); the leftmost position (position 2) is filled by the resultative, the resultativenegative, the negative imperative, and the past subordinate markers. Many of these terms are probably new to you. They will become more familiar over the course of this and the next chapter. [Exercise 11] The stem Some examples of Kujamaat Jóola roots are given below: (3) tεy ‘run’ Juk ‘see’ manj ‘know’ ‘ask’ Inflectional affixes may attach to a root, or the root can be extended by the addition of Derivational affixes. The root plus Derivational affixes is called a stem. You have already encountered one verbal Derivation suffix in chapter 3, - u ‘from’...
