http://www.slideshare.net/AlvinVargas/structure-of-words-morphemes
Morphology is the study of word forms and the processes by which words are formed (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 502).
Morphemes are made from sequences of phonemes and are the smallest units of language that have meaning
(Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 99).
Open-class morphemes can add new members which can change form depending on the grammar of the sentences, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 102).
Closed-class morphemes do not usually add new members, remain stable, and appear the same no matter how they are used in a sentence, such as conjunctions and prepositions (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 101).
Morphemes can also be bound or free. Free morphemes can stand alone as one word, or can combine with other morphemes to make new words. Example: word to wordiness Bound morphemes do not combine with other morphemes to form new words (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 104).
Bound morphemes can be further subdivided into two additional categories: inflectional and derivational. There are very few inflectional morphemes in English today. They are always suffixes. Example: stinkiest Inflectional morphemes never change the part of speech of the root word (Curzan & Adams 2012, pp. 105-107). Derivational morphemes however, often change the part of speech or meaning of the root word, and they can be prefixes or suffixes. Example: The noun nerd becomes the adjective nerdy with the addition of the suffix y.
Affixes are elements of words joined to base or root words.
Prefixes come before the root word. Example: a- amoral, dis - in disappear, un in uncool
Suffixes come after the root word. Example: -age in breakage, - ness in kindness, - y in cheesy (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.108)
In English words are formed by the combination of morphemes by the following ways:
Acronymy is when "...groups of words are shorted to initials and then pronounced as
though the initials were merely letters in a typical word"(Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.112).
Examples: RAM: Random Access Memory, ROM: Read Only Memory, radar: radio detection ranging, scuba: self contained underwater breathing apparatus, and AIDS: Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome) (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp.112- 113)
Clipping occurs when a word loses an element. Some words are foreclipped such as net (from Internet) server (originally from file server), and scanner (originally from optical scanner (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 11).
Backformation is when "...a new word is formed by removing an affix". Examples: couth from uncouth and defrag from defragmentation (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp. 113-114)
Morphemes are made from sequences of phonemes and are the smallest units of language that have meaning
(Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 99).
Open-class morphemes can add new members which can change form depending on the grammar of the sentences, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 102).
Closed-class morphemes do not usually add new members, remain stable, and appear the same no matter how they are used in a sentence, such as conjunctions and prepositions (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 101).
Morphemes can also be bound or free. Free morphemes can stand alone as one word, or can combine with other morphemes to make new words. Example: word to wordiness Bound morphemes do not combine with other morphemes to form new words (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 104).
Bound morphemes can be further subdivided into two additional categories: inflectional and derivational. There are very few inflectional morphemes in English today. They are always suffixes. Example: stinkiest Inflectional morphemes never change the part of speech of the root word (Curzan & Adams 2012, pp. 105-107). Derivational morphemes however, often change the part of speech or meaning of the root word, and they can be prefixes or suffixes. Example: The noun nerd becomes the adjective nerdy with the addition of the suffix y.
Affixes are elements of words joined to base or root words.
Prefixes come before the root word. Example: a- amoral, dis - in disappear, un in uncool
Suffixes come after the root word. Example: -age in breakage, - ness in kindness, - y in cheesy (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.108)
In English words are formed by the combination of morphemes by the following ways:
- Combining - combining two morphemes into compound words Examples: seaman and blackboard In a compound word the first part of the word will be stressed. The computer age has influenced many new compound words such as chatroom, doubleclick, and username (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 111).
- Shortening - by alaphabetism, acronymy, clipping, or backformation such as couth from uncouth (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp. 112-113)
Acronymy is when "...groups of words are shorted to initials and then pronounced as
though the initials were merely letters in a typical word"(Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.112).
Examples: RAM: Random Access Memory, ROM: Read Only Memory, radar: radio detection ranging, scuba: self contained underwater breathing apparatus, and AIDS: Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome) (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp.112- 113)
Clipping occurs when a word loses an element. Some words are foreclipped such as net (from Internet) server (originally from file server), and scanner (originally from optical scanner (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 11).
Backformation is when "...a new word is formed by removing an affix". Examples: couth from uncouth and defrag from defragmentation (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp. 113-114)
- Functional shift - when a word moves from one part of speech to another part of speech Example: email (noun) becomes email (verb) (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 115)
- Reanalysis - creating a new word by redistributing sounds within the word. Such words are also referred to as eggcorns. An eggcorn is a phonetic reinterpretation of a word. Other eggcorns used in English are duck tape, instead of duct tape, and hone in, instead of home in. Here is a link which contains many eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 116).
- Reduplication - when a word is created by repeating the morpheme Example: knock-knock Some change the second consonant to form rhyming words like hocus - pocus. Others change the vowels. Example: knick-knack (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.117)
- Borrowing is the process by which English borrows words from other languages (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 118). Examples are shown in the table below:
(Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp. 118-119)
It is fascinating how words change for all kinds of reasons: changes in society, changes with inventions, social media, necessities, creativity, marketing, etc. Slang is a type of playful, informal language, using "... figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms..."(Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 120). It is sometimes used for rebellious reasons. "Slang is often dismissed as 'loose' or 'bad' language, but in fact, in slang we find morphological processes at their most active. Slang works because we share all the morphological processes that create it, even if we don't all share the slang words themselves" (Curzan & Adams, 2012, pp. 121). Slang can be a quicker way of saying something (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 121).
Employees in the workplace sometimes need slang to communicate with each other to make things flow well. Slang is often used between restaurant employees during their shifts. Some of the slang words used in restaurants have gone through morphological changes by blending or clipping. Here is a list of restaurant employee slang words:
Slang words can be nonce words. "Speakers of English invent new words frequently. They may do so because there is no word to express an idea (i.e. they perceive a lexical gap and fill it), because they don't know or can't remember an already existing word to express the idea, or because, for reasons of style or whim they prefer to make up a word. Sometimes a newly created word is a nonce word - that is, a word created only once, for a specific purpose in a specific context" (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 110).
Two-top was formed by blending the two morphemes two and top. Top was foreclipped from tabletop and blending requires that one of the words has been clipped.
The history of the restaurant term 86 is very interesting. Wikipedia says that after WWII when parts from "mothballed" ships were being thrown away, the naval supply clerks would code parts to be thrown away as AT-6 which sounded like 86, and meant to be thrown away. AT was an acronym for Allowance Type coding system
(Wikipedia, 2015, 2, 9, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term) ). The term 86 must be an eggcorn because AT-6 sounds like 86 (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 116). In restaurants today, to say "86 something" means to throw it away, that it cannot be served or they are out of stock of the item. The origin of 86 from AT-6 must fall under both alphabetism (initalism) and acronymy because the word was formed from an acronym (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.112).
Employees in the workplace sometimes need slang to communicate with each other to make things flow well. Slang is often used between restaurant employees during their shifts. Some of the slang words used in restaurants have gone through morphological changes by blending or clipping. Here is a list of restaurant employee slang words:
- 86 a food item - out of a food item or we cannot serve it.
- It’s down - the food item is being cooked
- two-top - a table that seats two people, or two people seated
- on the fly – needs to be cooked right away
- recook (as a noun) - item that is cooked again
- set-up - toppings on a burger
- all-day - immediately
- menu-count or open menus - number who are seated that have not ordered
- weeded, or in the weeds - overwhelmed, "He is in the weeds."
Slang words can be nonce words. "Speakers of English invent new words frequently. They may do so because there is no word to express an idea (i.e. they perceive a lexical gap and fill it), because they don't know or can't remember an already existing word to express the idea, or because, for reasons of style or whim they prefer to make up a word. Sometimes a newly created word is a nonce word - that is, a word created only once, for a specific purpose in a specific context" (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 110).
Two-top was formed by blending the two morphemes two and top. Top was foreclipped from tabletop and blending requires that one of the words has been clipped.
The history of the restaurant term 86 is very interesting. Wikipedia says that after WWII when parts from "mothballed" ships were being thrown away, the naval supply clerks would code parts to be thrown away as AT-6 which sounded like 86, and meant to be thrown away. AT was an acronym for Allowance Type coding system
(Wikipedia, 2015, 2, 9, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term) ). The term 86 must be an eggcorn because AT-6 sounds like 86 (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p. 116). In restaurants today, to say "86 something" means to throw it away, that it cannot be served or they are out of stock of the item. The origin of 86 from AT-6 must fall under both alphabetism (initalism) and acronymy because the word was formed from an acronym (Curzan & Adams, 2012, p.112).
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