Lexical change Flashcards
Loan word
A word ‘borrowed’ from another language e.g. restaurant from French or Yoghurt from Turkish
A neologism
A new word
A coinage
A word that has been totally made up e.g. blurb or on fleak
Affixation - prefixes
When you add an affix to the front of a word to make a new one e.g. unhappy or prefabricated.
Affixation - suffixes
When you add an affix to the end of a word to make a new one e.g. happiness or farmer.
Conversion
When a new word is formed through a change in word class e.g. to text a text or the green is green
A compound
To form a new word by putting two words together e.g. blackberry or Facebook
A blend
The word formation process in which parts of two or more words combine to create a new word whose meaning is often a combination of the original words e.g. smog or Brangelina.
An eponym
Things named after real or fictitious people e.g. Victoria Falls or sandwiches
Proprietary names
A brand name or trademark e.g. Koday or PowerPoint
Abbreviation
The word formation process in which a word or phrase is shortened e.g. Dr or cm
An initialism
A type of abbreviation formed by the first letters of a word or phrase e.g. BBC or RSVP
An acronym
A type of abbreviation formed by the first letters of a word or phrase but which are pronounced as a word e.g. scuba or PIN
Clipping
The word formation process in which a word is reduced or shortened without changing the meaning of the word. This can be back clipping (maths), fore clipping (gator) or middle clipping (flu)
