WORD FORMATION: COMPOUNDING

AND OTHER SOURCES OF NEW

VOCABULARY
English vocabulary is not a stable, finite collection of words. New words
and expressions are continuously coming into use, while older ones drop out of
use. Additionally, old words often take on new meanings (e.g. mouse, virus,
window in computing), and older meanings can simply die out (e.g. the original
meaning of computer was a person whose job was to make calculations or do
accounts). Words are very rarely invented entirely from scratch. (One example of
a completely made-up word is blurb).
Specialised texts of any sort, whether written or spoken, exhibit various
characteristic lexical features. Knowing the types of words you can find in them
as well as the basic rules to form such words can achieve a better understanding of
technical texts.
According to their lexical features, that is, their morphological and
semantic features, in technical English, besides those words that have the same
use as in general English, there are other terms with specific technical or scientific
uses. So in the technical English of computing texts, we find technical words,
semi-technical words, and acronyms.
Technical words are those terms created in order to define or describe
aspects, concepts, ideas, parts or mechanisms that are exclusive for the technical
material itself and are not usually used out of this context. In computing, like in
other technical disciplines, there are two types of technical words:
General technical words, i.e., those basic words common in the computer
science in general. They are words like hardware, software, operating system,
peripheral, I/O, compiler, text editor, algorithm, buffer, file, etc.
Specific technical words, i.e., those corresponding exclusively to each branch
of computing. Thus, we have specific words for operating systems, for
programming, for word-processing, for graphics applications, for databases,
for spreadsheets, for designing.
Semi-technical words are those words of general English, mainly nouns
and verbs, which can acquire a technical meaning suitable for each discipline
depending on the scientific or technical field where they are used. The problem
existing at the time of understanding these words is that their use often co-lives
with their general use. An example of semi-technical word is array. In the
following examples we can contrast its technical use and its general use, both in
technical contexts:
The elements stored in an array are identified by giving the position that
the element occupies in the array.
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Mainframes, or supercomputers, have a large array of very complex

instructions that are executed at a tremendous speed.
Other examples of semi-technical words are: board, drive, driver, tree,
queue, key, pipe, branch, leaf, father, son, enable, disable, reflect, run,, interpreter,
yield, manage, etc.

SOURCES OF NEW VOCABULARY

ACRONYMS.
An acronym is an abbreviation in which a sequence of letters is
pronounced as a word, e.g. AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) or
laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters (or larger parts) of two
or more words usually, but not always, capitalized. New acronyms are freely
produced, particularly for names of organizations. An acronym is pronounced as a
word if the consonants and vowels line up in such a way as to make this possible,
otherwise it is pronounced as a string of letter names.
Acronyms
alphabetisms:

pronounced

as

sequences

of

letters

can

be

called

(a) The letters represent full words: C.O.D. ~ cash on delivery, UN ~ the
United Nations
(b) The letters represent elements in a compound or just parts of a word: TV ~
television, GHQ ~ General Headquarters
We can say without being mistaken that alphabetisms and acronyms are
also part of the technical vocabulary itself, especially in computing, where the
profusion of these terms has got generalized in manuals, instruction guides,
technical articles, etc. For the computing student or professional it is
indispensable the understanding and handling of alphabetisms and acronyms,
many of them already lexicalized.
Acronym examples:
LIFO or lifo = Last-in-first-out
ALGOL = Algorithmic Language
FORTRAN = Formula Translation
bit = binary digit
Alphabetism examples:
OCR = Optical Character Recognition
DTP = Desk Top Publishing
ACM = Association for Computing Machinery
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The following example, extracted from the technical journal BYTE, is a

technical description of a CD-ROM reader:
I tested the Pioneer drive on a Mac Iifx and a 33 Mhz 486 EISA machine
with an Adaptec 1742 EISA SCSI controller and an internal Sony CDU-541 CDROM drive.

BACKFORMATION.
Backformation is what happens when an affix is removed to form a shorter
and apparently more basic word which, however, did not previously exist. In most
cases, backformation involves creating new verbs from existing nouns:
Examples: editor > edit (the new verb, to edit, is formed from the noun editor
by removing the or suffix), babysitter > babysit, enthusiasm > enthuse. The
word editor, for example, is some 150 years olden than edit.
This differs from clipping in that, in clipping, some phonological part of
the word which is not interpretable as an affix or word is cut off (e.g. the essor of
professor is not a suffix or word; nor is the ther of brother. In backformation, the
bit chopped off is a recognizable affix or word (ham in hamburger, -ion in selfdestruction). Backformation is the result of a false but plausible morphological
analysis of the word; clipping is a strictly phonological process that is used to
make the word shorter. Clipping is based on syllable structure, not morphological
analysis. It is impossible for you to recognize backformed words or come up with
examples from your own knowledge of English, unless you already know the
history of the word.

BLENDING.
A blend is a combination of parts of two words, usually the beginning of
one and the end of another, e.g. glocalization (global + localization), guesstimate
(guess + estimate), netiquette (net + etiquette).
In a blend at least one of the elements is fragmentary when compared with
its corresponding uncompounded word form. For example brunch is derived from
br(eakfast) + (l)unch. Many blends have only a short life and are very informal,
but some have become more or less fully accepted in the language: motel from
motor + hotel, smog from smoke + fog, transistor from transfer + resistor.

BORROWING.
Many English words are loanwords from other languages, such as
paparazzi (Italian), and tsunami (Japanese). Many are so familiar that we no
longer think of them as borrowings, e.g. bungalow (Hindi), ombudsman
(Swedish).
There is also a special type of borrowing called calque or loan
translation. Here there is a direct translation of the elements that a term consists
of in the source language into the target language. For example the English word
worldview is thought to be the calque of the German Weltanschauung, and
antibody calques German Antikrper.
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CLIPPING.
In clipping, the beginning or ending of a word is cut off, e.g. demo
(demonstration), goss (gossip).
The term clipping denotes the subtraction of one or more syllables from a
word. The shortening may occur at
(a) the beginning of the word: phone ~ telephone
(b) the end of the word (more commonly): photo ~ photograph
(c) at both ends of the word (rare): flu ~ influenza
The clipped form tends to be used especially in informal style.

COINAGE.
Coinage is the creation of a totally new word. The word formation process
is not frequent; however, large corporations attempt to outdo one another to invent
short eye-catching names for their products.
In the adoption of brand names as common words, a brand name becomes
the name for the item or process associated with the brand name. The word ceases
to be capitalized and acts as a normal verb/noun (i.e. takes inflections such as
plural or past tense). The companies using the names usually have copyrighted
them and object to their use in public documents, so they should be avoided in
formal writing. Examples: xerox, kleenex, band-aid, kitty litter.
Sometimes the products that the companies want to sell simply take over
the name of the creator or inventor. In such case the new word is called an
eponym. Some well-known eponyms include sandwich, or hoover. They are very
frequently used in science where units of measurement are named after people,
like hertz, volt, (degree) Celsius.

CONVERSION.
Conversion is the process of changing the grammatical class of a word
without changing its form. Conversion of nouns to verbs is particularly common
in English, e.g. to word a message carefully. More recently, nouns such as
Google, email, text, and Skype are also being used as verbs.

ONOMATOPOEIA.
Words are invented with (to native speakers at least) sound like the sound
they name or the entity which produces the sound. Examples: hiss, sizzle, cuckoo,
cock-a-doodle-doo, buzz, beep, ding-dong.

REDUPLICATIVES.
Some compounds have two or more elements which are either identical or
only slightly different; e.g.: goody-goody (affectedly good, informal). The
difference between the two elements may be in the initial consonants, as in
walkie-talkie, or in the medial vowels, e.g.: criss-crosss. Most of the reduplicatives
are highly informal or familiar, and many derive from the nursery, e.g.: din-dins
(diner). The most common uses of reduplicatives are
(a) to imitate sounds: tick-tock (of clock)
(b) to suggest alternating movements: seesaw
(c) to disparage by suggesting instability, nonsense, insincerity, vacillation, etc.:
higgledy-piggledy, wishy-washy
(d) to intensify: tip-top

RESPELLING.
Respellings often represent the way we pronounce certain words in
informal situations, e.g. gonna (going to), pix (pics, pictures), sleb (celebrity).
Sometimes, they develop different meanings from the original versions: for
example, the word wannabe is a respelling of the phrase want to be, but it is used
as a noun meaning someone who wants to be famous or successful.

STRESS SHIFT.
No affix is added to the base, but the stress is shifted from one syllable to
the other. With the stress shift comes a change in category.
Noun

Verb

Noun

Adjective

cmbine

combne

cncrete

concrte

mplant

implnt

bstract

abstrct

rwrite

rewrte

trnsport

transprt

COMPOUNDING
Compounds are formed by combining two, or sometimes three or more,
existing words. For example, flower-pot is a compound made of two words:
flower and pot, but it does not denote two things, it refers to one object. There is
often a clear connection between the meaning of a compound and the meanings of
7

the original words, so that examining the construction of a compound will often
help you to understand its meaning. Some compounds are written as single words
(basketball, mailbox); some as a series of separate words (big business, point of
view); and some with hyphens (fifty-fifty, laid-back).
There is no formal criterion that can be used for a general definition of
compounds in English. Many compounds have obvious meanings: a computer
game is a game played on a computer. Others have less obvious meanings: heavy
metal is a type of rock music, and a soap opera is a TV series about the lives of a
fictional group of characters.
Compound nouns are used very frequently in technical or scientific
writing. The language of computing in English contains an ever-increasing
number of compound nouns, that is, a group of two or more nouns with act as a
single noun, such as space shuttle or air conditioner. In a compound noun the last
noun is usually more important. The other words act as adjectives and, therefore,
always come in the singular. For example, a car key is a type of key, a pressure
gauge is a gauge used to measure pressure.
Notice that when a noun is modified by an adjective and another noun, the
adjective always comes first. For example, we say a used machine tool.
It is important to be able to recognize how such compounds are formed in
order to understand what they mean.
The exact relationship between the words depends on the particular
expression, but all these expressions have one thing in common: the last word in
the chain says what the thing is, while the preceding word or group of words
describes the thing. So when we read compound nouns, we have to start with the
last word and work backwards.
Examples:

An address bus is a bus dedicated to address information.

The memory capacity of a computer is the capacity of its memory.

Compound nouns can express a large number of possible meanings. For

instance, the first noun or group of nouns can tell us what the second noun is
made of, what it is for, or what it is part of.
1. Material: the first noun tells us what the second consists of.
a silicon chip (a chip made of silicon)
a ferrite ring (a ring made of ferrite)
2. Function: the first noun tells us what the second noun is for.
an address bus (a bus dedicated to address information)
an input device (a device for inputting)
an arithmetic unit (a unit which performs arithmetic functions)
3. Part: the second noun refers to a part of the first noun.
a computer keyboard (the keyboard of a computer)
a monitor screen (the screen of a monitor)
a program feature (a feature of a program)

4. Activity or person: the second noun refers to an activity or person related to

the first noun.
computer programming (the programming of computers)
a computer programmer (a person who programs computers)
systems analysis (the analysis of organizational systems)
a systems analyst (a person who analyses organizational systems)
5. Multiple nouns: Sometimes a compound noun will join together with one or
more other nouns to give an expression that has three or four words. In such
cases, it is important to examine the expression very carefully to break it into
its constituent parts. The secret, as always, is to read the expression from the
back towards the front.
4

a document-image-processing program (a program which processes

images of documents)
Note: Some expressions are written separately, while others are joined by
hyphens. There are no clear rules for this. Sometimes you will see the same
expression written in different ways in different texts.
document-image-processing program
document image-processing program
document image processing program
However, it is important to be consistent within a single text.

PHRASAL VERBS, PHRASAL NOUNS AND PHRASAL

ADJECTIVES
The process of combining verbs with particles (words like up, down, and
out) produces innumerable new verbs, of two basic types:
verb + particle combinations, written as separate words, such as come over,
keep up, live up to, plough ahead. These are usually referred to as phrasal
verbs.
particle + verb combinations, written as one word, such as offload, overcome,
uphold, withstand.
Many verbs formed in these ways also have corresponding nouns and
adjectives, such as:
Nouns:

back-up
handover
overhang

breakdown
onset
break-in

income
run-through
makeover

Adjectives:

downcast
built-in

broken-down
overhanging

inbuilt
hung-over

Often, the meanings of these composite forms are easy to guess. In some
cases, the basic meaning of the original verb is extended in various ways:
Ive been running (a)round all day (= Ive been busy doing lots of different
things).
The play was a runaway success (= a much bigger, more immediate success than
was expected).
Ill just run down the list (= quickly read everything on the list) and see if weve
forgotten anything.
Time is running out (= there isnt much time left).
In other cases, the particle has a meaning that appears in many composite
verbs of this type, so that we gradually learn its meaning. For example, some of
the meanings of out are connected with:
becoming known; discovering or understanding something: figure out, slip
out.
removing things, especially so that nothing is left: edit out, weed out.
ending or disappearing: burn out, fade out.
being superior in some way: outnumber, outwit.
The particles out, up, and down are particularly common in words that
have appeared recently.
Examples:
talk up (= talk about something or someone in a way that makes them seem more
important or better than they really are).
upload (= send documents or programs from a computer to a larger system using
the Internet).
dumb down (= make something simpler or easier to understand, in such a way that
reduces its quality).
There are also numerous combinations of particles + verb/noun/adjective
that are of Greco-Latin origin. If you learn the meanings of some of the common
elements they are composed of, it will often help you to understand the meanings
of the composite words.
Example: the common element cur or cour comes from the Latin verb currere
(meaning to run) and it appears in words such as:
concourse, concur, concurrent (con = together)
excursion (ex = out)
incursion (in = in)
precursor (pre = before)

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recourse, recur (re = back, again)

The same element appears in numerous other English words, such as
corridor, courier, course, currency, current, curriculum, cursor and others. If you
know that con means together and fluence/fluent means flow, it will help you to
remember that the confluence of two rivers is the place where they flow into one
another, and that confluence can also be used to mean a situation in which two or
more things come together.
If you know that re means back and tract means pull, it will help you to
remember that when a cat retracts its claws, it pulls them back towards itself, or
that when someone retracts something they previously said or wrote, they take it
back and say that it is not true after all.
You will still come across words whose meaning is not easy to guess just
from looking at their components. You will also hear and read vocabulary items
that are not listed in dictionaries because they are only invented to fit a particular
situation. But if you are familiar with the processes of word building described
above, and with the commonest meanings of the wordbuilding elements used in
English, it will help you to understand a large number of unfamiliar words, and to
realize that English vocabulary is more systematic than it sometimes appears.

EXERCISES
1. Identify the type of word formation.
1.

information, commercials Informercials

2.

babysitter babysit
11

3.

a catalogue to catalogue

4.

drama + comedy dramedy

5.

game + pad gamepad

6.

Greek + god Greek god

2. Identify the process of word formation responsible for each of

the following words. Consult a dictionary only if necessary.
1. curio
2. (to) laze
3. (to) network
4. (to) cohere
5. (a) sitcom
6. (the) muppets
7. (a) what-not
8. margarine
9. dystopia
10. serendipity
11. diesel
12. (a) ha-ha
13. (to) make up
14. (to) total
15. (the) hereafter
16. amphetamine
17. (a) construct
18. (the) chunnel
19. guestimate
20. canary
21. brain-gain
22. boojum
23. gaffe-slack
24. psycho
25. walkie-talkie
26. bonfire

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3. Translate the following Latin based abbreviations and

acronyms into English, then write what they stand for:
e.g. EUA Estados Unidos de Amrica =
the USA - The United States of America
CEE
COI
IVA
OIT
OMS
ONG
ONU
OPEP
OTAN
PIB

4. What do the following letters stand for?

ESPN
FTP
NASCAR
MODEM
DNA
USB
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HSBC
SAP
RAM
DRAM
SRAM
DVD
GEICO
NASDAQ
FAFSA
IP
CNN
MSNBC
ISO
NASA
NBC
CGI
IBM
KITT
CC
BCC
MC
IRA
CVS
HIV
LEED
BMW
AMEX
SAG
UNICEF
SEO

5. Join the words on the left to the words on the right so as to

form compounds.
1. phone

A. way

14

2. draw

B. line

3. work

C. work

4. pass

D. back

5. up

E. wave

6. gate

F. bench

7. band

G. grade

8. down

H. width

9. air

I. word

10. net

J. load

6. What brand name is commonly used for...

1. ...a cola beverage?
2. ...a fruit-flavoured gelatine dessert?
3. ...an adhesive bandage for small cuts and scrapes?
4. ...a spa or a whirlpool bath?
5. ...a big metal outdoor container for dumping garbage?
6. ...an absorbent material used in a cat's litter box?
7. ...a tissue for blowing your nose on?
8. ...piped-in music heard in many stores and elevators?
9. ...clear plastic sticky tape on a roll?
10. ...a photocopy or to photocopy?

7. Match each word from Column A with its partner from

Column B to make a computing term.
Column A

Column B

1. barcode

a. tray

2. mainframe b. program
3. laser

c. bus
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4. expansion

d. pane

5. search

e. computer

6. control

f. reader

7. supervisor

g. bar

8. task

h. card

9. system

i. engine

10. explorer

j. printer

8. Up- and up verbs. Complete each gap in these sentences with

the appropriate form of the correct verb form this list.
back up

build up

catch up

free up

keep up

set up

start up

update

upgrade

upload

1. To avoid losing data, you should _______________ your files regularly.

2. You can _______________ your PC by adding a new motherboard.
3. Delete some files to _______________ space on your hard disk.
4. Data is _______________ from regional PCs to the companys mainframe each
night.
5. The operating system boots when you _______________ your computer.
6. Shes taking a course to _______________ her knowledge of computing.
7. The computer checks the memory when it _______________.
8. He _______________ a website to advertise his travel company.
9. You can _______________ with developments by reading PC magazines.
10. If you miss a class, you can study the hand-outs to _______________.
11. The image in a digital camera is _______________ from a red, green and blue
image.

9. The SMS language. Write this dialogue in correct complete

English.
A: Hi jim, how r u? tnks 4 da msg 4 my birthday!

16

B: Ur welcom, Wanna C U ASAP 4 a drink

A: Prhps on Sat. in the evening, we cld go to da pict.

B: ok Gr8 but I gotta BRB b4 noon cos I C my grandma 4 Lunch on Sun.

A: Its ok C U on Sat. 8 PM at home.

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