Product Code Database
Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism via morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of associated with the corresponding root word.Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth Edition, Blackwell Publishers, 2008. James Murray coined the term back-formation in 1889. ( Oxford English Dictionary Online preserves its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in the definition of to burgle; from burglar.)
For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect was then back-formed hundreds of years later from it by removing the -ion suffix. This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect + ion was possible because English language had examples of Latin words in the form of verb and verb+ -ion pairs, such as opine/opinion. These became the pattern for many more such pairs, where a verb derived from a Latin supine stem and a noun ending in ion entered the language together, such as insert/insertion, project/projection, etc.
Back-formation varies from clipping – back-formation may change the word's class or meaning, whereas clipping creates shortened words from longer words but does not change the class or meaning of the word.
Words can sometimes acquire new lexical categories without any derivational change in form (for example, ship (in the nautical sense) was first a noun and later was used as a verb). That process is called conversion or zero-derivation. Like back-formation, it can produce a new noun or a new verb, but it involves no back-forming.
Many words came into English by this route: pease was once a mass noun (as in "pease pudding"), but was reinterpreted as a English plural, leading to the back-formation pea. The noun statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study statistics. In Britain, the verb burgle came into use in the nineteenth century as a back-formation from burglar (which can be compared to the verb burglarize formed by suffixation).
Other examples are
The verb translate is a back-formation from translation, which is from Latin trāns + lāt- + -tio. Lāt- is from the very irregular (suppletive) verb ferō 'to carry.' Trānslāt- in Latin was merely a semi-adjectival form of trānsferō meaning 'something having been carried across into' (cf. transfer). The result of the action trānsferō textum 'to translate a text' was a textus trānslātus 'a text that has been translated.' Thus the verb in English is really from a (semi-)adjectival form in Latin.
Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example, gruntled (from disgruntled) is used only in humorous contexts, as when P. G. Wodehouse wrote, "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled", or the character Turk in the American sitcom Scrubs told another character, "I don't disdain you! It's quite the opposite – I dain you." As it happens, gruntle and dain are both attested much earlier, but not as antonyms of the longer forms.
Back-formations frequently begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example, enthuse (from enthusiasm) is gaining popularity, though today it is still generally considered nonstandard.See "Discussion of enthuse,"
The Latin preposition versus, meaning against, has frequently been mistaken by children and teenagers as the present tense of a verb "to verse." A reference to a school sports competition "the Sharks versus the Jets" might be interpreted as "the Sharks are versing the Jets." While this use of the verb has been reported in North America and Australia since the early 1980s, very few dictionaries have accepted it as standard.
The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb to maffick, meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. "Maffick" is a back-formation from Mafeking, a place-name that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle. There are many other examples of back-formations in the English language.
A butler is often described as "one who buttles," a verb which remains non-standard.
River Alre
The river Alre in Hampshire, was named due to a false assumption that the nearby village New Alresford was named after the river which it was located near. In reality its name comes from the Old English alor. Ekwall, E. (1928) English River-Names. Oxford University Press, p. 9Klingelhöfer, E. C (1992) Manor, vill, and hundred : the development of rural institutions in early medieval Hampshire. Ontario, p. 177
River Chelmer
The River Chelmer in Essex is named after the town of Chelmsford ( Chelmeresford) which is derived from the Saxon personal name Cēolmǣr.
/ref>
River names
Back-formations are frequent amongst river names in the England due to a number of reasons. Place names of Brittonic origin are especially susceptible to Folk Etymology and back-formations due to language and knowledge of the place names dying out with the arrival and settlement of Anglo-Saxon tribes. Frequently river names are derived from nearby settlements with the suffix -ford. Typically because it is assumed that the first half of the name is in reference to the river or stream. Below are some examples of these -ford back-formations.
In other languages
Israeli Hebrew
Back-formation in Israeli Hebrew often violates the prescriptive rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language.See p. 56 in Ghil'ad Zuckermann (2020), , Oxford University Press / . For example:
See also
|
|
