ANALYSIS OF BACK-FORMATION
Description of Back-formation
Three views of back-formation are presented in the following paragraphs. Valerie Adams’s treatment of back-formation is given at the beginning and subsequently the summaries of chapters dealing with back-formation in the two most important British grammars are presented, namely that of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Grammar.
Valerie Adams describes backformation as reversed derivation: the more complex word comes first and then some element is subtracted from it, resulting in a pair of words which conforms with a base - derived pattern already existing. Thus the verb to beg is derived from the noun beggar, and this pair corresponds to pairs like write, writer etc. Adams adds that “in some cases as with beggar, a ‘re-interpretation’ of an element in the source word takes place. The ending of beggar is not agentive in origin: the word is most probably descended from beghard or beguin... In other cases, as with compound verbs, a different kind of re-interpretation takes place: we do not ‘mistake’ an element for something which it is not, but we re-analyze the constituent structure of the source word.“ (Adams, 105) Most of the back-formed words which are not compounds are verbs. Nouns ending in –ion frequently give rise to corresponding verbs. Marginally backformation may happen on acronyms as well, especially those which end in –s and are used to denote a singular person, e.g AT, ‘a member of the ATS’ Auxiliary Territorial Service’. As to the stylistic value of back-formations, Adams notes that they are mostly informal.
The definition of backformation found in the CamGEL is as follows: “Backformation is the coining of a new word by taking an existing word and forming from it a morphologically more elementary word.“ (Huddleston & Pullum, 1637) This process is mostly realised by the deletion of an affix. Similarly to Adams, the authours here say that the relationship between a word and another word formed from it by derivation is the same as in the case of back-derivation and its source word.
Verbs created by backformation usually have regular past forms. If there is an existing word of a particular word class from a certain base and a new back-formation of the same word class is formed, then the back-formation has a more restricted meaning and consequently a more limited distribution. As regards the stylistic characteristic of back-formations, the only information in this grammar is that they can be used in a jocular way.
Comprehensive Grammar, similarly to the previous two sources, points out that from synchronic point of view the relationship between a base and its derivative formed by affixation is the same as between a backformation and the the source word. So back-formation is viewed as a type of affixation, or de-affixation. It is a productive type of word-formation, but the new formations tend to be used with some hesitation because there is often a clash with some derivatives formed form the same base. There is also a tendency to regularizations of inflection in verbs.
Description of the Analysis
This paper analyses twenty instances of back-formation as found in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the Ninth and Tenth Editions. The items are analysed morphologically, i.e. in terms of the word class of the source word, the word class of the target word, the kind of affix removed, semantically (the semantic field of the back-formation) and stylistically. In addition to that, data will be provided as to the origin of the source word, the date of its creation or loan and the date of back-formation will be supplemented as well.
Analysis
The most frequent word class of the source words as well as of the target words in the analysed sample was the noun. As regards the source words, 55% were nouns, 35% were adjectives, 5% verbs and 5% adverbs.
Half of the analysed examples of back-formations were nouns, closely followed by verbs (45%) and, finally, one instance of adjective was found.
In 90% of the analysed examples, the deleted affix was a suffix. One example (gruntled) was formed by the deletion of a prefix. One case has been evaluated in the table as ‘Other’: haem is classified as a back-formation from haemoglobin in the Concise Oxford Dictionary but as there is no established, productive suffix –globin, I suggest that this is a case of clipping, rather than back-formation.
As far as the origin of the analysed examples of back-formation is concerned, examples formed in the Middle Ages (10%) as well as Modern English examples were found. 20% of examples originated in the 16the century, 15 % in the 17th century, 25% in the 19th century and 25% of examples were formed in the 20th century. As regards the origin of the source words, 20% of the items originated in the Old English period, 25% of the examples in the Middle English period and the rest were formed during the Modern English period.
An attempt was made to describe the examples in terms of the semantic field which they belong to. Most items (45%) refer to an activity, 25% denote an object, the rest denote a condition, unit or quality.
Stylistically, the analysed examples were mostly neutral (65%), two examples belonged to technical/scientific language (computing, biochemistry), there were three informal words and one example of a poetic and one of humorous expression were found.
Conclusion
As regards the morphological characteristic of back-formations, most words thus coined are derived from nouns and adjectives. The analysis showed that most back-formations are nouns and verbs, leaving little space for other word classes. In great majority of cases back-formation consists in deleting the suffix of the source word.
The analysis has also shown that back-formation has been a productive word-formation process since the Middle English period. Back-formation is not restricted to bases with respect to origin, the examples of source words include words of Germanic origin as well as Romance origin.
The analysed back-formations include stylistically diverse items: neutral, poetic, humorous and informal expression as well as technical terms. The analysed sample may described as semantically diverse: it contains denomination of activities, conditions, objects, etc.
Literature
Adams, Valerie, Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation, Longman, Harlow 1988.
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002. (pp. 1637 – 8)
Quirk, Randolph et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London, Longman 1985.
COD10 – Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Edition) on CD-ROM, Oxford University Press, 2001
COD9 - Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th Edition) on CD-ROM, Oxford University Press
Supplement
Table 1 Word class of the source words & Word class of the target word
noun |
verb |
adjective |
adverb |
|||||
Word class of the source word |
11 |
55% |
1 |
5% |
7 |
35% |
1 |
5% |
Word class of the target word |
10 |
50% |
9 |
45% |
1 |
5% |
0 |
0% |
Table 2 Kind of affix removed
Kind of affix removed |
Total number |
% |
Prefix |
1 |
5% |
Suffix |
18 |
90% |
Other |
1 |
5% |
One case which has been evaluated in the table as ‘Other’ is the formation haem, formed from haemoglobin. As there is no established suffix –globin, I suggest that this is a case of clipping, rather than back-formation.
Table 3 Origin of source word, date of source word creation/loan and date of back/formation
Target word |
Origin of source word |
date of source word creation/ loan |
date of back- formation |
stylistic connotations of b.f. |
fount |
fountain < OF fontaine, late L fontana |
late ME |
C 16 |
poetic |
full |
fuller < OE fullere |
OE |
ME |
neutral |
Gad |
gadling < OE gaedeling |
OE |
C 16 |
informal |
Gid |
giddy < OE gidig |
OE |
C 17 |
neutral |
gigaflop |
gigaflops |
C 20 |
1970s |
computing |
gnarl |
gnarled < variation of knurled |
C 17 |
C 19 |
neutral |
goitre |
goitreux |
C 17 |
C 17 |
neutral |
greed |
greedy < OE graedig |
OE |
C 16 |
neutral |
grid |
gridiron < ME gredire |
ME |
C 19 |
neutral |
grot |
grotty < grotesque |
? |
1960s |
informal |
grovel |
grovelling < ON á grúfu + -ling |
ME |
ME |
neutral |
grunge |
grungy |
C 20 |
1970s |
neutral |
gruntled |
disgruntled < dis- + gruntle |
C 17 |
1930s |
humorous |
haem |
haemoglobin < haematoglobulin |
C 17 |
1920s |
biochemistry |
hawk |
hawker < MLG hoker |
C 16 |
C 16 |
neutral |
dislocate |
dislocation < adaptation of OF or Latin |
ME |
C 17 |
neutral |
donate |
donation < adaptation of French |
ME |
C 19 |
neutral |
enthuse |
enthusiasm < adaption of OL |
C 17 |
C 19 |
informal |
extradite |
extradition < adaptation of French |
C 19 |
C 19 |
neutral |
frivol |
frivolous < Latin frivolus |
C 16 |
? |
neutral |
Table 4 Date of source word creation/loan and date of back-formation
OE |
ME |
C16 |
C17 |
C18 |
C19 |
C20 |
||||||||
Date of source word creation/loan |
4 |
20% |
5 |
25% |
2 |
10% |
5 |
25% |
0 |
0% |
1 |
5% |
2 |
10% |
Date of back-formation |
0 |
0% |
2 |
10% |
4 |
20% |
3 |
15% |
0 |
0% |
5 |
25% |
5 |
25% |
Table 5 Stylistic characteristic of back-formations
Style |
||
Technical |
2 |
10% |
Neutral |
13 |
65% |
Informal |
3 |
15% |
Poetic |
1 |
5% |
Humorous |
1 |
5% |
Table 6 Semantic domain of the analysed back-formation
Semantic field |
% |
|
Activity |
5 |
25% |
Object |
9 |
45% |
Condition |
3 |
15% |
Unit |
1 |
5% |
Quality |
2 |
10% |