Having to pick a topic  is one of the hardest things I had to do for this essay.  I still am not 100% about what exactly I want to write  about. It could be due to the fact that I feel I can not  fully provide much information about topics I am not so familiar with.  Funny fact, while trying to pick my electives for this semester, I looked into this class thinking it would be interesting to learn something new for a change. I am a psychology major and wanted to be spontaneous with my electives. Although I made a great choice choosing linguistics, I do find this class a bit of a challenge.  However, back to the topic, I made a decision that I’ll be talking about  slang words and how slang words can become real words. Slang is a very informal language. They aren’t typically found in a dictionary  and have changed through time. An example could be the word “ dope”. Dope is a short way to say cool or awesome. Now i’m pretty sure if i said that word to my mother she would have no idea what the meaning is.  This is a topic I feel I can provide information about because it’s interesting  for me to do research about slang words.  I want to  talk about how slang words take over throughout time and even past time. When an individual applies language in a new way he may be creating slang if it’s picked up by others and that alone amazes me. I want to  explore how slang words can be the new saying and how people sometimes use slang words more frequently than words that are in the dictionary.  Slang are words used in a  special way in a certain social context and it’s interesting to know the meaning behind each slang word. 

 

1- Breadstick – endocentric – [[Bread]n [stick]n] N

2- Cupcake- Endocentric – [[ cup] n [cake]n] N

3- AcornSquash – Endocentric – [[acorn] n [squash]n] N

4-  watermelon – exocentric [[ water]n[melon]n] N

5- Corn Dog – endocentric [[corn]n[dog]n] N

1. Verb to noun : -ee 

-ee, [[X]v ee]N

 

Refuge  →  Refugee , Attend → Attendee, Employ → Employee 

 

1. Noun to verb : -ify

 

-ify, [[X]Y ify]V where Y=N,A

 

Example → Exemplify, Fort → Fortify, Ample → Amplify

• Output of 1 with Input of 2

            

Contemplate → Contemplatify, Information → Informationify, Transformation → Transformationify

 

The resulting words are neither well-formed nor already-existing words. Those do not make sense nor sound right when trying to pronounce as we added one affix right after the other. Not only that but also the affix added to output 1 is meant to form a noun from a verb while the affix added to output 2 is meant to form a verb from a noun. While having that in mind, it makes sense that the combination of them make no sense. What we can do is simply use one affix at a time and one that fits our purpose, either noun or verb formation, especially for the given examples above.

 

   

It’s stated that Simplex are words that cannot  be broken apart. Meaning there are no affixes attached to the word. An example of that are “sleep, talk, run, and eat. “  These words are simplex because they only contain one constituent. However, Complex are words consisting of many different and connected parts. It can be broken down. It doesn’t necessarily have to be entirely meaningful.  For example, from the list of words given   you are able to break down the word “Forget” into two constituents, for – get.  We also have Forbid, forgive, forgo, and forswear.  They are all complex words. From the knowledge I have regarding simplex and complex I believe it’s clear where these words stand under. Although many can argue and see these words can go under simplex and complex, i just don’t see the meaning behind it being simplex.