Word formation is the creation of a new word using pre-existing words or morphemes. As the years go on, more and more new words are created, and most of the time these words are considered “slang”. Slang is words and phrases that are considered very informal and are more common in speech than writing, and are mostly used in a particular context or group of people. Slang words are very commonly used today because they are more casual and spontaneous, and are mostly used when talking to family and friends. Slang used to be known as language for criminals and uneducated people, but as time goes on language evolves, and slang is now trending especially with teenagers. Slang also varies with generations, because slang words from the 80s are very different from today’s slang words. One type of word formation is compounding, which is the process of combining two words, or free morphemes (which can stand alone), to create a new word. According to the article titled, “What Is Compounding in the English Language?”, “Compounds are written sometimes as one word (sunglasses), sometimes as two hyphenated words (life-threatening), and sometimes as two separate words (football stadium). Compounding is the most common type of word-formation in English” (Nordquist, 2). We see examples of compounding in slang words like hangry which is a compound of “hungry” and “angry” and crunk “crazy” and “drunk”. Some more examples are chillaxin “chill” and “relaxing”, gotta “got” and “to” and hafta “have” and “to”. I’mma is slang that combines three words together: “I’m”, “going”, and “to”. Brunch is another example which combines “breakfast” and “lunch” and spork combines “spoon” and “fork”. Lastly gimme combines “give” and “me” and kinda combines “kind” and “of”. Slang is popular now because of the convenience of shortening words and phrases, so compounding is a great way to make these new words.

 

Sources:

Nordquist, R. (2019, July 3). What is the process of compounding in the English language? ThoughtCo. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-compounding-words-1689894 

Amy Morin, L. C. S. W. (2021, October 15). Teen slang words every parent should know. Verywell Family. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.verywellfamily.com/a-teen-slang-dictionary-2610994 

For my final paper, I wanted to discuss the analysis of word formation in Taylor Swift’s songs. Many artists today use slang words, compound words, and coinage of new words in their songs. Taylor Swift is one of these artists who has many examples in her songs. When writing this paper, I will begin by clearly stating the definitions of slang, compounding, and coinage so the reader will understand. Then, I will show these examples in the written lyrics of her songs. I have already begun analyzing some lyrics and have found a few examples. In her song titled “Welcome to New York” Taylor uses the term aglow. Aglow is another way to say “glowing” or “radiant”, but it is also an old-fashioned slang word. She also uses newer slang, for example in the song titled “…Ready For It?” stating “I see how this is gon’ go”. Gon’ is slang for “go on” or “going to”. I am going to discuss this comparison between newer slang words in her songs and older slang words. I also found an example of compounding in “Welcome to New York” with the word forevermore. It is a combination of the two words “forever” and “more”. Lastly, there is evidence of coinage in her song “End Game” because she uses the term A-team, which is a coined word from the Vietnam War. An issue I feel I might have is not having enough material to write about, but I feel an easy fix to this is to compare the slang Taylor Swift uses in her songs to the slang other artists use in theirs. For example, how Taylor Swift, as well as artists like Ariana Grande etc., use slang like “aye” and “yuh” in their songs.

1. strawberry: (endocentric)  [[straw]n [berry]n] N
2. cupcake: (endocentric)  [[cup]n [cake]n] N
3. blueberry: (endocentric)  [[blue]a [berry]n] N
4. bubblegum: (endocentric)  [[bubble]n [gum]n] N
5. hotdog: (exocentric)  [[hot]a [dog]n] N

1. verb to noun: -ant

 

[[X]V ant]N

 

assist → assistant     consult → consultant     defend → defendant

 

2. noun to verb: -ify

 

[[X]Y ify]V     Y= N,A

 

terror → terrify     horror → horrify     solid → solidify

 

3. output words in (1) as the inputs in (2)

 

assistant → assistantify     consultant → consultantify     defendant → defendantify

 

These resulting words are not well formed and are not already-existing words. These words do not make sense because the output words already have the ending affix -ant. When you combine the affix -ant with another affix -ify, you get a word that does not already exist and does not sound right. In this process, the only way you can successfully change words from different categories is by starting out with a regular word that has no affixes added on to it. If you start out by using a word that already has an added affix, you get a result of a non-existing word. 

Simplex words are words with a single morpheme and no affixes that cannot be broken down into anything smaller. Complex words are words that have two or more morphemes, affixes and are able to break down into smaller parts. When looking at the words forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, and forswear they are all complex words. Each word can separate to have it’s own meaning and have a different meaning when put together. For example, for-bid, for-get, for-give, for-go, and for-swear. When examining each word, there is a prefix “for” in the beginning of each word and at the end there are different constituents attached. For example, bid, get, give, go, and swear are all constituents added on to the prefix “for” in order to create more complex words from a simplex word. Since all of these words can be broken apart into smaller words, it shows that they are all complex.