# Creating Words and Morphemes ### LIGN 42 - Will Styler --- ### Today's Plan - How are words born? - How are morphemes born? - Do morphemes ever die? - Reanalysis! --- ## How are new words born? --- ### In language, we have lots of processes that form words - Blending: situationship, croots, mansplain - Coining: bling, yeet, doggo, uwu, dongle - Univerbation: cat-and-mouse game, or goodbye - Clipping: pog, rizz - Spelling Changes: thicc --- ### Also... - Acronyms and Initialisms: NASA, WAP, thot, UCSD, UCB - Borrowings: pupusa, kawaii! - New meanings: nerf, body count, cap - ... and many more --- ### Give me new-ish words! --- ### This describes the moment of creation - ... but what else needs to happen for a word to be 'real' and usable? --- ### How *widespread* does a word need to be usable? - We'll think more about this on Wednesday! --- ## How are morphemes born? --- ### Borrowing - -ation, -ize, -ify from Latin - uber- from German - -ito/-ita from Spanish - Other borrowed morphemes? --- ### Grammaticalization - 'will' as future marker from Old English 'willan' - 'we'll' as future marker from 'we will' - It's not fully productive yet! - 'imma head out' from 'I am going to head out' - 'Let's eat' from 'let us eat' --- ### Compounding is a common - Compounding takes two existing free words and combines them for a new meaning - Laptop, backpack, cellphone, fireplace, lipstick, down bad, fuckboy - Most Compounds have a 'head' which controls the part of speech and part of the meaning - Bookkeepers, Light Years (vs. años luz), sidestepping, grad school - Compounding acts like derivation - New words are created, and with unpredictable meanings --- ### Compounding meanings can be odd too - Salad Dressing, Butt Dial, Booty Call, Big Mac, Blowhard, pushover, Hawkeye - Substitutions feel **very** creative - Lapbottom? Butt text? Booty Skype? Little Mac? Eyestick? --- ### Reanalysis - ... but first... --- ## Do morphemes ever die? --- ### Morphology can become opaque and disappear - It ceases to be 'segmentable' - We no longer realize there's a morpheme there - -en is no longer a productive plural for English - oxen, children, women, \*wugen, \*thoten - 'Strong verbs' (ablaut) is no longer a productive process - sit -> sat, sing -> sang, sting -> stung, ding -> \*dung, yeet -> \*yote --- ### This morphology has become 'lexicalized' - It's not usable morphology, it's 'a word being weird' - We view 'children' as a quirk of 'child' - We view 'brethren' as a separate word - We consider 'strong' (ablauted) verbs to be 'irregular' --- ### At this point, the affix is fossilized - You may find it in old words - Speakers may be vaguely aware of the affix - It's no longer active - It is lost to the language --- <section data-background="img/parchment.jpg"> <audio data-autoplay src="video/lotr_ring.m4a"></audio> <img class="r-stretch wide" src="img/onering.jpg" alt="$txt"> *... and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the morpheme passed out of all knowledge.* </section> --- <section data-background="img/parchment.jpg"></section> <img class="r-stretch wide" src="img/smeagol.jpg" alt="$txt"> *Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.* --- ## Reanalysis --- ### We're constantly looking for morphemes - ... and not just in this class! - People try to make sense of their language - Kids try to understand 'the moving parts' of what they're learning - Humans are very good at pattern finding --- ### If we notice a pattern, we'll use it - Whether that was 'intended' or not! - "No, older generation, that's analyzeable!" --- ### Resegmentation <img class="r-stretch" src="ling_memes/germany.jpg" alt="$txt"> --- ### Cran- <img class="r-stretch" src="morphology/cran.jpg" alt="$txt"> --- ### This often happens with borrowings - Pease -> Peas -> Pea - Statistics -> Statistic - Burglar -> Burgle - Tamales -> Tamale - Euthanasia -> Euthanize --- ### Sometimes, these are modern words - Babysitter -> Babysit - Bookkeeper -> Bookkeep - Dingy -> Dinge - Mentor -> Mentee - Taser -> Tase - Typewriter -> Typewrite --- ### Speakers can differ in their acceptance of these forms - Uncouth -> Couth? - Enthusiasm -> Enthuse? - Disgruntled -> Gruntled? - Disdained -> Dained? --- ### An affix is born! - # <clr>Alcohol</clr><clb>ic</clb> - # <clr>Alc</clr><clb>oholic</clb> --- ### -oholic is now a *productive* affix - Chocoholic - Workaholic - Enchiladaholic - (Does this mean that Catholics really like cats?) --- ### Arnold Zwicky coined a term for these: 'libfix' - -burger - -tard - -naut - Cran- - -gate - -ussy --- ### Sometimes, old affixes are rediscovered - Some day, your grandkids will take you to the oven store to buy an ov --- ### What other new morphemes can you think of? --- ### This week, we're going to think about these issues in the meme world? - When does a new meme become a new meme? - How readily can we find the parts of a meme? - How easily can we understand what parts refer to what? - Does that have a role in reanalysis? - Does that reflect on how new memes are born?