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and backformation (see below, pp. 319–20), and (2) formations not involving full
linguistic signs, which include expressive symbolism (e.g. Firth’s phonaesthemes, see p.
315), blending, clipping, and word manufacturing (see p. 320 for definitions of these
terms). Adams (1973, ch. 10) adds acronyms to clippings, and both Adams (1973) and
Bauer (1983) separate off the class of ‘neo-classical compounds’ (items such as television
and astronaut), whereas Marchand (1969) subsumes many of the initial morphs of neoclassical
formations under the general heading of prefixes. While there are undoubtedly
hazy border areas, the general distinction between derivation and composition
(compounding) holds good.
DERIVATION
Derivation is the reverse of the coin of inflection. Like inflection, it consists in adding to
a root or stem an affix or affixes (the root is also sometimes called the unmarked base
form and the affixed form the marked form; see Adams, 1973, p. 12). But while new
inflections occur only very slowly over time, new derivational affixes seem to occur from
time to time, principally in that speakers use elements of words that are not established as
affixes in a way that makes them like established, productive ones (e.g. English sputnik,
beatnik, refusenik’, alcoholic, workaholic, radioholic; see Adams, 1973, p. 139, for
further examples). Matthews (1984) gives a good summary of the arguments concerned
in the separation of inflection from derivation.
Derivational affixes produce new words; their function is not to express
morphosyntactic categories but to make new words. They are somewhat erratic in
meaning and distribution: the suffix -al that creates nouns from verbs such as arrive and
dispose forms adjectives from the nouns brute and option. What is more, whereas nasal
means ‘of the nose’, brutal means ‘like a brute’ and optional means that something ‘is an
option’. Derivational affixes vary in their pro-ductivity: English nouns ending in -hood
are few and new ones are unlikely, as are adjectives with the negative prefix ig- (e.g.
ignoble) or the suffix -ose (jocose, verbose) (see Kastovsky, 1986), but the -ist in
communist is fully productive, as is the -ize verb-forming morph (computerize,
centralize).
Within derivation, the distinction is often made between class-maintaining and classchanging
processes. Class-changing produces a new word in a different word-class (e.g.
computer (noun)—computerize (verb)), while class-maintaining produces a new word but
does not change the class (e.g. child (noun)—childhood (noun)) (but see Bauer, 1983, pp.
31–2, for arguments against the distinction). Equally important is the phenomenon of
conversion where a word changes word-class without any affixation, e.g. a hoover
(noun)—to hoover (verb); a service (noun)—to service (verb) (see also Bolinger and
Sears, 1981, p. 65); Malkiel (1978) calls this internal derivation.