Submorphemic elements in the formation of acronyms, blends and clippings

Abstract

Mainstream word-formation is concerned with the formation of new words from morphemes. As morphemes are full linguistic signs, the resulting neologisms are transparent: speakers can deduce the meanings of the new formations from the meanings of their constituents. Thus, morphematic word-formation processes can be analysed in terms of their modifier/head relationship, with A + B > AB, and AB = (a kind of) B. This pattern applies to compounding and affixation. There are, however, certain word-formation processes that are not morpheme-based and that do not have a modifier/head structure. Acronyms like NATO are formed from the initial letters of word groups; blends like motel ‘mix’ or conflate submorphemic elements; clippings like prof shorten existing words. In order to analyse these word-formation processes, we need concepts below the morpheme level. This paper will analyse the role played by elements below the morpheme level in the production of these non-morphematic word-formation processes which have been particularly productive in the English language since the second half of the 20th century.