6. Blending

Blending is a particular type of shortening, combining some features of both clipping and composition. It consists in combining parts of two words into one word: e.g., flush < flame + blush; smog < smoke + fog.

There are several structural types of blends, depending on which parts of the words are brought together:

initial part+ final part, e.g., electrocute;

initial part+ initial part, e.g., sci-fi, hi-tech;

full word + final part, e.g., slimnastics;

full word + initial part, e.g., paratroops, narcodollars.

When the second constituent of a blend is frequent enough, it may turn into a sort of a suffix, e.g., -gate in Reagangate, Irangate, Russiagate, Monicagate.

Semantically. there are two types of blends:

1. additive, transformable into coordinative word-groups with the conjunction and, e.g., brunch < breakfast + lunch, dunch < dinner + lunch;

2. restrictive, transformable into a subordinative attributive or adverbial group, e.g., electrocute < execute by electricity, fruice < fruit juice.

This type of word-building is now rapidly gaining in productivity, especially in advertising, technical terminology, political jargon and in every-day speech, e.g., Euroshima, transceiver, transistor, telecast, motel, shampoo, Europarliament, etc.

7. Back Formation

It is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix as a result of misinterpretation of the structure of the word or of its word-building history. This word-building type is reverse to suffixation.

The first examples of conversion date back to the Old English – Middle English period, when some Old French borrowed nouns were misinterpreted as suffixal words. For example, peas, cherries were taken to be the plural forms of the nouns pea and cherry; butler, beggar, cobbler were interpreted as derivative nouns from the verbs to buttle, to beg, to cobble, by analogy with other real derivatives.

Some words were formed from native bases, e.g., the OE adverbs groveling and sideling with the suffix -ling were reinterpreted as suffixal words with the suffix -ing; so, the verbs to sidle, to grovel came into being.

In present-day English this type is productive in verbs. The following suffixes are most often subtracted:

• -er: to donate < donator, to vivisect < vivisector;

• -ing: to fact-find < fact-finding, to night-fly < night-flying:

• -y: to laze < lazy, to cose < cosy. Diachronically, the nouns greed, pet were derived in this way from greedy and petty, and the adjective difficult from difficulty.

• -ion: to automate < automation, to aggress < aggression;

• -asm/-ism: to enthuse < enthusiasm.

Back formation is not to be confused with shortening, because the subtracted part is an affix (real or supposed), but not any accidental part of the word.