LEXICOLOGY

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics – the science of a language. The

term “lexicology” is composed of two Greek morphemes “lexic” – word,
phrase and “logos” which denotes learning, “a department of knowledge”.
Thus, the literal meaning of the term “lexicology” is “the science of the
word”.
Lexicon is a term used in linguistics to indicate the archive of
lexemes. Lexemes are abstract, minimal units in a language that link
related forms of a word together. For example, the words fly, flight, flew,
flying, and so on, are all morphologic variations of the lexeme fly.
-----------LEXICOLOGY AS A LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINE---------
Lexicology investigates different lexical units: words, variable word-groups,
phraseological units and morphemes which make up words and
dealing with the vocabulary of a language. Lexicology studies a word in
different aspects: the patterns of semantic relationship of words as also
their phonological, morphological and contextual behavior.
The basic task of lexicology is the study and systematic description of the
vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use. In
Lexicology the word and the vocabulary of a language is studied as a
system.
General lexicology is a part of General linguistics. It is concerned
with the general study of words and vocabulary irrespective of the specific
features of any particular language. It investigates linguistic phenomena
and properties common to all languages which are generally referred to as
language universals.
Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the
characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a particular language
(Russian, Kazakh, German, French, etc.).

“The modern approach of word studies is based on distinction

between the external and the internal structures of the word” [Antrushina,
2004:7].
By external structure of the word we mean its morphological
structure. For example, in the word uncomfortable the following
morphemes can be distinguished: the prefix un-, the root comfort and the
adjective forming suffix – able. All these morphemes constitute the
external (morphological) structure of the word uncomfortable.
The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is commonly
referred to the word’s semantic structure. This is certainly the word’s
main aspect because a word can serve the purposes of human
communication solely due to their meanings.
Lexicology is linked with Contrastive and Comparative Linguistics
which purposes are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of
two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the
vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.
------------BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS-----------------
Modern English Lexicology is closely connected with other
branches of linguistics, because the word, word-groups and phrases are
studied in several branches of linguistics and not in lexicology only.
Lexicology is linked with general linguistics, the history of the
language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such new branches of our
science as sociolinguistics and some others:
- Phonetics investigates the phonetic structure of a language which
is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic units and studies
the outer sound-form of the word i.e. its system of phonemes and
intonation patterns.

- Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure or

grammatical system of a language. It is concerned with various
meanings of expressing grammatical relations between words as well as
with patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and
sentences
- The History of the English language covers the main events in the
historical development of the language: the history of its phonetic
structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the
growth of its vocabulary.
- Stylistics studies many problems treated in lexicology, which are

concerned with the study of nature, functions and structure of stylistic

devices, on the one hand, and with the research of each style of

language, on the other, i.e. with its aim, its structure, its characteristic

features and the effect it produces as well as its interrelation with the

other styles of language.

- Sociolinguistics investigates the social reasons of the changes in

the vocabulary of a language which is directly and immediately reacts to

developing and changes in social life.

Thus, Modern English Lexicology investigates two main parts: the

treatment of the English word as a structure and the treatment of the

English vocabulary as a system. The course of Modern English

Lexicology studies the morphological and semantic patterns according

to which the elements of this system are built. It points out the

distinctive features with the main semantically relevant partial

differences between partially similar elements of the vocabulary which

can be systematized and the course tries to explain how these

vocabulary patterns are conditioned by the structure of the language.

-------------LEXICAL UNITS--------------------

The main unit of the lexical system of a language resulting from the

association of a group of sounds with a meaning is a word. This unit is

used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest basic

language unit which can stand alone as a complete utterance.

the definition of a word is one of the most difficult items in linguistics because the word

has many different aspects. It has a sound form with a certain arrangement

of phonemes; it has its morphological structure with a certain types of

morphemes; it may occur in different word-forms and various meanings.

A word is a semantic, phonological and grammatical unit based on

the paradigmatic relations, on the interdependence of words within the

lexical system. The syntagmatic relations show the relation of words in

the patterns of arrangement.

The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human

communication, representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning

and characterized by formal and semantic unity. The formal unity of the

word can be best illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group

comprising identical constituents.

According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituting a

word there are different structural types of words in English: simple,

derived, compound, compound-derived.

Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in

many cases the inflexion is zero), e.g. seldom, chairs, longer, dog, card.

Derived words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes

and an inflexion, e.g. acceptable, unemployed, disagreeable.

Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an

inflexion, e.g. username, videodisc, book-stores, to baby-sit.

Compound-derived words consist of two or more root morphemes,

one or more affixes and an inflexion, e.g. baby-sitters, middle-of-the roaders, job-hopper.

The stem is the part of the word which remains unchanged

throughout the paradigm of the word, e.g. the stem hop can be found in

the words: hop, hops, hopped, hopping.

A word, however, can be divided into smaller sense units –

morphemes.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit.

Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words but not

independently. The morpheme consists of a class of variants, allomorphs,

which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned.

Morphemes are divided into two large groups:

 lexical or root morphemes;

 grammatical (functional) morphemes.

Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound.

 Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the

lexical meaning of the word they coincide with the stem of simple words, e.g. dog,

book, room, house, ball etc.

 Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-) disabled,

(un-) unnatural, suffixes (-ish) girlish, (-ship) friendship and also blocked (unique)

root morphemes, e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry.

 Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes can function both as an affix

and as a free morpheme. For example, the morphemes (well, half) on the one

hand, they are free morphemes because they can exist separately like

these: sleep well, half an hour. On the other hand, they are bound in words

like well-known, half-done.

 Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles,

conjunctions and prepositions, e.g. (a, an, the, but, and, under, on, in).

 Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), e.g. (-s)

teachers for the Plural of nouns, (-ed) added for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs(-ing) reading for the
Present Participle, (-er) hotter for the Comparative degree of adjectives. So inflexions carry only
grammatical meaning and they are used for the formation of word-forms.

------------------------------WORD FORMATION-----------------------------------

Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary.

English word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and

the process of creating new words from material available in the

language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. The

main distinction is made between two basic types of word-formation:

word-derivation and word-composition.

The principal ways of forming words in word-derivation are

affixation and conversion. Words consisting of a root and an affix or

several affixes are called derived words and this process of word

formation is known as affixation, e.g. establishment (from establish),

faceless (from face), attractive (from attract).

Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining

two or more stems which can occur in the language as free forms, e.g.

bank-manager, troublemaker, highway, market-leader.

There are five main or productive ways of word-building in

Modern English: Affixation, Word-Composition, Conversion,

Shortening or (Abbreviation), Blending.

AFFIXATION

Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building

throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem

of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes.

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part

of speech from another one, the secondary function is to change the

lexical meaning of the same part of speech (e.g. educate is a verb,

education is a noun and music is a noun, musician is also a noun, musical

is an adjective).

There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different

parts of speech fall into several groups:

a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom),

-ism (ageism),

b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), -less

(symptomless), -ous (prestigious);

c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -fy (satisfy);

d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (eastward);

e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of

the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can

denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent

(student);

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English);

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom, kingdom), -ry (peasantry), -ship

(readership, membership), -ati (literati);

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ette (kitchenette), -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -

ling (goseling);

e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability);

f) feminine suffixes, e.g. -ess, -in, -ine (actress, heroin, feminine).

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be

added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -or (communicator), -ing

(suffering), – able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization);

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), ful

(roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish

(childish);

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly

(pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. From the point of view of their etymology

suffixes can be subdivided into two main classes: native and borrowed
suffixes:

a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly (worker, careful,

sleepless, lonely).

b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ent, -able, -eer (relation, absent,

comfortable, career).

c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize. (specialist, socialism, criticize).

d) French, such as: -ance, -ence, -ment, -ess, -ous (arrogance,

experiment, actress, curious).

5. Productivity of derivational suffixes. It means the ability of being

used to form new, occasional or potential words. They can be the

following groups:

a) productive, such as: -er, -ize, -ly, -ness (teacher, realize, ugly,

coldness).

c) non-productive, such as : -ard (drunkard), -th (length), -hood

(childhood).

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to

the stem. In English prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes

can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used:

prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words.

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical

meaning of the same part of speech. Prefixes can be classified according

to different principles:
Semantic classification. Semantically prefixes can be divided into

monosemantic i.e. the prefix has only one meaning, e.g. ex-boxer, exboyfriend

and polysemantic i.e. the prefix -dis has several meanings: (not)

in (disadvantage); reversal or absence of an action or state in words

(diseconomy, disaffirm); removal in the word (to disbranch).

According to their denotational meaning prefixes fall into:

a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in- (invaluable), non-

(nonformals), un- (unfree), dis- (disconnect), mis- (misname), il- (illegal);

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de-

(decolonize), re- (revegetation, rewrite) etc.;

c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: inter-

(interplanetary), hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (preelection),

over- (overdrugging).

Origin of prefixes:

a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- (undressed,

overcome, underwear);

b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re- (inhumane, decentralize,

exchange, reappear);

c) Greek, such as: hyper- (hyperactive, hypertension) etc.

note: go to page 16, table 1-4

WORD COMPOSITION

Word-Composition or compounding is one of the productive ways

of word-building when a new word is formed by joining two or more

stems. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units that are

structurally and semantically based on the relationship between their

components through which they are motivated.

The structural unity of a compound word depends upon:

 The unity of stress where compounds have three stress patterns:

a) a high or uniting stress on the first component, e.g. ̀hard-cover, ̀bestseller,

̀ catnap, ̀doorway, b) a double stress with the main stress on the

first component and with a secondary stress on the second component,

e.g. ̀blood-vessel, ̀washing-machine, c) the third pattern of stresses is

two level stresses, e.g. s̀ now-̀white, ̀sky-̀blue, ̀arm-̀chair.

 Solid or hyphenated spelling. Generally, many compound words

have two types of spelling: written either solidly or with a hyphen, e.g.

heartbreak, keyhole, highway, bookshop, father-in-law, part-time, babysitter,

bank-manager. But some compounds are written separately –

shock wave, terraced house.

 The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In

such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the

whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite,

skinhead, brain-drain. In non-idiomatic compounds semantic unity is

not strong, e.g., airbus, to download, astrodynamics etc.

 Unity of morphological and syntactical functioning are used in a

sentence as one part of it and only one component changes

grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a

predicative in the sentence and only the second component

grammatically changes
There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

 both components in English compounds are free stems, that is

they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The

sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. a green-house

and a green house.

 English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception

of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g.

middle-of-the-road (adj.) off-the-record, up-and-doing, up-and-coming

(adj.), down-and-out (n.) etc.

The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from

German ones.

Note: refer to page 22, diagram 1

CONVERSION

Conversion is highly productive way in the English word-stock.

Conversion consists in making a new word from some existing word by

changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the

original word remaining unchanged, e.g. nurse – to nurse, hand – to hand,

face – to face. The new word made from conversion has a different

meaning from that of the word from which it was produced though the

two meanings can be associated.

The converted word acquires also a new paradigm and a new

syntactic function, which are peculiar to its new category as a part of

speech, e.g. paper – to paper, work – to work.

The main varieties of conversion can be presented as:

 Verbalization (the formation of verbs), e.g. to ape (from ape n.);

 Substantivation (the formation of nouns), e.g. a private (from

private adj.), loser (from the verb to loose);

 Adjectivation (the formation of adjectives), e.g. down adj. (from

down adv.);

 Adverbalization (the formation of adverbs), e.g. home adv. (from

home n.).

The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by

conversion are nouns and verbs. In the group of verbs made from nouns

there are some regular semantic associations. Verbs can be formed from

nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings. They are

indicated in the following list:

a) verbs have an instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns

denoting parts of a human body, e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to

shoulder etc;

b) verbs have an instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns

denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to

machine-gun, to rifle, to nail;

c) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the animal denoted by

the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to dog, to wolf, to

ape, to monkey;

d) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are

formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to

paper;
e) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the

noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to

bottle, to corner, to pocket,

f) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the

noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end .

g) verbs can denote the process of taking a meal denoted by the

noun from which they have been converted e.g. to lunch, to dinner, to

supper.

The suggested groups do not include all the great variety of verbs

made from nouns by conversion.

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they

denote the change of the state, e.g. to pale, to cool, to clean, to slim etc.

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs.

Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move;

b) process or state e.g. a sleep, a walk;

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun

has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold;

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which

the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase;

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun

has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.

Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the singular

form and denote momentary actions. In such cases we have partial

conversion. Such verbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have,

to get, to take etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

SHORTENING (ABBREVIATION)

In the process of communication words and word-groups can be

shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic.

By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In

Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are

formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary

to give more and more information in the shortest possible time.

There are also linguistic causes of shortening words and wordgroups,

such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by

monosyllabic words.

Abbreviation has been used as long as phonetic script existed, in some

senses actually being more common in early literacy, where spelling out a

whole word was often avoided, initial letters commonly being used to

represent words in specific application

Generally the three subgroups of abbreviation are regarded:

Graphical, Initial and Lexical.

GRAPHICAL ABBREVIATIONS are the result of shortening of words and

word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full

forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in

writing.

Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different

There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in

the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the

corresponding English equivalents in the full form. In the graphical

abbreviations words are shortened into two, three or four letters. We

have several semantic groups of them:

a) days of the week, e.g. Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday, Sat –

Saturday;

b) names of months, e.g. Apr – April, Aug – August;

c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks – Yorkshire, Berks –

Berkshire;

d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala – Alabama, CO – Colorado,

Alas – Alaska;

e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.;

f) military ranks, e.g. capt. – captain, col. – colonel, etc.

Abbreviation is also achieved by omission of letters from one or

more parts of the whole, for example, cdr for commander, doz or dz for

dozen, ltd for limited. Scientific degrees: B.A. – Bachelor of Arts, D.M.

– Doctor of Medicine.

There is never a period (full stop) between letters of the same word.

For example, “kilometer” is abbreviated as km and not as (k.m).

However, “miles per hour” can be shortened by the acronym m.p.h. or,

increasingly common, mph.

INITIAL ABBREVIATIONS are the bordering case between graphical and

lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to

denote some new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations

because orally full forms are used, e.g. J.V. (Joint Venture). When they

are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of

pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC (British

Broadcast Corporation) is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form.

Initializes are the way of making the new words from the initial

letters of the word-group, e.g. www (world wide web).

Initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form

are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for

Automated School System), CD-ROM (compact disc read-only

memory).

Acronymy is the formation of a word from initial letters of a word

combination.

There are two basic types of acronyms in English:

 acronyms with the alphabetical reading, such as CID ['si: 'ai 'di:]

– Criminal Investigation Department; FDA [◌ ef di: 'ei] – The Food and

Drug Administration; NHS [́'en 'eitј 'es] –The National Health Service,

etc.

 acronyms are read as ordinary English words, e.g. UNESCO

[ju:'neskəυ ] – the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural

Organization; NATO ['neitəυ] – North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a

result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the

style is different from the full form of the word. In such cases as fantasy
and fancy, fence and defence we have different lexical meanings. In such

cases as laboratory and lab, we have different styles.

LEXICAL ABBREVIATIONS are classified according to the part of the

word which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because

the beginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the

lexical meaning of the word. This type of final abbreviation is called

apocope. Here we can mention a group of words, such as disco

(discotheque), expo (exposition), exam (examination) com (computer)

and many others.

In the case of initial shortenings when the beginning of the word is

clipped we have aphaeresis, e.g. chute (parachute), phone (telephone),

copter (helicopter), net (internet) etc.

In the case of medial shortenings when the middle of the word is

clipped, such abbreviation is called syncope e.g. mart (market), maths

(mathematics).

Abbreviation does not change the parts-of-speech meaning, as we

have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words

belonging to the same parts of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof. is a

noun and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation,

but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev. from to

revolve, to tab. from to tabulate etc.

BLENDING

Blendings or Blends – words are combined from two words or

synonyms including the letters and sounds which are formed as

common connecting element.

This process of formation of a new word can be also called

telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like of a

telescope. In blends two ways of word-building are combined:

abbreviation and composition.

Blendings today have become a trend and famous slogans which

have gained wide popularity in highly used websites and have entered

into the vocabularies of twitter users. Let’s look some of the terms:

advertainment from (advertisement and entertainment), bit from (binary

and digit), freeware from (free and software), pixel from (picture and

element) etc.

Traditionally, to form a blend we clip the end of the first

component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component

(aphaeresis). As a result, we have a compound-shortened word

Most blends are formed by one of the following methods:

1. The beginning of one word is added to the end of the other. For

example, the word “brunch” is a meal you eat in the late morning that

combines breakfast and lunch. Mostly blends are formed from a wordgroup,

such as: acromania (acronym mania), dramedy (drama comedy),

informecial (information commercial), magalog (magazine catalogue),

sociolite (social elite), fanzine (fan magazine), motorcade (motor

cavalcade). The elements may be synonymous, belong to the same

semantic field or at least be members of the same lexico-grammatical

class of words.

2. The beginnings of two words are combined. For

example, cyborg is a blend of cybernetic and organism. el-hi is produced

from (elementary and high schools).

3. Two words are blended around a common sequence of sounds.

For example, the word motel is a blend of motor and hotel, the blend

cinemadict is combined from cinema and adict, the word faction is from

fact and fiction (fiction based on real facts).

---------NON-PRODUCTIVE WAYS OF WORD BLENDING----------------

SOUND INTERCHANGE is the way of word-building when some

sounds are changed to form new words which are differentiated due to

alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. This process is not

active in Modern English but it was productive in Old English.

In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. By

means of vowel interchange we distinguish different parts of speech: full

– to fill, food – to feed, blood – to bleed. In some cases, vowel

interchange is combined with affixation: long – length, strong –

strength, nature – natural.

STRESS INTERCHANGE can be mostly met in verbs and nouns. Many

English verbs of Latin, French origin are distinguished from the

corresponding nouns by the position of stress: nouns have the stress on

the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent – to ac`cent,

`conflict – to con`flict, `export – to ex`port, `extract – to ex`tract,

`present – to pre`sent, `content – to con`tent etc. As a result of stress

interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because

vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

In REDUPLICATION new words are made by doubling a stem, either

without any changes as in bye-bye or with a variation of the root-vowel

or consonant as in ping-pong, tip-top, chit-chat. Most words made by

reduplication represent informal groups: slang and colloquialisms, e.g.

walkie-talkie (a portable radio); riff-raff (the worthless or disreputable

element of society); hip-hop (the culture of the young African

Americans and others who enjoy this type of music, including speech

styles of art, dancing, dress).

SOUND IMITATION OR ONOMATOPOEIA is the naming of an action or

thing by more or less reproduction of sounds. It is a way of wordbuilding

when a word is formed by imitating different sounds.

Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words

fall into a few definite groups:

a) sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to

giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle;

b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, e.g. dogs – bark,

cows – moo, frogs – croak, cats – mew or miaow, ducks – quack, bee –

buzz;

c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to

rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc. The

corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of

a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

BACK FORMATION OR REVERSION is the way of word-building when a

word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It

is opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back formation. At first

it appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure

of a borrowed word.

So when the French word «beggar» was borrowed into English the final syllable «ar»

was pronounced in the same way as the English -er and Englishmen

formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Other

examples of back formation are: to accreditate (from accreditation), to

bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from

enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion) to

reminisce (from reminiscence), to televise (from television) etc.

As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech

meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.