Chapter 4: Morphology

 
Acronym-formation is an extremely productive process, especially in technical and 
institutional registers, but also increasingly in youth language and computer-mediated 
communication (cf., e.g., FAQs  frequently asked questions, lol laughing out loud, brb  
be right back and many other examples). Regarding the pronunciation of these formations we 
can distinguish those that are pronounced as words, e.g. NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), PEN ( poets, essayists, 
novelists), from cases where the letters are pronounced separately (e.g. TV  television, UK 
 United Kingdom, BBC  British Broadcasting Corporation). The former are sometimes 
labelled as acronyms in a narrow sense, the latter as initialisms (cf. Bauer 1983: 223). 
Usually, the capital letters are used as a sign that a compound or phrase has been reduced to 
the initial letters, but there are also highly lexicalized forms like radar (from radio detection 
and ranging) or laser (from light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). 
Finally, reduplication is a quite minor type of word-formation pattern illustrated by lexemes 
such as hush-hush, hip-hop and walkie-talkie. As the examples indicate, the pattern subsumes 
cases where an element is repeated in identical form (hush-hush), cases where we have a 
vowel change (hip-hop) and those where the two components rhyme (walkie-talkie). 

---

30 
KEY POINTS: Back-formation and non-morphemic word-formation types 

back-formation is a word-class changing word-formation process which deletes a 
morpheme or morpheme-like element 

in blending, the forms and meanings of words are merged 

in clippings, parts of words are deleted without a change in meaning 

acronyms and initialisms are shortened forms retaining the initial letters of compounds 
and other fixed sequences of words; the former are pronounced as words, the latters as 
sequences of letters 

reduplication is a fairly rare word-formation process repeating a word or word-like 
element either identically or in a slightly varied form 
Exercise 4.6 
Classify the following lexemes in terms of their formation pattern: 
a. tick-tick 
b. ad 
c. Oxbridge 
d. USA 
e. lab 
f. higgledy-piggledy 
g. grannie 
h. IRC 
i. prefab 
j. fanzine 
k. fridge 
l. IMO 
m. hi-fi