BACK-FORMATION ----By Group 8, Class 2

Back-formation I. Definition: Back-formation is an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from an already existing longer word in the vocabulary. beg ← beggar edit ← editor The nouns beggar, editor appeared first in the English language , and then the verb beg and edit.

The majority of back-formed words are verbs, for verbs can develop (or generate) a number of nouns, and various types of participial adjectives. to create → creator, creation, creating, created Therefore, when people come across one or more apparently deverbal nouns, they often take it for granted that there must be a corresponding verb.

In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes.The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889. (OED online first definition of 'back formation' is from the definition of to burgle, which was first published in 1889.)

Back-formation is different from clipping – back-formation may change the part of speech or the word's meaning, whereas clipping creates shortened words from longer words, but does not change the part of speech or the meaning of the word

For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect was then backformed hundreds of years later from it by removing the ion suffix. This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect + ion was possible because English had examples of Latinate words in the form of verb and verb+-ion pairs, such as opine/opinion. These became the pattern for many more such pairs, where a verb derived from a Latin supine stem and a noun ending in ion entered the language together, such as insert/insertion, project/projection, etc.

II. Classification: According to its origin, back-formation may be formed from the following parts of speech (词类). A. Verbs back-formed from nouns ending in –er , -ar , -or, -sion , -tion, etc.（P.82） to automate(使自动化) ←automation to edit← editor to televise(电视播送)to televise← television to appreciate← appreciation

to negate(否定; 否认)← negation to butch（屠宰）← butcher to destruct ← destruction to audit（审计）← Auditor（审计员） to spring-clean(大扫除)←spring-cleaning to proofread（校对）←proofreader

B. A few nouns back-formed from adjective greed (n.) ← greedy (adjective) gloom（昏暗, 阴暗）(n.)← gloomy (adjective）

C. Verbs back-formed from nouns in other forms or from adjective: to diagnose← diagnosis（noun） to enthuse (使热心)← enthusiasm to laze（懒惰，混日子）← lazy to drowse (打瞌睡)←drowsy D. Many new back-formation verbs come from compounds: to house-keep ←housekeeper to sight-see ←sight-seeing

Conclusion: Back-formation is considered to be the opposite process of suffixation. As we know, suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to bases, and back-formation is therefore the method of creating words by removing so-called the supposed suffixes. This is because many of the removed suffixes are not true suffixes but inseparable parts of the words.

Back-formed words created by back-formation can be used to enhance different styles of writing: some in political or scientific styles of writing, some in colloquial or journalistic style. In modern English, a number of back-formed words have become the common core in the English vocabulary, such as air-condition, automat, beg, edit, televise, etc.