Contrastive analysis identifies the structural similarities and differences between two or more languages. It has been historically used to establish language genealogies; origin of words and the reasons why some words are commonly used between different languages. Etymology, the study of words’ history and how their form and meaning have changed over time has enhanced the process of explaining and defining the word roots.
The term "the etymology of a word” means the origin of the particular word and it has been acknowledged that there are certain mechanisms where words originate through, some of which are:
• Borrowing, i.e. adoption of loans from other languages;
• Word formation such as derivation and compounding
• Onomatopoeia and sound …show more content…
This definition has had several contradicting views whereby word formation might mean a new use of an old word or a new word derived from an old one and has the same form.
The methods of word formation are:
• Derivation: forming new words from already existing words. This is usually done by adding a suffix or a prefix to the word. For example adding un- or ness- to the word happy (unhappy vs. happiness).
• Compounding: combining two or more word in order to get a new word. For example blackboard, keyboard.
• Symbolism: changing the internal phonemic structure of the word to follow a grammatical function. For example, tooth becomes teeth in the plural tense.
• Reduplication: repeating all or part of the word to form a new word. For example, sing, singing, still singing. The processes of word formation are:
• Acronymy: is the process of forming a new word from the initials the original words or sentences. For example, unidentified flying object: UFO
• Clipping: is the process of abbreviating a word to form a new word. For example, (tele)phone, (air)plane.
• Borrowing: the process of forming new words by using words from other languages with the same meaning they are used for. For example, tango,
The term "the etymology of a word” means the origin of the particular word and it has been acknowledged that there are certain mechanisms where words originate through, some of which are:
• Borrowing, i.e. adoption of loans from other languages;
• Word formation such as derivation and compounding
• Onomatopoeia and sound …show more content…
This definition has had several contradicting views whereby word formation might mean a new use of an old word or a new word derived from an old one and has the same form.
The methods of word formation are:
• Derivation: forming new words from already existing words. This is usually done by adding a suffix or a prefix to the word. For example adding un- or ness- to the word happy (unhappy vs. happiness).
• Compounding: combining two or more word in order to get a new word. For example blackboard, keyboard.
• Symbolism: changing the internal phonemic structure of the word to follow a grammatical function. For example, tooth becomes teeth in the plural tense.
• Reduplication: repeating all or part of the word to form a new word. For example, sing, singing, still singing. The processes of word formation are:
• Acronymy: is the process of forming a new word from the initials the original words or sentences. For example, unidentified flying object: UFO
• Clipping: is the process of abbreviating a word to form a new word. For example, (tele)phone, (air)plane.
• Borrowing: the process of forming new words by using words from other languages with the same meaning they are used for. For example, tango,