Back-formation

Back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word. James Murray coined the term back-formation in 1889. (Oxford English Dictionary Online preserves its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in the definition of to burgle; from burglar.) For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect was then back-formed 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 Latin 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.

Back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word. James Murray coined the term back-formation in 1889. (Oxford English Dictionary Online preserves its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in the definition of to burgle; from burglar.) For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect was then back-formed 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 Latin 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. ===River names=== Back-formations are frequent amongst river names in England for a number of reasons. Place names of Brittonic origin are especially susceptible to folk etymology and back-formations due to language and knowledge of the place names dying out with the arrival and settlement of Anglo-Saxon tribes. Frequently river names are derived from nearby settlements with the suffix -ford. Typically because it is assumed that the first half of the name is in reference to the river or stream. Below are some examples of these -ford back-formations. River Alre The river Alre in Hampshire was named due to a false assumption that the nearby village Alresford was named after the river which it was located near. In reality its name comes from the Old English alor. River Chelmer The River Chelmer in Essex is named after the town of Chelmsford (Chelmeresford) which is derived from the Saxon personal name Cēolmǣr. ==In other languages== ===Israeli Hebrew=== Back-formation in Israeli Hebrew often violates the prescriptive rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. For example: משאבּ masháb "resource" (prescriptive form: משאב mash'áv) is a back-formation from the plural form משאבּים mashabím. עקרבּ akráb "scorpion" (prescriptive form: עקרב ‘aqráv) is a back-formation from the plural form עקרבּים akrabím.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1375724060 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.