Lexical Change Terminology

• Lexical innovation


  pre-existing words form new ones
• Affixation


  adding a prefix to an existing one
• Blending


  blend 2 parts of words together, "brexit"
• Clipping


  remove part of a word, "examinations" - "exams"
• Conversion


  Word changes class, i.e "email" from a noun to a verb
• compound


  combine 2 words, "football"
• Reduplication


  Combine 2 similar words, "walkie-talkie"
• Acronymisation


  BBC
• Lexical Invention


  Completely new words
• Borrowings / loan words


  words borrowed from other languages, "pjamas"
• Eponymisation


  Someone's name forms a word, "sandwich"
• Neoligisaion


  completely new words are formed