Clipping

CLIPPING (MORPHOLGY)

Morphology is an extensive field of linguistics which deals among other things with different ways of forming neologisms and the shortening of words. The following paper concentrates on the specific word-formation process „clipping“. To be able to give an adequate insight into this field of morphology, certain important aspects will be examined, such as the rules of this word-formation process, the usage of clippings in today’s language and the development of this linguistic phenomenon over the past few decades.

During the preparation for this paper, I became curious about how we use clippings in everyday language and which form, the original or the clipped word, is used more often. Do we say more often “mathematics” or “math”? Is the more common term “advertisement” or “ad”?

Even more interesting is to find out in which context which form is used more often. Are clippings still assumed as more colloquial or could some words already are taken over into Standard English and therefore into the academic world? Are clippings restricted to either spoken or written language?

To answer those questions, I will mainly work with two different corpora of American English, namely the “Time Magazine Corpus” and the “Corpus of Contemporary American English”. These corpora give much information about usage and development of certain words in different contexts. However, it has to be said, that this paper can only give a short introductory overview of the word-formation process ‘clipping’.

In the first part of this paper the word-formation process ‘clipping’ and the different types of ‘clipping’ will be explained. Then a short overview about the two corpora used in this paper will be given. After that, I will first compare six words and their clippings since the 1920s, based on the “Time Magazine Corpus”. The next chapter will be about the comparison of the same words in different contexts from 1990 until today, based on the “Corpus of Contemporary American English”. In the end, a conclusion of the results will be presented.

2. The word-formation process ‘clipping’

As already mentioned in the introduction, ‘clipping’ is a word-formation process, but also the result of the process itself is called ‘clipping’. In general it can be said, that “word formation is concerned with the process that expands the vocabulary of a language, i.e. create new lexemes” (Kortmann 2005: p. 94).

Still, there are differences to be made when talking about word-formation processes. According to Kortmann, there are productive and less productive word-formation processes, which are also called high productive and less productive. The most productive processes are responsible for the majority of neologisms, for example by prefixation like in “ex-minister”. Less productive word-formation processes basically are the various types of shortenings, such as back-formation, blend, acronym and clipping. Nevertheless, also within the group of less productive word-formation processes distinctions can be made. When on one hand, more than one word is affected by the process, the word-formation shall be either blend, initialism, acronyms or alphabetism. When on the other hand only one word is affected, the word-formation process must either be back-formation or clipping (Kortmann 2005: p. 109).

However, these less productive word-formation processes, especially clipping, continuously get more and more important in daily life (Kortmann 2005: p. 95). This is due to the laziness of people on one hand and the increasing familiarity with the particular subject on the other hand (Harley 2006: p. 95). This last aspect is also the main reason why words are clipped and come into more common usage: most speakers do not think it is necessary to use the whole word to identify the topic and to understand the meaning of it. As a result “a more easily and quickly pronounced version of the word is preferred” (Harley 2006: p. 95). This is also a general feature of lower productive word-formation processes: their outcome “is much shorter than their input” (Kortmann 2005: p. 106). This becomes very obvious in the word-formation process “clipping”, for example the clipped form of “advertisement” is “ad” and “demonstration” is often called “demo” nowadays.

The examples given in the text above already give a short idea about what clippings actually are. According to Laurie Bauer (2004: p. 326), “clipping is the process of shortening a word without changing its meaning or its part of speech”. Heidi Harley is even more precise about that. She highlights, that a “multi-syllabic word is reduced in size, usually to one or two syllables” (2006: p.95). She also states, that the outcome of a clipped word with two syllables almost always equates a trochee, which could be called a stress-wise ideal word of English (2006: p. 96). To sum up, clipping is the process of removing some material from a longer word.

The word-formation process clipping follows “specific phonologically determined patterns” (Harley 2006: p.95) and is not necessarily bound to morphological structure. In general, that part of the word, which bears main stress, tends to remain at the end of the word-formation process, for example the word “racoon” becomes “coon”. Here, the initial unstressed syllable is dropped (Harley 2006: p.95). Another feature of clipping is, that normally “a phonological part of the word which is not interpretable as an affix or word is cut off” (Rubba 2004). So it is not possible to keep the “-essor” in “professor” because it cannot be interpreted as a word or suffix. It is the same with “-ther” in “brother”.

Clipping mainly consists of the following types:

1. Back clipping

Back clipping or apocopation is the most common type, in wich the beginning is retained. The unclipped original may be either a simple or a compsite.

For example :

· ad (advertisement)

· cable (cablegram)

· doc (doctor)

· exam (examination)

· fax (facsimile)

· gas (gasoline)

· syn (syndrome)

· ham (hamburger)

· lux (luxuriant)

· syn (synonym)

· pho (phonology)

· ox (oxygen)

· trad ( trademant)

· trac (tractor)

· op (optional)

· fair (fairway)

· sym (symbol)

· ex (excavation)

· zoo (zoology)

· tem (terminology)

· deb (debutante)

· gym (gymnastic, gymnasium)

· math (mathematics)

· memo (memorandum)

· mutt (mutthnhead)

· pub (public house)

· pop (popular concert)

· eye (eyebrow)

· trad (traditional jazz)

2. Fore-clipping

Fore-clipping or aphaeresis retains the final part.

For example :

· chute (parachute)

· coon (raccoon)

· gator (alligator)

· copter (helicopter)

· vise (improvise)

· quet (sobriquet)

· rity (sonority)

· son (grandson)

· date (validate)

· ly (friendly)

· pin (hairpin)

· lust (wonderlust)

· phone (telephone)

· stone (gallstone)

· pose (interpose)

· bag (feedbag)

· board (keyboard)

· chief (kerchief)

· wrote (underwrote)

· down (facedown)

· tion (valuation)

· pike (turnpike)

· card (timecard)

· box (tinderbox)

· berry (blackberry)

· place (birthplace)

· bard (blackboard)

· versally (universally)

· cloth (sackcloth)

· varsity (university)

· ration (corporation)

3. Middle clipping

In middle clipping or syncope, the middleof the word is retained.

For example :

· flu (influenza)

· carbon (bicarbonate)

· figure (configuration)

· fec (defective)

· fla (deflation)

· mention (aforementioned)

· limit (unlimited)

· jams or jammies (pajamas/pyjamas)

· polly (apollinaris)

· shirnk (head-shrinker)

· grap (telegraphy)

· tion (affexctionately)

· tec (detective)

4. Complex clipping

Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound most often remains intact.

For example :

· cablegram (cable telegram)

· op art (optical art)

· org-man (organization man)

· linocut (linoleum cut)

Sometimes both halves of a compound are clipped as in navicert (navigation certificate). In these cases it is difficult to know wheter the resultans formation should be treated as a clipping or as a blend, for the border between the two types is not always clear. According to bauer (1983), the easiest way to draw the distinction is to say that those forms which retain compound stress are clliped compounds, whereas those that take simple word stress are not. By this criterion bodbiz, chicom, comsymp, intelsat, midcult, pro-am, sci-fi, and sitcm are all cmpounds made of clipping.