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In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes.〔Crystal, David. ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth Edition'', Blackwell Publishers, 2008.〕 The resulting neologism is called a ''back-formation'', a term coined by James Murray〔(The Funny Side of English ), by O.A. Booty, (p. 29 )〕 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. Back-formation may be similar to the reanalyses of folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding of the morphology of the longer word. For example, the singular noun ''asset'' is a back-formation from the plural ''assets''. However, ''assets'' is originally not a plural; it is a loanword from Anglo-Norman ''asetz'' (modern French ''assez''). The ''-s'' was reanalyzed as a plural suffix. Back-formation may be particularly common in English since many English words are borrowed from Latin, French and Greek, giving English a large range of common affixes. Many words with affixes have entered English, such as ''dismantle'' and ''dishevelled'', and it may therefore be easy to believe that these are formed from roots such as ''mantle'' (meaning to put something together) and ''shevelled'' (meaning well-dressed) when these words actually have no real history of existing in English. == In the English language == Many words came into English by this route: ''Pease'' was once a mass noun but was reinterpreted as a plural, leading to the back-formation ''pea''. The noun ''statistic'' was likewise a back-formation from the field of study ''statistics''. In Britain, the verb ''burgle'' came into use in the 19th century as a back-formation from ''burglar'' (which can be compared to the North American verb ''burglarize'' formed by suffixation). Other examples are * (jocular) Verb "arch" from "archer" * Adjective/Noun "couth" from "uncouth" * Noun "taxon", a unit of classification in taxonomy, derived from Greek ''taxis'' (arrangement)+''nomia'' "distribution" * Singular "sastruga", plural "sastrugi" (from Russian): new Latin-type singular "sastrugus" has been used sometimes * Singular "syringe", from plural "syringes"; the original Greek singular is ''syrinx'' * Singular ''tamale'', from the plural ''tamales''; the original Spanish singular is ''tamal''. * Verb "edit" from "editor" * Verbs "euthanase" or "euthanize" from the noun "euthanasia". Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example, ''gruntled'' (from ''disgruntled'') would be considered a barbarism, and used only in humorous contexts, such as by P. G. Wodehouse, who wrote "He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled". The comedian George Gobel regularly used original back-formations in his humorous monologues. Bill Bryson mused that the English language would be richer if we could call a tidy-haired person ''shevelled'' – as an opposite to ''dishevelled''. In the American sitcom ''Scrubs'', the character Turk once said when replying to Dr. Cox, "I don't disdain you! It's quite the opposite – I dain you."〔http://scrubs.mopnt.com/scripts/310.php〕 As it happens, ''gruntle'' and ''dain'' are both attested much earlier, but not as antonyms of the longer forms. Back-formations frequently begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example, ''enthuse'' (from ''enthusiasm'') is gaining popularity, though it is still considered substandard by some today. The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb ''to maffick'', meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. "Maffick" is a back-formation from ''Mafeking'', a place-name that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle. There are many other examples of back-formations in the English language. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「backformation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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