Word formation Word formation In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single word's meaning. The boundary between word formation and semantic change can be difficult to define: a new use of an old word can be seen as a new word derived from an old one and identical to it in form. See 'conversion'. There are a number of methods of word formation. A blend is a word formed by joining parts of two words after clipping. An example is "smog", which comes from
Old English grammar feminine nominative article "sēo", yielding "she"; whereas the "h" in plural forms such as "hīe" was replaced with "þ" under Norse influence as it evolved (a slower development that was not complete until well into the Middle English period), yielding "they, them, their". Prepositions (like Modern English words "by", "for", and "with") often follow the word which they govern, in which case they are called "postpositions". Also, if the object of a preposition was marked in the dative case, a preposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. The following is a list of prepositions in the Old English