Abstract:
Word-building falls into two broad categories, namely, derivation, (the creation of
lexical items) and inflection (the creation of grammatical words).
This study focuses on derivational morphology in Tshivenda. It reflects an analysis
of different word-formation processes such as affixation, compounding, zeroderivation,
back formation, clipping, blending, acronym, adoption of brand names
as common words, borrowing, anomatopoeia, transposition, and stress-shift.
This work shows that Tshivenda derivations enable us to form new words by
recycling the pre-existing material (morphemes and words), that is, to add new
lexical items to the open word-classes such as nouns and verbs. It will also be
evident from this work that it is possible to create new words in Tshivenda by
removing or reducing some parts of the words.
This work will show how Tshivenda terminology can be updated to cope with the
demands of present-day life.
