Word formation is a process of forming new words through affixation and compounding.
Affixation
Affixation is one method of forming a new word by adding prefixes and suffixes to the root word or base word. In other words, we can build new words in English by adding prefixes and suffixes to the base word. Such a process of forming a new word is known as affixation. For example, to the word mortal, we can use the prefix im to make a new word immortal and we can get the word immortalise by adding the suffix-ise. Similarly, the word agree can take the prefix dis– to make a new word disagree and another word disagreement with the suffix – meant.
Compounding
Compounding is a process of forming a new word by combing two or more words. Most of the time, compounding created words or phrases are different than the meanings of the words used as ‘ingredients’. In other words, Compounds are made up of two or more parts which can also occur independently as words. These separate words are combined to form other new words which are listed separately in the dictionary and have separate meanings.
For example:- Blackboard, Flowerpot, Armchair