【正确答案】：
BACK-FORMATION IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE OPPOSITE PROCESS OF SUFFIXATION. AS WE KNOW, SUFFIXATION IS THE FORMATION OF NEW WORDS BY ADDING SUFFIXES TO BASES, AND BACK-FORMATION IS THEREFORE THE METHOD OF CREATING WORDS BY REMOVING THE SUPPOSED SUFFIXES. THIS IS BECAUSE MANY OF THE REMOVED SUFFIXES ARE NOT TRUE SUFFIXES BUT INSEPARABLE PARTS OF THE WORDS. FOR EXAMPLE, THE VERB EDIT IS MADE BY DROPPING THE ENDING -OR IN EDITOR.
CLIPPING IS ANOTHER WAY OF MAKING A WORD. IT IS TO SHORTEN A LONGER WORD BY CUTTING A PART OFF THE ORIGINAL AND USING WHAT REMAINS INSTEAD. BACK CLIPPING KEEPS THE FRONT PART OF THE WORD, DROPPING THE REMAINING SYLLABLES, SUCH AS DORM FOR DORMITORY.
【题目解析】：本题要求以editor-edit and dormitory-dorm为例区分back-formation（反转构词法）和clipping（截短法）。反转构词法被认为是后缀化的相反过程。我们知道，后缀化是通过在词根上加上后缀来形成新词，而反转构词法则是通过去掉假定的后缀来创造新词的方法。这是因为许多被删除的后缀不是真正的后缀，而是单词不可分割的部分。例如，动词edit是通过删除editor中的or变成的。截短法是另一种造词的方式。它是把一个较长的单词从原来的部分删去，用剩下的部分代替。后截短保留了单词的前半部分，去掉了剩余的音节，例如dorm代表dormitory。