Word Formation In English

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1
1. Basic concepts 4
1.1. What is a word? 4
1.2. Studying word-formation 12
1.3. Inflection and derivation 18
1.4. Summary 23
Further reading 23
Exercises 24
2. Studying complex words 25
2.1. Identifying morphemes 25
2.1.1. The morpheme as the minimal linguistic sign 25
2.1.2. Problems with the morpheme: the mapping of
form and meaning 27
2.2. Allomorphy 33
2.3. Establishing word-formation rules 38
2.4. Multiple affixation 50
2.5. Summary 53
Further reading 54
Exercises 55
3. Productivity and the mental lexicon 551
3.1. Introduction: What is productivity? 551
3.2. Possible and actual words 561
3.3. Complex words in the lexicon 59
3.4. Measuring productivity 64
1 Pages 55-57 appear twice due to software-induced layout-alterations that occur when the word for
windows files are converted into PDF.
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3.5. Constraining productivity 73
3.5.1. Pragmatic restrictions 74
3.5.2. Structural restrictions 75
3.5.3. Blocking 79
3.6. Summary 84
Further reading 85
Exercises 85
4. Affixation 90
4.1. What is an affix? 90
4.2. How to investigate affixes: More on methodology 93
4.3. General properties of English affixation 98
4.4. Suffixes 109
4.4.1. Nominal suffixes 109
4.4.2. Verbal suffixes 116
4.4.3. Adjectival suffixes 118
4.4.4. Adverbial suffixes 123
4.5. Prefixes 123
4.6. Infixation 127
4.7. Summary 130
Further reading 131
Exercises 131
5. Derivation without affixation 134
5.1. Conversion 134
5.1.1. The directionality of conversion 135
5.1.2. Conversion or zero-affixation? 140
5.1.3. Conversion: Syntactic or morphological? 143
5.2. Prosodic morphology 145
5.2.1. Truncations: Truncated names,
-y diminutives and clippings 146
5.2.2. Blends 150
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5.3. Abbreviations and acronyms 160
5.4. Summary 165
Further reading 165
Exercises 166
6. Compounding 169
6.1. Recognizing compounds 169
6.1.1. What are compounds made of? 169
6.1.2. More on the structure of compounds:
the notion of head 173
6.1.3. Stress in compounds 175
6.1.4. Summary 181
6.2. An inventory of compounding patterns 181
6.3. Nominal compounds 185
6.3.1 Headedness 185
6.3.2. Interpreting nominal compounds 189
6.4. Adjectival compounds 194
6.5. Verbal compounds 197
6.6. Neo-classical compounds 198
6.7. Compounding: syntax or morphology? 203
6.8. Summary 207
Further reading 208
Exercises 209
7. Theoretical issues: modeling word-formation 211
7.1. Introduction: Why theory? 211
7.2. The phonology-morphology interaction: lexical phonology 212
7.2.1. An outline of the theory of lexical phonology 212
7.2.2. Basic insights of lexical phonology 217
7.2.3. Problems with lexical phonology 219
7.2.4. Alternative theories 222
7.3. The