Affixal rivalry and its purely semantic resolution among English derived adjectives

Abstract

This paper aims to fill in a long missing piece in the paradigmatic word-formation research: a set of rival affixes whose members are differentiated in meaning. We argue that such a set can be found in English derivational adjectivalization, in the affixal rivalry between the adjectivalizing suffixes-edand-y.Using the traditional method of doublet comparison (Aronoff 1976, 2020), we reveal that adjectives of the formXedand those of the formXy(Xstanding for the source word) differ in the scale type.Xedadjectives are closed-scale adjectives, butXyadjectives are totally open-scale adjectives. The scale-type difference explains whyXedadjectives combine with certain degree modifiers, whereasXyadjectives do not. Furthermore, we show that the rival affixes are doubly differentiated in the deverbal domain in terms of the said output scale type and the input base selection. In this domain, the major sources of the closed-scale-edadjectives and the open-scale-yadjectives are result and manner verbs, respectively.