Contrastive word-formation and lexicography: Compound verbs in English and Bulgarian

Abstract

The paper is focused on a contrastive word-formation analysis of compound verbs in English and Bulgarian. A secondary focus is the possibility of a fruitful cross-pollination between practical lexicography and contrastive studies in the area of verb compounding. The analysis is cast in the cognitive linguistic paradigm and makes use of the concept of the construction schema as the chosen “tertium comparationis”, which best reveals the significant word-formation niches in the two languages under investigation. On the basis of immediate lexicographical experience in bilingual dictionary compilation and by applying the achievements of cognitive studies and contrastive word-formation, several word-formation families are analyzed and the conclusion is drawn that the productivity of compounding in Bulgarian is still significantly lower than that in English. Despite this marked difference in productivity, in the area of verbal compounding the convergence tendencies outweigh the observed contrasts between the two languages.