MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTIVITY OF NOUN-FORMING SUFFIXES IN ENGLISH AT THE LEVEL OF WORD-FORMATION RULES

Abstract

This paper studies the morphological productivity of noun-forming suffixes at the level of word-formation rules in a corpus comprised of news, literary, academic, and TV registers. The productivity at the aforementioned level is the union of the productivity at the level of word-formation types and morphological types, which implies showcasing the productivity rates of semantic and morphological interactions leading to conceptual categories. Presenting the productivity rates of these interactions is the main aim of the paper. After finding examples of complex nouns with various noun-forming suffixes, we then analyzed 1077 examples and categorized them into 6 different clusters (Action, Agent, State, Result, Instrument, and Object) using analytic, descriptive and statistical methods. The analysis of word-formation types shows that the highest productivity rates are achieved with word-formation types where the conceptual category of the stem was changed due to the semantic input the attached suffixes brought into the word structure, thus determining which clusters the formed nouns would fall into. The exceptions we found were [agent – agent] in Agent, [state – state] in State and [object – object] in Object where the interaction showed how conceptual categories of the stem were not changed but refined by the suffix. Morphological analysis shows the interaction of 37 different suffixes with simple or complex nouns, adjectives, and simple verbs. The only morphological type was stem + suffix, because we were primarily interested in the interaction of suffixes and stems and not in the analysis of the stem structure itself. The conclusions stemming from these analyses are the following: suffixes occur in one or multiple clusters, heavily influence the conceptual category of the stem, and can have the same or different meanings, confirming why they are effective mechanisms for inserting additional pieces of semantic information into the word structure, which was the initial hypothesis of the research.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0099/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>