Word formation strategies in Degema

The role played by back-formation processes in the creation of new Basque words is understudied. This paper confirms that back-formation has been a productive means of word-formation in Basque, by gathering examples from both older scholarship and recent studies. Basque has a productive morphological rule for deriving verbs from nouns and adjectives, as in handi ‘big’/ handi(tu) ‘become big’. In some cases, however, a noun or adjective has arguably been created from a verb by back-formation instead. In this paper, we provide several criteria for identifying instances of back-formation. We start with loanwords, where the facts are clearer than in the native vocabulary. We also discuss instances where both a verb and a related noun were borrowed (e.g., bainu ‘bath’/ baina(tu) ‘bathe’) and the existence of such pairs has served as an analogical model for new deverbal nouns.

This paper explores the various functions ofdiàoin Mandarin Chinese as it changes from a verb to a phase marker. As a phase marker,diàoprovides a natural endpoint to a co-occurring event and indicates completion, which is a distinct function from the perfect markerle. In this shift, the meaning ofdiàoalso expands, including ‘falling down’, ‘throwing down’, ‘disappearing’, ‘removal’, ‘completion’ and ‘change of state’. The multifunctionality ofdiàois the result of grammaticalization along with semantic change and extension. Cognitive mechanisms such as metonymic and metaphoric extensions, pragmatic inferencing, analogy on Verb-Complement structures, and semantic generalization all contribute to the grammaticalization ofdiào, with further influence from contact with southern Chinese dialects. This paper further argues that the grammaticalization and semantic extension ofdiàois in accordance with the development of aspectual markers cross-linguistically, reflecting the commonality in human cognition.

Word truncation (back-formation) is a linguistic process in which a new word is created from an existing one by removing a part of it (usually the ending). The resulting word can be traced back to the original one, but it has its own meaning and usage. This process is based on speakers' perception that certain parts of a word appear to be suffixes or other affixes, even though they are not. Speakers then remove this perceived affix, forming a shorter, new word. It often happens that a shorter version of a longer word emerges in the language and eventually becomes widely used. Examples: Verb →noun: olvas→olvasmány, then truncated to: olvas; Verb →noun: épít→építés, then truncated to: épít; Adjective →noun: boldog→boldogság, then truncated to: boldog; Adverb →noun: késő→késésThe aim of our research is to examine the frequency of words formed by back-formation based on The Historical-Etymological Dictionary of the Hungarian Language(Volumes I–III). According to the literature, back-formation is among the less common word-formation processes; however, our lexicon indicates that in various periods of language history, this process has yielded a considerable amount of lexical material (627 entries). In our study, we also seek to determine when this word-formation method was at its peak and to what extent language cultivation considers these newly formed lexemes acceptable.Wordtruncation contributes to the enrichment and evolution of the language. The newly formed words are shorter, easier to use, and often first appear in spoken language before becoming established in standard and written language.Truncation is a natural linguistic process that continuously takes place and leads to the creation of new words. Although it is not the most common method of word formation, it plays a crucial role in the development of the Hungarian language and its adaptation to new communicative needs.Analyses show that 65% of truncated words originate from verbs, 15% from nouns, and another 15% from adjectives. The remaining 5% derive from adverbs, compound words, proper nouns, or phrases.

This paper dicsusses some features of word creation that this type of lexicogenesis differentiate from word formation (as lexicogenesis by typical morphological processes). The word creation processes that have been analyzed are blending, clipping, and acronimization. As the differential features of these processes, creation (inventivenes), intentionality, and (semantic) nontransperancy, as well as form reduction are presented. The conclusion is that in the case of the opposition between word creation and word formation, it is better to talk about prototypical categories. In this context, creation (inventivenes), intentionality, (semantic) non-transperancy, and form reduction are considered as prototypical features of the word creation processes.

The findings of the study of linguopoetics in Leo Tolstoy’s works are considered from the perspective of three aspects of the fundamental scientific objective: 1) introduction to the philological rotation of understudied texts; 2) review of already studied texts from new perspectives; 3) interpretation of texts with the regard to the modern reader.
 As a scientific example of the first aspect, the paper refers to the analysis of “Notes on Ill Traits of Russian Soldiers and Officers”. “Notes on…” demonstrate the main trends of lexical shifts typical for the Russian literary language of the mid-19th century. The author refers to an increase in the number of irrelevant vocabularies in the literary language, the fact that many lexical elements have gained the value of moral and ethical categories, the use of scientific terms in the literary language, the introduction of social and political connotations to words, the actualisation of the meaning by making the word more journalistic and rhetorical in the text.
 As for the second aspect, the paper analyses the lexical and stylistic signature features of Tolstoy’s original works. The author studies Tolstoy’s innovations of lexical, stylistic and structural nature. Such as, there are the examples of occasional word creation: extension of semantics of lexical elements and attribution of new stylistic functions and values, as well as fixing word creation, when the text fixes yet not fully rooted lexical device and attributes it with novel features. The author also reviews how Tolstoy builds the quoted speech of his cha­racters, as well as classifies the types of dialogues used by Tolstoy (psychological, ideological and etiquettical).
 Regarding the third aspect, the paper focuses on the matter of linguopoetics. It includes the textual efforts to prepare Leo Tolstoy’s works to be published with a number of comments. Lexi­cal comments within the text, outside the text and the independent ones follow an experimental study of gaps in a reader’s perception.

In the spirit of Talmy’s recent remark on desirable extensions of cognitive semantics into discourse analysis and multimodality, this paper outlines an agenda for framing quotation as an attention- and modality-sensitive phenomenon. A quotation’s distinct discourse function by itself – naturally – calls for an attention-driven analysis, and the representational subsystems of language yield modality-specific manifestations: Conventionalized figural delimiters prompt quotations’ metalinguistic and verbatim status in writing, while in (casual) speech they tend to stand out through vocal dynamics and visible bodily actions. With recourse to Talmy’s attention-based trigger-and-target construct, I will scrutinize a cross-section of videotaped samples of quoting by experienced us speakers from different speech genres in public settings, to demonstrate orally performed quotations’ responsiveness to attentional gradience: Exhibiting patterns of activation, attenuation, inhibition, and sustainment in indexing ‘the other voice,’ the case studies illustrate multiple effects of fore- and backgrounding ensuing from the different modalities’ complex interactions.

This article examines the tonal patterns of Nambya, a Bantu language spoken in Hwange District, western Zimbabwe, which was marginalised until its inclusion in the 2013 Zimbabwean Constitution. Tone plays a crucial role in Nambya as a primary marker distinguishing words that are otherwise segmentally identical. Like many Bantu languages, Nambya displays complex tonal structures that influence both lexical and grammatical meaning. The study explores how tonal variation is shaped by linguistic factors such as noun and verbal stems, prefixes, and phonological processes, including the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) and High Tone Spread (HTS). Data were gathered from ten native Nambya speakers with formal education, selected through expert and homogeneous purposive sampling. A qualitative, descriptive approach was employed, relying on field data and native speaker elicitation. The analysis was conducted within the Autosegmental Phonology framework, which explains that tone rules state that tonal and segmental elements are linked by association lines but remain distinct. Isolated words and phrases were analysed across varied linguistic environments. Findings show that Nambya has two primary tones: High (H) and Low (L), which combine to form the following patterns: HH, HL, LL and LH. Tone influences both vowel pitch and consonant articulation, with vowels and nasals serving as key tone-bearing units. Deverbal nouns and depressor consonants favour low tones, while noun classes exhibit characteristic tonal preferences. Overall, the study enhances understanding of Nambya phonology, contributing to its documentation, linguistic scholarship and long-term preservation.

This paper critically examines the term-creation strategies and quality of medical terms included in a Shona specialised dictionary, Denhe reDuramazwi rezveUtano neUrapi (Shona Medical Encyclopaedia). This study argues that translators and lexicographers have a number of translation or terminology development strategies they can apply to bridge the lexical gap between source and a target language. Furthermore, it argues that there is a need to evaluate the quality, accuracy, readability and acceptability of these terms for users. This study is guided by the communicative theory of terminology as proposed by Cabré (2003). This theory views terminology as dynamic and context-dependent, and it focuses on the way terms are created, transmitted and interpreted in real communicative situations. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with lexicographers, translators, health professionals and end users, together with discourse analysis of the medical terms dictionary. Findings reveal that borrowing, compounding, coining, descriptive phrases and semantic extension were used to develop terms in the Shona Medical Encyclopaedia. It was also found that, although considerable progress has been made to enrich the Shona biomedical lexicon, when compared to borrowed or transliterated terms, many coined or compounded terms struggle to gain traction. The study recommends orthographic reform to strengthen the scientific expressiveness of indigenous languages, alongside the establishment of a national terminology board to coordinate and standardise terminology development in Zimbabwean indigenous languages.

Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar alguns pontos de convergência entre as variantes lexicais de dois corpora geolinguísticos: de um lado, o volume V do Atlas Lingüístico Galego - ALGa (García et alii 2005) e, de outro, o Atlas Lingüístico do Paraná – ALPR (Aguilera 1994) e o Atlas Lingüístico do Paraná II - ALPR II (Altino 2005). Para isso, selecionamos, do Campo semântico Corpo Humano, as cartas que se referem à área dos olhos. Para a análise adotamos os métodos geolinguístico e o lexicológico uma vez que buscamos, na distribuição espacial e na dicionarização dos vocábulos, os subsídios para esclarecer a presença de variantes comuns em ambos os corpora. A análise indicou que determinadas variantes, ainda vigentes na fala rural paranaense, estão ligadas a formas galegas e que alguns processos metonímicos e de criação lexical atuam da mesma forma nas duas línguas. Ademais, constatamos que as tendências sociais referentes ao item lexical capela foram processados de forma similiar nos três contextos linguísticos, ou seja, galego, português europeu e dialeto paranaense. Esta convergência pode ser ilustrada com: (i) a distribuição diatópica de variantes, como capela, no dialeto paranaense e no português europeu e a sua presença, embora esparsa, na língua galega; (ii) a atribuição de mais de um significado ao mesmo conceito, como pestana que, em ambos os atlas, pode significar tanto pálpebra como cílios; (iii) a criação de nomes populares resultantes da extensão de significado ou da atribuição de formas genéricas, como em piel, tapa, papo, no ALGa e pele, couro, no ALPR, em substituição a formas eruditas, como pálpebra.

Lexical blending has long been recognized as a creative and productive strategy for coining new words. English brunch, for example, is an established lexical blend of breakfast and lunch, and cronut is a more recent blend of croissant and donut. Lexical blending has also traditionally been viewed as a largely unpredictable process. However, recent studies have demonstrated that, though blending is probabilistic rather than categorical, blend structure is indeed constrained by phonological and semantic considerations. This paper examines some consequences of lexical blending for morphology and for morphological theory, particularly issues stemming from the fact that parts of existing words seem to develop new or specialized meanings as a result of the blending process. Here I examine smaller, less-established blending patterns in two languages, English and American Sign Language. I argue that, though many individual blends are unlikely to become established, conventional lexical items, the general mechanism that allows speakers to produce and interpret blends is clearly part of morphology: Lexical blending forges and reinforces connections between whole words. Accordingly, blending is most appropriately viewed as a step between compounding and derivation, an analogical process that typically creates and exploits paradigmatic lexical relationships. These findings are situated in the framework of Construction Morphology, which allows for the straightforward description of morphological patterns as structural alignments of form and meaning and as templates for the creation of new words.

Language change and creativity among adolescent language use, is nothing new. However, teachers in schools and parents in homes continue to feel left out of the linguistic figured world of the youth that they teach or raise, often leading to either perceived or real failed communication. In this study I offer a thoughtful and perhaps unique social semiotic analysis of the process and motivation for youth creation of new words or the resemanticization of existing words. Understanding the need for youth to create their own linguistic worlds for acceptance into social worlds has less to do with creating a barrier between them and their parents or teachers and more to do with positive identity development, could be the key for unlocking positive communication with the adults in their lives. Within, I put forth the idea that there exist purposeful in-groups and out-groups, of which the out-groups can be further divided into desirable and un-desirable out-groups. It is important to uncover the different affordances of existing terms and to create inventories of new terms and their synchronic meanings and possible diachronic evolution, in order for parents to understand the motive and need for youth creativity with language. Accepting the possibility, that youth are simply constructing and describing the world around them, changes the paradigm of parental-adolescent communication from a gulf or abyss to a potential bridge or a passageway connecting the two worlds.

We present a semantic model for distributed lazy evaluation where parallelism overrides laziness in terms of eager process creation and eager value communication. This semantics is proved to be correct and computationally adequate with respect to a standard denotational semantics. To obtain these results, two intermediate semantics are defined: a one-processor version of the operational semantics and an extension of the natural semantics defined in [9].

This article investigates the semantic polyfunctionality of affixes, i.e. their ability to serve a variety of distinct semantic functions. Based on the analysis of a sample of 3,091 deverbal nouns ending with 46 different suffixes in French, the study examines the diversity of semantic functions realized by deverbal suffixes, the distribution of these functions across suffixes and the relationships that may exist between different functions. It appears that polyfunctionality is widespread among French deverbal suffixes and involves a large number of semantic functions, with highly variable realization frequency. Several fundamental aspects of affix polyfunctionality are further highlighted. A probabilistic analysis shows that polyfunctionality can be driven by non-arbitrary semantic associations between functions. A hierarchy of functions can also be postulated depending on whether they can be instantiated by monosemous or only polysemous derivatives. In addition, polyfunctionality appears to be inseparable from rivalry relationships and to determine the degree of rivalry between affixes. Overall, the study illustrates that affix polyfunctionality is governed by systematic organizing principles whose ramifications touch on lexical ambiguity and morphological competition.

Studies in word-formation in English are common compared to the study of new words that are formed by combining the resources of two linguistic systems. Although new word formations within a language are considered to be highly creative, combining words from two different languages provides another level of creativity to bilinguals in different situations. The objective of this paper is to examine the main types of word creation processes employed in mass media texts, particularly in Hindi-English code-mixed words. The focus is on three main processes of word creation: affixation, blending and compounding (including reduplication) and they are discussed from the perspective of productivity/creativity, distribution and underlying motivations. These processes seem to be illustrative of the nativization of inner circle English in India, particularly in mass media where such lexical adaptations lend texts a distinct flavor through innovation in word-formation.

<div><p>Back-formation is a process of English word creation that, due to its irregular nature in terms of form and meaning, has yielded numerous plausible interpretations from linguistic researchers in terms of how it functions on non-affixed words that are interpreted as complicated by speakers. These interpretations are based on how back-formation acts on non-affixed words that are interpreted as complex by people. This study will examine the similarities and differences between clipping and back-formation, as well as the typology of back-formation, with the goal of shedding light on the possible workings of the mechanism that may be responsible for the development of new words. Because it is also predicated on a description of this process of word construction in Middle English as well as modern English, the technique that this research study employs can be categorized as descriptive.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Back-formation, clipping, mechanism, typology, methodology, descriptive.<strong> </strong></p></div>