tailieunhanh - Tài liệu Word formation in English

This chapter introduces basic concepts needed for the study and description of morphologically complex words. Since this is a book about the particular branch of morphology called word- formation, we will first take a look at the notion of ‘word’. We will then turn to a first analysis of the kinds of phenomena that fall into the domain of word-formation, before we finally discuss how word-formation can be distinguished from the other sub-branch of morphology, inflection. | Word-formation in English by Ingo Plag Universität Siegen in press Cambridge University Press Series ‘Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics’ Draft version of September 27, 2002 i TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Basic concepts 4 . What is a word? 4 . Studying word-formation 12 . Inflection and derivation 18 . Summary 23 Further reading 23 Exercises 24 2. Studying complex words 25 . Identifying morphemes 25 . The morpheme as the minimal linguistic sign 25 . Problems with the morpheme: the mapping of form and meaning 27 . Allomorphy 33 . Establishing word-formation rules 38 . Multiple affixation 50 . Summary 53 Further reading 54 Exercises 55 3. Productivity and the mental lexicon 551 . Introduction: What is productivity? 551 . Possible and actual words 561 . Complex words in the lexicon 59 . 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. ii . Constraining productivity 73 . Pragmatic restrictions 74 . Structural restrictions 75 . Blocking 79 . Summary 84 Further reading 85 Exercises 85 4. Affixation 90 . What is an affix? 90 . How to investigate affixes: More on methodology 93 . General properties of English affixation 98 . Suffixes 109 . Nominal suffixes 109 . Verbal suffixes 116 . Adjectival suffixes 118 . Adverbial suffixes 123 . Prefixes 123 . Infixation 127 . Summary 130 Further reading 131 Exercises 131 5. Derivation without affixation 134 . Conversion 134 . The directionality of conversion 135 . Conversion or zero-affixation? 140 . Conversion: Syntactic or morphological? 143 . Prosodic morphology 145 . Truncations: Truncated names, -y diminutives and clippings 146 . Blends 150 iii . Abbreviations .