1 The scope of word-formation research

Abstract

The first article of this volume presents an introductory survey of the scope of word-formation research. It defines and demarcates the subject-matter of word-formation and explains the basic notions related to the internal structures of complex lexemes and the cross-linguistically important word-formation patterns. Major approaches, analytical and descriptive levels and models in the field of word-formation research are outlined from a bird's eye view. The final section deals with productivity and lexicalization.

1 Introduction

Word-formation research investigates the patterns and regularities underlying the formation of complex lexemes by means of existing building blocks with the aim of formulating rules and other types of generalizations. Complex lexemes (e.g., E. headteacher or trivialize) are characterized by the fact that they consist of two or more constituents. Unlike most simple lexemes such as head, teach and trivial, complex lexemes are not entirely arbitrary signs, but instead are morphologically motivated by their constituents and by the semantic links shared with other structurally identical formations. A precise understanding of the nature of this motivation forms the main interest of word-formation research.

The scope of word-formation research in linguistics can be defined by demarcating word-formation from neighbouring fields. The adjacent domain of inflectional morphology deals with elements and operations which produce word-forms of lexemes (e.g., teaches, teaching, taught) rather than new lexemes (teacher, headteacher, to teamteach, etc.), as is the case in word-formation. Word-formation and inflectional morphology are not separated by a clear boundary, however (Bybee 1985; Scalise 1988; Plank 1994; Booij 2000 and Stump 2005). A classic example of a delimitation problem is the dispute over whether the English adverb-forming suffix -ly as in really or elegantly should be treated as a derivational, i.e. lexical, or inflectional and thus grammatical morpheme (cf. Giegerich 2012). Syntax, while having emerged as a prominent source of inspiration for theory-building in word-formation, differs from word-formation in that the output of syntactic operations is phrasal and clausal rather than lexical in nature. Needless to say, boundary issues exist as well, e.g., in the distinction of certain types of nominal compounds from noun phrases (e.g., Benveniste 1967; Bauer 1988a and Olsen 2000). Demarcation problems are also very common at the porous boundary to phraseology, for instance when it comes to classifying semi-idiomatic phrases such as black market or particle verbs of the type get up and make up for (see articles 16 on particle-verb formation and 17 on multi-word expressions). Many practitioners of word-formation research distinguish word-formation (in a narrow sense) from ways of extending the lexical resources which do not involve changes in the forms of linguistic signs, mainly metaphorical or metonymic transfers and other forms of lexical change resulting in purely semantic extensions or shifts. Finally, as suggested by the definition given above, word-formation can be, but is not always, distinguished from what is referred to as coinage (Lieber 2010: 51), word-creation or word manufacture (Bauer 1983: 239), which does not rely on existing building blocks (see article 19 on word-creation). Frequently quoted examples include product and brand names such as Kodak or Google.

The subject-matter of word-formation research is also demarcated by the definition provided above. Essentially, four aspects define the remit of word-formation research.

Firstly, word-formation research analyses and describes the internal structures and constituents of complex lexemes and identifies and classifies the forms and meanings of the lexical and morphological building blocks of a given language (see article 9 on units of word-formation). As a part of this segmentation, identification and classification procedure, the lexical building blocks involved in word-formation must be distinguished from inflectional morphemes (see article 8 on the delimitation of derivation and inflection). The results of analytical and classificatory efforts feed into models of word-formation processes.

Secondly, word-formation research identifies, classifies and models the processes underlying the formation of existing and new complex lexemes. This is typically accomplished by segmenting established complex lexemes and describing their grammatical, morphological, semantic and phonological properties as well as those of their constituents. While most researchers in the field agree on a set of basic types of word-formation processes, there has been considerable controversy over the precise way in which they should be modelled.

Thirdly, because of the multifaceted nature of complex lexemes, word-formation research tends to be a multi-level (Lipka 1983) or multi-perspectival endeavour. Traditionally, morphological, syntactic, semantic and phonological aspects have taken centre stage in word-formation research, as these perspectives provide the basis for systematic and parsimonious generalizations regarding word-formation rules and patterns. More recently, sociopragmatic, psycholinguistic, cognitive and textual aspects have been attracting increasing interest (see article 7 on word-formation in psycholinguistics and neurocognitive research).

Fourthly, word-formation research tries to provide adequate models of the creative and dynamic aspects of word-formation. On the level of word-formation rules and patterns, this relates to the changing productivity of word-formation processes and the elements involved in them. On the level of individual complex lexemes, an explanation must be found for how new creations are motivated, how they find their way into the lexicon of a language and how their forms and meanings change in the course of time.

As regards the terminology used to refer to the core interest of word-formation research, the terms word-formation process, word-formation type, word-formation model, word-formation rule and word-formation pattern will be used interchangeably here, even though they highlight different aspects of the phenomena at hand and have been defined in more specific ways by some authors (e.g., Fleischer and Barz 2012: 67-69; Hansen et al. 1990: 28).

Section 2 of this article will be devoted to the morphological building blocks and internal structures of complex lexemes. Section 3 will provide a survey of cross-linguistically important word-formation patterns. The next three sections will discuss different approaches to word-formation research (section 4), survey the linguistic perspectives included in word-formation research (section 5) and provide a sketch of the major types of theoretical models attempting to capture the nature of word-formation rules and patterns (section 6). Section 7 will focus on research into the temporal and dynamic aspects of word-formation, i.e. the productivity of word-formation patterns and the types of changes that take place as complex lexemes are coined, spread and become part of the lexicon.

2 Morphological building blocks and the internal structures of complex lexemes

Three basic approaches to describing the constituents of complex lexemes can be distinguished: a word-based, a root-based and a morpheme-based approach (see article 9 on units of word-formation).

The first type proceeds from the assumption that words constitute the cores of complex lexemes. Word-formation rules combine several words in the case of compounding, and words and affixes in derivation. This assumption is known as the word-based hypothesis (Aronoff 1976: 21; Scalise 1986: 40-42, 71-78).

In the second approach, roots or stems, rather than full-fledged words, are considered the key constituents of complex lexemes. Terminology is far from uniform in this area, especially regarding the term stem (see Chelliah and de Reuse 2011: 314 for a survey). This notion is sometimes used to refer to the base of a word-formation process, i.e. the element to which further morphological material is added, and sometimes to the part which remains constant before inflectional endings are added (Bauer 1988b: 11). According to the first interpretation, national would be the stem of (the company was) nationalized, and according to the second, nationalize. To keep these readings apart, some authors (e.g., Hansen...