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Language Quaderns de filologia. Estudis lingüístics. 2013. No. 18
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- Word-formation and word-creation: A datadriven exploration of inventiveness in neologisms(2013) Arnaud, Pierre J. L.Some neologisms attract our attention by their inventiveness, while others pass unnoticed. This article reports on an exploration of the concept of inventiveness in lexicogenesis. Inventiveness is not currently a notion present in morphological research, while the semantically related creativity is found in discussions of the opposition between word-formation and word-creation, i.e. the application of morphological rules vs. the extra-grammatical production of neologisms. The question is: Does inventiveness have anything to do with this opposition? One way of investigating a subjective notion like this is to ask informants to provide judgments. In two investigations, the informants read neologisms with short definitions and produced scores of inventiveness for each unit. The neologisms were rank-ordered by inventiveness scores and the ten most and least inventive units were compared. Transparent units, i.e. words with a simple form-meaning relationship, were generally judged less inventive than those with more complex relationships. Also, fabricated words, blends and units with splinters were judged more inventive. Overall, these observations confirm a prototypical distinction between word-formation and word-creation.
- The Xed out construction: between productivity and creativity(2013) Hugou, VincentThe Xed out construction, as in I’m all coffeed out , is said to be completely productive. This paper argues that unrestrained productivity is more the exception than the rule. A corpus-based study (blogs and forums) makes it possible to detect morphosyntactic preferences and also what lies beyond the more stable areas of the construction, when the language user chooses to exploit it in a more creative way. In all cases, it turns out that productivity is determined by general or more local principles, and that sets of linguistic and extra-linguistic constraints tend to compete or conflict with each other.
- El préstamo lingüístico, uno de los principales procedimientos de creación neológica(2013) Guerrero Ramos, GloriaEn el presente trabajo pretendemos demostrar que el préstamo lingu?ístico es uno de los principales procedimientos de creación neológica tanto en el pasado como en la actualidad. Los préstamos, aunque con las reticencias lógicas por el empobrecimiento o arrinconamiento que el léxico patrimonial pueda sufrir, siempre han estado presentes en las lenguas. Prueba de ello es su aparición ya en el Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española de Sebastián de Covarrubias, primer diccionario monolingu?e con el que cuenta nuestra lengua.
- The ludic aspect of lexical inventiveness(2013) Bagasheva, Alexandra; Stamenov, ChristoIn this paper we argue that coining new words is inherently ludic. Wehypothesize that naming (the onomasiological part of the creation of words)functions as a modern form of aporia (the riddle). We propose to interpret nonceformations as the initial stage of any new word both as a temporal and as aspatial notion. Once used in communicative interaction, a word is launched onits paths of socialization, instantiated by institutionalization and lexicalization.As there are no grounds for a sharp distinction between ‘ludic’ and ‘ordinary’words, we postulate ludicity as a third dimension of socialization for whicheach word is characterized
- Locative morphemes in word-formation: comparison between English and Japanese(2013) Nagano, AkikoThis is a preliminary examination of locative morphemes called AxPart morphemes as found in word-formation. Free AxPart morphemes that constitute lexical PPs in syntax actively participate in word-formation. Certain bound locative morphemes, on the other hand, produce words that are semantically paraphrased by lexical PPs. English and Japanese complex words of these types simultaneously show dependence and independence between morphology and syntax.
- Elements with ambiguous morphological status: The marker -idz(o) in Griko(2013) Koutsoukos, Nikos; Ralli, AngelaIn this paper, we examine some verbal formations with the element -idz(o) in Griko, a Greek-based dialect spoken in South Italy, and argue that -idz(o) has an ambiguous morphological status. We show that in some formations idz(o) seems to have undergone a change from a prototypical derivational suffix to a simple inflection-class indicator. We also propose that this change is triggered by a tendency of the Griko verbal system to level its inflection classes and provide evidence for a grammaticalization case affecting derivational material.
- Diminutives and plurals of Dutch nouns(2013) Ten Hacken, PiusIn Dutch dictionaries, nouns appear with their plural and their diminutive.This reflects the intuition among native speakers that a noun normally has thesetwo related forms. Traditionally, the plural is considered inflectional whereasthe diminutive belongs to word formation. In his Parallel Architecture (PA),Jackendoff (2002) does not distinguish word formation and inflection. Here Iargue that the Dutch contrast does not support this view. I first present pluraland diminutive as categories, then briefly introduce PA, before proposinganalyses of the plural and diminutive in Dutch.
- Why can one be irritabile ‘irritable’ but can not be *divertibile ‘amuse+able’? On Italian -bile adjectives from psychological verbs(2013) Bisetto, AntoniettaThe paper proposes to set out the domain of application of the adjective forming Italian suffix -bile on the basis of the Aktionsart properties of verbs. In particular, -bile adjectives based on object-experiencer psychological verbs are discussed. It is suggested that, beyond actionality, another piece of information – culmination, concerning achievement verbs – is necessary to adequately account for the formation of these Italian adjectives. The presence / absence of the culmination feature allows to distinguish between two types of achievements, here called strong and weak achievements. It is shown that only weak achievements can constitute the domain of application of the suffix.
- Word-formation in original and translated English: source language influence on the use of un- and less(2013) Saint-Léger, Marie-Paule de; Cartoni, BrunoThis article aims to assess whether the word-formation features of translated language, as opposed to original language, are source language (SL)-dependent or translation-related. To do so, we analyze the use of the -less and un- negative affixes in original English and in English translated from four SL: French, Italian, Dutch and German. Findings based on the Europarl corpus show that the use of -less and un- in translated English is partially SL-dependent.
- Introduction(2013) Pruñonosa Tomás, Manuel; Fernández Domínguez, Jesús; Renner, VincentWord-formation is the branch of linguistics that studies the nature and circumstances surrounding the coining of new complex lexemes. This field of research has been a source of fascination to scholars for centuries – descriptions regarding the mechanisms of lexical innovation of Classical Sanskrit existed already in the 4th century BCE. A number of controversial issues have traditionally underlain the discipline and, despite the efforts directed at solving them, many remain a matter of debate to the present day. As happened in other areas of linguistics, the 20th century witnessed a revolution in word-formation, thanks to Saussure’s writings and to monographs like Chomsky (1957), Dokulil (1962) and Marchand (1969). If one had to name a distinctive attribute of modern word-formation, it would probably be the non-predominance of a single linguistic theory.This volume was conceived as a reflection of the current trends in word-formation, and has therefore tried to embrace a variety of theoretical frameworks, viewpoints and languages.
