Rival morphological processes 1: The productivity of verb-deriving processes Conclusion

It was shown that both the OED-based and the corpus-based productivity measures have turned out to be useful analytical tools, contrary to earlier claims in the literature. In general, the nature and results of the OED measure are similar to those of global productivity P* but also incorporate an element of probability by counting the number of neologisms for a given period. In the text-based measure P, this aspect is ex pressed by dividing the number of new types by the number of all tokens of the relevant category. In the light of these considerations, the OED measure combines aspects of Baayen's P* and Ρ without being exactly equivalent to either one of them.

Although the quantitative results are useful and important, the methodological problems involved with both types of data-bases are enormous, and no single measure should be overinterpreted in its estimation of the productivity of a process. In fact, the above account can be seen as a case for the combination of both types of measures, since a careful comparison of different data bases can help to detect and balance the bias necessarily involved with each individual measure. It seems, however, that the text-based measures are much better suited for affixation processes which are both semantically more clearly defined and phonologically more transparent. Especially with the verbal suffix -ate, the methodological problems abound because of its high degree of semantic, phonological and morphological opacity.

The quantitative assessment of the productivity of the verb-deriving processes can be summarized as follows. The most productive one is conversion, followed by -ize, the most productive overt suffix by far, and the suffixes -ify and -ate. All other processes examined are practically dead. In comparison to -ize, the suffixes -ify and -ate seem to be more severely restricted, in that -ate has a high global productivity, but the probability of encountering new forms is rather low. Conversely, -ify has a higher chance of occurring in new formations, but the sheer number of these instances is rather low.

Where do these differences among the suffixes come from? As already pointed out, the productivity measures are only the first step in our analysis. They state the problem, but do not solve it. We will see that the observable differences in productivity between the verb-deriving processes are largely a reflection of the structural restrictions imposed on these processes.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم صناعة الشبابيك يشرع بإدامة شباكين قديمين لمرقد الإمامين العسكريين (عليهما السلام)

فرقة العباس (عليه السلام) تختتم خدماتها المقدمة للزائرين في سامراء

موكب العتبتين المقدستين يحيي ذكرى استشهاد الإمام الهادي (عليه السلام) في سامراء

العتبة العسكرية المقدسة تكرّم وفد العتبة العباسية المقدسة لمشاركته في تقديم الخدمات للزائرين

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

كنز غذائي على طبقك.. ماذا تفعل السبانخ بجسمك؟

ما لا يتوقعه أحد.. "سر غذائي" في الجبن الدسم

لتحسين الهضم والنوم.. هذا أفضل وقت لتناول العشاء

10 طرق بسيطة وغير مألوفة لحرق المزيد من السعرات يوميا

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سابقة بعالم الطيران.. طائرة تقرر الهبوط بنفسها بعد ظرف طارئ

"الإنفلونزا الخارقة" تكتسح دول العالم.. وتثير قلقا كبيرا

مرحلة ما قبل الأعراض.. دواء جديد يستهدف "شرارة" الزهايمر

إزالة ثاني أكسيد الكربون من الغلاف الجوي.. ما دور المحيطات والبحار؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Constituent structure

A typology of word structure

Analyzing position classes

Representing word structure

Different kinds of morphemes

Morphemes Definition of “morpheme”

Analyzing word structure

Mirror in nominal morphology

Appendix 2: Hapax legomena from the Cobuild corpus

Appendix 1: 20th century neologisms from the OED

Morphological Productivity Structural Constraints in English Derivation Conclusion

Verbal derivation and the separation hypothesis