Papers by Jesús Fernández-Domínguez
We invite word-formationists to revisit a number of boundaries and continua in affixation, from a... more We invite word-formationists to revisit a number of boundaries and continua in affixation, from a diachronic or synchronic perspective, through specific case studies or more theoretically oriented discussions. The list of topics includes, but is not limited to:
a) derivation and inflection,
b) splinters, (bound) roots, affixoids, and affixes,
c) the emergence of new derivational affixes (= derivational affixization),
d) affixization and other "ization" processes such as constructionalization, grammaticalization, lexicalization, and morphologization,
e) evaluative and non-evaluative affixation,
f) affixation and deaffixation (= back-formation),
g) affixes in language contact situations.
Corpora and Language Change in Late Modern EnglishPublisher: Peter Lang, 2024
The term available is used in word-formation studies in reference to those morphological processe... more The term available is used in word-formation studies in reference to those morphological processes which can be employed for productive coinage at a given time. Availability is often depicted alongside profitability (the number of lexemes that a process can coin), and together they conform the hypernym morphological productivity. Availability is in this context the qualitative side of productivity, with profitability representing its quantitative side. The division of productivity into availability and profitability was not made explicit until Corbin (1987), and the former concept still stands as a slippery one (Bauer 2001, Palmer 2015). The notion of availability gets particularly problematic when we turn to language change because the fact that a morphological process is available at a given time in the history of the language does not guarantee that it will be available at a later stage. This involves not only that “statements of availability are temporally limited” (Bauer 2001: 205; see Bauer et al. 2013: 32), but also that there must exist a locus for the transition from availability to unavailability, and vice versa. If, as is widely agreed, availability is a non-gradable concept, research on word-formation should be able to detect that transitional point and describe its nature. This need is perceived as growing in the light of accounts like Bauer et al.’s (2013: 198-201), who discuss morphological processes that allegedly stopped being productive in the past but where lexical activity seems to have revived. A case in point is that of -ment, a nominalizing suffix whose productive capacity peaked during the 18th and 19th centuries and which has been in progressive decline since (see Bauer 2001, Lieber 2005, Palmer 2015: 126). The status of -ment today is ambiguous between available and unavailable, given recent reports on occasional creations that make it impossible to label -ment as obsolete (Kawaletz and Plag 2015, Lapesa et al. 2018). The aim of this paper is to delve into -ment derivation in order to account for the factors which may have reduced its productive potential in the recent past, e.g. variability in access to lexical bases or competition with other word-formation processes. To do so, The Corpus of Historical American English (Davis 2010) is scanned for -ment coinages from the 1820s-2010s time frame, each complemented with information from the Oxford English Dictionary (Proffitt 2019). This makes it possible to observe changes in the process’s historical behavior, and it also evidences that results of low productivity differ depending on the perspective and method adopted. Likewise, the comparison of dictionary and corpus data allows describing and contrasting the fluctuations in the lexical efficiency of a process whose productive status has been described as uncertain.
Anglia 141(2): 1-26, 2023
Morphological productivity represents an essential property for human
language and, as such, it l... more Morphological productivity represents an essential property for human
language and, as such, it lies at the core of any thorough word-formation theory. Studies in productivity have traditionally focused on areas of high profitability, that is, on the quantification and ranking of processes which show the capacity for lexical creation (e. g. ‑able, ‑ness, ‑ity). In other cases, however, morphological processes can no longer be used productively, or they can be used minimally (e. g. ‑th, ‑hood). These processes have received considerably less attention in the literature, partly due to their complex theoretical definition, partly due to their difficult practical assessment. In view of the shortage of specific research, this paper revolves around
the current status of the nominalizing suffix ‑ment, which enjoyed a high profitability index between the 12th and 17th centuries, and is today taken to embody marginal productivity in synchronic terms. The suffix is explored in the light of lexicographic and corpus data for an inspection of its role in nominalizations with the meaning ACTION/PROCESS, specifically concerning recent coinages that suggest some degree of morphological activity. This up-to-date picture of ‑ment shows that it is risky to present it as unproductive, and it leads to the consideration of related notions like the availability-unavailability divide or the measurement of low productivity.
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Diachronic Linguistics, 2024
Diachronic onomasiology examines the evolution of words and the naming process in a speech commun... more Diachronic onomasiology examines the evolution of words and the naming process in a speech community. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws on cognitive linguistics, whose focus is the relationship between language and conceptualization, and historical linguistics, which explores the development of languages. The scope of diachronic onomasiology is vast, encompassing the extralinguistic reality that shapes the naming act and the changes that occur as the speech community evolves. New lexical items are formed through a variety of mechanisms, including derivation, compounding, borrowing and semantic change. Diachronic onomasiology examines how these mechanisms impact the meaning and usage of words. Cognitive linguistics plays a crucial role in diachronic onomasiology as it provides insights into the conceptualization processes that underpin naming acts. It helps us understand how the meanings of words are shaped by the cognitive structures of the human mind and how these structures progressively change. This, in turn, helps towards a better understanding of the evolution of language and the reasons behind language change. Essential to diachronic onomasiology is the role of language users. The naming process is seen as totally influenced by cultural and social factors, and language change is often driven by changes within the speech community. By examining the evolution of lexical items in different speech communities, diachronic onomasiology sheds light on the complex interplay between language and culture. Diachronic onomasiology is hence instrumental in helping us understand the reasons behind language change and the ways in which the meanings of words are shaped over time.
Italian Journal of Linguistics, 36(1): 103-128, 2024
The exploration of English compounds like heartbeat, mouse click or gunfight reveals complexities... more The exploration of English compounds like heartbeat, mouse click or gunfight reveals complexities because, despite an apparently straightforward noun+noun structure, their internal constituency is less obvious. Even if these formations have been sometimes treated as regular primary noun+noun compounds, today there is agreement that their chain of word-formation involves deverbal conversion (clickV > clickN) followed by noun+noun compounding (mouseN+clickN). Precisely because the head noun has previously undergone verb-to-noun conversion, such compounds may be seen sometimes as primary and sometimes as synthetic. This article explores a selection of ca. 800 non-affixal (de)verbal compounds (NDVCs), inspected in the light of their BNC frequencies, (non-)argumental nature, type of orientation and productivity degree. The results point to: (i) a significant role of the extralinguistic context for meaning interpretation, (ii) a connection between the argumental specifications of the verbal base and the converted head noun (i.e. click in mouse click), and (iii) the possibility to understand
a given NDVC at the same time as primary and as synthetic.
Competition in Word-Formation, 2024
The suffix ‐ment is a nominalizer which has been portrayed as practically “defunct” (Anshen & Aro... more The suffix ‐ment is a nominalizer which has been portrayed as practically “defunct” (Anshen & Aronoff 1999:24), although recent coinages cast doubts on conclusive statements (Bauer et al. 2013). This investigation is based on nonce formations from the BNC and COCA and aims at exploring nominalizations which compete for the meaning action in order to understand the current degree of productivity of the processes involved. This is done through a corpus-based quantitative approach which considers ‐ment in the light of its relationship to other competitors, e.g. ‐ing or conversion. The results reveal that ‐ment is normally surpassed by other processes, but also that it has found a niche of application which secures a minimal productive status.
Studia Neophilologica, 2023
This article tackles the phenomenon whereby a full compound is introduced in a text and subsequen... more This article tackles the phenomenon whereby a full compound is introduced in a text and subsequently referred to only through its head. The latter is called a covert compound. For example: "the limited impact of government policy after 1905 in general and of the Stolypin land reform in particular. True, in the country as a whole the reform helped to reduce [.. .]". It is proposed that reform in this context is a compound which flies under the radar, since its actual referent is in fact land reform but, for various reasons, the non-head has been elided and only the head retained upon second mention. Our assumption is that on some occasions a compound will be introduced in a text and then repeated in full, while on others only the head will be repeated after the first mention. The postulate of this article is that ignoring covert compounds implies a limited view of compounding, and in turn of the lexicon. Its aim is thus to use corpus data to look into how a given concept initially named by a compound is referred to subsequently through a simplified lexical unit. The findings point to a high presence of open lowfrequency non-lexicalized compounds among covert compounds and to a dominance of Object-orientation with the semantic roles Agent and Object.
Esta tesis contribuye al estudio de la formacion de palabras en ingles conjugando dos ejes centra... more Esta tesis contribuye al estudio de la formacion de palabras en ingles conjugando dos ejes centrales: los compuestos del tipo nombre + nombre (N+N) y el fenomeno de la productividad morfologica. Tras la introduccion y la metodologia (Capitulo 1), el Capitulo 2 aborda el concepto de "compuesto" y su historia en la descripcion de la lengua inglesa, senalando generalizaciones y los problemas mas comunes de este tipo de palabras. Se presta especial atencion a los compuestos N+N, de dificil analisis debido a su parecido formal con las frases nominales premodificadas por uno o mas nombres.%&/A continuacion el Capitulo 3 se embarca en la descripcion y delimitacion de la productividad morfologica, fenomeno tradicionalmente ignorado por los especialistas y del que paulatinamente se van conociendo diferentes facetas. En este capitulo se enfatiza una vision de la productividad como un "epifenomeno", esto es, un fenomeno que emana de varias cualidades, en lugar de un todo en...
Ever since the first explicit mention of the term ‘conversion’ by Henry Sweet (1891-98), an impor... more Ever since the first explicit mention of the term ‘conversion’ by Henry Sweet (1891-98), an important number of authors have periodically approached the topic from different perspectives, trying to come to terms with one of the most frequent procedures for wordformation in English. It seems, however, that the interest kindled by the phenomenon runs parallel to the inconsistencies and problems which it poses and, despite the attempts to unify criteria, conversion is still perceived as peculiar compared to other word-formation patterns. In view of the situation, the present work intends to gather a variety of opinions on conversion along with the author’s view of the process. The structure of the book provides a somewhat unbalanced proportion among five chapters, with three lengthy middle sections which outweigh the introductory and concluding sections. Chapter 1 (pp. 13-17) introduces the topic and lays down the fundamental principles and structure of the book, while Chapter 2 (pp. 1...
Based on a 3,093-item corpus, this paper delves into the meaning relationship between the two con... more Based on a 3,093-item corpus, this paper delves into the meaning relationship between the two constituents of N+N compounds. After tackling theoretical questions such as semantic categories and prototypes of compounds, some methodological details are considered and explanations provided on the collection of the corpus. Next, the experimental section examines the semantics of N+N compounding and, by means of various computations, it describes and analyzes to what extent the presence of a given modifier influences the overall meaning of these lexemes. Finally, the aspects from the theoretical and the practical sections are combined, and future prospects on the topic assessed.
Learner corpora are used to investigate computerised learner language so as to gain insights into... more Learner corpora are used to investigate computerised learner language so as to gain insights into foreign language learning. One of the methodologies that can be applied to this type of research is computer-aided error analysis (CEA), which, in general terms, consists in the study of learner errors as contained in a learner corpus. Surveys of current learner corpora and of issues of learner corpus research have been published in the last few years (Granger 1998, 2002, 2004a; Meunier 1998; Pravec 2002; Tono 2003; Nesselhauf 2004; Myles 2005), where information on CEA research can be found, although usually limited. This article is centred on CEA research and is intended as a review of error tagging systems, including error categorizations, dimensions and levels of description.
Morphological productivity has become a central issue in present-day English wordformation over t... more Morphological productivity has become a central issue in present-day English wordformation over the past decade. However, most proposals for assessing productivity have focused on the most productive processes and how to measure them, to the detriment of processes which give rise to fewer items than the ones usually studied in analyses of wordformation productivity. The present paper looks at the major models for productivity measurement and applies them to a BNC-based 5,891-item corpus to test how they account for low productivity. The results obtained highlight significant differences between various productivity counts in an area which, from this point of view, needs further methodological development.
Studies of word-formation have pointed towards a multifaceted nature of morphological productivit... more Studies of word-formation have pointed towards a multifaceted nature of morphological productivity (Bauer 2001, Plag 2006). With this in mind, this article explores Štekauer’s (1998, 2001) approach to word-formation based on three pivotal oppositions: availability vs. profitability, paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic relations, and a quantitative vs. qualitative view of language. Once word creation is depicted from an onomasiological perspective, we turn to the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of productivity and illustrate the phenomenon with examples from the semantic category INSTRUMENT. This also serves to portray the naming act and productivity measurement as understood in the onomasiological approach.
Contents: What is a Compound?: Major Features - Classical Standpoints - Noun Compounds in Contemp... more Contents: What is a Compound?: Major Features - Classical Standpoints - Noun Compounds in Contemporary English - The Boundary between Morphology and Syntax - What is Morphological Productivity?: Word-formation - Rudiments - Factors Influencing Productivity - Gradation - Morphological Productivity Measurement: Productivity as Analysable Words - Productivity as Potentiality - Stekauer: the Onomasiological Approach - Neologism-based counts - Relative Frequency and Phonotactics - A Model for Profitability.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique
Finally, Chapter 6 includes a summary of the book (pp. 141-146) as well as research questions for... more Finally, Chapter 6 includes a summary of the book (pp. 141-146) as well as research questions for the future (pp. 147-160) where, apart from going over the most relevant issues of the work, the authors give definitive definitions for lexicalization and grammaticalization. In sum, Lexicalization and language change seems an effective reference not only for those interested in lexicalization considered diachronically, but also for studies on wordformation or idiomaticity, given the multidisciplinary nature of the phenomenon. The book contains many examples and illustrations on the points under discussion, and the bibliography includes all major references on the topic, with practically no important absences (one could be Lipka 1977). Furthermore, the indices for names, subjects, words, and forms included at the end of the book make it easy to look up punctual information when necessary. All this makes of Brinton and Traugott's publication a highly recommendable one, which will probably be often quoted in the future as a valid summary of what lexicalization means in modern linguistics.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique
Overall the book is very well written, highly readable and extremely well informed (as witnessed ... more Overall the book is very well written, highly readable and extremely well informed (as witnessed by the over thirty pages of references). Newmeyer does a remarkable job in tracing the history of the field and in presenting complex ideas in a very accessible, but not trivial way. In particular, the frequent references to the recent psycholinguistic work of John Hawkins deservedly bring attention to approaches that are too often overlooked in more theory-oriented works. Newmeyer tackles several foundational issues and analyzes solutions provided by various approaches, which makes the book clearly aimed at a wide range of professional linguists and scholars from neighboring disciplines. However, the book is never overly technical and as such is accessible to upper years undergrad students, as well as graduate students at any level. What I find less appealing is the excessively harsh criticism of Parametric Theory (often based on dubious assumptions or misrepresentations of the theory itself) and the lack of a clearly spelled out alternative model, or at least a detailed alternative analysis of some of the phenomena claimed to be incorrectly accounted for by the Parametric Model.
Corpus Analysis in Academic Discourse: Academic Discourse and Learner CorporaCorpus Analysis in Academic Discourse Academic Discourse and Learner Corpora, 2020
The purpose of this chapter is to identify and classify extremely overused bundles in the written... more The purpose of this chapter is to identify and classify extremely overused bundles in the written academic tasks of Spanish university students of English Studies and Translation at the University of Valencia. This is done by means of a frequency-driven corpus methodology. For that purpose, CASTLE, a corpus of about half a million words, has been analysed and compared with the findings in two native corpora. One of them, ACUV, is a corpus with over one million words containing research articles written by expert native writers; the other is a selection of BAWE, containing over one million words of novice writing whose first language is English. The distributional data of the spoken conversational component of the BNC, accessed through the BNCWeb, has also been used in this analysis. Our findings show that a sizeable number of four-word bundles represent extreme cases of overuse, i.e. fairly unconventional sequences which are absent from the native corpora we have compared them with....
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Papers by Jesús Fernández-Domínguez
a) derivation and inflection,
b) splinters, (bound) roots, affixoids, and affixes,
c) the emergence of new derivational affixes (= derivational affixization),
d) affixization and other "ization" processes such as constructionalization, grammaticalization, lexicalization, and morphologization,
e) evaluative and non-evaluative affixation,
f) affixation and deaffixation (= back-formation),
g) affixes in language contact situations.
language and, as such, it lies at the core of any thorough word-formation theory. Studies in productivity have traditionally focused on areas of high profitability, that is, on the quantification and ranking of processes which show the capacity for lexical creation (e. g. ‑able, ‑ness, ‑ity). In other cases, however, morphological processes can no longer be used productively, or they can be used minimally (e. g. ‑th, ‑hood). These processes have received considerably less attention in the literature, partly due to their complex theoretical definition, partly due to their difficult practical assessment. In view of the shortage of specific research, this paper revolves around
the current status of the nominalizing suffix ‑ment, which enjoyed a high profitability index between the 12th and 17th centuries, and is today taken to embody marginal productivity in synchronic terms. The suffix is explored in the light of lexicographic and corpus data for an inspection of its role in nominalizations with the meaning ACTION/PROCESS, specifically concerning recent coinages that suggest some degree of morphological activity. This up-to-date picture of ‑ment shows that it is risky to present it as unproductive, and it leads to the consideration of related notions like the availability-unavailability divide or the measurement of low productivity.
a given NDVC at the same time as primary and as synthetic.
a) derivation and inflection,
b) splinters, (bound) roots, affixoids, and affixes,
c) the emergence of new derivational affixes (= derivational affixization),
d) affixization and other "ization" processes such as constructionalization, grammaticalization, lexicalization, and morphologization,
e) evaluative and non-evaluative affixation,
f) affixation and deaffixation (= back-formation),
g) affixes in language contact situations.
language and, as such, it lies at the core of any thorough word-formation theory. Studies in productivity have traditionally focused on areas of high profitability, that is, on the quantification and ranking of processes which show the capacity for lexical creation (e. g. ‑able, ‑ness, ‑ity). In other cases, however, morphological processes can no longer be used productively, or they can be used minimally (e. g. ‑th, ‑hood). These processes have received considerably less attention in the literature, partly due to their complex theoretical definition, partly due to their difficult practical assessment. In view of the shortage of specific research, this paper revolves around
the current status of the nominalizing suffix ‑ment, which enjoyed a high profitability index between the 12th and 17th centuries, and is today taken to embody marginal productivity in synchronic terms. The suffix is explored in the light of lexicographic and corpus data for an inspection of its role in nominalizations with the meaning ACTION/PROCESS, specifically concerning recent coinages that suggest some degree of morphological activity. This up-to-date picture of ‑ment shows that it is risky to present it as unproductive, and it leads to the consideration of related notions like the availability-unavailability divide or the measurement of low productivity.
a given NDVC at the same time as primary and as synthetic.