9주차. Productivity
지난강의
• What is an affix? (affixes vs. free
roots, bound roots)
• Transpositional vs. semantically
contentful affixes
• Types of semantic content that affixes
can carry
지난강의
• English prefixes
• General properties of prefixes vs.
suffixes
• English suffixes (nominal, adjectival,
verbal, adverbial suffixes)
학습내용
•
•
•
•
•
What is productivity?
Factors contributing to productivity
Restrictions on productivity
Blocking
How to measure productivity
9주차. Productivity
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Productivity
• Three ways of forming abstract nouns:
-th:
long, length
warm, warmth
true, truth
-ity:
sensitive, sensitivity
pure, purity
modern, modernity
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Productivity
• Three ways of forming abstract nouns:
-ness:
happy, happiness
dark, darkness
ugly, ugliness
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Productivity (cont)
• Which of the three suffixes would you
choose to make a noun out of the
following adjectives?
-th
-ity
-ness
lovely
???
???
loveliness
cool
???
???
coolness
Evil
???
???
evilness
googleability
?googleabl
e-ness
googleable ???
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Productivity (cont)
• Which of the three suffixes would you
choose to make a noun out of the
following adjectives?
-th
-ity
-ness
rustic
???
rusticity
?rusticness
musty
???
???
mustiness
inconse
quential
???
inconse?inconsequentiality quentialness
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Productivity (cont)
• We might recognize -th as a suffix,
but we never make use of it in making
new words. (*lovelith, *coolth, *evilth,
*greyth)
• By contrast, -ness is very ‘productive’
in the sense that whatever adjective
-ness is attached to, the result sounds
like a possible noun (e.g. longness,
sensitiveness, pureness).
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Productivity (cont)
• If native English speakers hear a
non-English-speaker use the word
longness instead of length, they will
be able to understand what the
speaker means, even if longness is
not a word that they would use.
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Productivity (cont)
• The suffix -ity has more gaps in its
distribution than the suffix -ness has.
A noun in -ity does not exist
automatically just through the
existence of a base adjective (See
also dioecious, dioeciousness,
*dioeciosity.)
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Productivity (cont)
• The property of an affix to be used to
coin new complex words is referred
to as the ‘productivity’ of that affix.
• Usually productivity is not an all-ornothing matter; affixes may be more
or less productive than others.
-ness > -ity > -th (> means ‘more
productive than’)
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Possible vs. actual words
• The notion of productivity makes
reference to the speaker’s ability to
form new words and to the
conditions the language system
imposes on new words.
• These new words are possible (or
potential) words (as compared to
actual words)
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Possible vs. actual words
• A possible word can be defined as a
word whose semantic, morphological
or phonological structure is in
accordance with the rules and
regularities of the language.
• Productivity refers to an ability to
coin a possible word, not an actual
word.
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Factors contributing to productivity
• The following factors contribute to
the degree to which we can use
morphological processes to create
new lexemes.
- transparency (transparent affixes
are productive)
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Factors contributing to productivity
• The following factors contribute to
the degree to which we can use
morphological processes to create
new lexemes.
- frequency of the base (affixes
attaching to a wider range of bases
are productive)
- usefulness (affixes that would
create useful words are productive)
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Transparency
• Words formed with transparent
processes can be easily segmented.
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Transparency
• When we attach a transparent affix to
a base,
- the phonological form (the
pronunciation) of both morphemes
stay the same
- the meaning of the derived word is
exactly what we would expect by
adding the meaning of the affix to
that of the base (‘A’ + ‘B’ → ‘AB’)
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Transparency
• Phonological transparency
• Semantic transparency
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Transparency: -ness vs. -ity
• Compare -ness and -ity:
- The murder's callousness shocked
the jury.
- How many varieties of malt whisky
do you stock?
- pureness, purity; oddness, oddity;
selectiveness, selectivity
- polarity, crudity, locality, density,
perceptivity
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Transparency: -ness vs. –ity (cont)
• -ness:
- Adds the meaning ‘the state of
being X’.
- No phonological change of the
base.
- Never attached to a bound base.
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Transparency: -ness vs. –ity (cont)
• -ity:
- Sometimes another meaning is
added.




oddity: a person or thing that is odd
purity: a woman's virtue or chastity
locality: a place or area
selectivity: has a technical meaning
related to radio reception
 polarity: something related electrical
current
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Transparency: -ness vs. –ity (cont)
• -ity:
- Phonological changes of the base
may occur (rusti[k] → rusti[s]ity)
- May attach to a bound base, or to
a noun base (verity, dexterity;
authority)
• -ness is more transparent than -ity.
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Transparency: -less vs. -ous
• -less
- pitiless, shameless, joyless,
fatherless
- regular predictable meaning
('without X')
- Never attached to a bound base.
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Transparency: -less vs. -ous
• -ous
- dangerous, curious, courageous,
tremendous, pious, conspicuous,
glamorous, rebellious, herbivorous,
coniferous, ridiculous, odious
- vague and unpredictable meaning
('abounding in, full of, characterized
by, of the nature of')
- It may attach to a bound base
(barbarous, ambiguous, erroneous).
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Transparency: -less vs. -ous
• -less is more transparent than -ous.
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Semantic transparency
• When derived words take on
meanings that are not transparent
(thus, cannot be made up of the
sum of the parts), we say that the
meaning of the word has become
lexicalized or non-compositional.
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Semantic transparency
• Meanings of complex words that are
predictable as the sum of their parts
are said to be compositional.
• The words oddity, purity, and locality
have developed lexicalized or noncompositional meanings.
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Frequency of base type
• Frequency of base type refers to the
number of different bases that might
be available for affixes to attach to,
thus resulting in new words.
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Frequency of base type
• If an affix attaches only to a limited
range of bases, it has less possibility
of giving rise to new words, and it
will therefore be less productive.
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Frequency of base type
- -esque (‘having the style of X’)
attaches to concrete nouns and
proper names that have at least two
syllables (statuesque, Kafkaesque,
Reaganesque, ?Bushesque,
?Blairesque).
- -esque is less productive than a
suffix that could attach to any noun
at all.
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Usefulness
- An affix is said to be useful when
speakers of the language need new
words using this affix.
- -ness and -ity are highly useful
affixes because it is always useful to
be able to form a noun meaning ‘the
state of being X’ from an adjective.
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Usefulness
- In the past, -ess was useful to refer to
jobs performed by women or position
held by women (stewardess,
murderess, authoress).
- But with the rise of feminism and
efforts to promote gender-neutral
language, such words have fallen into
disuse, and the need for new words
using this suffix has almost died out.
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Exercises
- Exercises 1, 2 on Lieber, p.72
1. which of the following derived words
with the suffix -ity have lexicalized
(non-compositional) meanings. Hint:
some have both. Fill in the grid below.
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Exercises
Compositional?
Yes/No
a. curiosity
b. solidity
c. publicity
d. sexuality
e. visibility
f. facility
Compositional
meaning
Noncompositional
meaning
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Exercises
2. Consider the examples in (a)-(c)
below. Each set involves a lexeme
formation process that takes nouns
as base and produces adjectives.
On the basis of these examples,
compare the three lexeme formation
processes in terms of their
transparency.
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Exercises
2. Remember that transparency
involves both compositionality of
meaning and the pholological
stability of the base (that is, the
base is pronounced the same way in
isolation and in the derived word):
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Exercises
a. -ish
b. -ic
girlish
kittenish
sheepish
loutish
babyish
cyclic
metallic
economic
totemic
organic
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Exercises
c. -al
herbal
global
homicidal
glacial
clinical
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Limiting productivity
• Restrictions that may apply to lexeme
formation processes so that the
processes cannot be absolutely
productive:
-
etymological restrictions
semantic restrictions
syntactic restrictions
morphological restrictions
phonological restrictions
• Blocking
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Etymological restrictions
• The suffix -en (e.g. wooden, waxen)
that forms adjectives from nouns
prefers to attach to bases that are
native.
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Etymological restrictions
• Another suffix -ic (e.g. parasitic,
dramatic) that forms adjectives from
nouns will attach only to bases that
are borrowed into English from
French or Latin.
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Etymological restrictions
• -hood attaches to native roots.
- boyhood, girlhood, sisterhood,
childhood, manhood, kinghood
- *directorhood, *governorhood,
*authorhood, *colonelhood,
*generalhood
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Semantic restrictions
• Negative un- prefers bases that are
not themselves negative in meaning
(unlovely, unhappy, *unugly,
*unsad).
• -ee attaches to the bases that
denote sentient entities.
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Semantic restrictions
- I’d discovered that if I hugged the right
side of the road, drivers would be more
reluctant to move to their left thereby
creating a squeeze play with me being
the squeezee.
- After making himself a glass of
grapefruit juice, John threw the
*squeezees away. (squeezees is meant
to be ‘squeezed-out grapefruits’.)
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Semantic restrictions (cont)
• compound adjective of the form
‘adjective + V-ed‘
- short-sleeved (shirt), one-armed
(bandit), short-sighted (man),
three-legged (stool), green-roofed
(house), red-nosed (reindeer),
blue-eyed (boy), red-haired
(woman)
- *two-carred (family), *bigAlsatianed (woman)
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Semantic restrictions (cont)
- The root to which -ed is added is
inalienably or obligatorily possessed
by the head noun it modifies.
 Someone’s eyes are an integral
part of their body.
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Semantic restrictions (cont)
 The legs of a stool, the sleeves of a
shirt, the roof of a building are an
obligatorily possessed part of
furniture, garment or building.
 But it is certainly not the case that an
Alsatian dog or a car must
necessarily be possessed by
someone.
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Syntactic restrictions
• Categorical restrictions: Almost all
affixes are restricted to bases of
specific categories.
 -ity and –ness usually attach to
adjectives
 -ize attaches to nouns or adjectives
(computerize, nationalize)
 -un attaches to verbs, adjectives, or
nouns (undo, unhappy, unbelief)
:
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Syntactic restrictions (cont)
• What is the constraint for –able and
re- affixation?
- readable, break, wash, play, mend,
use, drive, spray
- *goable, *dieable, *cryable,
*sleepable, *restable, *weepable,
*sittable, *runnable, *walkable
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Syntactic restrictions (cont)
• What is the constraint for –able and
re- affixation?
- redo, rewrite, recook, reimport,
rebuild, restate, reset, resharpen,
reshape
- *rego, *recry, *resleep, *resit,
*revanish, *rechange, *reelapse,
*redie
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Morphological restrictions
• Virtually every word ending in the suffix
-ize can be turned into a noun only by
adding -ation.
- Other nominal suffixes that attach to
verb bases such as -ment
(assessment), -al (arrival), -age
(leakage) are ruled out.
- colonize, colonization, *colonizement,
*colonizal, *colonizage
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Phonological restrictions
• Adverbial suffix -ly
- kind, kindly; elegant, elegantly; fierce,
fiercely
- silly, *sillily; friendly, *friendlily;
miserly, *miserlily
- The adverbial suffix -ly is avoided
where an adjective ends in ly.
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• Verbal suffixes -ize and –ify
(a) winterize
(b) alphabetize
summerize
radicalize
autumnize
departmentalize
*fallize
*springize
*? cartoonize
journalize
?*magazineize
?*reviewize
*bookize
publicize
legalize
(c) *Montrealize
*New Yorkize
Bostonize
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• Clintonize, *Clintonify; bourgeoisify,
*bourgeoisize
• Blairify, *Blairize; artify, *artize;
massify, *massize; falsify, *falsize;
tensify, *tensize
• solemnize, solemnify (but note the
position of the stress.)
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• -al
arrive, arrival
betray, betrayal
construe, construal
deny, denial
propose, proposal
enter, *enteral
promise, *promisal
manage, *managaeal
answer, *answeral
forward, *forwardal
guarantee, *guaranteeal
ascertain, *ascertainal
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• Nominal -al only attaches to twosyllable verbs that end in a stressed
syllable.
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• -en
quick, quicken
ripe, ripen
tough, toughen
loose, loosen
wide, widen
dull, *dullen
high, *highen
long, *longen
green, *greenen
low, *lowen
valid, *validen
candid, *candiden
expensive, *expensiven
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Phonological restrictions (cont)
• -en attaches only to base-final
obstruents (e.g. /k/, /p/, /d/, /s/,
/f/…)
• -en does not take bases that have
more than one syllable.
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Blocking
• curious, curiosity
• generous, generosity
• impetuous, impetuosity
•
•
•
•
glorious, *gloriosity ← glory
furious, *furiosity ← fury
gracious, *graciosity ← grace
fallacious, *fallaciosity ← fallacy
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Blocking
• Blocking occurs when there is another
word that bears the same meaning or
fulfills the same function as the nonexistent word.
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Blocking (cont)
• *spier ← spy (‘a secret agent’)
• *judger ← judge (‘a person who
supervises court trials’)
• *cooker ← cook (‘someone who
cooks food’)
• *guider ← guide
• *cycler ← cyclist
• *studier ← student
• *stealer ← thief
• *typer ← typist
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Blocking (cont)
• Potential regular forms are blocked by
already existing synonymous words.
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Conditions for blocking
• Synonymy → An existing word can
only block a newly derived one if they
are completely synonymous.
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Conditions for blocking
• Productivity → The blocked word
must be morphologically wellformed, i.e. it must be a possible
word, derived on the basis of a
productive rule. (*manageal cannot
be argued to be blocked by a
competing form, such as
management.)
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Conditions for blocking
• Frequency → The blocking word
must be sufficiently frequent. (The
higher the frequency of a given word,
the more likely it is that the word
blocks a rival formation.)
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Measuring productivity
• For a process to be productive, it
should be a process that can be
used to form brand new lexemes, or
‘neologisms.’
• To measure productivity, we use a
corpus, large computerized database
that can be searched for words in the
context of their use.
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Measuring productivity
• The more productive a process is,
the more new words it will give rise to
and the more chance that these
items will occur in a corpus with a
very low token frequency, sometimes
only once.
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Measuring productivity
• token frequency
• hapax legomenon (sg), hapax
legomena (pl), hapax for short
(meaning ‘said only once’ in Greek)
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Measuring productivity (cont)
• To measure productivity, we take e a
corpus, count up all tokens of all
words formed with a particular affix,
and then see how many of those
words occur only once in the corpus.
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Measuring productivity (cont)
• The ratio of hapaxes to all tokens
tells us something about productivity.
Productivity(affixi)=
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Measuring productivity (cont)
Frequencies of affixes in the BNC
(written corpus)
V
-able
933 140627 311 0.0022
-ful
136
‘measure’
-ful
‘property’
154
N
n1
P
Affix
2615
77316
60 0.023
22 0.00028
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Measuring productivity (cont)
Frequencies of affixes in the BNC
(written corpus)
Affix
-ize
-ness
-wise
V
N
n1
P
658 100496
212 0.0021
2466 106957
943 0.0088
183
2091
128 0.061
V = type of frequency/’extent of us’.
N = token frequency, n1 = hapax frequency
P = n1/N ‘productivity in the narrow sense’