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Chapter 11 - Principles of Word Formation

from Part II - Morphology and Agreement Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

By
Geert Booij
Edited by
Michael T. Putnam  and
B. Richard Page
Michael T. Putnam
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
B. Richard Page
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
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Summary

Word formation in Germanic languages mainly takes place by means of compounding and affixation. Compounds are usually right-headed, and there is often a linking element in N+N-compounds that derives historically from a case ending. In addition to endocentric compounds there are also copulative compounds. Compounding also takes place with roots of Greek and Latin origin that do not occur as words by themselves. Some compound constituents have developed into affixoids. Affixation is used to derive words of major categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Some of these affixes behave phonologically similar to compound constituents. Many nonnative affixes, identified on the basis of sets of borrowed nonnative complex words, are being used in word formation as well. Other mechanisms of word formation are affix substitution, conversion, reduplication, prosodic morphology, abbreviation, and blending. For the construction of numerals above 20, syntactic coordination may be used. The word formation patterns of Germanic languages have been strongly influenced by contact with Greek, Latin, and French. In addition, they have been influenced by contact with English. Individual languages have borrowed some of their morphology and complex words from another Germanic language, and Yiddish has been strongly influenced by various non-Germanic languages.

Keywords

affixationaffixoidsabbreviationblendingborrowingcompoundingconversionnumeralsprosodic morpholog,y quasi-incorporationreduplication
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics , pp. 238 - 258
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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