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Bankers and blue-chippers: an account of - er formations in Present-day English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 1999

Mary Ellen Ryder
Affiliation:
Boise State University

Abstract

The nominalizing -er suffix has been extremely productive throughout the history of English, and in Present-day English it has developed a wide range of base and referent types. Yet most formal linguistic treatments account satisfactorily for only a fraction of the types of -er nominals actually found. I propose a cognitive model which not only addresses the problems with verb-based forms that are encountered in other models, but includes an account of all the nonverb-based -er nominals as well.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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