Word formation

1
Word formation

• Making new lexemes from existing ones.
• Kuiper and Allan Chapter 2.2-2.4

2
Word formation

• Lexemes may be
• morphologically simple
• e.g. cat
• or
• morphologically complex.
• catfish

3
Morphologically complex lexemes

• have other lexemes as component parts
  (constituents).
• compound lexeme
• bookshelf
• derived lexeme
• gentleness

4
Compound lexemes(Kuiper and Allan Chapter 2.2.1)

• have two lexemes as immediate constituents.

5
The stress pattern of compounds

• Compound lexemes normally have primary stress on
  the first lexeme.
• líghthouse vs light hóuse

6
The grammar of compounds

• One lexeme is normally the HEAD.
• Head constituents determine the grammatical
  properties of the whole.
• Compounds belong to all the major grammatical
  categories.

7
Productivity of compounding

• Not all compounding structures are productive,
  i.e. can be used to form new compounds, e.g.
  compound prepositions.

8
The meaning of compounds

• Compounds are usually semantically headed.
• i.e. What the whole lexeme denotes is a subset of
  what the head denotes.
• e.g. A steamboat is a kind of boat.

9
Existing and possible compounds

• Some compounds are part of your vocabulary.
• e.g. lifeboat
• Others you can make up that have never been made
  up before and are not part of your vocabulary.
• e.g. hatboat

10
Exercise

• Find the compounds in the following passage
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• System 7 Reference Manual
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