Morphological productivity
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This document discusses the concept of morphological productivity. It defines productivity as the ability of an affix or word formation rule to coin new words. Productivity can vary, with some affixes being highly productive and able to generate many new words, while others are unproductive. Productivity is constrained by both pragmatic factors like trends and structural factors like phonological or morphological restrictions on affixes. Measuring the productivity of an affix involves counting how many new words it has formed. Blocking also limits productivity, where an existing word blocks the formation of a similar derived word.
![Definitions
Definition:2
Productivity refers to “the property of an affix or a
morphological process [word-formation rule,] to give rise to
new [word] formations.
Definition:3
Productivity can be seen as the possibility of morphological-
rules or affixes to be used in the production or
comprehension of new word-forms.
Definition:4
A word-formation rule or affix is considered productive if it
has the ability to coin new words by other word-formation
processes. In contrast, if it is unproductive, new coinages](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7-morphologicalproductivity1-200625154710/85/Morphological-productivity-4-320.jpg)
![Other Scholars on Productivity
Hockett (1958) defines productivity as a “property of
language which allows us to say things which have
never been said before” .
Shultink (1961) views productivity as the possibility for
users of a language to unintentionally produce a (more
or less) uncountable number of formations.
Bauer (2001) claims that productivity is a property of the
affix or a morphological process that is used in order to
produce "[word-] formations on a systemic basis” .
Baayen (2012) says “the term 'morphological
productivity' is generally used informally to refer to the
number of words [the type frequency of an affix] in use
in a language community that a rule describes”.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7-morphologicalproductivity1-200625154710/85/Morphological-productivity-6-320.jpg)
Morphological productivity
- 2. Productivity in linguistics The term “productivity” is used in a wide variety of contexts. Syntactic rules are “productive” in the sense that they can be used to generate new phrases. The same can be said of some morphological rules. A linguistic process is productive if: It can be used to produce novel forms. If a rule is productive, then: Novel forms (previously unheard) can be understood and
- 3. Morphological Productivity Definition:1 The property of an affix to be used to coin new complex words is referred to as the productivity of that affix.
- 4. Definitions Definition:2 Productivity refers to “the property of an affix or a morphological process [word-formation rule,] to give rise to new [word] formations. Definition:3 Productivity can be seen as the possibility of morphological- rules or affixes to be used in the production or comprehension of new word-forms. Definition:4 A word-formation rule or affix is considered productive if it has the ability to coin new words by other word-formation processes. In contrast, if it is unproductive, new coinages
- 5. Productive versus non-productive Not all affixes possess this property to the same degree, some affixes do not possess it at all. For example, that nominal -th (as in length) can only attach to a small number of specified words, but cannot attach to any other words beyond that set. This suffix can therefore be considered unproductive. Even among affixes that can in principle be used to coin new words, there seem to be some that are more productive than others. For example, the suffix -ness (as cuteness) gives rise to many more new words.
- 6. Other Scholars on Productivity Hockett (1958) defines productivity as a “property of language which allows us to say things which have never been said before” . Shultink (1961) views productivity as the possibility for users of a language to unintentionally produce a (more or less) uncountable number of formations. Bauer (2001) claims that productivity is a property of the affix or a morphological process that is used in order to produce "[word-] formations on a systemic basis” . Baayen (2012) says “the term 'morphological productivity' is generally used informally to refer to the number of words [the type frequency of an affix] in use in a language community that a rule describes”.
- 7. Example of Productivity Example-1 Imagine an English adjective happy. How would you derive a noun out of this adjective? Many speakers might say happiness. This suggests that –ness suffixation is a productive derivational process. Example-2 -s (books) plural and –en (children) plural in English. In this example –s is productive and –en in unproductive.
- 8. Possible and actual words A possible, or potential, word can be defined as a word whose semantic, morphological or phonological structure is in accordance with the rules and regularities of the language. For example, it seems that all transitive verbs can be turned into adjectives by the attachment of -able. Thus, affordable, readable, manageable are all possible words. Notably, these forms are also semantically transparent, i.e. their meaning is predictable on the basis of the word-formation rule according to which they have been formed. Predictability of meaning is therefore another property
- 9. Actual words can be defined as the words that are in use. In the case of the potential words affordable, readable, manageable, these words are also actual words, because they have already been coined and used by speakers. But not all possible words are existing words, because, to use again the example of -able, the speakers of English have not coined -able derivatives on the basis of each and every transitive verb of English.
- 10. Measuring productivity To measure the productivity of an affix, a number of productivity measures have been proposed. There is one quantitative measure that is probably the most widely used and the most widely rejected at the same time. According to this measure, the productivity of an affix can be discerned by counting the number of attested different words with that affix at a given point in time. This has also been called the type-frequency of an affix. The severe problem with this measure is that there can be many words with a given affix, but nevertheless speakers will not use the suffix to make up new words. An example of such a suffix is -ment, which in earlier centuries led to the coinage of hundreds of then new words. Many of these are still in use, but today’s speakers hardly ever employ - ment to create a new word and the suffix should therefore be
- 11. Constraining productivity All potentially useful words are actually not created and used, which means that there must be certain restrictions at work. Restrictions that originate in problems of language use (so-called pragmatic restrictions) and those restrictions that originate in problems of language structure (so-called structural restrictions).
- 12. 1- Pragmatic restrictions The most obvious of the usage-based factors influencing productivity is fashion. The rise and fall of affixes like mega-, giga-, mini- or -nik is an example of the result of extra-linguistic developments in society which make certain words or morphological elements desirable to use. The problem with pragmatic restrictions is that, given a seemingly impossible new formation, it is not clear whether it is ruled out on structural grounds or on the basis of pragmatic considerations.
- 13. 2- Structural Restrictions Structural restrictions in word-formation may concern the traditional levels of linguistic analysis, i.e. phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax. For Example Phonological restrictions: Noun-forming -al arrive - arrival but enter - *enteral betray - betrayal but promise - *promiseal construe - construal but manage - *manageal deny - denial but answer - *answeral propose - proposal but forward - *forwardal Above examples illustrate a stress-related restriction. Nominal -al only attaches to verbs that end in a stressed syllable.
- 14. A second example of phonological restrictions can be seen in the following, which lists typical verbal derivatives in -en, alongside with impossible derivatives. verb-forming -en A) blacken - black Fatten - fat Lengthen - long/length Loosen - loose Widen - wide B) *finen - fine *dullen - dull *highen - high *lowen - low Above examples show that suffixation of verbal -en is subject to a segmental restriction. The last sound (or ‘segment’) of the base can be /k/, /t/, /T/, /s/, /d/, but must not be /n/, /N/, /l/, or a vowel.
- 15. Morphological restrictions: Apart from being sensitive to phonological constraints, affixes can be sensitive to the morphological structure of their base words. An example of such a morphological constraint at work is the suffix combination -ize-ation. Virtually every word ending in the suffix -ize can be turned into a noun only by adding -ation. Other conceivable nominal suffixes, such as -ment, -al, - age etc., are ruled out by this morphological restriction imposed on -ize derivatives (cf., for example, colonization
- 16. Blocking The term ‘blocking’ has been mainly used to refer to two different types of phenomena, shown below; a. thief - *stealer b. liver ‘inner organ’ - *liver ‘someone who lives’ We can argue that *stealer is impossible because there is already a synonymous competing form thief available. In the above example (b) the case is different in the sense that the derived form *liver ‘someone who lives’ is homonymous to an already existing non-complex form liver ‘inner organ’. In both cases one speaks of ‘blocking’, with the existing form blocking the creation of a semantically or phonologically