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T
HE LATEST TRENDS IN ENGLISH WORD-FORMATION
433
b
l
e
n
d
docud
r
ama
(
1960
)
, fro
m
docu
(
men
t
ar
y
)
+
d
r
ama
(
Green 1991: 77
)
and since
t
hen has been used in various coinages (
documusical
,
d
ocuhistor
y
,
d
ocu-fantas
y
,
d
ocusoa
p
, etc.). Therefore, one can legiti
m
ately speak about “the present-day
v
italit
y
of stem formations” (Adams 2001: 13).
P
hrasal compounds
s
eem to constitute another pattern on the rise. These are
c
ompounds which involve s
y
ntactic phrases in the pre-head (modifier) position.
C
onsider
,
for instance
,
a [floor of a birdcage] tast
e
,
a [slept all day] loo
k
,
a
[
p
leasant to read] boo
k
,
a [connect the dots]
p
uzzl
e
(
Lieber 1992: 11
)
. The
following examples come from a recently published novel (Paling 1997): a
q
uiet,
out-of-the-way pub
,
his late-but-tragic marriage
,
his […] laying-the-cards-on-the
-
table situation
. Needless to say, expressions of this type are, as a rule, spontaneous
c
reations
,
not listed in dictionaries.
Occasionally, a formal type of com
pound word may strike us as novel in
m
m
En
g
lish. Such is the case with compounds of the structure N-
cum-
N
(or Ad
j
-
cum-
Ad
j
, see Stein 2000: 277 ff): ar
g
uments-cum-discussions
,
b
ar-cum-ca
f
é
,
buttle
r
-
cum-chauffeur
,
p
ub-cum-hotel
,
g
rammarian-cum-lexicographer
,
p
hiloso
p
hic-cum
-
economic
,
etc. Stein
(
2000: 279
)p
oints out that this use of -
cum-
(which goes bac
k
to the Latin
p
re
p
osition
cum
meaning ‘with, together with’) “is neither described in
any of the standard reference works on English word-formation nor in the books on
r
ecent neologisms”, while the
O
E
D
only gives a laconic description, defining -
cum-
as a ‘combinin
g
word’ and illustratin
g
this usa
g
e with four examples (the first,
motor-bike-cum-side-car trips
,
dates from 1913). Accordin
g
to Stein (2000: 284),
“
-cum-
compounds have a lin
g
uistic position between s
y
ntactic structures and
‘tra
d
iti
o
nal’
wo
r
d
-f
o
rmati
o
n
s.
” L
e
t
us
a
dd
that th
ee
l
e
m
e
nt -
cum-
itself which
,
according to Stein (2000: 281), “is a bound lexi
c
al morpheme”, clearly different in
s
tatus from
p
refixes or suffixes since it
“
has no
p
art-of-s
p
eech determination”, is
th
us de
fin
ed
in
o
n
e
r
ecen
t
ly published dictionary (
C
AL
D
, 2003): “
preposition
“
used
to
j
oin two nouns, showing that a person or thing does two things or has two
purposes; combined with:
T
his is my bedroom-cum-stud
y
”.
Pr
oduc
t
so
f
conve
r
sion
i
n En
g
lish (see Lieber, this volume) have been described
as ‘contextuals’ in the morpholo
g
ical
l
iterature
(
Clark and Clark 1979, Aronoff
1980) because the exact meanin
g
of novel it
e
m
s representin
g
this cate
g
or
y
is often
u
npredictable outside their sentential and pragmatic context. But this
u
npredictability does not, in any way, weaken the remarkable vitality of conversion
i
n present-day English. Newly created,
ad hoc
exam
p
les of suffixless denominal
v
erbs, in particular, may be found in e
v
eryday discourse, and in newspapers and
fiction. Ayto (1989:
Int
r
oduction
, n.p.) points out that, today, conversion “continues
vigorously, producing mainly verbs, from nouns and adjectives (
feeder
(
(
,
flan
,
gender
,
off
ic
e
,
rear-end
,
silicone
,
source
,
stiff
,
f
f
Velcr
o
,
wide
) but also transformin
g
verbs into
nouns
(
spend
).” Also, consider the following verbs, based on compound nouns:
d
d
to
handbag
‘attack ruthlessly, vigorously – used of a woman, especially a politician’
g
(
cf
.
handbagging
in Tulloch
(
1991: 145-6
))
,
g
to doorste
p
‘for a re
p
orter to wait on a
person’s doorstep in order to attempt to gain an interview when that person eithe
r
arrives home or goes out’ (Green 1991: 78).
I will disregard here the complex mechanisms which enable the listener/reader to
c
ompute the (often unpredictable) meanings of many unfamiliar items produced by
434
BOG
DAN
S
ZYMANEK
c
onversion. Likewise, I must gloss over the speaker’s knowledge of the fact that the
use of conversion is subject to constraints, so that not any noun can be turned,
s
uccessfully, into a suffixless verb, in any context. For instance, even though the
ve
r
b
to pain
t
means, roughly, ‘to cover with paint’
t
(not necessarily with a brush), a
se
nt
e
n
ce
lik
e*
Velázquez painted his brush is ill-formed when the speaker’s intende
d
m
essage is that Velázquez dipped his brush in a pot of paint (see Kiparsky (1997)
for more discussion and examples).
W
e should not ne
g
lect back-formation, blendin
g
, and other, minor word-
formation processes. The
y
have also contributed substantiall
y
to the creation of
s
ome very recent words.
One
p
attern o
f
b
ack-formation
,
in particular, is worth mentioning in the context
o
f the
p
resent discussion, as it has been
m
arked by considerable growth over recent
years. The pattern may be illustrated with the following established examples:
ai
r
-
conditioning
–
g
to ai
r-
condition
,
window-shopping
–
g
to window-sho
p
.
A complex
v
erb is seen here to be derived from an action nominal, by means of dropping the
fin
a
l
-ing
ending. Alternatively, other exampl
g
es which represent the pattern are
r
elatable to either a
g
entive or instrumental base-nouns: cf., respectivel
y
,
g
uest
-
conductor
–
r
to guest-conduct
an
d
t
tape-recorder
–
r
to tape-record
.
Al
so co
n
s
i
de
r th
e
following verbs:
to b
r
ainwash
,
computer-generat
e
,
d
eep-fr
y
,
dive
-
bomb
,
d
r
ink
-
d
r
ive
(
see Adams
(
2001: 101
)
for more exam
p
les
)
. In fact, the exact nature of the
p
rocess
i
s debatable – some scholars argue that it is not back-formation that applies here but
r
ather direct compounding; for a defence of the back-formation analysis of such data
s
ee Shimamura (1983) and Adams (2001: 100-101) who points out that “[v]erb
c
ompoundin
g
is a productive process in some lan
g
ua
g
es, but En
g
lish is not one of
th
e
m” an
dso
th
e
f
o
rmati
o
n
su
n
de
r
d
i
scuss
i
o
n “are
g
enerall
y
felt to be products of
backformation”. However, see also the diachronic interpretation of the pattern in
question offered in Kastovsky (1986: 419). Kastovsky predicts that English “is on
the best way” here to develop a genuin
e
compound verb type, “which then might
v
ery well be characterised as an instance of noun-incorporation”. At any rate,
established verbs of this type are listed in dictionaries with a later date of first
o
ccurrence than their corresponding nominals (e.g. the
O
E
D
li
s
t
s
s
leep-walker
(
1747
)
,
sleep-walking
(1797) and
g
to sleep-walk
(1923)).
k
B
lendin
g
c
onstitutes another area of contemporar
y
En
g
lish word-formation
where neolo
g
isms are fairl
y
common (particularl
y
in media lan
g
ua
g
e). As pointed
o
ut b
y
Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 6), “it i
s
n
o
t
u
n
co
mm
o
n f
o
r n
ew
t
ec
hni
c
al
terms to be created by blending.” This remark is echoed in Ayto (2003: 183):
blending “is now a perfectly respectable method of creating new scientific o
r
technical terminology”; “i
n
stances of blending multiplied exponentially in the
twentieth century”, with the 1930s probably offering the largest number of new
i
nstances
,
but the trend continues into t
h
e
present. Here are a few fairly recent
examples:
advertorial
(
l
advertisement
+
t
editorial
) ‘an advertisement written in the
l
l
form of an editorial, which purportedl
y
provides ob
j
ective information about a
c
ommercial or industrial sub
j
ect’ (
O
ED2
:
1961
)
,
infotainment
(
t
i
n
f
ormation +
ente
r
tainment
),
t
affluenza
(
affluenc
e
+
i
nfluenza
)
,
screenager
(
r
sc
r
een
(
of a
TV/com
p
uter
)
+ teenager
)
or, from the collection at www.ruf.rice.edu
/
~k
e
mm
e
r
/wo
r
ds:
televangelist
(
t
television
+
evangelist
),
t
t
carjacking
(
g
car
+
r
THE LATEST TRENDS IN ENGLISH WORD-FORMATION
435
hijacking
)
,
spork
(
k
s
poon +
fork
),
kk
Japanimation
(
Japan
(
(
+
animation
)
,
N
etizen
(
N
e
t
(
(
,
i.e.
Internet
+
t
citi
z
en
)
, etc.
Th
e
m
e
th
od of
clipping (or shortening) stands behind another large portion of
n
ew colloquial vocabular
y
. However, like in the case of acron
y
mization (see below),
i
nstances of this process ma
y
le
g
itimatel
y
be re
g
arded as
j
ust form reductions of
t
heir lon
g
er counterparts. Examples from the 1990s include the followin
g
items
(
www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/words
)
:
zine
(
fro
m
m
agazin
e
)
,
vator
(from
r
elevato
r
)
,
wac
(
fro
m
w
ack
y
)
, fro-y
o
(
fro
m
frozen yogurt
).
t
t
F
inally, acronyms an
d
initialisms
are also widely coined
i
n present-day English.
C
onsider, respectively,
AWACS
–
S
Airborne Warning and Control System
,
SARS
–
S
S
evere Acute Respiratory Syndrome
,
d
ink
y
–
d
ual income no kids ye
t
,
yettie
–
youn
g
entrepreneurial technocra
t
,
on the pattern of yuppi
e
(
Dent 2003: 32
)
; AT
B
–
all
-
te
rr
ain bike
,
GPS
–
S
Global Positionin
g
S
y
stem
,
ABS
–
S
anti-lock brake s
y
stem
or
A
ustralian Bureau o
f
Statistics
,
or The American Bureau o
f
Shippin
g
,
o
r
A
nimal
Behaviour Societ
y
,
etc.. Another example from media lan
g
ua
g
e is WM
D
–
Weapons
of Mass Destruction
,
which may also stand for various playful variations on this
p
hrase, like
w
eapons of mass deception
(
for a com
p
lete list, see
www.rdues.liv.ac.uk/newwords.html
)
. A n
e
w
p
henomenon, identified in the recent
l
iterature
(
see Stockwell and Minkova 2001
:
9
)
is the rise of so-called
reve
r
se
acronyms
:
“th
ec
r
e
at
o
r
ss
tart
w
ith a word they want as their name, say, for example,
C
ORE, and the
y
work from those four letters to find four words which represent
something like the idea they want
to be associated with” (
t
CORE
stands for
E
Con
g
ress
o
f
Racial Equalit
y
)
. Formations of this sort are also called
s
lo
g
an acron
y
ms
(
McArthur 1992: 12
)
; other exam
p
les are:
NOW
for
W
National Organisation o
f
W
omen
,
PACE
for the
E
P
olice and
C
riminal Evidence Ac
t
.
For a succinct comparison of the dynamic
c
hanges in the use of the different
types of word-formation processes in
E
n
glish, over the period 1880-1982, see Baue
r
(
1994: 38). For instance, focusing on the different categories of new words, the
author notes an increase in the numbers of blends and ‘abbreviations’, as opposed to
a decrease in the numbers of words derived b
y
suffixation.
5.
S
E
C
RETI
O
N
O
F NE
W
AFFIXE
S
A
ffi
x
sec
r
etion
ma
y
be defined as a case where a new affix has established itself
because speakers start to perceive it in a group of borrowed words (see Marchand
1969: 211, Adams 2001: 134) or because speakers reinterpret a particular existing
word (which can be native or foreign). I
n
the latter case, according to Rundblad and
Kronenfeld (2000: 28), the phenomenon may be seen as a special case of fol
k
etymology: “opaque words are, where the forms permit, remarkably often
i
nterpreted as compounds or affixations consisting of two parts.” Initially, the use of
s
uch a newl
y
established affix ma
y
be attributed to analo
gy
(see section 3). Some
o
lder and well-known instances of the
p
rocess under discussion are
p
resented in
Marchand
(
1969: 211
)
; for instance, the suffix -
te
r
ia
‘sho
p
, store, establishment’,
o
riginally secreted fro
m
cafeteria and then used (since 1930, chiefly in American
English) more and more freely, in novel, analogical coinages (like candyteria
,
436
BOG
DAN
S
ZYMANEK
chocolate
r
ia
,
fruiteria, etc.
)
; the
p
attern seems to be still alive
(
see Baldi and Dawa
r
(2000: 968) where the suffix, “naming reta
i
l outlets”
,
is illustrated with further
e
xam
p
les
(
cookiete
r
ia
,
used
-
bookte
r
ia
). Today there are a number of newly emerged
s
uffixes of this sort. To illustrate this development, one can mention word-final
e
l
e
m
e
nt
s
lik
e
-(
o
)
holi
c
(
fro
m
alcoholic
:
wo
r
kaholic
,
chocoholic
,
leisu
r
eholic
,
chatoholic
,
webaholic
)
, -ga
t
e
(
fro
m
Watergat
e
:
Irangate
,
M
onicagate
)
, -
nomics
(
fro
m
economics
:
R
ea
g
anomics
,
Clintonomics
)
o
r
-
buster
(based on the 1984
r
b
l
oc
k
bus
t
e
r fil
m
G
hostbusters
(
Baldi and Dawar 2000: 968
))
:
c
r
imebuste
r
,
d
ru
g
buster
,
debtbuster
‘a loan’,
r
fat-buster
‘a diet’) as well as word-initial elements
r
l
ik
e
agri
-
(
a
gribusiness
,
agricorporation
)
o
r
e-
(
e
-
mail
,
e
-
comme
r
ce
,
e-shoppin
g
,
e-
cash
,
e-mone
y
,
e
-
business
,
etc.). According to som
e
sources
,
the elements in
q
uestion should be termed, more a
pp
ro
p
ri
a
t
ely, ‘combining forms’ (see section 4
above); consider, for instance, the entry fo
r
-
athon
in th
e
O
ED2
:
“a combining form,
barbarously extracted f.
MAR
)
A
THON
,
used occasionally in the U.S. (
talkathon
,
walkathon
), rarely in Britain, to form words denoting something carried on for an
abnormal len
g
th of time.” However, -
g
ate
,
accordin
g
to the same source, is a suffix.
Given the fact that ever
y
such pattern ori
g
inated from scratch, initiall
y
with onl
y
a
few examples, one ma
y
observe that, toda
y
, some of them demonstrate a remarkable
g
ain in productivity, being represented by several dozen coinages.
6
. ‘LEXICALISATION’ OF AFFIXES
By ‘lexicalisation’ of affixes I mean here a diachronic process by which affixes
(or combining forms) acquire independent lexical status, i.e. start to function as free
forms. One well-known (and quite old) case of this sort is the nominal suffix -
ism
,
which ma
y
be transformed into the noun
ism
(
cf.
isms
in the plural), meanin
g
‘
s
y
stem of belief’ (see, e.
g
., Adams (2001: 60) and Bauer (1983: 35) on the
diachronic passa
g
e of an element from suffix
t
o lexeme
)
. It a
pp
ears that the
p
otential
for independent use evidenced by
ism
is also shared by several other elements,
which may suggest an interesting trait of contemporary vocabulary. Anothe
r
e
xample might be
ish
;
c
f
. A: Was it expensive
?
B
:
Ish
.
Additionally, consider the
adjectiv
e
mega
(
It’s absolutely mega
(
(
), based on the combining for
m
mega-
.
However
,
words like
hood
‘neighbourhood in the inner-city’ or
d
dis
(
s
)
‘show
disrespect’, which are also identical with affixes, should rather be regarded as
products of abbreviation (clippin
g
) of the respective base-forms.
7.
C
HAN
G
E
S
IN THE PR
O
D
UC
TI
V
ITY
,
RELATIVE PRODUCTIVITY AND
SCOPE OF INDIVID
U
AL AFFIXES
Morphological productivity (see Bauer, this volume)) has been investigated in
n
umerous studies in recent
y
ears. However, the vast ma
j
orit
y
of the relevant
l
iterature deals with this issue from a s
y
nchronic perspective, meanin
g
that, fo
r
i
nstance, the vocabular
y
used throu
g
hout the twentieth centur
y
is taken, collectivel
y
,
as a data-base for generalisations. Conside
r
,
for instance, the detailed analyses of
T
HE LATEST TRENDS IN ENGLISH WORD-FORMATION
43
7
English verb-forming processes in Plag (1999) from which one can learn that, for
example, on the basis of the number of attested 2
0
t
h
century neologisms in the
O
E
D
,
English verb-deriving affixes may be arra
n
ged according to the decreasing order of
their productivit
y
as follows (Pla
g
1999: 104):
-i
z
e
(284 new t
y
pes or neolo
g
isms),
-
ate
(
72
)
, -i
fy
(
23
)
,
e
N-
(
7
)
, -
en
(
2
)
and
be-
(0). That is to sa
y
, within the set, -
i
z
e
i
s
j
ud
g
ed to be most productive while
be-
is completel
y
unproductive. But this
g
ives us
a fairly static, summary picture of the facts
,
in th
ese
n
se
that n
od
i
s
tin
c
t
c
al
cu
lati
o
n
s
are being offered for shorter periods. Alt
e
r
natively, diachronic investigations of
productivity are available where the, loosely defined, present-day system of word-
formation is juxtaposed with the situati
o
n in past centuries (e.g. Bauer 2001). Yet,
for the purpose of this discussion we should focus, first of all, on those changes in
productivity which are a feature of the last f
ew dec
a
des: v
ari
ous
r
e
mark
ssc
att
e
r
ed
in
t
he literature demonstrate that, predictabl
y
, some affixes have been
g
ainin
g
in
productivit
y
recentl
y
while others have been losin
g
their productive potential. A few
facts, outlined below, will illustrate this possibilit
y
.
The story of the noun-forming suffix -
nik
(as in
k
refusenik
) in twentieth-century
k
k
English may serve as a textbook example of the changing scope and productivity of
s
ome word-formation patterns that we use today. Consider the following quotations:
“
This suffix, originally from Russian via Yiddish, started to gain popularity in
English in the 1950s, but it had only a short period of high productivity”
(
Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1699
)
; -
nik
“enjoyed a considerable vogue in the
k
m
iddle of the twentieth centur
y
but has since faded” (Carstairs-McCarth
y
2002:
113). The chan
g
in
g
fate of the element in question was investi
g
ated in detail in
B
auer (1983: 255-266)) where it is argued that, in fact, we are probably dealing here
w
ith t
wo
-
nik
suffixes: one in a group of words modelled on Russian
k
sp
utni
k
(
dudnik
,
jutni
k
,
nutnik
,
etc.
)
, where “-
nik
apparently stopped being productive early
k
i
n the 1960s” and the other, personal -
nik
in words like
k
beatnik
,
where it often means
e
ither ‘fan of a certain kind of music’
(
folknik
((
,
jazznik
) or ‘member of an anti-
kk
e
stablishment group’
(
d
raftni
k
,
peaceni
k
). According to Bauer’s (1983) account,
kk
“
[t]he person suffix -
nik
as in
k
beatnik
is still productive” (Bauer 1983: 259); a
k
dec
a
de o
r
so
lat
e
r th
e
a
ssess
m
e
nt i
s
m
od
ified somewhat: Bauer (1994: 48) speaks of
a “decline in use” of the suffix
(
in both functions, or of both suffixes
)
. However,
p
ersonal -
nik
is still alive in Yiddish-English; for example, there is the common
k
Y
iddish-English word
nudnik
‘an annoying person’, from the verb
k
to noodg
e
‘t
o
bother’; another Yinglish formation is
no-goodnik
(
R. Lieber,
p
ersonal
k
c
ommunication). The rapid decline in the productivity of -
nik
,
in the ma
j
or dialects
o
f English, is additionally suggested by th
e
fa
c
t that th
e
m
o
s
t r
ece
nt
c
r
e
ati
o
n
s
i
nvolving this suffix attested in the
O
ED
2
ar
e
th
e
n
ou
n
s
computernik
(1973) and
k
refusenik
(1975). At any rate, given the fact that English
k
-nik
is a relatively recent
k
e
xample of affix secretion, followed b
y
a sharp rise and then fall in its productivit
y
,
t
he case illustrates particularly well the almost complete life cycle for one type of
affix. It is remarkable that this could have been observed in the short
p
eriod of the
l
ast half century.
Several affixes have increased their p
r
o
ductivity in the past few decades. For
i
nstance, Adams (2001: 39) mentions the colloquial ‘point of view’ adverb-forming
su
ffi
x
-
wise
(e.g.
weathe
r
wise
in
O
ctober is usually a very good month weatherwis
e
,
438
BOG
DAN
S
ZYMANEK
O
E
D
:
1971
)
, acting-wis
e
in
A
cting-wise, I like Katharine Hepburn …
,
O
E
D
: 1981,
talent
-
wise
in
I
t was a
p
oor show, talent-wis
e
), pointing out that “[i]n adverbs with
t
his function
,
-
wise
a
pp
ears to have become noti
c
eably productive fairly recently,
from the mid-twentieth century onwards”. In Knowles (1997: 162) one may read
t
hat “[i]n the eighties and nineties, the suffixes -
ism
an
d
-
ist
became particularly
t
productive in the field of
POLITICAL CORRECTNES
S
”
(e.g.
ableism
‘
d
i
sc
riminati
o
n in
favour of the able-bodied or a
g
ainst the disabled’,
b
od
y
ism
,
f
aceism
,
si
z
eism
,
“
concerned with inappropriate conce
n
t
ration on the ph
y
sical appearance”,
y
outhism
‘
over-concentration b
y
societ
y
on the ri
g
hts and interests of the
y
oun
g
’). Dalton-
Puffer
(
1999
)
demonstrates, on the basis of data excer
p
ted from the British
N
ational
Cor
p
us
,
that the nominal suffix
-ful
N
l
(
N
mouthful
,
b
arrelful
,
potful
,
b
usful
,
o
fficeful
,
canful
,
eyeful
,
etc.) is used with remarkable productivity in present-day English,
even though the total number of tokens with this suffix found in the corpus is almost
27 times lower than the number of tokens which represent its (now virtually
unproductive) adjective-forming homophon
e
(3,083 and 82,889, respectively;
c
haracteristicall
y
, the number of hapax le
g
omena, i.e. t
y
pes occurrin
g
onl
y
once in
the corpus, is hi
g
her fo
r
-ful
N
l
l
than f
or
-ful
A
l
(74 and 50, respectivel
y
).
A somewhat different picture of chan
g
in
g
productivit
y
emer
g
es when one takes
i
nto account
p
airs
(
or sets
)
of so-called
r
ival affixes
.
These are elements which
,
while being formally distinct, realise the same derivational function. Hence they
s
hould be linked to competing word-formation processes. For example, English
deve
r
b
al a
bs
tra
c
t n
o
minali
s
ati
o
n
s
r
eve
al several rival suffixes, ranging from the
c
ompletely unproductive
-ter
in
r
laughter
and
r
-
th
(
growth
(
(
), through the “moderately
success
f
u
l” -
ency
,
-
ancy
,
-
ence
,
-
ance
,
-
age
,
-
al
,
-
ery
,
-
ure
,
-
y
,
and -
ment
,
up to the
p
roductive suffix -
ion
(for details, see e.
g
. Bauer 2001: 177 ff). As is well known,
for the more widel
y
used suffixes on the list, the scope of their application is lar
g
el
y
delimited by complex conditions or constraints, so that, normally, for a single base,
o
ne does not find co-existent rival forms with the same semantics. But the sco
p
e of
t
he rule attaching a particular suffix may be subject to change. In particular, the
t
rade-off relation between the two suffixes
,
-
ment
and
t
-
ion
(together with its
v
ariant
s:
-
ation
,
-
cation
,
-ution
,
-
ition
)
, underwent modification in the not so distant
past so that one may speak of a decisive change in their relative productivity. The
i
nvesti
g
ation of a dictionar
y
-based sampl
e
of En
g
lish nominalisations conducted b
y
B
auer
(
2001
)
demonstrates that the suffix -
ment
(as in
t
involvement
) “appears to have
t
been productive between the mid-sixteenth centur
y
and the mid-nineteenth centur
y
”
(Bauer 2001: 181). As a result, the trend in present day-English is to use, fo
r
deverbal nominalisations, either the a
pp
ro
p
riate variant of -
ion
o
r
co
n
ve
r
s
i
o
n
(mainly for unaffixed verbs). In particular,
c
om
p
arison of the relevant data derived
fr
o
m th
e
O
E
D
for the period 1600–1950 reveals “a rise in the productivity of the
-
ation
v
ariant a
s
-
ment
declines in productivity” (Bauer 2001: 184).
t
8.
S
EMANTI
CS
:
C
HAN
G
E
S
IN F
O
RMATI
V
E F
U
N
C
TI
O
N
S
O
n a micro-scale, chan
g
es in formati
v
e functions ma
y
be detected when we
obse
r
ve so
m
e
r
ece
nt m
od
ifi
c
ati
o
n
s
in th
e
semantic (and s
y
ntactic) behaviour of
THE LATEST TRENDS IN ENGLISH WORD-FORMATION
439
i
ndividual complex words. However, unless the new element of meaning recurs in
c
ertain other forms representing a given morphological pattern, the change ought to
be seen
j
ust as an isolated lexical innovation, an idiosyncrasy limited to one lexical
i
tem rather than as an expansion or shift in the semantics of a particular affix (for a
u
seful t
y
polo
gy
of semantic shifts of the former t
y
pe, see e.
g
. Al
g
eo 1998: 69).
L
et me illustrate this point with the En
g
lish colour verb to
g
reen
,
derived b
y
c
onversion from the corresponding adjective
(
for details and full documentation, see
F
ischer 2000). Just like with other colour verbs in English, derived either by
c
onversion
(
to white
) or by -
en
suffixation
(
to whiten
)
, there are two
p
rinci
p
al and
l
ong-established senses of
t
o green
,
crudely paraphrasable as (1) ‘to become green’
(intransitive) and (2) ‘to colour or dye green’ (transitive). However, as Fischer
(
2000
)
demonstrates, the semantic status of
t
o green
(
and its nominalisation
g
reenin
g
) is rather special, compared to other colour verbs, since, in the second half
o
f the twentieth centur
y
, the verb develop
e
d two new senses:
(
3
)
‘to render
(
an urban
area) more
g
reen or rural in appearance,
e
sp. b
y
plantin
g
trees, etc. and developin
g
p
arkland; also, to reclaim
(
a desert are
a
)
’
(
first attestation 1979
)
; and
(
4
)
‘to rende
r
(a person, etc.) sensitive to ecological issues; hence, to make (something) less
h
armful to the environment, to adapt along environmentally friendly lines’ (first
attestation 1985). Consider, respectively,
T
hey greened inner cities an
d
The
electorates are being greened
(examples adapted from Fischer 2000: 82). Fische
r
d
ar
g
ues that, toda
y
, “the new ‘ecolo
g
ical’ senses dominate all others”. One ma
y
add
t
hat the ‘ecolo
g
ical’ function
s
impl
y
occurs more often because of pra
g
matic, extra-
l
in
g
uistic factors, i.e. its use in the media. Of course, it would be absurd to claim that
t
he new ‘ecological’ senses are, by whatever mechanism
,
a new feature of
c
onversion as a
p
rocess; or that conver
s
i
on may be held responsible for thei
r
development. They are evidently linked to one product of conversion only (actually,
o
ccasioned by a broadening of the s
e
m
antics of the ad
j
ectival base
g
reen itself
)
.
B
ut there are also more widespread uph
e
a
v
al
s
in th
ese
manti
cs o
f in
d
i
v
i
du
al
derivatives, serially occurring within a particular pattern, which may tell us
s
omethin
g
about the chan
g
in
g
semantics of formatives as well. Such instances can
be observed in the case of so-called multi-functional (pol
y
semous) affixes, i.e.
e
lements which, on a re
g
ular basis, render more than one function. One ma
y
h
ypothesise then that a particular meaning of a given affix may gain in prominence,
while another one may be on the wane (ther
e
fore, as is argued e.g. in Bauer (2001:
199), “different meanings of the same form should be treated separately where
questions of productivity are concerned”)
.
This is exactly what has happened
r
ecently, for instance, to the noun-forming suffixes -ship an
d
-
ee
.
Th
e
O
ED2 gives, under the main entry fo
r
-
shi
p
,
the following ma
j
or meanings
o
f the suffix (when used as a noun-formin
g
d
enominal element
)
: ‘state or condition
o
f bein
g
N’ (e.
g
.
f
riendship), ‘office, position, di
g
nit
y
, or rank of N’
(
ambassadorshi
p
), ‘state of life, occupation, or behaviour relating to or connected
with N’
(
courtshi
p
) and, finally, there are -shi
p
nouns “having a collective sense”
(
see also Marchand
(
1969: 345-6
)
for a more detailed classification
)
. It is the last
c
ategory that I want to focus upon here. Characteristically, the
O
ED2 does not list
,
u
nder the entry fo
r
-ship, any modern usage examples showing the collective nouns
i
n context. One finds only the comment that such nouns “were numerous in OE”.
440
BOG
DAN
S
ZYMANEK
However, when we search through the individual entries for some -shi
p
nouns
,
it
turns out that the collective meaning is often acknowledged. It should be noted that
the collective sense (when present) is attested with a later date than the remaining
m
eanings (of state/condition/office, etc.). For example:
r
eadershi
p
(
1923/1719
)
,
membership
(
1850/1647
)
, partnershi
p
(
1802/1576
)
,
l
eadership
(
ca. 1939/1821
)
,
trusteeshi
p
(ca. 1885/1730), plus one instance of an old collective use: fellowship
.
T
his seems to su
gg
est that the collective sense is secondar
y
, and posterior, with
r
espect to the other functions of -shi
p
,
but this development is b
y
no means
exceptional. Granted, man
y
-shi
p
nouns have not developed the collective meanin
g
at all
(
for instance, professorship
(
1641
)
, judgeship
(
1677
)
, citizenshi
p
(
1611
)
,
teachershi
p
(1846)). For some other nouns, one can detect a slight tinge of the
c
ollective meaning. For instan
c
e, the principal meaning of
l
istenershi
p
(
1943
)
, as
de
fin
ed
in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionar
y
,
is collective: ‘the audience
for a radio program or record album’, i
.
e
. ‘listeners, collectively’, while the
O
ED2
o
nly gives a qualified, narrower paraphrase: ‘th
ees
timat
ed
n
u
m
be
r
o
f li
s
t
e
n
e
r
s
t
o
a
broadcast pro
g
ramme or to radio’. On
t
he other hand
,
one should add that
,
in
present-da
y
(British and American) En
g
lish, one can find further examples of the
co
ll
ec
ti
ve use o
f -
s
hip which are simpl
y
unaccounted for in the
O
ED2
,
even if a
s
uitable lexical entry exists in the dictionary. Such is the case with
b
utlershi
p
,
contributorshi
p
,
l
andownershi
p
,
subscribershi
p
(
listed also in Adams
(
2001: 9, 64
)
,
as instances of collective nouns
)
. Thus, for instance, unde
r
l
andownershi
p
we find
,
i
n th
e
O
ED
2
,
one clear text example (1867) suggesting that the meaning of the noun
m
ay be collective: “England’s landow
n
ership will never be without the
r
epresentatives …”. On the basis of the
e
vidence
j
ust presented one ma
y
conclude,
then, that the En
g
lish suffix -shi
p
seems to be re-
g
ainin
g
its ori
g
inal (OE)
s
i
g
nificance as a marker of collectivit
y
.
The noun-forming suffix -
ee
offers another s
p
ectacular exam
p
le of recent
c
hanges in affixal semantics. The case is investigated in detail in Bauer (1994: 40-
4
7); here, for lack of space, we only present the most significa
n
t
facts and findings.
B
auer presents a semantic comparison of two samples of -
ee
de
ri
v
ati
ves: o
n
ese
t
o
f
100 items consisting of nineteenth century formations extracted from the
O
ED1
(
nouns like employee (1850), etc.). The other sampl
e
,
based on a variety of recently
published sources,
g
ives 60 twentieth centur
y
words usin
g
the suffix -
ee
,
of which
11 are actuall
y
listed in the
O
ED2
.
(Because toda
y
we are able to confront the latter
s
ample with the contents of the
O
ED2
,
it turns out that
,
in fact
,
4 items should not
h
ave been included there since they a
r
e
fir
s
t att
es
t
ed
in
e
arli
e
r
ce
nt
u
ri
es:
b
r
ibee
(
1858
)
,
dislocatee
(
1827
)
,
p
romissee
(
1733
)
,
p
um
p
ee
(
1834
))
. The conclusions that
follow from the comparison are quite instructive: in the nineteenth century (and
e
arlier
)
, the suffix -
ee
is used regularly and almost exclusively in personal nouns
with a passive meaning, bearing the grammatical function of either direct ob
j
ect (e.g.
appointe
e
) or ob
j
ect of a preposition (e.
g
.
payee
) in relation to the base verb (onl
y
2
n
ouns with sub
j
ect function were recorded). In the twentieth centur
y
, the situation is
m
arkedl
y
different. Most importantl
y
, “the number of
-ee
wo
r
ds w
hi
c
h a
c
t
s
yntactically as the object of a preposition is falling in this century, while the
n
umber of subject formations is on the increase” (Bauer 1994: 46). This new trend
m
ay be illustrated with subject neologisms like
attendee
,
knockee
,
waitee
.
Secondly,
T
HE LATEST TRENDS IN ENGLISH WORD-FORMATION
441
B
auer points out that there is another, quite new (late twentieth-century) tendency
whereby the suffix denotes i
n
animate entities.
S
everal exa
m
ples of recently coined
m
m
t
erms in linguistics are given to illustrate this development:
advancee
,
causee
,
cliticee
, etc. To sum up, two conclusions ma
y
be drawn from the facts
j
ust
presented: first, the suffix -
ee
is at least moderatel
y
productive in present-da
y
En
g
lish (as it occasionall
yg
ives rise to ne
o
lo
g
isms) and, secondl
y
, its scope of use
and semantics have undergone significant changes in the past decades (see also
Adams
(
2001: 29-31
)
for more exam
p
les and discussion
)
.
9
. TRENDS IN THE FORM OF COMPLEX WORDS
9
.1 Choice o
f
rival a
ff
ixes – morpholo
g
ical doublets
A t
y
pe of formal variation evidenced b
y
some currentl
y
used derivatives, which
c
onsists in the existence of so-called morpholo
g
ical doublets (rival forms) ma
y
be
i
ndicative of some chan
g
e in pro
g
ress. These are pairs of s
y
non
y
mous complex
words which share the same base but involve distinct formatives, e.g. two different
affixes
(
cf., for instance, the existence of attested doublets in
-ness
an
d
-
it
y
:
p
rescri
p
tiveness
/
prescriptivit
y
,
etc.). One may predict t
h
at thi
sso
rt
o
f f
o
rmal
fluctuation is not likely to persist for a long time; usually, one of the rival forms
eventually takes over and becomes esta
b
l
ished (thus strengthening the derivational
pattern it represents) while the other variant sinks into oblivion (or they acquire
s
pecialized meanin
g
s, as in
histo
r
ic
/
histo
r
ical
,
economic
/
economical
).
l
l
Let me illustrate the
p
henomenon sketch
e
d above with some com
p
lex words
which are
p
art of the famili
a
r
terminology of linguistics.
First, we may consider the pattern of denominal adjective formation. The two
co
mm
o
n
su
ffix
es
ar
e
-
ic
an
d
-
al
.
When we limit ourselves to just a few standard
n
ames of linguistic disciplines, we get the following picture:
A
s is well known
,
both -
ic
an
d
-
al
have been productive, for a long time, in
l
deriving denominal ad
j
ectives (e.g.
formal
vs.
l
atomic
)
. In a number of words, both
s
uffixes appear in combination (e.g. geographical
;
also the forms in the right-hand
c
olumn above
)
. For two nouns on the list,
sy
nta
x
an
d
semantics
,
the lon
g
e
r
ad
j
ectives, with the affixal complex -
ic
-
al
,
are, accordin
g
to some sources, no lon
g
e
r
i
n use
(
Adams 2001: 36
)
, i.e.
syntactical
and
l
semantical
strike the ear as decidedly
l
o
bsolete (current linguistic jargon uses
s
yntacti
c
an
d
semantic
almost exclusively,
(
1
)
Noun Adjective
phonetics – phonetic / phonetical
sy
ntax – s
y
ntactic / (s
y
ntactical)
s
emantics – semantic /
(
semantical
)
phonolo
gy
– (phonolo
g
ic) / phonolo
g
ical
m
orphology – (morphologic) / morphological
44
2
B
OG
DAN
S
ZYMANEK
t
hough the
O
ED
2
offers relatively recent (1978) citations for both
syntactical
and
l
semantical
). On the other hand, the longer forms in
l
l
-
ic
-
al
prevail in current usage for
l
nou
n
s
lik
e
phonolog
y
an
d
morpholog
y
. Even though the
O
ED2 li
s
t
sbo
th phonologi
c
an
d
phonological
under the main entry of
l
phonolog
y
,
the former is hardly eve
r
found in linguistic texts published today (one not so recent counterexample occurs in
t
he title of McCawley’s (1967) paper: “Sap
i
r’s Phonologic Representation”, but this
i
s onl
y
because the term phonolo
g
i
c
was used b
y
Sapir himself). Next, the pai
r
phoneti
c
/
phonetica
l
illustrates yet another possibility, where both denominal forms
l
are not onl
y
attested in dictionaries, but actuall
y
used in the standard lan
g
ua
g
e. So it
i
s appropriate to view them as genuine by-forms or variants (although the longe
r
f
orm
,
p
honetical
,
seems to have some slight tinge of obsoleteness and is, probably,
l
ess common than its rival
)
.
The examples demonstrate that, when observing competition between some
c
urrent morphological variants, it is not always possible to predict the development
o
f a particular pattern
b
ec
a
use
th
eev
i
de
n
ce
a
v
aila
b
l
e
t
oday may not point in one
direction, as far as future chan
g
e is c
o
ncerned, or the prefe
r
e
nces of the speakers
m
a
y
be motivated b
y
extra-
g
rammatical factors (in particular, their choices
c
oncernin
g
individual lexemes do not have to follow from an
y
conceivable
r
estructuring in the morphological system).
Secondly, let us consider a more complicated example, offered by the name of
t
he ma
j
or discipline,
l
inguistics
,
and the personal noun that corresponds to it. So,
what do you call somebody who specialises (or ‘is versed’) in linguistics? If you say
‘a
l
inguis
t
’ you are obviously right, although this is not the only meaning of the ter
m
as used toda
y
; cf. CAL
D
:
a lin
g
uist is “someone who studies forei
g
n lan
g
ua
g
es o
r
c
an speak them ver
y
well, or someone who
t
eaches or studies lin
g
uistics”. In fact,
t
he exactness of this dictionar
y
definition ma
y
be questioned in the li
g
ht of the
following passage: “A ‘linguist,’ at least
i
n academic disciplinary terms, is not a
person who speaks many languages, but rather someone concerned with the
s
cientific study of language more gen
e
r
ally” (Anderson and Lightfoot 2002: 1). But
you may be surprised to find that, according to the
O
ED
1
(
and also
O
ED2) you are
wrong, in a way: “One who is versed in li
n
guistics” is the gloss of another personal
n
oun
,
linguistician
(
last citation 1967 in the
O
ED2). The meaning ‘a practitioner of
l
in
g
uistics’ is not listed at all unde
r
linguist
in the
t
O
ED2. However, one ma
y
s
urmise that it is implied in the subentr
yg
lossed as “a student of lan
g
ua
g
e; a
philolo
g
ist” (first citation 1641, last citation 1973); the more so since the association
be
t
ween
linguist
and
t
l
inguistics is made ex
p
licit in one of the illustrative exam
p
les:
“
The general linguist, in the sense of the specialist or the student concerned with
g
eneral linguistics” (R.H. Robins, 1964/1971).
Regardless of the confusing picture that one may get from the
O
E
D
, everyday
experience teaches us that, today, linguists never call themselves ‘linguisticians’ (o
r
‘
lin
g
uisters’ – another obsolete formation to be found in the
O
E
D
,
usuall
y
meanin
g
‘an interpreter’). The term now is obsolete and seems to sound humorous, althou
g
h
i
t was in (serious) use a few decades a
g
o (fo
r
example, D. Jones, in 1957, referred to
Edward Sa
p
ir as “the eminent American
l
inguistician
”).
Similarly, if we focus on one part of linguistics (grammar), viz.
semantics
,
it
t
urns out that, according to the
O
E
D
,
there are two rival
p
ersonal nouns