Part of
Competition in Word-FormationEdited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Akiko Nagano and Vincent Renner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 284] 2024
► pp. 72–103
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Akiko Nagano and Vincent Renner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 284] 2024
► pp. 72–103
Chapter 3Actional nominalization in Present-Day English in the light of
the Referenced Index of Competition
The suffix ‑ment is a
nominalizer which has been portrayed as practically “defunct” (Anshen & Aronoff
1999: 24), although recent coinages cast doubts on conclusive
statements (Bauer et al.
2013). This investigation is based on nonce formations
from the BNC and COCA and aims at exploring nominalizations which
compete for the meaning action in order to understand the
current degree of productivity of the processes involved. This is
done through a corpus-based quantitative approach which considers
‑ment in the light of its relationship to other
competitors, e.g. ‑ing or conversion. The results
reveal that ‑ment is normally surpassed by other
processes, but also that it has found a niche of application which
secures a minimal productive status.
Keywords: competition, corpus-based, English, nominalization, productivity, suffixation, word-formation
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Method
- 3.Competition, productivity and nominalization
- 3.1Morphological competition
- 3.2The synchronic status of -ment
- 4.The environment of competition in English nominalization
- 4.1The Referenced Index of Competition
- 4.2An assessment of cluster competition through C*
- 4.3General trends and particularities
- 5.Conclusions
-
Notes -
References -
Appendix
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