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Part of
Competition in Word-Formation
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Akiko Nagano and Vincent Renner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 284] 2024
► pp. 208–246

Chapter 7
Competition between affixation and conversion in Present-Day English denominal verbs

ORCID logo | Université Lumière Lyon 2

This study investigates the competition between conversion and affixation in forming denominal verbs (to pixel / to pixelate, to glass / to glassify, to acronym / to acronymize) in a dataset of 588 verbs first attested since 1950 and collected from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The morphophonological analysis of the inputs reveals constraints preventing the formation of doublets, while the semantic analysis of the outputs shows how conversion and affixation are used for the expression of different semantic categories, thus limiting the number of semantic competitors. We argue that the tension between economy of expression and transparency of meaning is resolved by each verb-forming process specialising in distinct niches. Our analyses thus reveal some complementary distribution between conversion and affixation: each process tends to select different types of inputs and tends to convey different meanings.

Keywords: competition, conversion, affixation, Present-Day English denominal verbs, morphophonological constraints, semantic niches
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conversion and affixation in Present-Day English
    • 2.1Noun-to-verb conversion
      • 2.1.1Definition of conversion and delimitation of its scope
      • 2.1.2Semantic specifications of conversion
    • 2.2Noun-to-verb affixation
      • 2.2.1Prefixation
      • 2.2.2Suffixation
  • 3.Competition between conversion and affixation
    • 3.1Competition on a formal level
      • 3.1.1Definition of formal competition
      • 3.1.2Competition within the onomasiological approach
    • 3.2Competition on a semantic level
      • 3.2.1Definition of semantic competition
      • 3.2.2The issue of synonymy
    • 3.3The resolution of competition
    • 3.4Previous studies on morphological competition
  • 4.Hypotheses and methodology
    • 4.1Hypothesis and aims of this study
    • 4.2Data selection
      • 4.2.1Dictionary data
      • 4.2.2Corpus data
      • 4.2.3Collecting formal doublets
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Morphological and etymological features of the base nouns
      • 5.1.1Etymology and origin of the simplex inputs
      • 5.1.2Morphological analysis of the complex inputs
    • 5.2Phonological features of the base nouns
      • 5.2.1Number of syllables
      • 5.2.2Vowel versus consonant phonemic ending
    • 5.3Semantic analysis of the denominal verbs
      • 5.3.1Verbal semantics categories
      • 5.3.2The semantics of converted and affixed verbs
      • 5.3.3The semantics of doublets
      • 5.3.4Semantic competition in doublets
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.284.07deb
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