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How is low morphological productivity measured?
Abstract
Morphological productivity has become a central issue in present-day English word-formation over the past decade. However, most proposals for assessing productivity have focused on the most productive processes and how to measure them, to the detriment of processes which give rise to fewer items than the ones usually studied in analyses of word-formation productivity. The present paper looks at the major models for productivity measurement and applies them to a BNC-based 5,891-item corpus to test how they account for low productivity. The results obtained highlight significant differences between various productivity counts in an area which, from this point of view, needs further methodological development.
... U početku, lingvisti su kvalitativno pokušavali da postignu takav cilj, ali im tek kvantitativni pristup to omogućava. Najznačajniji predstavnik kvantitativnog pristupa izračunavanja jeste Bajen [Baayen], koji je uvođenjem svoje dvije formule (1992,1993) postao nezaobilazan u svim savremenim istraživanjima (Baayen, 1994;Baayen & Renouf, 1996;Baayen & Neijt, 1997;Plag, Dalton-Puffer & Baayen, 1999;Hay & Baayen, 2002;Hay & Baayen, 2003;Plag, 2003;Fernandez-Dominguez, Diaz-Negrillo & Štekauer, 2007). Bajenove se formule, međutim, pojavljuju samo prilikom izračunavanja morfološke produktivnosti derivacije. ...
... Za naše istraživanje podjednako je važno i mišljenje da se tvorbeni proces dešava kada govornik ima potrebu da imenuje nešto što ne postoji u leksikonu (Štekauer, 2005, Štekauer, Chapman, Tomašćikova & Franko, 2005Fernandez-Dominguez, Diaz-Negrillo & Štekauer, 2007) i svako novo imenovanje prvo nastaje na konceptualnom nivou, gdje se ono što treba da se imenuje identifikuje i svrstava u neki semantički koncept. Koncepti se definišu kao mentalne predstave koje skladište znanje o različitim kategorijama, omogućavajući nam da određene stvari podvedemo pod odgovarajuću kategoriju (Cruse, 2006, p. 30). ...
... Zato ne čudi što se veliki broj značajnih savremenih izračunavanja morfološke produktivnosti derivacije okreće oko Bajenovih 2 Jedna od najrasprostranjenijih mjera produktivnosti koja se spominje u literaturi podrazumijeva samo prebrojavanje različitih riječi koje su nastale dodavanjem istog afiksa u određenom vremenskom periodu i ova mjera nosi naziv frekventnost tipa (Plag, 2003, p. 64;Du & Zhang, 2010, p. 2). 3 Korpus smo koristili prilikom izrade doktorske disertacije, kao i u radovima Жарковић (2017), Žarković (2017a), Žarković (2017b), Žarković (2019a), Žarković (2019b). formula, brojeva i stavljanja akcenta na što veće korpuse, bez ikakvog osvrta na semantički potencijal afiksa (Baayen, 1994;Baayen & Renouf, 1996;Baayen & Neijt, 1997;Plag, Dalton-Puffer & Baayen, 1999;Hay & Baayen, 2002;Hay & Baayen, 2003;Plag, 2003;Fernandez-Dominguez, Diaz-Negrillo & Štekauer, 2007). ...
U korpusu koji čine novinski, književni, stručni i televizijskiregistar pronalazimo ukupno 46 prefiksa koji učestvuju u formiranjuimenica. Izračunavanje produktivnosti vršimo u dvije etape:prvo, zajedno predstavljamo frekventnost tipa i upotrebe, brojhapaxa i produktivnost u užem i širem smislu, onako kako ih jeBajen predložio svojim formulama (1992, 1993). U drugoj etapi,koristeći onomasiološki pristup ili semantičke predispozicije prefiksa,probali smo na drugačiji način da predstavimo produktivnostpronađenih prefiksa. Cilj je utvrditi produktivnost, ali i efikasnosti kompatibilnost predloženih modela koristeći statističku i deskriptivno-analitičku metodu. Opšta hipoteza kojom započinjemo svojeistraživanje jeste da ćemo dolaziti ponekad do istih ili različitih rezultatajer kvantitativni pristup jesu brojevi i proračuni, dok onomasiološkipristup nudi uvid i u preference govornika u tvorbi riječi.Tako naše istraživanje predstavlja dvije strane istog fenomenajer ma koliko kvantitativni pristup bio dominantan i adekvatan, semantičkepredispozicije ne mogu da se zanemare. Na kraju možemoda zaključimo da obje metode dovode ponekad do istih, ali uvećem broju slučajeva različitih rezultata, što nam daje bolji uvid ukompleksnost problema morfološke produktivnosti.
... Conversely, large numbers of high-frequency items lead <…> to a decrease of P, indicating low productivity' (Plag, 2021: 488). This measure has been used and continues to be referred to in multiple studies until the present day (Fernández-Domínguez, Díaz-Negrillo, and Štekauer, 2007;Plag and Baayen, 2009;Zirkel, 2010;Marzi and Ferro, 2014;Mendaza, 2015;Pierrehumbert and Granell, 2018, among others). ...
In this paper I propose a new way of measuring linguistic productivity that objectively assesses the ability of an affix to be used to coin new complex words and, unlike other popular measures, is not directly dependent upon token frequency. Specifically, I suggest that linguistic productivity may be viewed as the probability of an affix to combine with a random base. The advantages of this approach include the following. First, token frequency does not dominate the productivity measure but naturally influences the sampling of bases. Second, we are not just counting attested word types with an affix but rather simulating the construction of these types and then checking whether they are attested in the corpus. Third, a corpus-based approach and randomised design assure that true neologisms and words coined long ago have equal chances to be selected. The proposed algorithm is evaluated both on English and Russian data. The obtained results provide some valuable insights into the relation of linguistic productivity to the number of types and tokens. It looks like burgeoning linguistic productivity manifests itself in an increasing number of types. However, this process unfolds in two stages: first comes the increase in high-frequency items, and only then follows the increase in low-frequency items.
... We can find a few measuring methods which are proved to be useful in gauging the nature of productivity of a process. Measuring models, however, can also be loosely categorized into three sections: Frequency model, Probabilistic model and onomasiological model (Fernández-Domínguez, J., Díaz-Negrillo & Štekauer, 2007). Here, we briefly discuss about the methods specifically useful for measuring affixal productivity, as this work primarily focuses on the productivity of a few Assamese affixes. ...
SOURCE: GUINEIS (An International Peer-Reviewed Journal of North east India Studies), Gauhati University Vols: VII and VIII,
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y7aguHz6_P1olxuB0HiOfChhxSdrYSRv/view
Colonisation brought in a series of transformations into the world-views and belief-systems of the non-Europeans, primarily by ways of upholding rationalist and scientific discourses. While in many cases the non-European world fought / wrote back to the empire after a certain point of time, the European or Eurocentric discourses had already left strong imprints on the non-European's self-fashioning. In this paper, I have tried to read a popular Twentieth Century Bangla Travelogue, Pramod Kumar Chattopadhyay's TantrabhilashirSadhusanga to show how his pilgrimage to the premier Shakta shrine Kamakhya was propelled more by an urge of re-envisioning India in nationalistic frames of references rather than a spirit of ian innocent pilgrimage. Additionally, it explores his calculated distances from the Tantric cults, a hiatus caused primarily by his Eurocentric learning.
... We can find a few measuring methods which are proved to be useful in gauging the nature of productivity of a process. Measuring models, however, can also be loosely categorized into three sections: Frequency model, Probabilistic model and onomasiological model (Fernández-Domínguez, J., Díaz-Negrillo & Štekauer, 2007). Here, we briefly discuss about the methods specifically useful for measuring affixal productivity, as this work primarily focuses on the productivity of a few Assamese affixes. ...
The productive expressions and creations of a language reflect the dynamic aspects of language. The phenomenon of morphological productivity has been explored in many global languages. These languages have been digitally advanced with fully developed materials. This paper is an attempt to understand thirteen suffixes of the Assamese language by applying five statistical methods in a manually developed small sample. While doing so, this paper addresses the issue of lack of resources and the method of collecting the data in the absence of full-fledged large digital corpora. The paper also tries to find out the productive suffixes, review the methods, and examine the suitability of these methods on Assamese data. It finds that some suffixes display relatively consistent productivity throughout the methods. These are indeed the highest or least productive suffixes of the language. However, some other suffixes turned out productive only in a few methods. In this scenario, a blending of approaches can be adopted for a comprehensive picture. In morphological study, the phenomenon of morphological productivity is an important area of discussion. A number of scholars have developed theories and ideas, formulated measuring methods and addressed the issues
... Les critères de disponibilité qui seront formulés seront ensuite appliqués à cinq suffixes agentifs du français : -ant, -eur, -ier, -iste et -oir. 2. Aperçu de la disponibilité morphologique dans la littérature La notion de « disponibilité » comme aspect de l'étude de la productivité n'a pas encore attiré assez d'attention même après la thèse d'état de Corbin en 1987 : la plupart des morphologues qui s'intéressent à la notion de « productivité morphologique » (voir par exemple Baayen et Lieber 1991, Baayen 1992, Baayen et Renouf 1996, Aliquot-Suengas 2003, Fernández Domínguez et al 2007 la conçoivent comme un phénomène exclusivement quantitatif n'ayant aucun rapport avec la qualité linguistique des procédés morphologiques. A notre connaissance, seul le travail de Faitelson-Weiser et Gingras (1992: 44-52) Dans un suffixe vivant, l'esprit aperçoit nettement une idée abstraite générale qui s'ajoute à l'idée exprimée par le radical : périssable présente à l'esprit l'idée de périr, à laquelle s'ajoute l'idée de possibilité -dans un suffixe mort, l'esprit ne reconnaît pas, en général, l'idée secondaire ajoutée à l'idée exprimée par le radical. ...
drawn from the population of 296581 women in Owerri metropolis. Closed-ended questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Data obtained were presented and analyzed simple percentages and frequencies tables while chi-square was used for testing of research hypotheses. The researcher found that mothers in Owerri metropolis are exposed to radio programmes in the fight against female genital mutilation extensively. It was study revealed that exposure to radio programmes influenced mothers in participation in the fight against female genital mutilation. The researcher therefore, recommended for health care providers to achieve the desired goals of reaching out to the actual people for whom such programmes are intended for, adequate information on the need to abstain from female genital mutilation, should be reported through the mass media, especially radio. It was also, recommended for community base radio stations that need to be man by stakeholders in health, to educate, enlighten, sensitize and mobilize the citizens of the state towards participating in the fight against female genital mutilation in the state.
... Les critères de disponibilité qui seront formulés seront ensuite appliqués à cinq suffixes agentifs du français : -ant, -eur, -ier, -iste et -oir. 2. Aperçu de la disponibilité morphologique dans la littérature La notion de « disponibilité » comme aspect de l'étude de la productivité n'a pas encore attiré assez d'attention même après la thèse d'état de Corbin en 1987 : la plupart des morphologues qui s'intéressent à la notion de « productivité morphologique » (voir par exemple Baayen et Lieber 1991, Baayen 1992, Baayen et Renouf 1996, Aliquot-Suengas 2003, Fernández Domínguez et al 2007 la conçoivent comme un phénomène exclusivement quantitatif n'ayant aucun rapport avec la qualité linguistique des procédés morphologiques. A notre connaissance, seul le travail de Faitelson-Weiser et Gingras (1992: 44-52) a tenté de postuler des critères permettant de déterminer la disponibilité des suffixes. ...
This paper studies the morphological productivity of adjective-forming prefixes at the level of word-formation rules. The productivity at the aforementioned level is the union of the productivity at the level of word-formation types and morphological types. The aim of the paper is to offer pieces of information on the interaction of different concepts within different word-formation types together with the morphological aspect through different morphological types. We find 267 examples of adjectives and analyse 31 prefixes interacting with various simple or complex adjectives in the corpus comprised of news, literary, academic and TV registers. After analytic, descriptive and statistical methods, we conclude that they fall into 5 different conceptual categories, i.e., wordformation type clusters (Quality, Location, Quantity, Time and State). The majority of clusters show that the stem is determining the conceptual category while prefixes refine it. The highest productivity rates are recorded with such word-formation types. The only exceptions are Quantity and Time where the conceptual category depends on the prefixes and stems equally. The results from the morphological analyses show that most of the prefixes are inserting additional semantic pieces of information, usually recording the highest PR and not changing the conceptual category of the stem and appearing within one or multiple clusters, with exceptions for Quantity and Time.
The series Sinica venetiana is devoted to the studies on ancient, modern and contemporary China. It collects monographs and critical editions of texts related to culture, history, art, economics, politics, international relations, environment, using an interdisciplinary approach. The volumes of the series affect various research topics: from literature to history, from the socio-cultural and economic to political and environmental aspects of Chinese society from a perspective which is not limited to individual sectors. The series Sinica venetiana deals with disciplines related to China, from ancient to contemporary times. The volumes will collect articles on various fields of research, from literature to art and history, from socio-cultural and economic aspects to politics, international relations and environmental issues, with an interdisciplinary approach.
Compounding is one of the most productive word-formation processes in contemporary Standard English. Hence, new patterns occur regularly. Productivity is one of the characteristic features of human language which implies the ability to create and understand new word forms by the speaker of a language. This was the starting point and motivation of this paper. The main aim of this paper was to investigate the morphological productivity of nominal and verb compounds in English as a foreign language in terms of the most productive and the least productive patterns of compounds in a written English corpus (consisted of 60073 words) by 75 students enrolled in undergraduate studies at the Law Faculty at SEEU. The quantitative measure used for the evaluation of the productivity of compounding patterns was according to hapax legomenon [P = n1 / N]. Findings from the empirical approach show that the most productive compounds in the analyzed corpus (professional /Legal English context) are verb compounds, followed by special noun compounds, whereas the least productive were noun compounds. The analysis of the corpus showed that morphological productivity in compounding increased in the writing of students with higher degree of competence and proficiency of English.
Abstract
This paper approaches productivity by considering three case studies: compounds, blends and phrasal verbs. The aim of the paper is to encourage a discussion about the factors involved in the notion of productivity, and to show why so many of the established measures are not completely satisfactory or are interpreted in a way that is not.
This paper argues that parsing and productivity are causally related, the more an affix is prone to parsing in speech perception, the more productive it is likely to be. We support this claim by demonstrating a strona relationship between junctural phonotactics and affix productivity. Affixes which tend to create phonotactic junctures which facilite parsing also tend to be more productive. We show that there is a strong statisticol relationship between factors relating to phonotactics, and those relating to productivity. We further show that factors relating to productivity are themselves highly inter-correlated. A Principal Components Analysis reveals that affixes can be assessed on two dimensions, which we label parsability nnd usefuiness. Both of these dimensions substantially contribute to overall productivity.
where -ec is the base, roman is the motive, and -pis- is the determined component of the mark. Omission of the determining component makes a naming unit more general (writer); omission of the determined component causes ambiguity of coinages (is, for example, anthraxist a person who ‘terrorizes people with anthrax,’ ‘produces anthrax,’ ‘sells anthrax,’ ‘studies anthrax,’ ‘is obsessed with anthrax’?).
According to one widely accepted view (Aronoff 1976, 1982), the morphology of a language, because it is part of grammar and trades in structural matters, deals primarily with the internal structure of the potential complex words of a language. These words may not all exist, but they all conform to the morphological structure of the language. By contrast, the lexicon of a language is a list of existing items in the language, those that a speaker has to know because they are arbitrary signs: unpredictable in some way. Most of the items on this list are words, though the lexicon also contains larger units like idioms, and maybe also smaller units like affixes. On this view, in which the regular morphology and the irregular lexicon are separate entities, one might imagine the two having very little to do with one another, since the morphology deals only with potential words and the lexicon only with existing words. In fact, the two systems do have a great deal to do with one another, for two simple reasons. The first is that they serve the same role in a language: both provide words. This overlap has even led some linguists to say that morphology is “in the lexicon” (Jensen and Stong‐Jensen 1984), although in doing so, these linguists are using the term lexicon in a much broader and different sense, to mean the source of all words, actual and potential, rather than in the narrow sense of a list of unpredictable items that we have inherited from traditional grammar and from Bloomfield (Bloomfield 1933, Zwicky 1989, Aronoff 1994). The second reason is that morphology and the lexicon are interdependent. Most centrally, the morphology, which forms words from words, finds the words that it operates on (its bases) in the lexicon. We will explore each of these interrelations in a separate section.
Morphology and Lexical Semantics explores the meanings of morphemes and how they combine to form the meanings of complex words, including derived words (writer, unionise), compounds (dog bed, truck driver) and words formed by conversion. Rochelle Lieber discusses the lexical semantics of word formation in a systematic way, allowing the reader to explore the nature of affixal polysemy, the reasons why there are multiple affixes with the same function and the issues of mismatch between form and meaning in word formation. Using a series of case studies from English, this book develops and justifies the theoretical apparatus necessary for raising and answering many questions about the semantics of word formation. Distinguishing between a lexical semantic skeleton that is featural and hierarchically organised and a lexical semantic body that is holistic, it shows how the semantics of word formation has a paradigmatic character.
The present article seeks to provide an answer to the following question: according to which mechanisms may a pattern of word formation develop a new meaning? In order to keep the task to a manageable size only changes will be considered, the result of which stays within the same type of pattern (affixation, compounding, etc.). Hence, we will not discuss how affixes develop out of compounds or similar phenomena. The only scholar who, to the best of my knowledge, has addressed this issue in a systematic and comprehensive manner is Jaberg (1905), who claimed that semantic change in affixation is always the result of semantic change in individual words plus reanalysis. Our study will reveal, however, that, though this is in fact the most common scenario, there is yet another, hitherto ignored mechanism of semantic change in word formation where no lexical change is involved. This mechanism, which will be called “approximation,” allows a mismatch to arise between a word formation pattern and a neologism formed according to it, if the distance is bridged by metaphor or metonymy.
In Lexical Strata in English, Heinz Giegerich investigates the way in which alternations in the sound patterns of words interact with the morphological processes of the language. Drawing examples from English and German, he uncovers and spells out in detail the principles of 'lexical morphology and phonology', a theory that has in recent years become increasingly influential in linguistics. Giegerich queries many of the assumptions made in that theory, overturning some and putting others on a principled footing. What emerges is a new, formally coherent and highly constrained theory of the lexicon - the theory of 'base-driven' stratification - which predicts the number of lexical strata from the number of base-category distinctions recognized in the morphology of the language. Finally, he offers new accounts of some central phenomena in the phonology of English (including vowel 'reduction', [r]-sandhi and syllabification), which both support and are uniquely facilitated by this new theory.
The fact that morphological elements characteristically represent several derivational relationships, and any given relationship is typically marked by multiple morphological means has led to an assumption of basic irregularity in derivational phenomena. Creativity in this area, coupled with the limited range of variation and the relatedness of the variants within that range, in both Indonesian and English, suggests a highly constrained system for the expression of cognate noun: verb relationships.