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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 30:4 (2025) ► pp.456–498

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A corpus-based study into new combining forms in American English

ORCiD logo with link | Fujian Normal University
ORCiD logo with link | Fudan University
Published online: 9 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.23039.hua
Abstract
This study examines 10 new combining forms (CFs) in American English from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, based on data from the Corpus of Historical American English, the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and the News on the Web, as well as seven dictionaries. Through the lens of corpus and dictionary data alongside the construction­alisation approach, it is found that all the CFs are partially schematised and partly inherit their meanings from their source words. The constructional changes and constructionalisation of the CFs are accompanied by varying degrees of schematic extensions. The distinctions between their schemas are reflected in the semantic categories of the preceding elements, the differences in the appearance dates of these categories, and the word classes to which the preceding elements belong. This study further confirms that the formation of contemporary CFs may involve analogy and other word-formation schemas in addition to compounding and blending.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies on the formation and productivity of CFs
  • 3.Theoretical considerations
    • 3.1Constructionalisation and constructional changes in word formation
    • 3.2Morphological productivity and stability
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Research objectives
    • 4.2Sources of data
    • 4.3Data compilation
  • 5.Results and analysis
    • 5.1The diachronic analysis of the formation of new CFs
      • 5.1.1Group 1: ˗(a) licious, ˗rific, ˗tacular, ˗tastic
      • 5.1.2Group 2: ˗(ma)geddon, ˗pocalypse, ˗flation
      • 5.1.3Group 3: ˗fluencer, ˗preneur, ˗razzi
    • 5.2Morphological productivity and stability of new CFs
      • 5.2.1Productivity of new CFs
      • 5.2.2Stability of new CFs
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1The evolutionary mechanisms of CFs
    • 6.2The productivity and stability of CFs
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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