In:Competition in Word-Formation
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Akiko Nagano and Vincent Renner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 284] 2024
► pp. 1–31
Chapter 1Towards a competition-based word-formation theory
Core research questions and major hypotheses
Published online: 8 May 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.284.01nag
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.284.01nag
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the study of
competition in word-formation theories, drawing on the findings of the ten
chapters collected in this volume and other recent contributions. It
explores recurrent issues regarding (i) the triggers and outcomes of
competition, (ii) the variety of competing forms, and (iii) the synonymy
condition for competition. With respect to the first set of research
questions, a binary typology of form-based and meaning-based resolutions is
identified, with each pole providing multiple ways to resolve competition.
Next, for the form-related research questions, the distinction between
macro‑ and micro-level competition is significant. Finally, the synonymy
condition is reassessed through a careful comparison between morphologically
simplex and complex lexemes, leading to a definition of competing rivals in
word-formation as a set of formally suppletive morphological processes that
produce propositional, near, or sense synonyms.
Keywords: morphology, word-formation, competition, rivalry, affixation
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Fundamental questions
- 2.1Onomasiological and semasiological perspectives
- 2.2Triggers and outcomes of competition
- 3.Questions about form
- 3.1Competition between instantiations: Doublets and clusters
- 3.2Competition between morphological processes
- 3.3Form-based resolutions
- 3.3.1The marginalization or total loss of a rivaling form
- 3.3.2Blocking
- 3.3.3Base selection
- 4.Questions about meaning
- 4.1Lexical and word-formational semantics
- 4.2The synonymy condition in competition
- 4.3Meaning-based resolutions
- 4.3.1Distinguishing features or contexts of propositional synonymy
- 4.3.2Distinguishing features or contexts of near synonymy and sense
synonymy
- 4.3.2.1Lexical semantic features
- 4.3.2.2Syntagmatic contexts
- 5.Macro-level competition
- 5.1Macro-level competition in transcategorial change
- 5.2Macro-level competition in other lexical functions of word-formation
- 5.3Macro-level competition beyond the boundaries of word-formation
- 6.Concluding remarks
Notes References
References (105)
Acquaviva, Paolo, Lenci, Alessandro, Paradis, Carita & Raffaelli, Ida. 2020. Models
of lexical
meaning. In Word
Knowledge and Word Usage: A Cross-Disciplinary Guide to the Mental
Lexicon, Vito Pirrelli, Ingo Plag & Wolfgang U. Dressler (eds), 353–404. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Akita, Kimi & Murasugi, Keiko. 2022. Binomial
adjectival doublets in Japanese: A Relational Morphology
account. Morphology 32: 281–297.
Andreou, Marios & Lieber, Rochelle. 2019. Aspectual
and quantificational properties of deverbal conversion and
‑ing nominalizations: The power of
context. English Language &
Linguistics 24(2): 333–363.
. 2019. Competitors
and alternants in linguistic
morphology. In Competition
in Inflection and Word-Formation, Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Wolfgang U. Dressler & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds), 39–66. Cham: Springer.
. 2020. -less and -free. In Complex
Words: Advances in Morphology, Lívia Körtvélyessy & Pavol Štekauer (eds), 55–64. Cambridge: CUP.
Aronoff, Mark & Lindsay, Mark. 2014. Productivity,
blocking, and
lexicalization. In The
Oxford Handbook of Derivational
Morphology, Rochelle Lieber & Pavol Štekauer (eds), 67–83. Oxford: OUP.
Baeskow, Heike. 2015. Stacking
as a reflex and indicator of (proto-)typical selectional
restrictions. In Semantics
of Complex Words, Laurie Bauer, Lívia Körtvélyessy & Pavol Štekauer (eds), 241–276. Cham: Springer.
Bagasheva, Alexandra. 2017. Comparative
semantic concepts in
affixation. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 119–161. Bern: Peter Lang.
. 2006. Competition
in English
word-formation. In The
Handbook of the History of English, Ans van Kemenade & Bettelou Los (eds), 177–198. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
. 2023. The
birth and death of affixes and other morphological processes in
English
derivation. Languages 8: 244.
Bauer, Laurie, Valera, Salvador & Díaz-Negrillo, Ana. 2010. Affixation
vs. conversion: The resolution of conflicting
patterns. In Variation
and Change in Morphology, Franz Rainer, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Dieter Kastovsky & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds), 15–32. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Bauer, Laurie, Lieber, Rochelle & Plag, Ingo. 2013. The
Oxford Reference Guide to English
Morphology. Oxford: OUP.
Bauer, Laurie, Körtvélyessy, Lívia & Štekauer, Pavol (eds). 2015. Semantics
of Complex
Words. Cham: Springer.
Berg, Thomas. 2014. Competition
as a unifying concept for the study of
language. The Mental
Lexicon 9 (2): 338–370.
Bobkova, Natalia & Montermini, Fabio. 2023. A
quantitative approach to doublets in Russian denominal adjective
construction. Word
Structure 16(1): 63–86.
Cetnarowska, Bożena. 1993. The
Syntax, Semantics and Derivation of Bare Nominalisations in
English. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski.
Cruse, D. Alan. 2011. Meaning
in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and
Pragmatics (3rd
ed.). Oxford: OUP.
De Smet, Hendrik, D’hoedt, Frauke, Fonteyn, Lauren & Van Goethem, Kristel. 2018. The
changing functions of competing forms: Attraction and
differentiation. Cognitive
Linguistics 29(2): 197–234.
Denistia, Karlina, Shafaei-Bajestan, Elnaz & Baayen, R. Harald. 2022. Exploring
semantic differences between the Indonesian prefixes PE‑ and PEN‑
using a vector space model. Corpus
Linguistics and Linguistic
Theory 18(3): 573–598.
Díaz-Negrillo, Ana. 2017. On
the identification of competition in English derivational morphemes:
The case of ‑dom, -hood and
‑ship. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 119–161. Bern: Peter Lang.
Fábregas, Antonio. 2010. A
syntactic account of affix rivalry in Spanish
nominalizations. In The
Syntax of Nominalizations across Languages and
Frameworks, Artemis Alexiadou & Monika Rathert (eds), 67–92. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
. 2015. Structural
sensitivity as an argument for semantic
underspecification. In Semantics
of Complex Words, Laurie Bauer, Lívia Körtvélyessy & Pavol Štekauer (eds), 217–240. Cham: Springer.
. 2016. Deconstructing
the non-episodic readings of Spanish deverbal
adjectives. Word
Structure 9(1): 1–41.
Fellbaum, Christiane. 2015. Lexical
relations. In The
Oxford Handbook of the Word, John R. Taylor (ed), 350–363. Oxford: OUP.
Fernández-Alcaina, Cristina. 2017. Availability
and unavailability in English
word-formation. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 163–205. Bern: Peter Lang.
Fernández-Domínguez, Jésus. 2017. Methodological
and procedural issues in the quantification of morphological
competition. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 67–117. Bern: Peter Lang.
Fradin, Bernard. 2019. Competition
in derivation: What can we learn from French doublets in
‑age and
‑ment? In Competition
in Inflection and Word-Formation, Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Wolfgang U. Dressler & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds), 67–93. Cham: Springer.
Gardani, Francesco, Rainer, Franz & Luschützky, Hans Christian. 2019. Competition
in morphology: A historical
outline. In Competition
in Inflection and Word-Formation, Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Wolfgang U. Dressler & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds), 3–38. Cham: Springer.
Goldberg, Adele E. 2019. Explain
Me This: Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of
Constructions. Princeton: PUP.
Gries, Stefan Th. 2004. Isn’t
that fantabulous? How similarity motivates intentional morphological
blends in
English. In Language,
Culture, and Mind, Michel Achard & Suzanne Kemmer (eds), 415–428. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
. 2012. Quantitative
corpus data on blend formation: Psycho‑ and cognitive-linguistic
perspectives. In Cross-Disciplinary
Perspectives on Lexical Blending, Vincent Renner, François Maniez & Pierre J. L. Arnaud (eds), 145–167. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Gunkel, Lutz & Zifonun, Gisela. 2008. Constraints
on relational-adjective noun constructions: A comparative view on
English, German and
French. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und
Amerikanistik 56: 283–302.
Guzmán Naranjo, Matías & Bonami, Olivier. 2023. A
distributional assessment of rivalry in word
formation. Word
Structure 16(1): 87–114.
Hamawand, Zeki. 2007. Suffixal
Rivalry in Adjectival Formation: A Cognitive-Corpus
Analysis. London: Equinox.
Hegedűs, Irén. 2014. Affix
doublets and affix rivalry in the history of
English. Argumentum 10: 312–324.
Huyghe, Richard & Wauquier, Marine. 2021. Distributional
semantics insights on agentive suffix rivalry in
French. Word
Structure 14(3): 354–391.
Huyghe, Richard & Varvara, Rossella. 2023a. Affixal
rivalry: Theoretical and methodological
challenges. Word
Structure 16(1): 1–23.
Hüning, Matthias & Schlücker, Barbara. 2015. Multi-word
expressions. In Word-formation:
An International Handbook of the Languages of
Europe, Vol. 1, Peter Müller, Ingeborg Ohnheiser, Susan Olsen & Franz Rainer (eds), 450–467. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Ishida, Takashi & Naya, Ryohei. 2022. Presidential
company vs. president company: Very subtle but crucial
semantic differences between RA-N and
N-N. Tsukuba English
Studies 41: 19–32.
Kaunisto, Mark. 2007. Variation
and Change in the Lexicon: A Corpus-based Analysis of Adjectives in
English Ending in -ic and
-ical. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Kawaletz, Lea & Plag, Ingo. 2015. Predicting
the semantics of English nominalizations: A frame-based analysis of
‑ment
suffixation. In The
Semantics of Complex Words, Laurie Bauer, Lívia Körtvélyessy & Pavol Štekauer (eds), 289–319. Cham: Springer.
Kikuchi, Yuki. 2020. An
analysis of N-free X and N‑less X
based on Construction
Morphology. JELS 37: 59–65.
Kiparsky, Paul. 2010. Dvandvas,
blocking, and the associative: The bumpy ride from phrase to
word. Language 86(2): 302–331.
Koehl, Aurore & Lignon, Stéphanie. 2014. Property
nouns with ‑ité and ‑itude: Formal
alternation and morphopragmatics or the sad-itude of the
AitéN. Morphology 24: 351–376.
Lara-Clares, Cristina. 2017. Competition
in Present-day English nominalization by zero-affixation and
‑ation. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 207–244. Bern: Peter Lang.
Lenci, Alessandro. 2018. Distributional
models of word meaning. Annual Review
of
Linguistics 4: 151–171.
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 2013. Lexicalized
meaning and manner/result
complementarity. In Studies
in the Composition and Decomposition of Event
Predicates, Boban Arsenijevič, Berit Gehrke & Rafael Marín (eds), 49–70. Dordrecht: Springer.
Li, Ping & MacWhinney, Brian. 2012. Competition
model. In The
Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, Carol A. Chapelle (ed), 1–5. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Online Library.
. 2023. Ghost
aspect and double plurality: On the aspectual semantics of eventive
conversion and ‑ing nominalizations in
English. In The
Semantics of Derivational Morphology: Theory, Methods,
Evidence, Sven Kotowski & Ingo Plag (eds), 15–36. Berlin: De Gruyter.
. 2024. Derivation
and semantic theory: Foundations, frameworks, and
outcomes. To appear
in English
Linguistics 40.
Lieber, Rochelle & Plag, Ingo. 2022. The
semantics of conversion nouns and ‑ing
nominalizations: A quantitative and theoretical
perspective. Journal of
Linguistics 58(2): 307–343.
Lindsay, Mark & Aronoff, Mark. 2013. Natural
selection in self-organizing morphological
systems. In Morphology
in Toulouse: Selected proceedings of Décembrettes
7, Fabio Montermini, Gilles Boyé & Jesse Tseng (eds), 133–153. Munich: Lincom Europa.
McCulloch, Gretchen. 2019. Because
Internet: Understanding the New Rules of
Language. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Missud, Alice & Villoing, Florence. 2020. The
morphology of rival ‑ion, -age and
‑ment selected verbal
bases. Lexique 26: 29–52.
Moravcsik, Edith. 2014. Introduction. In Competing
Motivations in Grammar and Usage, Brian MacWhinney, Andrej Malchukov & Edith Moravcsik (eds), 1–16. Oxford: OUP.
Naccarato, Chiara. 2019. Agentive
(para)synthetic compounds in Russian: A quantitative study of rival
constructions. Morphology 29(1): 1–30.
. 2023. Affixal
rivalry and its purely semantic resolution among English derived
adjectives. Journal of
Linguistics 59(3): 499–530.
Nagano, Akiko & Shimada, Masaharu. 2014. Morphological
theory and orthography: Kanji as a representation of
lexemes. Journal of
Linguistics 50(2): 323–364.
Naya, Ryohei. 2017. Competition
in word-formation: Deverbal nominalization by ‑ment
vs.
conversion. JELS 34: 271–277.
Nishiyama, Kunio & Nagano, Akiko. 2020. Keitairon to Rekisikon (Morphology and the
Lexicon). Kaitakusha: Tokyo.
OED = Oxford English
Dictionary, online
edition. [URL]
Plag, Ingo. 1999. Morphological
Productivity: Structural Constraints in English
Derivation. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Plag, Ingo & Balling, Laura Winther. 2020. Derivational
morphology: An integrated perspective on some fundamental
questions. In Word
Knowledge and Word Usage: A Cross-disciplinary Guide to the Mental
Lexicon, Vito Pirrelli, Ingo Plag & Wolfgang U. Dressler (eds), 295–335. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Prince, Alan & Smolensky, Paul. 2002. Optimality
Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative
Grammar. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.
Radimský, Jan & Štichauer, Pavel. 2021. Nomina
actionis in the diachrony of Italian: A paradigm-based
model of competition. Lingue e
Linguaggio 20(1): 33–55.
Raffelsiefen, Renate. 2010. Idiosyncrasy,
regularity, and synonymy in derivational morphology: Evidence for
default word interpretation
strategies. In New
Impulses in Word Formation, Susan Olsen (ed), 173–232. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
Rainer, Franz. 2013. Can
relational adjectives really express any relation? An
onomasiological perspective. SKASE
Journal of Theoretical
Linguistics 10(1): 12–40.
Rainer, Franz, Gardani, Francesco, Dressler, Wolfgang U. & Luschützky, Hans Christian (eds). 2019. Competition
in Inflection and
Word-Formation. Dordrecht: Springer.
Renner, Vincent. 2020. An
ecosystem view of English
word-formation. The Mental
Lexicon 15(1): 4–20.
Rodrigues, Alexandra Soares. 2015. Semantic
rivalry between affixes: the case of Portuguese
nominalisers. In Mediterranean
Morphology
Meetings 9: 134–137.
Santana-Lario, Juan & Valera, Salvador (eds). 2017. Competing
Patterns in English
Affixation. Bern: Peter Lang.
Schirakowski, Barbara. 2020. (No)
competition between deverbal nouns and nominalized infinitives in
Spanish. Borealis: An International
Journal of Hispanic
Linguistics 9(2): 257–283.
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2016. English
Morphology and Word-Formation: An
Introduction, 3rd
ed. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.
Schulte, Marion. 2015a. The
Semantics of Derivational Morphology: A Synchronic and Diachronic
Investigation of the Suffixes -age and -ery in
English. Tübingen: Narr Verlag.
. 2015b. Polysemy
and synonymy in derivational affixation: A case study of the English
suffixes ‑age and
‑ery. Morphology 25: 371–390.
Shimamura, Reiko. 1990. Eigo no Gokeisei to Sono
Seisansei (Word-Formation in English and its
Productivity). Tokyo: Liber Press.
Štekauer, Pavol. 1998. An
Onomasiological Theory of English
Word-Formation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
. 2005. Onomasiological
approach to
word-formation. In Handbook
of Word-Formation, Pavol Štekauer & Rochelle Lieber (eds), 207–232. Dordrecht: Springer.
. 2017. Competition
in natural
languages. In Competing
Patterns in English Affixation, Juan Santana-Lario & Salvador Valera (eds), 15–32. Bern: Peter Lang.
Sugioka, Yoko. 2005. Multiple
mechanisms underlying morphological
productivity. In Polymorphous
Linguistics: Jim McCawley’s Legacy, Salikoko S. Mufwene, Elaine J. Francis & Rebecca S. Wheeler, 203–224. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Tribout, Delphine & Villoing, Florence. 2014. La
composition VN et la conversion V>N en français: un nouveau cas
de concurrence
morphologique? In Foisonnements
Morphologiques: Études en Hommage à Françoise
Kerleroux, Florence Villoing, Sophie David & Sarah Leroy (eds), 75–108. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest.
Trips, Carola. 2009. Lexical
Semantics and Diachronic Morphology: The Development of -hood, -dom
and -ship in the History of
English. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Varvara, Rossella. 2020. Constraints
on nominalizations: Investigating the productivity domain of Italian
‑mento and
‑zione. Zeitschrift
für Wortbildung/Journal of Word
Formation 4(2): 78–99.
Varvara, Rossella, Lapesa, Gabriella & Padó, Sebastian. 2021. Grounding
semantic transparency in context: A distributional semantic study of
German event
nominalizations. Morphology 31(4): 409–446.
Varvara, Rossella & Zamparelli, Roberto. 2019. Competition
between event-denoting deverbal nouns and nominal infinitives in
Italian. In Competition
in Inflection and Word-Formation, Franz Rainer, Francesco Gardani, Wolfgang U. Dressler & Hans Christian Luschützky (eds), 169–193. Cham: Springer.
Villalva, Alina. 2022. Complex
verbs: The interplay of suffixation, conversion, and parasynthesis
in Portuguese and
English. In Paradigms
in Word Formation: Theory and
Applications, Alba E. Ruz, Cristina Fernández-Alcaina & Cristina Lara-Clares (eds), 249–282. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
