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In:Competition in Word-Formation
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Akiko Nagano and Vincent Renner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 284] 2024
► pp. 104–138

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Chapter 4
Measuring affix rivalry as a gradient relationship

ORCiD logo with link | University of Fribourg
ORCiD logo with link | University of Fribourg
ORCiD logo with link | University of Fribourg
Published online: 8 May 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.284.04sal
Abstract
In many languages, affixes can be used to derive words with the same semantic types and can therefore compete in word formation. This paper discusses how to quantitatively assess the competition between derivational affixes based on their semantic similarity. Two possible measures of affix rivalry drawn from studies in ecology are examined: the Sørensen index, which considers the proportion of shared functions between rival affixes; and the Percentage similarity coefficient, which is based on the realization frequency of functions. Two complementary measures (Balanced richness and Balanced abundance) are also proposed to further analyze the semantic dissimilarity between rival affixes. Using the semantic competition between six French deverbal suffixes as a case study, we show how these four measures suit the quantification of affix rivalry and help capture different aspects of the phenomenon.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Rivalry and polyfunctionality
  • 3.Measures of rivalry
    • 3.1Quantifying competition
    • 3.2Possible measures
      • 3.2.1Similarity coefficients
      • 3.2.2Complementary indices
  • 4.Case study: Deverbal nominalizing suffixes in French
    • 4.1Data collection
    • 4.2Semantic analysis
    • 4.3Results
      • 4.3.1General information
      • 4.3.2Incidence-based measures
      • 4.3.3Abundance-based measures
      • 4.3.4Comparison of the different measures
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Supplementary material
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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