ENGLISH

Measuring Productivity in Word Formation: The Case of Israeli Hebrew

Book information

Publisher
BRILL
Year
1999
ISBN
9004112529, 9789004112520
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
20 MB (20760485 bytes)
Series
Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 27
Pages
253\271
Time added
2021-07-20 07:31:20

Description

Morphological productivity is the likelihood of a morphological pattern being used or comprehended in new word formation. Three methods of measuring productivity of word formation are proposed productivity tests (open-ended and judgment tasks), dictionary comparison (newer with older dictionaries, supplements with earlier versions), and the ratio of hapax legomena to tokens in corpora. Processes which score highly by all three criteria can safely be regarded as productive. The model is examined in light of data from Israeli Hebrew, which as a Semitic language offers a rich array of discontinuous and linear derivation patterns. The Hebrew data also support the claims that in essence, lexical formation is semantically based; that it is constrained by a requirement for distinctiveness; and that it may vary significantly with the type of derivation base. Contents Preface 1 Introduction 2 The 'Mechanical' Aspects of the Derivational Mechanism 3 Selecting Derivation Patterns: The Verb System 4 Selecting Adjectival Derivation Patterns 5 Selecting Nominal Derivation Patterns 6 Selecting Derivation Patterns Across Semantic Categories 7 Partial Miškal Merger and Back-Formation 8 Conclusion Appendices References Index

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