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Two hypotheses are discussed in this paper. One stating two functions of word formations, syntactic recategorisation and naming of concepts to enrich the vocabulary. Recategorisation is accomplished mainly by word formation patterns being directly related to semantically equivalent syntactic constructions. In this case a description of complex words by transformations is appropriate. In the special case of quasi suffixes like -fähig, -wert, -voll, -frei, -gerecht the genesis of the respective patterns tells its own tale. (cf. Die Pflanze ist f ä h i g , zu überwintern, die Pflanze ist überwinterungs f ä h i g ; 'the plant is able to pass the winter'.) The transformational description, however, is faced with problems arising with lexicalized word formations of the respective typs. The naming function serves to enrich the vocabulary. It is accomplished by word formation patterns related with syntactic constructions as well as by patterns which cannot be paraphrased by syntactic expressions in a systematic way. With respect to the latter restrictions are typical. The semantic specification of the base of a derivative as well as the semantic description of the affix cannot be given by homogeneous classes, but only by similarity relations. In these cases a lexicalistic description is appropriate. The second hypothesis claims that strict (scharf) and fuzzy (unscharf) rules can be distinguished within the domain of word formation. Rules are strict rules, if the structural description of the constructions to which the rule applies and of the rule effect can be accomplished by strict grammatical classes. Fuzzy rules can only be formulated by similarities and better-than-relations. Transformations as well as redundancy rules operating in the lexicon can be strict or fuzzy. A decision in favour of the transformationalist or of the lexicalist position does not depend directly on the distinction between strict and fuzzy rules. However it seems appropriate, for empirical reasons, to describe fuzzy word formation rules as lexical rules. A proposal for the description of fuzzy word formation rules is characterized including the following main ideas : The description must specify the exterior borderline of possible new words conforming to a pattern. Beyond this borderline new words are highly unlikely. Within the set marked off subsets can be distinguished by means of conditions of acceptability stating under which conditions a new word is more acceptable than other words of the whole set. The scale of acceptability can be interpreted in terms of probability of new words. Thus productivity of a fuzzy word formation rule is related to acceptability in a systematic way. Finally, the distinction between 'rule' and 'analogy' in psychology is compared with the distinction between strict and fuzzy word formation rules

Affix · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Vocabulary · Computer Science · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic research and analysis · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Mathematics · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence