Is there a class of neoclassical compounds, and if so is it productive

Bibliographic Data

ID3987600
AuthorsL Bauer (0000-0002-7632-0073, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume36
Issue3
Publication date1998-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.1998.36.3.403
OpenAlexW1968148541
LanguageEN
Citations received17

Discussions of English word formation include a category of neoclassical compounds to deal with formations such as geology and telephone. This type is claimed to show behavior that makes it clearly distinct from both affixation and compounding. A close examination of actual words suggests that this picture is oversimplified. Rather than there being a discrete class of neoclassical compounds, there is a range of types of lexical enrichment, and every category has a fuzzy boundary. Accordingly, it is suggested here that it may be useful to view English words as being formed within a conceptual space defined by three dimensions: a simplex-compound dimension, a native-foreign dimension and an abbreviated-nonabbreviated dimension. Neoclassical compounding is a label given to one small section within this three-dimensional space, but actual words diverge from the prototype considerably

Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

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