Forward-formation, back-formation, and the nature of the inventorium

Bibliographic Data

ID7172939
AuthorsMartin Haspelmath (0000-0003-2100-8493, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume18
Issue3
Pages192-214
Publication date2025-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWORD Structure (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-1245 • E-ISSN: 1755-2036
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3366/word.2025.0254
OpenAlexW4416122346
LanguageEN
References cited40

This paper discusses back-formation from the perspective of a view of morphology in which there are productive and unproductive declarative schemas, but no abstract processes, so that the issue of the direction of derivation does not arise. This paradigmatic perspective does not make a strict distinction between rules and listed expressions either, and everything that speakers must remember is said to be in the inventorium (a new term with a meaning similar to Jackendoff's extended lexicon). Moreover, no distinction is made between “potential words” and “existing words”: Just like sentences, regular complex words are potential, and complex words are inventorized if they are in some way idiosyncratic. On this view, back-formation is just as normal as forward-formation, though when it comes to word coinage, it is clear that back-coinage is much less common

Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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