ERIC Number: ED107107
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1974-Mar-10
Pages: 24
Abstractor: N/A
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Word Formation: The Anarchy of the Art.
Beard, Robert
This is a state-of-the-art review of word formative morphology. The paper surveys three loosely knit 'schools' of word formation: (1) the Generative school, (2) the Continental school, and (3) the Slavicist school. It points out that much work in word formation is being duplicated because of a lack of coordination and communication between the respective schools. The paper concludes with a list of the 10 most perplexing problems facing word formationists today: (1) semantic-syntactic asymmetry, (2) derivational gaps, (3) lexicalization, (4) semiproductivity, (5) rule order, (6) derivational direction or 'motivatn,' (7) the apparently ineluctable ad hocness in the derivation of relative adjectives and some noun compounds, (8) the location of the word formation component in the grammar, (9) confusion of nongenerable and nonoccurring forms, and (10) the problem of currency (how to determine which of several generable forms with appropriate meanings will in fact gain currency). The problems are discussed in the text and associated with appropriate references in the bibliography. (Author)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
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Note: Revision of paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Linguistic Association (19th, New York, March 1974)