Word-Formation Processes in English

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the launching of the Special issue in Languages under the title “Word-Formation Processes in English.”

Word-formation is a linguistic discipline that studies morphological phenomena whereby language users produce complex words from existing building blocks. Its two major components are derivational morphology and compounding. Word-formation processes refer to various processes employed in word-formation. Thus, from a formal perspective, word-formation may be carried out by affixation (prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation, etc.), two-word composition (compounding, blending), input–output form identity (conversion), input copying (reduplication), stem alternation, or subtractive morphology (back-formation, clipping) (see Spencer 2015). From a syntactico-semantic perspective, derivational morphology includes nominalization, verbalization, and adjectivalization, as well as non-category-changing processes contributing to negation, spatio-temporal modification, aspectual alternation, valency alternation, quantitative semantics, evaluative semantics, etc. (see Beard 1995; Bagasheva 2017). Compounding involves endocentric or exocentric morphological structures in which the two constituent items are in a subordinative, attributive, or coordinat grammatical relationship (see Scalise & Bisetto 2009).

The purpose of this issue is to provide a collection of cutting-edge research articles that can contribute to the progress and development of synchronic and diachronic studies on word-formation and morphological theory. To achieve this goal, a special emphasis is placed on the English language for two reasons.

First, English has been a key language for the development of the field of linguistic morphology. The collaborative efforts of morphologists have contributed to uncovering synchronic and diachronic facts about the grammar and lexicon of this language on the one hand (Marchand 1969; Kastovsky 1992, 2006; Bauer et al. 2013) and to laying foundation for the theoretical treatment of word-formation processes on the other. For the latter contribution, see Štekauer (2000), Štekauer & Lieber eds. (2005), Lieber & Štekauer eds. (2009, 2014), Olsen ed. (2010), Spencer (2013), Don (2014), Müller et al. eds. (2015: Ch. I), Santana & Valera eds. (2017), Aurding & Masini eds. (2019), Bauer (2019), ten Hacken (2019), and Nikolaeva & Spencer (2022), among others. We intend to follow and further develop these fruitful lines of research.

Second, English merits further exploration because this global language now plays the role of a major axis of linguistic comparison in contrastive studies (e.g., Alexiadou & Rathert eds. 2010; Renner et al. eds. 2012; Štekauer et al. 2015; Mukai 2018; Nishimaki 2018; Gaeta 2020) as well as the role of a dominant source language of the lexical and grammatical borrowing in language contact around the world (e.g., Bagasheva eds. 2018; Alexiadou & Lohndal eds., a special issue in Languages). Additionally, attention should be paid to the fact that English linguistics currently proceeds in tandem with the advent of quantitative research methods using computer-based big-scale corpora (e.g., Bauer et al. 2013; Hilpert 2013).

This Special issue is therefore deep and wide in its scope, welcoming contributions addressing:

(1) empirical questions about the synchrony and diachrony of English word-formation processes per se

(2) theoretically framed questions about word-formation using English as a primary data source, and/or

(3) comparative, variationist, or contact-based aspects of English word-formation

Tentative Completion Schedule

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 June 2023
• Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 15 July 2023
• Full Manuscript Deadline: 15 December 2023

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]; [email protected]) or to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

References:

Alexiadou, Artemis and Monika Rathert (eds.) (2010) The Syntax of Nominalizations across Languages and Frameworks, De Gruyter, Berlin.

Alexiadou, Artemis and Terje Lohndal (eds.) Word-Formation and Language Contact: A Formal Perspective, special issue in Languages <https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages/special_issues/word_formation>

Audring, Jenny and Francesca Masini (ed.) (2019) The Oxford Handbook of Morphological Theory, Oxford University Press, New York.

Bagasheva, Alexandra (2017) “Comparative semantic concepts in affixation,” Santana-Lario & Valera (eds.), 33-65.

Bagasheva, Alexandra, Jesús Fernández-Domínguez, and Vincent Renner (eds.) (2018) Structural Borrowing in Word-Formation, Special issue in SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 15 (2). <http://www.skase.sk/JTL37index.html>.

Bauer, Laurie (2019) Rethinking Morphology, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Bauer, Laurie, Rochelle Lieber and Ingo Plag (2013) The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Beard, Robert (1995) Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology: A General Theory of Inflection and Word Formation, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.

Don, Jan (2014) Morphological Theory and the Morphology of English, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Gaeta, Livio (2020) “English as a bridge: An L3-approach to contrastive linguistics,” Contrastive Studies in Morphology and Syntax, ed. by Georgiafentis Michalis, Giannoula Giannoulopoulou, Maria Koliopoulou & Angeliki Tsokoglou, 26-44, Bloomsbury Academic, London.

ten Hacken, Pius (2019) Word Formation in Parallel Architecture: The Case for a Separate Component, Springer, Cham.

Hilpert, Martin (2013) Constructional Change in English: Developments in Allomorphy, Word Formation, and Syntax, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kastovsky, Dieter (1992) “Semantics and Vocabulary,” The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume I: The Beginnings to 1066, ed. by Richard M. Hogg, 290-408, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kastovsky, Dieter (2006) “Vocabulary,” A History of the English Language, ed. by Richard M. Hogg and David Denison, 199-270, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Lieber, Rochelle and Pavol Štekauer (eds.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Compounding, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Lieber, Rochelle and Pavol Štekauer (eds.) (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Marchand, Hans (1969) The Categories and Types of Present-day English Word-Formation: A Synchronic-Diachronic Approach, Second edition, C.H.Beck, Munich.

Mukai, Makiko (2018) A Comparative Study of Compound Words, Hituzi Syobo, Tokyo.

Müller, Peter O., Ingeborg Ohnheiser, Susan Olsen, and Franz Rainer (eds.) (2015) Word-Formation: An International Handbook of the Languages of Europe Volume 1, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin.

Nishimaki, Kazuya (2018) A Study on Cross-Linguistic Variations in Realization Patterns: New Proposals Based on Competition Theory, Kaitakusha, Tokyo.

Nikolaeva, Irina and Andrew Spencer (2022) Mixed Categories: The Morphosyntax of Noun Modification, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Olsen, Susan (ed.) (2010) New Impulses in Word-Formation, Buske, Hamburg.

Renner, Vincent, François Maniez, and Pierre J. L. Arnaud (eds.) (2012) Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Lexical Blending, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin.

Santana-Lario, Juan and Salvador Valera (eds.) (2017) Competing Patterns in English Affixation, Peter Lang, Bern.

Scalise, Sergio and Antonietta Bisetto (2009) “The classification of compounds,” Lieber & Štekauer (eds.), 34-53.

Spencer, Andrew (2013) Lexical Relatedness: A Paradigm-based Model, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Spencer, Andrew (2015) “Derivation,” Müller et al. (eds.), 301-321.

Štekauer, Pavol (2000) English Word Formation: A History of Research (1960-1995), Gunter Narr, Tübingen.

Štekauer, Pavol & Rochelle Lieber (2005) Handbook of Word-Formation, Springer, Dordrecht.

Štekauer, Pavol, Salvador Valera, and Lívia Körtvélyessy (2015) Word-Formation in the World’s Languages: A Typological Survey, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Prof. Dr. Akiko Nagano
Dr. Ryohei Naya
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• English
• morphology
• word-formation
• synchrony and diachrony
• empirical and theoretical approaches
• contrastive linguistics
• corpus
• language contact