English Lexicogenesis

D. Gary Miller (Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida)

English Lexicogenesis
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
27 February 2014
Pages
336
ISBN
9780199689880

English Lexicogenesis

D. Gary Miller (Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida)

English Lexicogenesis investigates the processes by which novel words are coined in English, and how they are variously discarded or adopted, and frequently then adapted. Gary Miller looks at the roles of affixation, compounding, clipping, and blending in the history of lexicogenesis, including processes taking place right now. The first four chapters consider English morphology and the recent types of word formation in English: the first introduces the morphological terminology used in the work and the book’s theoretical perspectives; chapter 2 discusses productivity and constraints on derivations; chapter 3 describes the basic typology of English compounds; and chapter 4 considers the role of particles in word formation and recent construct types specific to English. Chapters 5 and 6 focus respectively on analogical and imaginative aspects of neologistic creation and the roles of metaphor and metonymy. In chapters 7 and 8 the author considers the influence of folk etymology and tabu, and the cycle of loss of expressivity and its renewal. After outlining the phonological structure of words and its role in word abridgements, he examines the acoustic and perceptual motivation of word forms. He then devotes four chapters to aspects and functions of truncation and to reduplicative and conjunctive formations. In the final chapter he looks at the relationship between core and expressive morphology and the role of punning and other forms of language play, before summarizing his arguments and findings and setting out avenues for future research.

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