Productivity

Winter 2011

LING 481/581

Productivity

• Does a linguistic generalization have

exceptions?

• Productivity generally not an issue in syntax

– No exceptions to wh-movement

– But Dative Shift lexically idiosyncratic

from Quirk and Greenbaum 1973: 370-371

Productivity in morphology

• Interacts with assumptions about

– lexical representations

– nature of morphological rules

• Morphology as lexical entry matching

– ə (C)]{Adj, N} –ize]V

– /sɪvəl/ „civil‟, /fjuDəl/ „feudal‟

– civilize, feudalize

– But /fjuDəl/ „futile‟, *futilize

• Morphology as word schemata

/ˈXə(C)/ /ˈXəCajz/ /XəCəˈzeʃən /

Adj Verb Noun

„X‟ „cause to become X‟ „state of having become X‟

vs.

(lexically specific schema)

/ˈsɪvəl/ /ˈsɪvəlajz/

Adj Verb

„civil‟ „cause to become civil, domesticate‟

(general word schema)

/ˈXəlajz/ /Xələˈzeʃən /

Verb Noun

„cause to become X‟ „state of having become Xized‟

“Unlimited applicability”

• Productivity scalar/probabilistic rather than

absolute

• Derivation generally less productive than

inflection

• Differences between derivational morphemes

Blocking

• Real words block potential words if the

potential word would have the same

meaning and function of the real word.

• russify blocks russianize

• children blocks childs

• to mail blocks to mailbox

• knife blocks cutter in “hand me that cutter”

The importance of synonymy

• Other meanings of cutter

– http://www.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington

.edu/search?searchType=dictionary&q=cutter

&_searchBtn=Search

• not blocked by knife

-ity vs. -ness

• Blocking not an issue?

– porosity, porousness

– grammaticality, grammaticalness

]Adj ity]N „having Adj quality‟

• Marchand 1969

• lexical conditions on base

– -al, -ial, -ar, -ous (some) (-ability, -ibility, -icity)

– Romance only („The oldest words are 14th and

15th century loans from French, such as

ability, actuality, agility, bestiality, captivity,

diversity, impassibility, infirmity, liberality,

lubricity, singularity’) (http://www.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/view/Entry/110807?redirectedFrom=lubri

city#)

-ality nouns

• actuality

• bestiality

• virtuality

• fatality

• brutality

• vocality

• reality

• causality

• literality

• banality

• technicality

-arity nouns

• singularity

• peculiarity

• regularity

• linearity

• similarity

-icity nouns

• rusticity

• electricity

• authenticity

• elasticity

• domesticity

• publicity

• atomicity

• historicity

-osity nouns

• porosity

• curiosity

• luminosity

-ability nouns

• 'the derivative range of –able/-ability (the graphic variant

–ible/ibility has only weakly developed) today comprises

practically any adjective in –able, including adjectives

derived from native roots (lovable, lovability).‟ (p. 313)

Non-existent bases

• superfluity (superfluous)

• atrocity (atrocious)

• hilarity (hilarious)

• duplicity

• felicity

• fidelity

]Adj nəs]N „having Adj quality‟

• „Since Old English it has chiefly been

tacked on to adjectives and participial

adjectives, but in modern English it is also

used with various other bases, but not with

verbs.‟ (p. 334)

• redness, fearfulness, sugariness, slap-

happiness

Two experiments re –ity/ness

• Aronoff and Schvaneveldt 1978

• Is –ness really more productive than –ity?

– investigated „whether productivity is a simple

historical fact (some patterns are more successful

than others in the long run) or whether it figures in the

individual‟s knowledge of the language‟

• Lexical decision task

– Is this an (English) word?

• judgement data

• reaction time data (but not this study)

• “the –ness suffix is more productive than –ity

with words ending in –ive.” (p. 109)

• Investigated preferences for –ity vs. –ness

attached to:

– actual words: activity, assertiveness (listed in dict)

– possible words: effervescivity (effervescive),

affirmativeness (affirmative) (base in dict)

– non-words: lugativity, remortiveness

• Which words in each category are preferred?

Preference results

• Actual words

– -ity preferred over –ness

• Potential words

– -ness preferred over –ity

• Non-words

– no preference

• “Anticipated Results. If speakers can consistently

distinguish productivity, we expect that nonexistent words

of the form Xiveness will be judged to be actual words

more often than nonexistent words of the form Xivity.”

Another experiment

• Anshen and Aronoff 1988

• Xiveness vs. Xivity; Xibility vs. Xibleness

• Task: “List all the words you can think of.”

• Prediction: more words in Xibility,

Xiveness (most productive patterns)

Results

• More –ity words over all

• But more –ness non-words (nonce words)

Anshen and Aronoff‟s

interpretation • -ity forms are stored in the lexicon

• -ness forms are built by rule as needed

Summary

• Conditions on rules/schemata formulated

correctly?

• Morphological elements differ in

productivity

• Blocking

• Experimental studies of productivity