WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH.docVIP

WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH This book is an introduction to the study of word-formation, that is, the ways in which new words are built on the bases of other words (e.g. happy - happy-ness), focusing on English. The books didactic aim is to enable students with little or no prior linguistic knowledge to do their own practical analyses of complex words. Readers are familiarized with the necessary methodological tools to obtain and analyze relevant data and are shown how to relate their findings to theoretical problems and debates. The book is not written in the perspective of a particular theoretical framework and draws on insights from various research traditions, reflecting important methodological and theoretical developments in the field. It is a textbook directed towards university students of English and Linguistics at all levels. It can also serve as a source book for teachers and advanced students, and as an up-to-date reference concerning many word-formation processes in English. ingo flag is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Siegen. He has published extensively in various linguistics journals and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. His most recent books include Morphological Productivity: Structural Constraints in English Derivation (1999) and Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages (ed., 2003). Introduction: what this book is about and how it can be used The existence of words is usually taken for granted by the speakers of a language. To speak and understand a language means - among many other things -knowing the words of that language. The average speaker knows thousands of words, and new words enter our minds and our language on a daily basis. This book is about words. More specifically, it deals with the internal structure of complex words, i.e. words that are composed of more than one meaningful element. Take, for example, the very word meaningful, which could be argued to consist