New Research in Linguistics and English Language
Patterns and productivity
A commissioned paper, to appear in Susan M. Fitzmaurice & Donka Minkova (eds.),
Empirical and analytical advances in the study of English language change (Topics in English Linguistics), 207-30. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Abstract
This paper is a response and commentary which attends particularly to the evidence and heuristics that appear in the papers from the SHEL4 conference by Chapman, Palmer and Trousdale. Topics covered are local productivity in late Middle English word-formation, alternative nominalisation patterns for multi-word verbs in Present-day English (the types
up-picker, picker-up, pick-upper, picker-upper and
picker-upperer), and the demise of the impersonal construction in English from a Construction Grammar perspective. The question of creativity is considered, especially in relation to the two papers on word-formation, and pattern-strengthening is seen to be an important common thread.
Date Published
21 December, 2007
Author(s)
David Denison
