Full Title: Boundaries and Continua in Affixation: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives

Date: 25-Jun-2025 - 28-Jun-2025
Location: Košice, Slovakia
Contact Person: Alexandra Bagasheva
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/event/45/word-formation-theories-vii-typology-and-universals-in-word-formation-vi

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories; Morphology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Typology

Call Deadline: 28-Feb-2025

Meeting Description:

Van Goethem (2020: 1) defines affixation as “the morphological process that consists of adding an affix (i.e., a bound morpheme) to a morphological base. It is cross-linguistically the most common process that human languages use to derive new lexemes (derivational affixation) or to adapt a word’s form to its morphosyntactic context (inflectional affixation). Suffixes (i.e., bound morphemes following the base) and prefixes (i.e., bound morphemes preceding the base) are the most common affixes, with suffixation being more frequently recorded in the world’s languages than prefixation. Minor types of affixation include circumfixation and infixation. Conversion and back-formation are related derivational processes that do not make use of affixation.”
This theory-neutral definition seems exhaustive and straightforward, but makes some problematic assumptions. It assumes the structure of words is based on morphemes, as has been the norm since the late 19th c. (Aronoff 2018: 3). It assumes there are clear boundaries between word-formation processes. It distinguishes between derivational and inflectional affixation, assigning different values and types of products to them. It recognizes boundedness as a definitional property of affixes as linguistic elements.

These assumptions have been questioned and doubts have been voiced about the implicated categorical distinctions. There are significant differences between morpheme-based (employing an item-and-arrangement approach), lexeme-based (associated with an item-and-process approach) and word-based (utilising a word-and-paradigm approach) architectures (for an overview see e.g. Stewart 2016) and between syntagmatic and paradigmatic approaches to word-formation (see e.g. Booij 2001; Booij & Lieber 2004; Štekauer 2014; van Marle 1985), which undermines the first assumption of the morpheme (including affixes) as the central element in the structure of words. As Ralli (2010: 58) notes, “although different, derivation and compounding are not sharply distinguished, and [...] their borderline can be permeable in both ways”, leading to disputes over the demarcation between the concepts of splinter, (bound) root, affixoid, and affix. Ten Hacken (2014: 1) points out “Whereas the core opposition between inflection and derivation is fairly obvious, the precise boundary between the two is more difficult to determine”. Trousdale and Traugott (2010: 1) emphasize that “gradience has been at the center of recent discussion about the synchronic architecture of grammars”.

References:

Aronoff, Mark (2018). Morphology and words: A memoir. In O. Bonami, G. Boyé, G. Dal, H. Giraudo & F. Namer (Eds.), The Lexeme in Descriptive and Theoretical Morphology, 3–18. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Booij, Geert (2001). The Morphology of Dutch. Oxford: OUP.
Booij, Geert & Lieber, Rochelle (2004). On the paradigmatic nature of affixal semantics in English and Dutch. Linguistics 42(2): 327–357.
Narrog, Heiko & Heine, Bernd (2021). Grammaticalization. Oxford: OUP.
Ralli, Angela (2010). Compounding vs. derivation. In S. Scalise & I. Vogel (Eds.), Cross-Disciplinary Issues in Compounding, 57–73. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Stewart, Thomas (2016). Contemporary Morphological Theories: A User’s Guide. Edinburgh: EUP.
Štekauer, Pavol (2014). Derivational paradigms. In R. Lieber & P. Štekauer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology, 354–369. Oxford: OUP.
ten Hacken, Pius (2014). Delineating derivation and inflection. In R. Lieber & P. Štekauer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology, 10–26. Oxford: OUP.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Trousdale, Graeme (Eds.) (2010). Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
van Goethem, Kristel (2020). Affixation in morphology. In M. Aronoff (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/97801993846
van Marle, Jaap (1985). On the Paradigmatic Dimension of Morphological Creativity. Foris

Call for Papers:

Workshop organizers: Alexandra Bagasheva (Sofia), Jesús Fernández Domínguez (Granada), Akiko Nagano (Shizuoka), Vincent Renner (Lyon)
In view of all the debatable issues and still open questions in affixation reserach , we invite word-formationists to revisit a number of boundaries and continua in affixation, from a diachronic or synchronic perspective, through specific case studies or more theoretically oriented discussions. The list of topics includes, but is not limited to:
a) derivation and inflection;
b) splinters, (bound) roots, affixoids, and affixes;
c) the emergence of new derivational affixes (= derivational affixization);
d) affixization and other "ization" processes (cf. Narrog & Heine 2021: 271) such as constructionalization, grammaticalization, lexicalization, and morphologization,
e) evaluative and non-evaluative affixation,
f) affixation and deaffixation (= back-formation),
g) affixes in language contact situations.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words (plus references and figures/tables if any) should be sent to the 4 workshop organizers: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] by February 28. 2025. Acceptance will be notified by March 15, 2025.