Making new words: Morphological derivation in English by R. M. W. Dixon (review)

With regard to books describing English word formation, 2014 was a very prolific year, including Bauer et al. 2014, Miller 2014, and the presently reviewed book by R. M. W. Dixon. Each has contributed in its specific way to our knowledge of English morphology. Certainly, there are many more books on English word formation that have emerged since Marchand’s groundbreaking Categories (1960). Some of them are mentioned as an important source of data by D himself.

Given this multiplicity of recently published books dealing with English word formation, it is not easy to be innovative and bring to the market ideas that attract the attention of the readership. If I claim that every teacher and student of English linguistics should possess this excellent book in their library, one may ask what it is that makes the difference. I believe this book to be a worthy successor to Marchand’s Categories (1960, 1969), and, as such, it deserves to be labeled (like Categories was by Zandvoort (1961:120)) a ‘truly monumental work’ synthesizing and expanding the available knowledge in the field. While its scope only encompasses affixation processes, these are described with remarkable comprehensiveness and systematicity. Like Categories,¹ D’s volume does not deal with demanding theoretical issues of word formation; this kind of discussion is reduced to the necessary minimum. D appears to ably pursue the goal of being theory-neutral in order to concentrate on practical aspects of modern English word formation. What is embarrassing in some places, however, is the avoidance of established terminology and use of a few new terms that may cause confusion among morphologists. This is most evident in his use of the term ‘double-duty words’, to which I return below.

Another similarity to Marchand’s volume is D’s scrupulous adherence to the diachronic-synchronic method in the description of every single affix. D is right in saying that our understanding of the use of a particular affix with a particular stem cannot be reduced to a single factor; it is rather an interaction of several factors that are at play. Therefore, the account of synchronic phenomena has, throughout the whole volume, very strong support from diachronic data, which facilitate the understanding of various ostensible (from the synchronic point of view) idiosyncrasies. Highly systematic and meticulous coverage of individual affixes pays relevant attention to each affix’s origin and historical development (including the date of the first occurrence of the corresponding affixed words), its semantic scope and current use, the productivity of the affix across time, and selectional restrictions, including historical, structural, phonological, and semantic combinability of affixes with various types of roots/stems (e.g. use with Germanic and/or Romance bases, class-changing or class-maintaining affixes, etc.). Where relevant, the text also discusses mutual potentiation of prefixes and suffixes.

Perhaps the most intriguing and valuable feature of the volume is the systematic comparison of various semantically related affixes with each other. The comparisons are illustrated with well-chosen examples and lucid tables. In this way the reader is guided through the complexities of competing, semantically related affixes.

Given that nothing in this world is perfect, I find only several minor flaws in this excellent volume. Ironically, most of them pertain to what should serve (merely) as background, in particular, some theoretical aspects of the book. Due to the lack of space, I very briefly comment on only a few.

First, D replaces the term conversion with the term double-duty words. This is confusing and misleading because ‘double-duty’ suggests that one and the same word fulfills its function within two different word classes (see p. 397). This position is difficult to accept. A word with, for example, a nominal inflectional paradigm cannot fulfill the function of a verb without changing its nominal paradigm to a verbal one, that is, without being converted to a verb. Furthermore, D speaks about the primary function of double...