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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
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actuality
bestiality
virtuality
fatality
brutality
vocality
reality
causality
literality
banality
technicality
-arity nouns
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singularity
peculiarity
regularity
linearity
similarity
-icity nouns
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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
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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, slaphappiness
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
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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