There's "hairpiece" and there's "earpiece", but while in close proximity physically, they don't have much else in common.
#Composition #WordFormation

Getting ready to leave for #iclc16 in Düsseldorf, here a small teaser for my talk on Tuesday 14:45 on the #affix rivalry between -ity and -ness in #English:
Why to some adjectives take -ity (insular -> insularity), while others take -ness (red -> redness)? Many factors have been considered, I use #distributionalSemantics to explore the role of the adjective's meaning. Mapping the vectors on a two dimensional space with t-SNE, a dimensionality reduction technique, the resulting visualization shows that adjective meaning might indeed be a highly relevant factor. For example, even for adjectives with the same ending -ive, the bases of those taking -ity (e.g. narrativity) and those taking -ness (distinctiveness) fall into two clear clusters.
Looking forward to seeing some of you there :)
#wordformation

I guess if you write a book on #English #wordformation, you might as well use as many fancy derivatives yourself as you want: Marchand (1969:259) states that many -ate adaptions are "not clearly etymologizable."

#English #wordFormation at its best, with a proper name as the root and everybody's favorite affix, comparative out-:
"Ron DeSantis cannot ‘out-Trump Trump’ in primary, Ocasio-Cortez says"
For everything on "out-", check out my Düsseldorf colleague Sven Kotowski's paper:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-023-09405-8
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/10/ron-desantis-trump-primary-ocasio-cortez

The standard #translation for "dictator" in #Mandarin #Chinese is 独裁者 dúcáizhě, which is morphologically interesting because it ends on "-zhe", one of the most versatile elements for creating nouns refering to persons (sometimes similar to English "-er", e.g. 读/读者 dú/dúzhě read/reader ) and here with the base 独裁 dúcái meaning "dictatorship". Perhaps more interesting: while #Wikipedia in its English and Chinese editions lists 毛泽东 Máo Zédōng as an example, he does not feature in mainland China's #BaikeBaidu 百度百科 bǎidù bǎikē. In the long lists they provide, modern China is represented by two safe non-communist rule choices, 蒋介石 Jiǎng Jièshí (=Chiang Kai-shek) and 袁世凯 Yuán Shìkǎi. At the same time, they have Magaret Thatcher for Great Britain.
#morphology #wordformation

"vajoga"

#blending #wordformation
#English

https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2022/12/word-of-the-week-vajoga.html by @Fritinancy

#Introduction 2/3

I am also interested in writing systems typology, logo-/morphography and phonography, Japanese language education, phonology, morphology, word-formation, child-oriented speech, and anything related to languages and writing systems.

#WritingSystemsTypology #WritingSystemTypology #Logography #Morphography #Phonography #JapaneseLanguageEducation #Phonology #Morphology #WordFormation #ChildOrientedSpeech #Parentese #Language #WritingSystem