French property nouns based on toponyms or ethnic adjectives
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Georgette Dal
Abstract
We examine a case of base variation related to property noun formation, viz.-ité-suffixed French nouns expressing the character proper both to those who belong/are related to a place (town, country…) and/or to the place itself (henceforth Ethnic Property Nouns (EPNs)). The study is based on a web-extracted corpus and shows that speakers largely coin EPNs either from toponyms (portugal > portugalité ‘Portugal-ness’ = ‘Portugueseness’), from related ethnic adjectives (afrique ‘Africa’ > africain ‘African’ > africanité ‘Africanness’) or from both (belgique ‘Belgium‘ > belgicité ‘Belgium-ness’; belge ‘Belgian’ > belgité ‘Belgianness’). The examples show that these base variations are unrelated to meaning but rather correlate with four formal competing constraints: one of them, i.e. what we call ‘lexical pressure’, can explain the form of the output. We then describe a survey experiment, which corroborates our analysis. Finally, the scope of our conclusions goes beyond French EPNs, as they apply to other word formation rules in many languages.
Abstract
We examine a case of base variation related to property noun formation, viz.-ité-suffixed French nouns expressing the character proper both to those who belong/are related to a place (town, country…) and/or to the place itself (henceforth Ethnic Property Nouns (EPNs)). The study is based on a web-extracted corpus and shows that speakers largely coin EPNs either from toponyms (portugal > portugalité ‘Portugal-ness’ = ‘Portugueseness’), from related ethnic adjectives (afrique ‘Africa’ > africain ‘African’ > africanité ‘Africanness’) or from both (belgique ‘Belgium‘ > belgicité ‘Belgium-ness’; belge ‘Belgian’ > belgité ‘Belgianness’). The examples show that these base variations are unrelated to meaning but rather correlate with four formal competing constraints: one of them, i.e. what we call ‘lexical pressure’, can explain the form of the output. We then describe a survey experiment, which corroborates our analysis. Finally, the scope of our conclusions goes beyond French EPNs, as they apply to other word formation rules in many languages.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Affixation vs. conversion. 15
- The -alis/-aris allomorphy revisited 33
- French property nouns based on toponyms or ethnic adjectives 53
- Morphological variation in the construction of French names for inhabitants 75
- The invisible hand of grammaticalization 89
- Paradigmatic realignment and morphological change 107
- Areal-typological aspects of word-formation 129
- Variation and change in morphology and syntax 149
- Optional multiple plural marking in Maay 177
- Lettered words 193
- Word creation 201
- Pleonastic morphology dies hard 217
- Index of languages and terms 245
- Index of subjects and terms 247
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Affixation vs. conversion. 15
- The -alis/-aris allomorphy revisited 33
- French property nouns based on toponyms or ethnic adjectives 53
- Morphological variation in the construction of French names for inhabitants 75
- The invisible hand of grammaticalization 89
- Paradigmatic realignment and morphological change 107
- Areal-typological aspects of word-formation 129
- Variation and change in morphology and syntax 149
- Optional multiple plural marking in Maay 177
- Lettered words 193
- Word creation 201
- Pleonastic morphology dies hard 217
- Index of languages and terms 245
- Index of subjects and terms 247
