The insight that paradigmatic relations between words are essential for an adequate theory of morphology goes back to an old tradition (Van Marle Reference Van Marle1985; Booij Reference Booij, Berns and Tribushinina2019), is clearly growing and can be found in many recent morphological studies, for instance Štekauer (Reference Štekauer, Lieber and Štekauer2014), Bonami & Strnadová (Reference Bonami and Strnadová2019), Diessel (Reference Diessel2019), Hathout & Namer (Reference Hathout and Namer2019), Fernández-Domínguez et al. (Reference Fernández-Domínguez, Bagasheva and Lara-Clares2020) and Diewald & Politt (Reference Diewald and Politt2022). To this list we can now add this volume on the role of paradigms in word formation.
The volume is edited by three linguists with links to the University of Granada. The language that is the focus of the various chapters is English, in a few cases with a comparison to another language (Czech and Portuguese).
The book is divided into an introductory chapter and five parts: ‘Theoretical background’, ‘Compounding’, ‘Conversion’, ‘Participles’ and ‘Paradigms in ELT’ (ELT = English Language Teaching). There is no separate section on derivation, but this topic is discussed in chapter 2.
There is no introductory chapter by the editors. Instead, chapter 1 is presented as the introduction (Livio Gaeta, ‘Dangerous liaisons: An introduction to derivational paradigms’, pp. 3–17). This chapter mentions the various chapters briefly, but also discusses an issue that does not recur in the other chapters, namely how inflectional and derivational affixes arise through grammaticalization and lexicalization.
The title of the volume is Paradigms in word formation, and not Paradigmatic relations in word formation, which is the title of Fernández-Domínguez et al. (Reference Fernández-Domínguez, Bagasheva and Lara-Clares2020). There is a difference between these two notions, as the second notion is much broader. The idea of paradigms in word formation raises the question whether the notion ‘paradigm’ as used for inflection (a fixed space of cells, each with its own set of feature values or semantic specifications) can also be used for word formation, as defended by Bonami & Strnadová (Reference Bonami and Strnadová2019). As Gaeta rightly points out, this hypothesis is not that obvious, because ‘it is often difficult to identify clear-cut derivational categories and the occurrence of more than one form for a certain alleged slot is the norm rather than the exception’ (p. 9). In fact, some of the chapters in the volume under review here do not provide specific evidence for paradigms, but only for the role of paradigmatic relations. Different views of the role of paradigms in word formation are also discussed by Popova in chapter 12 (pp. 326–7).
In the only chapter in the part ‘Theoretical background’, chapter 2 (pp. 21–56), Chiara Melloni and Serena Dal Maso give a clear and useful analysis of the problems with the notion of ‘derivational paradigm’. Moreover, they propose an insightful topology of paradigmatic approaches to morphology by comparing three frameworks: the derivational paradigm proposed by Bonami & Strnadová (Reference Bonami and Strnadová2019), the theory of Construction Morphology (Booij Reference Booij2010) which makes use of paradigmatic relations without being committed to a derivational paradigm stricto sensu, and Bybee's Network Model (Bybee & Becker Reference Bybee, Beckner, Heine and Narrog2010). These topologies are represented as three-dimensional spaces of relations between words and morphological schemas. What remains to be added for a proper representation of words and schemas in such morphological networks is to split each representation into three levels (phonology, morphosyntax, meaning) and to indicate how these levels are related for complex words and schemas. It will then become pretty complicated to graphically represent all these relations in a three-dimensional space. That is why Booij (Reference Booij2010) and in particular Jackendoff & Audring (Reference Jackendoff and Audring2020) make use of various kinds of co-indexation to represent these relations.
Part II deals with compounding, and opens with a short chapter by Laurie Bauer ‘Interlocking paradigms in English compounds’ (pp. 59–67), in which he shows that compounds form parts of a network of paradigmatic structures. He correctly notes that ‘paradigms and constructions are closely related concepts’ (p. 59). For instance, there is a paradigm of compounds ending in the word head, and of compounds beginning with the noun coal. One can assume a paradigm such as [N head]N, which is qualified as a partially lexically filled schema in Construction Morphology. According to Bauer, ‘the differences that may seem to exist between inflectional paradigms and compound paradigms may follow from the nature of the categories that contrast within the paradigm’ (p. 65).
In chapter 4, ‘Fact-checking on compound verbs in English’ (pp. 69–98), Alexandra Bagasheva and Jesús Fernández-Domínguez show that, unlike what is the conventional wisdom, verbal compounds in English do form a productive category. However, the sources of these compounds vary, and may be the conversion of compounds, or back formation from synthetic compounds ending in -ing or -er. Back formation typically presupposes a paradigmatic relationship between structures like [N V-er]N and [N V]V, as can be seen in the formation of the compound verb to head-hunt from the nominal compound head-hunter.
Chapter 5 deals with ‘Paradigm families in compounding: The case of English compound nouns headed by deverbal -er-noun’ (pp. 99–127), and is written by Bożena Cetnarowska. It is similar in spirit to Bauer's analysis of compounds in chapter 3, as it proposes subschemas for compounds ending in puller, eater and charmer, and proposes partially lexically specified constructional schemas, as used in Construction Morphology, for representing the relevant compound families.
In chapter 6, ‘Derivational paradigms: The case of English combining forms’ (pp. 129–52), Elisa Mattiello shows how combining forms such as alterna- (as in alternacare), Franken- (as in Frankenfood) and robo- (as in robo-arm) can be accounted for by means of morphological schemas. Combining forms have a special status as they are neither words nor affixes. Since a combining form may contribute different meanings, Mattiello assumes paradigms for each combining form, with a set of cells, each of which is specified for one of the meaning contributions of the combining form. For instance, the combining form -erati that denotes elite or prominent people can relate to a social activity (chatterati), fashion (glitterati) or culture (jazzerati). Therefore, Mattiello assumes a paradigm with three cells for this combining form that specify these three meanings. Indeed, one can use this kind of paradigm for the description of this kind of polysemy, but I do not think that this polysemy provides conclusive evidence for the role of paradigmatic relations in word formation.
Part III of the volume is devoted to conversion, and opens with a chapter by Gianina Iordăchioaia on ‘Paradigmatic aspects of deverbal noun conversion in English’ (pp. 155–80). It is focused on the question to what extent the conversion of verbs to nouns in English is productive. This question is relevant in so far as a paradigmatic approach presupposes productivity, as the cells of a paradigm must have potential fillers. The notion ‘paradigm’ is used here also as a tool for comparing competing word formation processes such as conversion and affixation, for instance for creating action nominalizations of verbs.
An interesting detail of this kind of conversion is the question how to analyze complex words such as blow-out related to to blow out and out-take related to to take out (cf. also Bauer Reference Bauer2017: 133–4). These nouns behave like nominal compounds as far as stress is concerned. In the case of out-take, the order of particle and verb has been reversed. For me, the best analysis for these cases is that these nouns are not conversions, but compounds with a particle as non-head that are paradigmatically related to the corresponding verbs, without the particle verb being a formal constituent of the compound (cf. Booij Reference Booij2015 for such an analysis of the nominalization of Dutch particle verbs). This analysis thus requires the presence of paradigmatic relations between particle verbs and compounds with a particle.
In chapter 8, ‘Paradigms in English and Czech noun/verb conversion: A contrastive study of corresponding lexemes’ (pp. 181–214), Magda Ševčíková and Hana Hledíková describe the conversion of nouns to verbs in these two languages as two-cell paradigms. An important formal difference between these languages is that in English conversion does not change the form of the word, whereas in Czech verbs must be enriched with a thematic element and an inflectional ending. For instance, the conversion of the noun filter in Czech is filtr-ova-t (infinitive form), whereas in English the noun filter has the same shape as the infinitive to filter. An advantage of a paradigmatic approach for conversion is that noun and verb are represented as corresponding without the word being necessarily the base word of the other. This is an advantage in cases where it is hard or impossible to decide on the direction of the conversion. On the other hand, in many cases there is clear evidence for such a direction, as in the conversion of names like Zoom into a verb to zoom. This raises the question of how this direction is accounted for in a paradigmatic analysis of conversion.
The third contribution on conversion is ‘Conversion in a paradigmatic framework of word formation’ by Alexandra Soares Rodrigues (pp. 215–47). In a paradigmatic approach, the directionality involved in conversion can be represented by aligning conversion with deriving nouns from verbs by means of affixation. For instance, in English the conversion pair cut (verb) – cut (noun) is aligned in the paradigm for nominalization of verbs with a word pair such as evaluate–evaluation, which makes clear that in these cases the direction of word formation is from verb to noun – ‘In order to keep the cohesion of the paradigmatic system, directionality is needed and it becomes urgent if there is no concatenative morphology disclosing it’ (p. 227). However, this does not solve the problem that the direction of conversion cannot always be determined unambiguously. This chapter also argues convincingly that nominalizations like those with English -ing or Portuguese infinitive markers such as -ar should not be considered as cases of conversion.
The last chapter in this part is Alina Villalva's ‘Complex verbs: The interplay of suffixation, conversion, and parasynthesis in Portuguese and English’ (pp. 249–82). This chapter describes three processes for forming verbs from adjectives in Portuguese: conversion, suffixation and what Villalva calls parasynthesis. The latter term is used for formation by means of prefixes such as envelhecer ‘to grow old’ from velho ‘old’, and presupposes that in this kind of word formation prefixation is combined with conversion. It could also be called prefixation tout court, if we accept that prefixes can be category-determining. The term ‘parasynthesis’ is better preserved for cases in which prefixation and suffixation combine, as in English decaffeinate (Bauer et al. Reference Bauer, Lieber and Plag2013: 501–3) and Portuguese entronizar ‘to enthrone’. The chapter offers a useful survey of these word formation processes, but there is no discussion of the paradigmatic aspects of these types of word formation.
Part IV deals with participles, a morphological category that the editors apparently consider a subtype of word formation, given the title of this volume. In ‘Structural and lexical aspects of the morphology of English participles’ (pp. 285–318), Antonio Fábregas argues ‘that the role of paradigms is more limited than standardly assumed in the literature’ (p. 285). He presents a neo-constructionist analysis of English participles in the framework of Nano-syntax, which assumes that words are built through syntactic operations, an assumption that I do not share. The different forms of past participles are seen as spell-outs of different syntactic structures. Nevertheless, Fábregas argues, some diacritic features are necessary, for instance to account for different participial forms like mowed for to mow versus sent for to send, for which no underlying syntactic differences can be claimed. Fábregas therefore concludes that we need conjugations for giving participles their correct form, which is a restricted form of paradigmatic morphology. Whether this analysis is convincing depends partially on whether one accepts Nano-syntax, and the idea that participles can be seen as the exponents of different types of syntactic structures. Moreover, it remains to be seen how this theory that accounts for inflection in terms of spell-out of syntactic structures could also account for word formation phenomena.
The issue whether participles (also) belong to the domain of word formation is taken up by Gergana Popova in ‘English participles in the derivational paradigm’ (pp. 319–40). She discusses both present participles ending in -ing and past participles, and gives an excellent survey of the debate on where participles belong in the grammar. Are they to be considered as inflection or as derivation? Participles behave both as verbs and as adjectives, and are therefore qualified as a mixed or transpositional category. Popova shows that both types of participle have adjectival properties as they can feed word formation with the suffixes -ly (frustratedly, wonderingly) and -ness (concernedness, knowingness), and combine with a number of negative prefixes such as un- (unread, unsatisfying), although not all participles participate in these word formation processes to the same extent.
Part V of this volume (‘Paradigms in ELT’) contains one chapter, ‘Derivational paradigms in ELT textbooks’ (pp. 343–78), by Tomáš Gráf and Kateřina Vašků, who argue that morphological awareness is important for learning the vocabulary of English as a second language. In this chapter, they provide an extensive survey of the findings in the literature concerning the importance of morphological awareness, and of the teaching of word families or derivational paradigms of words. Given the insight that morphological awareness will reduce the burden of vocabulary acquisition, they then investigate how mainstream English language coursebooks give attention to learning word formation patterns, and also in the accompanying teacher manuals. Their conclusion is that, with a few exceptions, ‘coursebooks do not appear to treat the phenomenon systematically and some devote only very little space to it’ (p. 364). The authors argue that coursebooks and manuals could be improved in this respect.
As the reader of this review will have noticed, not all chapters are focused on the topic of this volume to the same degree. An introductory chapter with more guidance on the theoretical issues raised in the various chapters would have been welcome. However, this book is a rich source of data and insights on various aspects of (mainly) English word formation. It provides an interesting picture of the potential of the concepts of ‘paradigm’ and ‘paradigmatic relation’ for analyzing word formation, and will thus be relevant for research on word formation in other languages as well.
