The Syntax and Semantics of Word Formation: Lexical Rules

Abstract

In traditional grammar, word formation is well-established as the study of how new words of a language are produced from old. Typical means of word formation found in English include adding a derivational affix (e.g. the verb blacken from the noun black, noun decision from verb decide, adjective washable from verb wash, etc.), compounding two existing words to form a third (nouns blackbird, steamboat or pickpocket from combinations of verb, adjective or noun), and the process of zero-derivation (or conversion), by which a word changes its grammatical class and meaning but not its form (e.g. noun walk from verb walk).