Productivity In English Language

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The term Productivity in morphological research was defined by Hockett (1958) “as property of language which allows us to say things which have never been said before” Bauer, 2001, p.1) and Chomosky (1965) later related productivity to the creativity of a language ( as cited in Bauer, 2001, p. 1). Shultink (1961) view productivity as the possibility for users of a language to unintentionally produce a more or less uncountable number of new words (cited as well in Bouer 2001, p. 1). His definition is thus somewhat similar to Hockett’s since they both stress the potential of a language to coin new words. Bauer (1983). Claims that a productive process is one that can be used synchronically in the production of new word-forms. Bouer (2001) goes…show more content…
First of all I will try to establish relationship between semantic of lexical words and prefix. Traditionally, semantics of lexical words has concentrated on lexemes, devoting relatively little attention to semantic of prefix which is smaller than words. Secondly, among morphologists, there is a controversy concerning the nature of prefixes or affixes; whether they are a common sign like lexemes or whether they are rather different. Third and the one I will discuss on this issue deals with the description of the semantics of English prefixes. Most English prefixes have two interesting properties; they are iterative and they combine freely (Aronoff, 1976) as seen in the example above. Prefix is a latter or group of latters that attaches to the beginning of word and helps to indicate or modify its meaning. An easy example would be the word “prefix” its self, it begins with the prefix “pre-” which means…show more content…
The treatment of prefixes is on a generally semantic base, prefix primarily effect a semantic modification of the base. It is convenient to group and classify prefixes according their similar meanings. Quirk (1985). The primary function of a prefix in English is to change the meaning of the base to which it is added. It is only in a small number of cases that a prefix in English changes the grammatical class of the base. As far as semantics is considered the primary meaning of prefixes, Semantics is more crucial to the emergence of composed words in a language like English, which consists of a morphological system with few fully productive morphological

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