This dissertation explores the factors that influence the creation and interpretation of novel denominal verbs in English. Of particular focus is the potential influence of one factor, termed here the Semantic Category Distribution Effect. The Semantic Category Distribution Effect involves the type frequency distribution of existing forms of a given denominal verb formation process (e.g. conversion, -ize, -ify, -ate) across semantic categories (e.g., ORNATIVE, RESULTATIVE, LOCATIVE, INSTRUMENTAL), and the impact of this distribution upon the probability of application of that process upon a novel verb. The central hypothesis of this dissertation is that native English speakers are sensitive to and make use of this kind of type frequency distribution information when creating or interpreting novel denominal verbs. To provide evidence in support of this hypothesis, a corpus study was conducted to identify all verbs in the Oxford English Dictionary Online that were unambiguously derived from nouns. The results of this study were then compared to the results of two experimental tasks, which asked subjects to provide novel denominal verbs consistent with given scenarios of varying semantics. The results of both types of studies show that each of the English denominal verb formation processes is possible for each of the semantic categories, suggesting that all processes cover the same semantic domain, and therefore that all processes share the same underlying semantic structure. However, the results also show that the processes are not equally distributed in terms of type frequency among the semantic categories, and that the semantic category distributions of the newly created forms are positively correlated with the semantic category distributions of the existing forms, providing evidence of the Semantic Category Distribution Effect. Lastly, analyses of both the corpus study and experimental data indicate that the nature of the interaction between processes is characterized by constant competition. Taken together, the findings here suggest that distributional frequency information plays an important role in native speaker competence in denominal verb formation, and is further suggestive of a model of the mental lexicon that is quite dynamic and interactive.

Last modified

• 08/31/2018

Creator

• Carolyn Anne Gottfurcht

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2NX5M

Subject

• Linguistics

Keyword

• derivation
• denominal
• corpus
• lexical semantics
• verb
• morphology

Date created

• 2008-01-25

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright