<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Compounding is one of the most productive word-formation processes in contemporary Standard English. Hence, new patterns occur regularly. Productivity is one of the characteristic features of human language which implies the ability to create and understand new word forms by the speaker of a language. This was the starting point and motivation of this paper. The main aim of this paper was to investigate the morphological productivity of nominal and verb compounds in English as a foreign language in terms of the most productive and the least productive patterns of compounds in a written English corpus (consisted of 60073 words) by 75 students enrolled in undergraduate studies at the Law Faculty at SEEU. The quantitative measure used for the evaluation of the productivity of compounding patterns was according to hapax legomenon [P = n<sub>1</sub> / N]. Findings from the empirical approach show that the most productive compounds in the analyzed corpus (professional /Legal English context) are verb compounds, followed by special noun compounds, whereas the least productive were noun compounds. The analysis of the corpus showed that morphological productivity in compounding increased in the writing of students with higher degree of competence and proficiency of English.</p></abstract>

Compounding is one of the most productive word-formation processes in contemporary Standard English. Hence, new patterns occur regularly. Productivity is one of the characteristic features of human language which implies the ability to create and understand new word forms by the speaker of a language. This was the starting point and motivation of this paper. The main aim of this paper was to investigate the morphological productivity of nominal and verb compounds in English as a foreign language in terms of the most productive and the least productive patterns of compounds in a written English corpus (consisted of 60073 words) by 75 students enrolled in undergraduate studies at the Law Faculty at SEEU. The quantitative measure used for the evaluation of the productivity of compounding patterns was according to hapax legomenon [P = n1 / N]. Findings from the empirical approach show that the most productive compounds in the analyzed corpus (professional /Legal English context) are verb compounds, followed by special noun compounds, whereas the least productive were noun compounds. The analysis of the corpus showed that morphological productivity in compounding increased in the writing of students with higher degree of competence and proficiency of English.

An Investigation of Morphological Productivity of Nominal and Verbal Compounds in Legal Discourse

SEEU Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Compounding is one of the most productive word-formation processes in contemporary Standard English. Hence, new patterns occur regularly. Productivity is one...

An Investigation of Morphological Productivity of Nominal and Verbal Compounds in Legal Discourse

Published Online: Apr 24, 2020

Page range: 51 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/seeur-2019-0018

Keywords
compounds, morphological productivity, English language, legal English, corpus

© 2019 Jeta Hamzai, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

An Investigation of Morphological Productivity of Nominal and Verbal Compounds in Legal Discourse

Published Online: Apr 24, 2020

Page range: 51 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/seeur-2019-0018

Keywordscompounds, morphological productivity, English language, legal English, corpus

© 2019 Jeta Hamzai, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
compounds, morphological productivity, English language, legal English, corpus