Derivational productivity and text typology*

Abstract

The productivity of English derivational affixes is studied as a function of text type. Principal component analyses show that texts can be classified adequately, not only on the basis of the relative frequencies of the highest frequency words (Burrows, 1992, 1993), but also on the basis of the productivity of derivational affixes. Stylistically heterogeneous texts are clustered into text types, stylistically homogeneous texts cluster in the time dimension, allowing diachronic changes in productivity to be traced. Supplementary analyses on the basis of the relative frequencies of function words support the morphology‐based clusterings. The role and marked nature of the nonnative stratum of the lexicon is discussed in detail, as well as the way in which the rival affixes ‐ness and ‐ity, and un‐ and in‐, are put to use. The results obtained show that any theory of morphological productivity that does not take stylistic factors into account is incomplete.

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