Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

On Aug 10, 2008, at 2:22 PM, ROGER MILLS wrote:

> Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>>
>> BTW I once read a scholarly book by a true professional linguist
>> on the ease of
>> forming new words of one class from words of another class.  I
>> forget the title
>> of the book and the name of the book's author (though I still have
>> it --
>> somewhere -- ...)
>
[...]
> William Safire, in his NYT column, likes to point out horrors like
> "surveillance : to surveille" or "liaison : to liase", not quite in
> the same category but close.
<Liase> is quite interesting, since <-on> isn't (AFAIK) a
derivational affix in English, such that it could be removed from the
word, the way that <-ance> is. I guess that's similar to <-aholic>
from <alcoholic>. I am trying to think of other examples of that same
thing happening, but they aren't coming to me.

On the subject of <-on>, is it possible that words like <comparison>
and <luncheon> helped it to be interpreted as a suffix? I know
they're not pronounced the same (/an/ vs. /Is@n/ vs. /@n/), though.

As for me, when I was very little I thought /@n/ was a nominal suffix
of some sort, because of the words <spankin'> and <luncheon>. I don't
know why I heard the noun <spankin'> more often than <spanking>,
since my dialect doesn't change all /-N/ to /-n/. And it seems odd
that I would have ever heard <luncheon> at all.

> Also, purists dislike "fínance" replacing the old distinction
> finánce : fínance (not sure which is the verb/noun, though it was
> drilled into me once upon a time :-(( ).
If it follows the general English pattern, <fínance> should be the
noun and <finánce> the verb. This pattern seems to be eroding lately,
at least with certain verbs.

Reply