Analogy in suffix rivalry: the case of English -ityand -ness

Abstract

Rivalry between the two English nominalising suffixes -ityand -nesshas long been an issue in the literature on English word-formation (see esp. Marchand 1969; Aronoff 1976; Anshen & Aronoff 1981; Romaine 1983; Riddle 1985; Giegerich 1999; Plag 2003; Säily 2011; Baeskow 2012; Lindsay 2012; Baueret al. 2013: ch. 12). Both regularly attach to adjectival bases, producing nouns with (mostly) synonymous meanings. Most standard accounts assume that stronger restrictiveness of -ityis an effect of -itybeing less productive than -ness, and that the observed preferences are an effect of selectional restrictions imposed on bases and/or suffixes. The focus of the present study is on the productivity of the two suffixes in synchronic English and on the diachronic development of that productivity in the recent history of the language. The article presents a statistical analysis and a computational simulation with an analogical model (using the AM algorithm, Skousen & Stanford 2007) of the distribution of -ityand -nessin a corpus comprising some 2,700 neologisms from theOxford English Dictionaryfrom three different centuries (the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth). Statistical analysis of theOEDdata reveals that -itypreference for pertinent bases is far more widespread than hitherto thought. Furthermore, the earlier data show a consistent development of these preference patterns over time. Computational modelling shows that AM is highly successful in predicting the variation in synchronic English as well as in the diachronic data solely on the basis of the formal properties of the bases of nominalisation. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the AM model it is shown that, unlike many previous approaches, an analogical theory of word-formation provides a convincing account of the observed differences between the productivity profiles of the two nominalising suffixes and their emergence over time.

Attraction between words as a function of frequency and representational distance: Words in the bilingual brain

“…Monosyllabic words have a clear preference for -ens, that is, 102 out of the 116 monosyllabic items have this preference. Nevertheless, the morphological distribution of and rivalry between the two suffixes may or may not be different from what is reported in the literature for monolingual speakers, for example, for the rivalry between -ity and -ness in English (see the previously mentioned study of Arndt-Lappe [2014]). An investigation of the morphological distribution of the Frisian suffixes falls outside the scope of this study, which aims at establishing the relation between frequency and similarity in assessing the influence of Dutch -heid formations upon the token frequencies of similar formations with the suffixes -ens and -heid in Frisian, although we include stress position as a controlling factor in further testing.…”

The natural selection of words: Finding the features of fitness

“…In the table, we see that a high value for ty| or ity indicates a winner, but it is better to have low values for nes, ss|, and ess. Thus the naive Bayes model has confirmed the conflict between the suffixes -ity and -ness [40]: "Rivalry between the two English nominalising suffixes -ity and -ness has long been an issue in the literature on English word-formation." Furthermore, the naive Bayes model suggests that -ness is losing the battle to -ity.…”

Adjectives relate individuals to states: Evidence from the two readings of English Determiner + Adjective

“…In sum, I propose to analyze both the mass reading of Determiner + Adjective and the -ness form in a uniform fashion as predicates of states. In fact, the idea that there are multiple different adjective-nominalizing strategies with the same semantics has historical precedent: the (arguably synonymous) suffixes -ity and -ness have been in competition for centuries (Riddle 1985;Romaine 1985;Arndt-Lappe 2014). Synchronically, the Determiner + Adjective strategy is clearly the underdog relative to -ness; but it remains an open question whether it is gaining or losing ground diachronically.…”