La suffixation en -et et la question de la productivité

Abstract

Bernard Fradin & Nabil Hathout : -ET suffixation and the question of productivity This article first sketches an analysis of the system of -et suffixation in French. The analysis shows that -ET suffixation involves approximatively fifteen patterns of lexeme formation organized around two poles (Referent and Speaker pole). Building on this analysis, the article examines the productivity of the derivational suffixes -et and -ette in the French newspaper Libération in a five years period. Formal tools provided by H. Baayen are used to gauge the degree of productivity of both affixes. Two partial results are worth mentioning: first, -ette's degree of productivity exceeds that of -et; this result supports the idea that these suffixes must not be considered as exponents of one and same morphological process. Second, not all derivational patterns are productive to the same degree, which means that it is meaningless to speak of the global degree of productivity of -et suffixation, except as the sum of the degrees of productivity obtained for each pattern. lexeme formation organized around two poles (Referent and Speaker pole). Building on this analysis, the article examines the productivity of the derivational suffixes -et and -ette in the French newspaper Libération in a five years period. Formal tools provided by H. Baayen are used to gauge the degree of productivity of both affixes. Two partial results are worth mentioning: first, -ette's degree of productivity exceeds that of -et; this result supports the idea that these suffixes must not be considered as exponents of one and same morphological process. Second, not all derivational patterns are productive to the same degree, which means that it is meaningless to speak of the global degree of productivity of -et suffixation, except as the sum of the degrees of productivity obtained for each pattern.

The morpheme gender effect

“…When a suffix is added to a base, while its effect on the meaning is not always straightforward, its effect on the whole-word gender is always the same. For example adding -ette to a noun will modify the meaning of that noun by the idea of smallness and the resulting derived noun will always be feminine whatever the gender of the base noun (Fradin, Hathout, & Meunier, 2003). However, our results cannot simply be explained by the predictive value of the endings as in Experiment 1 suffixes-with very predictive endings (91%)-were matched within pairs, so if the effect observed was only due to the predictability of the endings then no morphological effect should have been observed in this case.…”

Pragmatic explanations in morphology

“…Among the studies on language-specific evaluatives in Europe, we mention Stefanescu (1992), Rainer (1993), Napoli andReynolds 1995, Dal (1997), De Marco (1998), Mutz (2000), Gracía and Turón (2000), Nekula (2003), Fradin et al(2003), Merlini Barbaresi (2004Barbaresi ( , 2014, Prieto (2005), often with no or rare reference to pragmatic uses. Grandi (2002Grandi ( , 2011Grandi ( , 2015Grandi ( , 2017 deserves special attention in the panorama of studies on evaluatives for his vastness of topics, centered on the formal and semantic aspects of evaluatives in many languages, or dealing with their historical origin and development, also from a typological perspective.…”

De la localisation à l’évaluation : des verbes préfixés évaluatifs au sens bien particulier

“…Si cette absence de régularité distingue fondamentalement l'évaluation suffixale de l'évaluation préfixale, elle est cependant typique de l'évaluation suffixale en général ; cela a déjà été noté maintes fois, notamment à propos des noms suffixés, cette catégorie ayant été la plus étudiée, et de loin ; cf. uniquement pour le français Dal (1997Dal ( , 1999, Delhay (1999), Fradin (2003), Fradin, Hathout & Meunier (2003), Fradin & Montermini (2009), etc. C'est d'ailleurs à cause de cette grande variété d'interprétations que certains, comme Delhay (1999), Fradin (2003, par exemple, ont pu distinguer deux grands pôles interprétatifs, le pôle référentiel (où l'on trouve la diminution notamment) et le pôle locuteur (dans lequel figurent par exemple les interprétations dépréciatives / mélioratives).…”