Lexicalization and institutionalization of neoclassical forms with -ity and -ness in 18-th century English dictionaries
Lexicalization and institutionalization of neoclassical forms with -ity and -ness in 18-th century English dictionaries

Summary/Abstract: The author examines the validity of the statement that the age of Neoclassicism with its prescriptive approach to language was the age of vocabulary codification and control. In this paper, it is argued that the eighteenth century dictionaries preserve evidence against this. A detailed analysis of suffix formations in -ness and -ity in the context of their lexicalization and institutionalization reveals concurrent morphological processes that result in massive accumulation of new forms, which are sometimes non-transparent and opaque. The author also analyses formal aspects of these suffixes to account for certain untypical but potential, sometimes obsolete forms from the position of productivity and analyzability in synchronic and diachronic perspective on the basis of various linguistic theories.

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