Derivational paradigms: The case of English combining forms

This chapter investigates a set of ten English combining forms attested in the Oxford English Dictionary between 1980 and 1997 and discusses the suitability of paradigms for the conceptualisation of analogy based combining form combinations. In this chapter, the focus is on the secreted type of combining forms, which involve both abbreviation and secretion, as in initial Franken (from Frankenstein, in Frankenfood) or final erati (from literati, in glitterati), respectively used to refer to ‘genetically modified –’ and ‘a prominent or elite group related to –’. Using a corpus based approach, the chapter shows that secreted combining forms offer word formation paradigms that apply to series of similar words in the lexicon and are applicable to other new words which are at the basis of English vocabulary expansion.