De-Adjectival Nominalisers

Abstract

In this chapter, I turn to the semantics of de-adjectival nominalisers. More specifically, I deal with the meanings of morphemes and how they combine to form nouns. During the investigation, I explore three tenets of Cognitive Semantics on de-adjectival nominalisations. To that end, I structure the chapter as follows. In section 3.1, I say what a de-adjectival suffix is and enumerate the mechanisms that condition its integration with a root to form a noun. In section 3.2, I argue that a de-adjectival suffix is polysemous and its multiple senses gather around a prototype. In section 3.3, I argue that to reveal the subtle differences in meaning between nominal suffixes, it is necessary to organise them into domains in which they stand as rivals. In section 3.4, I argue that the members of a noun pair differ in terms of the different construals the speaker imposes on their common root. To show non-synonymy, I resort to the distinctive collocates associated with the members of the pair. This is done by examining actual data offered in the corpus. In section 3.5, I recapitulate the key points of the chapter.