Agent-Forming Nominalisers

Abstract

In this chapter, I dwell on the semantics of agent-forming nominalisers. More specifically, I examine the meanings of morphemes and how they combine to form nouns. During the investigation, I verify three tenets of Cognitive Semantics. To that end, I organise the chapter as follows. In section 5.1, I say what an agent-forming suffix is and enumerate the mechanisms that condition its integration with a root to form a noun. In section 5.2, I argue that each agent-forming suffix has a core sense from which its other senses fan out. In section 5.3, I argue that the scope of meaning of an agent-forming suffix is demarcated by the type of semantic relations it has with its counterparts. In section 5.4, I argue that the members of a noun pair cannot be freely exchanged for each other despite the fact that they look alike. Each has a specific meaning which is the result of construal. To depict non-synonymy, I resort to their distinctive collocates. This is done by examining actual data offered in the corpus. In section 5.5, I repeat the main points of the chapter.