The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology

The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology is intended as a companion volume to The Oxford Handbook of Compounding (OUP 2009) Written by distinguished scholars its 41 chapters aim to provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the study of derivational morphology.The handbook begins with an overview and a consideration of definitional matters distinguishing derivation from inflection on the one hand and compounding on the other. From a formal perspective the handbook treats affixation (prefixation suffixation infixation circumfixation etc.) conversion reduplication root and pattern and other templatic processes as well as prosodic and subtractive means of forming new words. From a semantic perspective it looks at the processes that form various types of adjectives adverbs nouns and verbs as well as evaluatives and the rarer processes that form function words. The book also surveys derivation in fifteen language families that are widely dispersed in terms of both geographical location and typological characteristics.