1 The main units of derivational analysis

5 Semantic Categories of Derivation

This section briefly reviews the sorts of derivation that are most frequently found in the languages of the world and then examines a number of issues that have been prominent in the literature. It is impossible, of course, to be exhaustive in looking at semantic categories, so only the most frequently observed will be mentioned.

3.1 Nouns

Typical semantic categories of derivation for nouns include eventive and stative nouns, participant nouns, collective and abstract nouns, nouns that denote inhabitants, languages, followers or adherents of some doctrine, or doctrines themselves. I illustrate these categories with examples from English:
hese rubrics are of course rather rough and there is frequently a great deal of overlap. Participant nouns can include not only agents (writer) and patients (employee), but also instruments (printer), locations (orphanage, diner), measure nouns (pinch), and means nouns (stroller), among others. Eventive nouns typically denote not only the event or process, but also the outcome or result of that event. Inhabitant nouns may denote language as well as inhabitant, as is the case with English and Japanese, but not New Hampshireite. The rubrics illustrated in (13) are of course not exhaustive. Languages can have affixes with far more specific meanings, as suggested by the example cited earlier of the French suffix -ier, which derives names for trees from the name of the corresponding fruit (poire ‘pear,’ poirier ‘pear tree’), or by the Spokane suffix -cin ‘mouth, food’:
t is not unusual for there to be several affixes associated with any given semantic category and for individual affixes to denote several semantic categories. In other words, the relationship between semantic category and affix (or other formal means) is frequently many-to-many a phenomenon known as affixal polysemy. The issue of affixal polysemy in covered in section 3.5 “Issues in the Semantics of Derivation”.

3.2 Verbs

Verbs may be derived from nouns, adjectives, or from other verbs. English has the affixes -ize and -ify that attach to nouns and adjectives and form verbs with a range of meanings
t is not unusual for languages to have derivational means to add arguments to verbal bases, either forming causatives or applicatives, as the examples from
n Chichewa, the suffix -its/-ets derives causatives, that is, sentences in which an agent argument is added to the diathesis of the base verb, demoting the former agent to a patient. The suffix -ir/-er creates applicatives in which an argument is again added to the diathesis of the base verb, but this time adding a benefactive, locative, or instrumental argument rather than an agent.
As with nouns, verbs may be created derivationally with affixes that have far more specific meanings. Mithun illustrates this with suffixes in Yup’ik that attach to nouns or verbs and mean such things as ‘hunt,’ ‘say,’ or ‘eat.’ She argues that these are derivational affixes rather than bound bases on the grounds that they are obligatorily bound, always follow the root, and critically that they are less contentful in semantics than roots typically are in the relevant languages.

3.3 Adjectives

Derived adjectives can vary semantically along several lines. They may, for example, be either gradable and qualitative or ungradable and relational (impressive vs. atomic). In English, affixes that form adjectives from nouns are typically not specialized as gradable or non-gradable or as qualitative or relational. The suffix -ic attaches to nouns to form both relational adjectives (atomic) and qualitative adjectives (toxic), for example. Other languages such as Chukchee are reported to have distinct affixes that derive either relational or qualitative adjectives but not both
Deverbal adjectives may reference (i.e., be predicable of) either the subject argument of the base verb or the object of the base verb, or they may refer to the base event in general:
adjective-bearing affixes also bear modal nuances; the suffix -able in English, for example, conveys epistemic (possibility), deontic (permission), or dynamic (disposition toward) modalities.