Sõnatuletus leksika ja grammatika vahel: nd- ja ndus-liitelised verbaalnoomenid
Word formation between lexicon and grammar: verbal nouns with -nd and -ndus affixes

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the meanings and use of nouns with the affixes -us ja -nd on the basis of verbs with -nda affixes. The data comes from the Corpus of Written Estonian (media + fiction), and the analysis proceeds from the theoretical concepts of productivity and lexicalization of derivation. Formation of -us derivatives from verbs with -nda affixes is a productive mechanism in the Estonian language; -nd derivatives were created as specialized terms in the 1920s and the 1930s, and about fifty of them have thus far spread into the common language. The semantics of verbal nouns with -ndus and -nd endings are similar, referring to the result of a process or an instrument expressed by the base verb. -us derivatives formed in the productive pattern have an abstract meaning, but the semantics of the derivatives might have undergone specialization during lexicalization, and many -us derivatives have multiple meanings. The objective of forming -nd derivatives was to decrease the polysemy of -us derivatives and adopt a formation pattern for marking a specific result or instrument of an activity. The article provides an overview of the success of this systematic differentiation.

• Details
• Contents