Loan affixes in Hungarian word formation: Regularity, productivity, rivalry
Loan affixes in Hungarian word formation: Regularity, productivity, rivalry

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the (degree of) productivity of some loan affixes deriving nouns on the basis of a relatively large amount of corpus data, starting from the Natural Morphology approach to productivity. The two criteria originally proposed in that framework with respect to loan affixes do not seem to be sufficient for establishing the productivity of a given affix, whereas the more sophisticated productivity criteria applicable to native affixes are incapable of properly indicating the degrees of productivity in the case of loan affixes. In the paper, we propose a system of criteria for the productivity scale of loan affixes in Hungarian on the basis of the data considered, and evaluate the loan affixes studied in terms of their productivity and its degree. On the other hand, with the affixes discussed here as well as the material of other productivity studies and other functional considerations in mind, we conclude, departing from the usual approach within Natural Morphology, that the size of the domain of rule application and type frequency also play a role in the emergence and maintenance of productive rules and in the fate of the degree of productivity of the individual affixes.

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