Word Formation as a Naming Device

Ten Hacken and Panocov present a systematic overview of how different current morphological theories account for the naming function of word formation. Naming is an essential preliminary step for the effective use of language. In most linguistic theories, word formation is covered as a part of morphology. However, morphological theories, especially those in generative linguistics, tend to focus on the form and structure of words, rather than on their naming function. As a result, it is often not made explicit how naming is accounted for.In this book, the authors cover new ground in describing and comparing theories from this perspective. They highlight the relevance of the naming perspective in both generative and functionalist approaches and in doing so challenge the way morphological theories are received and developed. The authors develop a framework for identifying which aspects of naming have been or can be covered in each theory and evaluate the success of the resulting account. The results of this comparison can be used for the selection of theories in research and teaching.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Naming concepts 2. Naming in the history of morphology 3. Historical relationships between current theories of morphology 4. An approach to the analysis of naming 5. Distributed Morphology 6. Lexical Morphology 7. The Lexical Semantic Framework 8. Construction Morphology 9. Relational Morphology 10. Cognitive Grammar 11. Štekauer’s onomasiological theory 12. Natural morphology 13. An assessment of similarities and differences between theoretical frameworks Bibliography

About the Author :
Pius ten Hacken is a Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Innsbruck. His research focuses on word formation, terminology and the mental lexicon. His latest monograph is Word Formation in Parallel Architecture (2019). Together with Maria Koliopoulou, he was guest editor for a special issue on New Words and Linguistic Purism of the International Journal of Lexicography (2020). His latest edited volume, co-edited with Renáta Panocová, is The Interaction of Borrowing and Word Formation (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). Renáta Panocová is a Professor of Linguistics at the Department of British and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. Her research focuses on word formation, language for special purposes and intercultural communication. Her latest monographs are The Vocabulary of Medical English: A Corpus-Based Study (2017) and Categories of Word Formation and Borrowing: An onomasiological account of neoclassical formations (2015). Together with Pius ten Hacken she edited The Interaction of Borrowing and Word Formation (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

Review :
This book is an extremely ambitious and comprehensive milestone in the field of morphology, with a fresh and unique approach connecting form and meaning in the area of word formation and naming in particular.