Historical Change and English Word-Formation (American University Studies Series IV, English Language and Literature)

Based on extensive new-word dictionaries, this book innovationally categorizes, describes, and etymologizes 13,683 different English words derived from written sources. In a historical context that shows the major processes of English word-formation in past centuries, the book shows the state of modern formation. It reveals hitherto unknown patterns and proportions, in a twenty-one category taxonomy developed from the corpus. It shows that English vocabulary is changing in ways and at speeds perhaps paralleled only in Chaucer's day, but less radically. It is the culmination of Cannon's articles and reviews of the past eight years concerned with new words and meanings in English. It includes information on regional and stylistic labels, grammatical changes and structures, semantic changes, and phonological matter. Overall it is simultaneously a data-based reference book and an application of many data to lexical theory, analysis and word formation.