[Lexicog] rules when it comes to latin word roots

[David Tuggy]

Two comments **marked so**:

John Roberts wrote:

> <snip>


> Also with some classical borrowings the phonological rules of the donor
> language have been incorporated into English word formation rules. E.g.
> *-al* 'pertaining to, relating to' is a very productive adjectival suffix
> and comes originally from Latin, and can be found in words like *tribal*,
> *judgmental*, *educational*, etc. It has an allomorph *-ar* in English
> which
> continues the dissimilation process from Latin of alternating with *-al*
> when the root ends in *l*. E.g. *polar* (Latin), *scalar* (postLatin).

**"familiar" and "familial" make a nice pair: both well established and
both based on or at least related to "family", but with quite different
meanings.**

>
> <snip>
> But I had a question for the rest of the group. Should affixes be
> included
> in a dictionary? Why do I have to go to specialist dictionaries like
> Urdang
> (1982) and Urdang (1998) to find out about English affixes?
>
**Absolutely they should. Why should you have to scurry elsewhere to get
information that is clearly lexical in nature? Down with radical
(root-fixated) chauvinism!!

But you almost have to write an encyclopedic article just to describe
the distributions, much more (less?) the meanings, of a lot of affixes.
E.g. the definitions for "-er" ought to include usages as disparate as
"Jimmer(s)" = "(good old) Jim", "two-suiter" = "garment bag of medium
capacity", "ouster", "keeper" = "fish one does not throw back after
catching, by extension anything one likes and would strongly resist
losing", "knee-slapper" = "(not very good) joke" (cf.
"howler"/"groaner"), "grounder" = "ball hit on the ground", and so
forth, beyond the basic agentive "swimmer" that most grammar books will
give you.  It is no trivial task for the lexicographer to include all
that information. That of course shouldn't let us off the hook, any more
than the prodigality of usages of a word like "jack" should mean we
needn't try to list and define it.

btw some dictionaries do define some affixes. Obviously the more
stem-like (derivational, perhaps transparently related to roots or
stems) the more likely they are to get a definition.



--David Tuggy

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> John Roberts
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