77
votes
What is the term for this derivation: "Cheeseburger comes from Hamburger" but... the word hamburger didn't refer to ham
This is called rebracketing: when the original [hamburg][er] is reinterpreted as [ham][burger]. Other examples include [alcohol][ic] > [alco][holic] and [helico][pter] > [heli][copter].
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32
votes
What is the term for this derivation: "Cheeseburger comes from Hamburger" but... the word hamburger didn't refer to ham
It is unclear whether cheeseburger was actually formed based on a misunderstanding of the etymology of the word hamburger. It can be noted that the word burger without the ham is also in frequent use. ...
- 421
27
votes
Derivation of the Indo-European lemma *bʰréh₂tēr ‘brother’
Lots (and I mean lots) of ink has been spent going over the possible etymology of this root – so far with no firm conclusions.
A recent ‘current state of affairs’ treatment not only of *bʰréh₂tēr, but ...
- 5,281
10
votes
Accepted
Is there a name for a diminutive whose meaning has decoupled from the original word?
These have been referred to as "lexicalised diminutives" in the literature. The terms "fossilised/frozen diminutive" also occur in other works.
This paper by Bagasheva-Koleva is ...
- 5,162
9
votes
What is the term for this derivation: "Cheeseburger comes from Hamburger" but... the word hamburger didn't refer to ham
There is some folk etymology involved: First, hamburger is given a folk etymology containing actually ham and then new words can be formed after the perceived model of hamburger.
The term rebracketing ...
- 31.1k
9
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What is the term for this derivation: "Cheeseburger comes from Hamburger" but... the word hamburger didn't refer to ham
Two relevant terms are back-formation and reanalysis (along with rebracketing and folk etymology) already mentioned in other answers).
Reanalysis is (in my experience) the most general of these, ...
- 217
8
votes
Is there a theory of word polysemy? Case of snake versus serpent
There is no derivation in the example you gave. A derivation, in Linguistics, is when a morpheme is added to another morpheme to produce a new meaning.
The case you are talking about can be analysed ...
- 1,535
7
votes
Name for a verb form meaning "feign or pretend to do sth"
As I wrote in a comment, this is one of the functions of the Biblical Hebrew Dt (hitpael) stem, but the two reference grammars I had a look at do not agree on terminology:
Waltke and O'Connor (An ...
- 4,840
7
votes
Accepted
difference between the root, lemma and stem for a derived word
For your English example drivers
The lemma is driver
The stem is also driver
The root is driv
The whole thing is better explained in a language with more inflections, where things become interesting....
- 31.1k
6
votes
Derivation of the Indo-European lemma *bʰréh₂tēr ‘brother’
The usual account I've seen is that it's analogical. *ph₂tḗr makes sense as a derivation from *peh₂-, and then *méh₂tēr, *bʰréh₂tēr, and possibly *dʰugh₂tḗr came to resemble it by analogy—as you ...
- 69.5k
6
votes
Accepted
Why some verbs have -tion while others don't, when being nounified
Would be good to know if this is just because of the fact that English is messy, or there is some other reason.
Yes and yes.
Yes, because English is messy. The -tion examples are of course all ...
- 8,189
6
votes
Are inflectional morphemes considered affixes in English?
Wikipedia captures the usual understanding of the term:
Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed.
In this terminology also ...
- 4,840
5
votes
Accepted
Derivation of Greek οὐρά (backside) from PIE *h₁ers (flow)
The idea is that there were two homophonic IE roots: *h₁ers- "tail" and *h₁ers- "to flow". Nobody is claiming that the two are connected.
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5
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Is there a theory of word polysemy? Case of snake versus serpent
Snake and serpent mean exactly the same thing.
Is that really true? Of course they both denote the same class of animals, but that doesn't mean they mean exactly the same thing. They have slightly ...
- 2,645
5
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between a borrowed and a derived Word in Linguistics?
In this sense, a "derived" word is derived from something else within the same language, or a direct ancestor of that language.
For example, English "miniature" is borrowed from ...
- 69.5k
5
votes
Why two appearances of the past participle "ganado" in this derivation?
One of the main reasons for positing a v layer separate from V is the behavior of ditransitive verbs. In particular, all the objects of a ditransitive verb seem to form a constituent of their own, ...
- 69.5k
5
votes
Are inflectional morphemes considered affixes in English?
You have inverted the usual "considered" relation. There is no uncertainty as to what a prefix is versus a suffix. A prefix precedes the root, a suffix follows the root. "Affix" is ...
- 83.4k
4
votes
Derivation, zero-affixation verb tenses
“Boycotted” has no derivational affixes, so it belongs to zero derivation aka conversion. The affix -ed is an inflectional affix, so you cannot generally say “boycotted” is an example of zero ...
- 18.6k
4
votes
Languages w/out morphology
Vietnamese has no affixation at all, though it does have syntax. New words can (in principle) be formed out of thin air, or borrowed from other languages: so word-formation is possible in Vietnamese, ...
- 83.4k
3
votes
Accepted
Common root 'to gather' and 'together'
According to Etymonline, the English word goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root:
Old English togædere "so as to be present in one place, in a group, in an accumulated mass," from to (see to) + ...
3
votes
Is there a theory of word polysemy? Case of snake versus serpent
Snake and serpent mean exactly the same thing. But they're different words when they're treated as derivations.
That derivation is a misnomer has already been pointed out, so let's ignore that.
The ...
- 467
3
votes
The affixation differentiating between nominal arithmetic and adjectival arithmetic
I've never seen this kind of vowel alternation analyzed as a "simulfix" like that.
I would say that it would be preferable to use either of the following analyses:
the different ...
- 18.7k
3
votes
What to call an adjective that is a participle of a verb that is no longer used?
I would say "unscathed" is an orphaned participle and a relic.
- 31
2
votes
What is the term for this derivation: "Cheeseburger comes from Hamburger" but... the word hamburger didn't refer to ham
The expected answer seems to be Folk Etymology or a less biased euphemism like Reanalysis, as per Wikipedia
a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more ...
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2
votes
Why are comparative -er and -est suffixes considered inflections not derivations?
The line between "inflection" and "derivation" is a blurry one, but the level of semantic regularity is a good rule of thumb. I'm not aware of any adjective where the meanings of X-...
- 69.5k
2
votes
Accepted
Difference between the Merge postion and the base position
Generative theories of syntax generally propose a few different "operations", which are invoked in various ways to build the tree. If you're a computationalist, you might prefer to call ...
- 69.5k
2
votes
Accepted
Is there a theory of word polysemy? Case of snake versus serpent
I'm aware of a huge project conducted by Borer (2005a,b; 2013), a major part of it is dealing with word polysemy. However, her project is not purely morphological per se, since you requested theories ...
- 1,078
2
votes
What is the difference between vPs and v*Ps?
They are not the same. 1. v* (with this label) corresponds to a verb projection with a full argument structure or what is called a Core Functional Category (CFC) with transitivity. This v*P is the ...
- 1,078
2
votes
Name for a verb form meaning "feign or pretend to do sth"
I recently found some literature on this function in Wolof referred to as the "pretendive" (though I'm not sure how standard a term that is):
Torrence, Harold. 2013. The Clause Structure of Wolof: ...
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