Headhood of suffixes and final combining forms in english word formation

Abstract

This paper offers a multi-layer description of the morphological, phonological, syntactic and semantic aspects of the behaviour of suffixes and final combining forms which function as heads in morphologically complex and compound words in English, both established and new ones. In the discussion, the following topics will also be dealt with in some detail: (a) a distinction between classical and modern final combining forms, (b) a distinction between classical, modern and dummy linking vowels, (c) dual headedness of composite FCFs, in which a micro-head and a macro-head can be observed to interact, (d) a contentbased approach to construing the headhood of suffixes and final combining forms, and (e) the notion of conceptual endocentricity. © 2007 Akadémiai Kiadó.