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Giannoula Giannoulopoulou

On the borderline between lexicon and grammar: confixes in Modern Greek and Italian

Keywords: confix, International Scientific Vocabulary, secretion, model-word, incipient grammaticalization

This article examines confixes, a type of word-forming elements between lexical stems and affixes. While confixes carry lexical meaning, confixing changes the constituent order in the word so that the internal word structure resembles the constituent order typical of derivation. It is argued that grammaticalization theory is an appropriate theoretical framework for the study of confixes because of its ability to describe the emergence of grammar under historical and contextual pressures. It is shown that confixes represent incipient grammaticalization and that their study from this point of view challenges the langue-parole and synchrony-diachrony dichotomies.

STUF – Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, Akademie Verlag

Print ISSN: 0942-2919
Volume: 59, 03/2006
Pages: 270 - 283

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