The structural properties of -ate derivatives Summary

Having discussed all types of -ate formations in the neologism corpus, the following picture emerges. There is a productive suffix -ate that has a rather restricted LCS on the one hand, and there are numerous -ate derivatives that do not conform to the LCS proposed for -ate on the other hand, and which arise from a number of different non-affixational morphological operations. With the latter group of forms it can be argued that -ate is merely a marker of the word's verbal status (with the pertinent syntactic and semantic implications). Quite strikingly, the two kinds of -ate formations reflect two different dimensions of word-formation, the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic. The postulated ornative-resultative suffix -ate works on a primarily syntagmatic basis in that the suffix interacts with the form it attaches to in a predictable manner. The other processes, be they back-formation, local analogy, or conversion, are paradigmatic in the sense that they crucially involve elements in absentia. Consequently, the semantic and phonological properties of the derivatives of these processes do not so much depend on the properties of the concatenated elements, i.e. bases and affixes, but on their relationship with other, non-present, elements.

How does this analysis relate to previous accounts of -ate? This question takes us back to the problem that the proposed analysis could be either too general or too restrictive. In particular, one might argue for a different LCS, or for a dismissal of any specific LCS and simply take -ate as a category-indicating suffix. Both analyses have been proposed in the literature. Gussmann (1987), for example, assumes that -ate is a semi-productive causative suffix turning adjectives into verbs. Although many established -ate verbs exhibit this type of pattern, our data show that if it ever was a productive pattern, it no longer is. The very few adjective-based derivatives are best explained as local analogies, and not as the product of a productive or semi-productive rule. Under the analysis I propose, the lack of adjectival forms is a natural consequence of the derivational history of the forms in that the vast majority of forms either conform to (11), which excludes adjectival bases, or are back-formed on the basis of action nominals that are themselves derived from nominal bases.

Plank (1981), speaking of established -ate verbs, states that "with the vast majority of English -ate verbs, [...] there is no relationship to a lexemic base" (1981:214, my translation). He therefore suggests that -ate in such forms should not be regarded as "the encoding of a derivational category but as an indicator of the verbal character of the lexeme" (1981:214, my translation). A similar point is made by Marchand who finds that with a number of forms the suffix has "merely a functional value" (1969:258). As argued extensively above, the rather high number of idiosyncratic forms among both the OED and the Cobuild data corroborates this view of -ate formations.

Both Plank and Marchand, however, also acknowledge the existence of a derivational pattern with -ate on the basis of nouns (the former without giving a semantic analysis). This denominal pattern is formalized in the LCS given above. Discarding the proposed LCS altogether would have the strong disadvantage that it would remain unclear as to why a significant portion of derivatives should conform to this semantic structure, given the abundance of possible verbal meanings that could in principle be expressed. Furthermore, the almost complete lack of adjectival bases would be unaccounted for.

In sum, there is a remarkable difference between the neologisms involving -ate and those involving -ize. In contrast to -ize formations, the neologisms featuring -ate are extremely diverse in terms of their derivation and their meanings. Nevertheless, it was shown that there is a subgroup of -ate formations that behaves as coherently as do the vast majority of -ize forms, whereas the rest of the derivatives are the result of a variety of different morphological processes.

Finishing our remarks on the semantics of -ate, we may speculate over the reason why, alongside with the regular forms, so many semantically (and phonologically) diverse innovative -ate formations are created. One possible answer is that it is the diversity and frequency of already existing -ate forms that prompts the diversity and comparative proliferance of the newcomers. The analysis of the Cobuild corpus has demonstrated that, in comparison to the other overt verb-deriving affixes, -ate occurs in an extremely high number of both tokens and types, with even the low frequency types being highly idiosyncratic. This state of affairs makes it hard for the speaker (and the linguist) to discern a productive pattern. In terms of an analogical model (e.g. along the lines of Becker 1990), it seems that there are simply too many different possible analogical models around, with only one (namely the ornative-resultative) being more prominent.