Definition and Examples of Denominal Nouns

Definition and Examples of Denominal Nouns A denominal  noun  is a noun that is formed from another noun, usually by adding a suffixsuch as villager (from village), New Yorker (from New York), booklet (from book), limeade (from lime), lectureship (from lecture), and librarian (from library). Many denominal nouns are context sensitive (see Contextual Constructions, below). Examples and Observations Nouns like Nixonite, bicycler, and saxophonist are formed from concrete nouns like Nixon, bicycle, and saxophone by derivation. There is a plethora of idiomatic cases of this sort in English, but what innovative examples mean can vary enormously from one occasion to the next, depending on certain cooperative measures between the speaker and addressees. Each has an unlimited number of possible meanings, or so it appears. Denominal nouns, then, although they have stricter requirements than, say, possessives or compound nouns, are also contextual expressions. (Herbert H. Clark, Arenas of Language Use. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992)The fact that a denominal noun is not the result of a direct derivation from the action itself may explain the difficulties in interpreting denominal formations. The meaning of denominal nouns may not be directly related to the action performed by the referent... (Alexander Haselow, Typological Changes in the Lexicon: Analytic Tendencies in English Noun Formati on. Walter de Gruyter, 2011) Contextual Constructions Contextual constructions arent merely ambiguous, having a small fixed set of conventional meanings. They have in principle an infinity of potential non-conventional interpretations, each built around a conventional meaning of the word or words it is derived from...  Contextual constructions rely on an appeal to contextto the participants common ground. They always require non-conventional coordination for their interpretation. (Herbert H. Clark, Using Language. Cambridge University Press, 1996) Deverbals and Denominals: Nouns Formed With the Suffix -ant Let us turn to the deverbal person noun forming affix -ant (defendant), which denotes a personal or material agent. . . . [P]ossible verbal bases involve those ending in -ify, -ize, -ate, and -en. A look at Lehnert (1971) and the OED shows that, almost without exception . . ., these verbs are subject to the domain of agentive noun forming -er/or. The rival suffix -ant has a somewhat peculiar distribution, since its attachment is partly lexically governed (i.e. unproductive) and partly rule-governed and productive. In the semantically distinguishable domains of medical/pharmaceutical/chemo-technical and legal/corporate jargon, -ant can be used productively to form words denoting substances and persons, respectively, as evidenced by the following examples disinfectant, repellant, consultant, accountant, defendant, to mention only a few. (Ingo Plag, Morphological Productivity: Structural Constraints in English Derivation. Mouton de Gruyter, 1999) Related Reading AffixAffixationAnthimeriaContextConversion Denominal Adjective  and  Denominal Verb DerivationNeologismNominalizationVerbingWord Formation

Ecnomics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Ecnomics - Essay Example This universal phenomenon leads to the definition of economics as the science of allocation of scarce resources." To understand more clearly, lets understand that we have three factors of resources that are necessary to for production process as described in (Sloman: 2006, p. 4): Human resources: labor. The labor force is limited both in number and in skills. Natural resources: land and raw materials. The world’s land area is limited, as are its resources. Manufactured resources or capital. Capital consists of all those inputs that have themselves been produced in the first place. The world has a limited stock of capital: a limited supply of factories, machines, transportation and other equipment. The productivity of capital is limited by the state of technology. Hence, scarcity arises due to comparative unlimited human wants in the limited set of available resources to satisfy these wants. In other words, in free market economy scarcity occurs either because of increase in de mand or decrease in supply. Economics, deals with issues arises due to ‘scarcity’; distribution of resources and products among individuals or societies, regions or countries of the world. Investorwords (2011) defines â€Å"Free market system† as a system in which, â€Å"Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy†, or â€Å"a foreign exchange market that is not controlled by the government†. Also known as pure capitalist system; where individuals are free to make their demand decisions. The decisions of consumers and firms pertaining to the demand and supply of goods are transmitted to each one of them via the effect of these decisions on prices. This in turn, sets the equilibrium price level in the economy. Hence, prices are set via free interaction of demand and supply of goods and services, in a market where consumers are free to make their own choices according to their ow n income levels, firms are free to supply what they decide according to their own investment. The present world markets are likely to be known as mixed economies where minimal government interference to run the economic system exists with the help of businesses. United States, however, is a good example of free market system where government intervention is minimal and mostly prices are determined through market forces of demand and supply. Command system or planned economy is defined in investorwoods (2011) as: â€Å"an economy where supply and price are regulated by the government rather than market forces. Government planners decide which goods and services are produced and how they are distributed. The former Soviet Union was an example of a command economy†. Command economies are usually recognizable in places where the presence of socialist or communist systems of economy exists. It is in these economic systems that land and capital are collectively owned. State is the sole decision maker. It decides how to allocate resources for the future trends and also for the current ongoing requirements of the economic system. The State also governs the generation and distribution between customers of output from each industry and firm. In these centrally planned economies, the government could achieve high growth rates by allocating resources into investments; and could minimize unemployment levels by critically planning the allocation of labor according to the production levels and labor skill levels,