Abstract
Morphology and lexical semantics explores the meanings ofmorphemes and how they combine to form the meanings of complex words, including derived words (writer, unionize), compounds (dog bed, truck driver), and words formed by conversion. Rochelle Lieber discusses the lexical semantics of word formation in a systematic way, allowing the reader to explore the nature of affixal polysemy, the reasons why there are multiple affixes with the same function, and the issues of mismatch between formand meaning in word formation. Using a series of case studies fromEnglish, this book develops and justifies the theoretical apparatus necessary for raising and answering many questions about the semantics of word formation. Distinguishing between a lexical semantic skeleton that is featural and hierarchically organized, and a lexical semantic body that is holistic, it shows how the semantics of word formation has a paradigmatic character.
