THE STATUS OF BACK-FORMATION AND MORPHEME-BASEDNESS OF ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

Abstract

This paper will examine the three verb-deriving processes in English, affixation (e. g. film_N→filmize_V), conversion (e. g. catalog_N→catalog_V), and back-formation (e. g. television_N→televise_V) and will claim that while affixation is a concatenative process in the morphology, conversion and back-formation result from a listing process in the lexicon. It will be demonstrated that conversion and back-formation belong to the same derivational type, and the latter follows automatically from the proper characterization of the former. The elimination of back-formation from the inventory of derivational processes will be claimed to contribute to the maintenance of morpheme-basedness of English morphology.