Article published In:
Languages in Contrast: Online-First Articles

The fate of ‘pseudo-’ words

A contrastive corpus-based analysis

ORCID logo | F.R.S.-FNRS, Belgium | Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
ORCID logo | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
ORCID logo | Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy
The present study examines the fate of the neoclassical combining form pseudo- in eight European languages, belonging to Germanic (Danish, Dutch, English, German and Swedish) and Romance (French, Italian, Spanish). In order to gain a better understanding of the synchronic morphological behaviour and productivity of pseudo- words in these languages, we carry out a cross-linguistic corpus analysis and compare the morphological and distributional properties of pseudo-. We also analyse its debonding behaviour and categorical flexibility in the set of languages and correlate this property with its productivity. The results of the corpus study are discussed against the typological background of the so-called Germanic and Romance Sandwiches.
Keywords: neoclassical compounds, combining forms, morphological cohesion, corpus linguistics, Danish/Dutch/English/French/German/Italian/Spanish/Swedish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Pseudo-: Morphological and semantic properties
    • 2.1Etymology and morphological status of pseudo-
    • 2.2Morphological properties
    • 2.3Semantic profile
  • 3.Typological framework
    • 3.1The Germanic and Romance Sandwiches
    • 3.2Morphological cohesion and debonding in Germanic and Romance
  • 4.A cross-linguistic corpus study of pseudo-
    • 4.1Research questions
    • 4.2Data and methods
    • 4.3Results
      • 4.3.1Construction types
      • 4.3.2Word frequencies
      • 4.3.3Productivity
  • 5.Degree of debonding and categorical flexibility
    • 5.1Degree of (de)bonding
    • 5.2Debonding and categorical flexibility ratios
    • 5.3Correlation between productivity and debonding
  • 6.Conclusions and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Sources
Published online: 29 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.22003.van
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Oxford English Dictionary (OED): [URL]
SketchEngine: [URL]; TenTen corpora available on SketchEngine used in this study:
– Danish: daTenTen17 (1.9 billion tokens)
– Dutch: nlTenTen14 (2.6 billion tokens)
– English: enTenTen15 (13.2 billion tokens)
– French: frTenTen17 (5.8 billion tokens)
– German: deTenTen13 (16.5 billion tokens)
– Italian: itTenTen16 (4.9 billion tokens)
– Spanish: esTenTen18 (16.9 billion tokens)
– Swedish: svTenTen14 (3.4 billion tokens)
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