Functional shift

Abstract: This data-based paper is based on a more extensive semantic and linguistic analysis of the main entries in the two Barnhart dictionaries of new words and new meanings and ofMerriam's 9,000 Words (a hardcover expansion of the 1981 Addenda section to the newly reprinted Webster's Third). It categorizes and describes the 567 functional shifts in the total corpus of 13,804 written items, in terms of a review of the literature (including scholars like Jespersen, Poutsma, Kruisinga, Marchand, and Quirk, who have written extensively on functional shifts), and of what the features and parameters of these shifts mean to change in the English language. It considers the structures, inflections, and other formal features of the items converted, as well as borrowings since 1825, labels like slang, duplication in both a Barnhart book and Merriam (and the new OED Supplement^), syntactic constraints, semantic parameters, form class, etc. By comparing percentages of other categories (like semantic shift, back-formation, abbreviations, borrowings, blends, etc.), it assesses the role and efficacy of functional shift in written English today as a means of adding new items to the lexicon, within a context of the history of functional shift in English. There is no two-type conversion today, and there is a rather high proportion of slang items. Conversion is quite productive, including many unrecorded oral items, but is contributing only 4% of the new written items. Some languages contain lexical forms that belong arbitrarily to a form class that is not indicated by a structure or marker (Bloomfield 1933: 269), as opposed to relatively heavily inflected languages like German, where infinitives contain -en, or like Spanish, where infinitives contain -ar, -er, or -ir. By contrast, English form classes are mainly arbitrary, since they provide no formal information as to why, for example, girl and truth are nouns, eat and elapse are verbs, and big and vague are adjectives. English does exhibit its share of the widespread process of derivation, as when Linguistics 23 (1985), 411-431 0024-3949/85/0023-0411 $2.00

Abstract: We introduce a new type of shift dynamics as an extended model of symbolic dynamics, and investigate the characteristics of shift spaces from the viewpoints of both dynamics and computation. This shift dynamics is called a functional shift that is defined by a set of bi-infinite sequences of some functions on a set of symbols. To analyze the complexity of functional shifts, we measure them in terms of topological entropy, and locate their languages in the Chomsky hierarchy. %Through this study, we argue that complexity of dynamics does not correspond to that of computation. Through this study, we argue that considering functional shifts from the viewpoints of both dynamics and computation give us opposite results about the complexity of systems. We also describe a new class of shift spaces whose languages are not recursively enumerable.

Abstract: A LTHOUGH the study of morphemes can never perhaps be put upon a strictly scientific basis,1 there still remains much to be done in identifying, analyzing, and understanding this characteristic of language structure. The purpose of this paper is to present an extensive list of one type-the final root-forming2 or terminal8 morpheme-and to make certain tentative suggestions concerning the phenomenon in English. A final root-forming morpheme is a phonemic block which terminates in the same language at least two different words (or is preceded by differentiating sounds or morphemes) and which functions as a unit conveying the same or a similar meaning. The -ash morpheme in English, for example, conveys a sense of violent striking action, as in bash, clash, crash, dash, gash, gnash, hash, lash, mash, pash, quash, slash, smash, and thrash. This particular morpheme is very widely distributed; most occur no more frequently than twice. In the list of words at the end of this article, upon which my comments are based, I have taken a strict definition of morpheme, excluding words like fresh and brash which show phonetic divergence in the final morpheme in most English dialects but which undoubtedly have mutually influenced each other and could under a broad definition be considered the same final morpheme. English and American provincial dialects could provide, I am sure, many more examples than those given here; but in general I have stayed close to standard English. I have also avoided what Bolinger has called neutral morphemes,4 such as affixes which indicate syntactic functions which would have swollen the lists without adding much to our knowledge. I have not allowed metathetic units as seen in dirt and grit. But I have ignored differences in parts of speech and have permitted functional shift. The examples fall into two major groups-onomatopoeic and what, for lack of a better name, I call 'abstract.' In the first, we find some kind of basic imitative sound pattern which suggests various types of noise, size, movement, light, periodicity, etc. These may be illustrated by the following pairs: bash, clash; bleat, tweet; bozince, jounce; burble, gurgle; buzzy, fuzzy; flimmer, glimmer; thwack, wack; and so forth. The second embraces a wide variety of

Abstract: The purpose of this study will be to make an investigation of the shifting of a word from one part of speech to another, to see whether this linguistic process existed in Old English, Middle English, and to note the prevalence of functional shift among present-day writers.