Derivational Morphology and Word Formation: Functional Directions in Contemporary English and Azerbaijani

Gulara Guliyeva; Gunel  Mammadova; Narmina Aliyeva; Lea Oksanen

doi:10.48161/qaj.v6n2a2521

Authors

Gulara Guliyeva Department of Foreign Languages, Baku Engineering University (BEU), Baku AZ0101, Azerbaijan; https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5401-3413
Gunel Mammadova Department of Foreign Languages, Baku Engineering University (BEU), Baku AZ0101, Azerbaijan;
Narmina Aliyeva Department of Foreign Languages, Baku Engineering University (BEU), Baku AZ0101, Azerbaijan; https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4983-2560
Lea Oksanen Department of Business Administration, Lahti University of Technology (LUT), Lahti FI-15210, Finland. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5970-5000

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48161/qaj.v6n2a2521

Keywords:

Derivational Morphology, Word-Formation Processes, Semantic Transparency, Nominalization.

Abstract

This article develops a function-driven, corpus-based account of derivational morphology restricted to English and Azerbaijani, two typologically distant systems that nonetheless converge under shared discourse pressures. We conceptualize word-formation as the coupling of morphotactic resources with communicative goals and operationalize productivity through a transparent index averaging normalized type frequency, novel-token ratio, and mean transparency. Using balanced written corpora spanning academic prose, administrative/professional documentation, and quality media, we extract derivatives by rule-guided filtering and manual verification, and annotate process (affixation, compounding, conversion, blending), semantic role (agentive, instrumental, evaluative, procedural), register, and transparency; inter-annotator reliability targets are met following joint training and adjudication. Results reveal complementary profiles: English favors conversion, agentive -er, and evaluative/adjectival -able, while blending clusters in media; Azerbaijani exhibits high-yield agentive and instrumental suffixation (-çı/-çi, -lıq/-lik), productive nominalizations (-ma/-mə, -etmə), and transparent N + N compounds in professional discourse. Register-conditioned Functional Pathways innovation, professionalization, evaluation, proceduralization predict the loci of stabilization for novel formations, and statistical tests (rank-based or parametric, with effect sizes and multiple-comparison control) substantiate cross-register contrasts without a necessary trade-off between productivity and transparency in the agglutinative system. The study refines English–Azerbaijani typological expectations, provides a replicable analytic workflow for higher-education settings, and offers practical guidance for terminology and role labeling in bilingual professional communication.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Aronoff, M. (1976). Word formation in generative grammar. MIT Press.

Booij, G. (2010). The grammar of words: An introduction to linguistic morphology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Plag, I. (2003). Word-formation in English. Cambridge University Press.

Plag, I. (2018). Word-formation in English (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Lieber, R. (2004). Morphology and lexical semantics. Cambridge University Press.

Lieber, R. (2009). Introducing morphology. Cambridge University Press.

Haspelmath, M., & Sims, A. D. (2010). Understanding morphology (2nd ed.). Hodder Education.

Baayen, R. H. (1992). Quantitative aspects of morphological productivity. In G. E. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.), Yearbook of morphology 1991 (pp. 109–149). Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Bauer, L. (2001). Morphological productivity. Cambridge University Press.

Garibova, J., & Aliyeva, S. (2024). A grammar of Azerbaijani (Unpublished manuscript).

Johanson, L., & Csató, É. Á. (Eds.). (1998). The Turkic languages. Routledge.

Lieber, R., & Štekauer, P. (Eds.). (2009). The Oxford handbook of compounding. Oxford University Press.

Haspelmath, M. (2012). How to compare major word-formation processes across languages. In V. Renner, F. Maniez, & P. Arnaud (Eds.), Cross-disciplinary perspectives on lexical blending (pp. 109–130). De Gruyter Mouton.