Hans-Jörg Schmid

Serving as an introduction to English morphology and word formation, this book also aims to advance the state of the art in this field. The author guides readers through the basic concepts and discusses problematic areas. All chapters are approached systematically from three different angles, focusing on structural, cognitive, and sociopragmatic aspects of the field. In this way, new perspectives are opened, particularly on the development and establishment of new complex words, the cognitive functions of word formation patterns, and the field of conversion. Students of English and linguistics can use this book as an introduction and for preparing exams, term papers, and final theses. The large number of examples is taken from a corpus of authentic language, which also serves as a basis for frequency counts of morphological features and elements in different text types. This revised and enlarged third edition features a new chapter dealing with theoretical models of word formation. Schmid's approach is fresh and original in many ways. The systematic use of a corpus is a welcome innovation, ensuring that the book is well grounded in up-to-date authentic materials.