Homonymy of Derivational Formatives and Its Marking in the Word Formation Manual

Abstract

    The article deals with the homonymy of the means of Lithuanian word formation, the relevance of which has become apparent in the development of the Word Formation Guide, a digital manual of Lithuanian word (noun) formation. The study aims to justify the need for marking homonymic derivational formatives in dictionaries of word formation, dictionaries of morphemes, dictionaries of morphemic composition, word formation manuals, etc., and to discuss the problems encountered in practice when the homonymic means of word formation are presented in these publications. It is considered that homonymy should be discussed at the level of derivational formatives, not at the level of morphemes (affixes). The difference in the derivational meaning of derivatives and the origin of the means of word formation are considered to be indisputable criteria for the identification of homonymous derivational formatives, while the difference in the part of speech of derivatives and the difference in the part of speech of their base words is not in itself likely to lead to the homonymy of derivational means. Only affixes (formatives) of the same type are homonymous. The problem of marking the homonymy of the derivational formatives used to form mobile nouns (substantiva mobilia) is discussed. The preliminary marking of homonyms in the Word Formation Guide has not only highlighted the relevance and problems of homonymy of derivational formatives but has also shown the extent of homonymy – about half of the suffixes of Lithuanian nouns and almost all the inflections are homonymous.