Prefixes in noun word-formation models and semantics of derivatives

Abstract

For deriving nouns in Latvian, the prefixation is used much less frequently than the suffixation. Most nouns containing a prefix are derived from prefixed verbs. However, there are also prefixed nouns derived from other nouns. This study examines productive noun word-formation models that employ prefixation. The study analyses 238 nouns from “The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian LVK2018”, their word-formation models, and noun semantics. Any prefix may impart the noun a spatial meaning associated with the direction of the adverb corresponding to the prefix. Some prefixes can give a noun temporal or quantitative meaning. However, compared to prefixed verbs, the range of noun meanings is limited. The derivation models with prefixes pa- ‘under’ and aiz- ‘behind’ are more productive. Among the derivatives considered, approximately 24 % of nouns in the corpus have only one example of usage. The corpus also contains some common lexicalized prefixed nouns, such as pasaule ‘the world’.