Prefixation in English and Catalan - Departament de Filologia ...

the speaker intended on that occasion, the most relevant interpretation for them. In ‘to
shelve the books/closet’, the interpretations ‘putting shelves on the books’ and ‘putting
the closet on shelves’ are not relevant enough to satisfy the hearer’s expectation of
relevance (and will be rejected). In short, the hearer can readily identify which locative
relation is intended (locatum or location) within RT.
Another question which remained unresolved from the previous section was how
English speakers can derive the locative reading in prefixless Vs like box, crown, circle
and snare (the two last Vs being intermediate forms in the derivations of their prefixed
version), if the prefix en- is the element responsible for such reading ([-c-m] features). I
suggested that the picture for English denominal Vs was parallel to that of Catalan
denominal Vs some time ago, but not now. In other words, there was one time when the
[-c-m] features of Vs of creation also came from the N’s reinterpreted R-role (e.g.
enslave) and the [-c-m] features of locative Vs came from the prefix (e.g. encase,
enrage). Although the first claim can still hold, the second one cannot, given the
existence of many unprefixed Vs with a locative reading. To explain this, I proposed
that the [-c-m] role once associated with the prefix was relinked to the base N, which
resulted in the ultimate disappearance of the prefix. That proposal seems to be
confirmed by the fact that locatum/location Vs that once had a prefix now do not have it
any more. In addition, if we look at numbers, the locative Vs without prefix largely
exceed those with prefix (see below though). As will be seen, the formation of
unprefixed locative denominal Vs in English is the most common method nowadays,
somehow leaving the prefixed forms as frozen forms from the past.
What I am implying here is a contrast between Catalan and English with respect
to the productivity of en-prefixation. While it seems that this morphological process was
and is still active in Catalan, it has become unproductive in English. However, one
cannot identify productivity in morphology with numbers (cf. Aronoff (1976)), because
the method of counting up the number of words does not take into account the
morphological restrictions on the possible bases for a derivational morpheme. A further
problem with this mechanical method is that although dictionaries (try to) list the new
incorporations into the language, it is very difficult for them to include the new words
speakers make up continually. Considering the possible bases the morpheme en- can
attach to separately (V/A/N-to-V prefixation) solved the first problem, while the second
one was resolved by designing an experiment in which speakers’ judgments were
considered. Ten speakers of Catalan and English were presented with sentences that
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