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Überlegungen zur Asymmetrie in der Produktivität von zwei Ableitungstypen: Nomina agentis und Nomina patientis

This paper investigates an asymmetry between agent nouns and patient nouns in a cross-linguistic perspective. Both types of suffixations are attested in various languages but it seems that there is a general tendency for agent nouns to dominate in two respects: (1) in the number of suffixes available, (2) in the productivity of these suffixes. It is hypothesized that the observed asymmetry correlates with differences in selectional restrictions between verbs that occur as the base of these suffixations and their arguments, the selectional restrictions imposed on objects of transitive verbs and on subjects of intransitive verbs being more specific than those imposed on subjects of transitive verbs. The authors point out a number of questions that may prove to be of crucial relevance for a plausible explanation of this asymmetry.

Wortbildung; Ableitung; nomina agentis; nomina patientis

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