Semantics and Word Formation

This book is about the integration into English of the five nominal suffixes -ment , -ance , -ation , -age and -al , which entered Middle English via borrowings from French, and which now form abstract nouns by attaching themselves to various base categories, as in cord/cordage or adjust/adjustment . The possibility is considered that each suffix might individually affect the general semantic profile of nouns which it forms. A sample of first attributions from the Middle English Dictionary is an