Agent noun

In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, nomen agentis) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action.[1] For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive".[2]

Usually, derived in the above definition has the strict sense attached to it in morphology, that is the derivation takes as an input a lexeme (an abstract unit of morphological analysis) and produces a new lexeme. However, the classification of morphemes into derivational morphemes (see word formation) and inflectional ones is not generally a straightforward theoretical question, and different authors can make different decisions as to the general theoretical principles of the classification as well as to the actual classification of morphemes presented in a grammar of some language (for example, of the agent noun-forming morpheme).

Word formation

Polish agental affixes
-cz bieg-ać 'to run' bieg-acz 'runner'
-rz pis-ać 'to write' pis-arz 'writer'
-c †kraw-ać 'to cut' kraw-iec 'tailor'
-ca daw-ać 'to give' daw-ca 'giver'
-k pis-ać 'to write' pis-ak 'marker' (pen)
skak-ać 'to jump' skocz-ek 'jumper'
chodz-ić 'to walk' chodz-ik 'walker' (walking aid)
-l nos-ić 'to carry' nos-ic-iel 'carrier'
-y las 'forest'
leś-nik 'forester'
leś-nicz-y 'forester'

An agentive suffix is commonly used to form an agent noun from a verb. Examples:

See also

References

  1. "agent noun". Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. Retrieved December 11, 2014.
  2. Panther, Klaus-Uwe; Thornburg, Linda L.; Barcelona, Antonio (2009). Metonymy and metaphor in grammar 25. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 101. ISBN 90-272-2379-3.

External links

Look up agent noun in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Further reading


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, July 12, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.