Word-formation Types of the Old Germanic Abstract Nouns: Onomasiological and Cognitive Approach

The onomasiological and cognitive approach to word-formation is a method of linguistics that helps analyze how the conceptual level is specified by the WF component at the system level of language. The word-formation types of the Old Germanic abstract nouns understood as “derivational schemas” (Dirven, Verspoor, 1998), jointly represent a common schema or /and schemas of high level of abstraction. But taken separately, each word-formation type represents a semantic modification of the schema / schemas which is marked derivationally. It is argued that these are the derivational suffixes of abstract nouns that function as markers of some specific “shades” of meaning. A componential analysis of the suffixes’ reconstructed semantics results in a hypothesis of their primary semantic opposition.