Recategorization in the recursive formation of old english nouns and adjectives

The aim of this paper is to identify the types of recategorization that arise in the recursive formation of Old English nouns and adjectives by means of prefixation and suffixation. The first step of this analysis is to isolate the recursive adjectival and nominal formations, for which the lexical database of Old English Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) is used. Out of a total of nearly 7,500 affixed nouns and adjectives, there are 388 recursive formations. The main conclusion of this article is that recursivity in the formation of adjectives and nouns crucially depends on the noun as source category and the adjective as path category. As a general rule, the derivation proceeds as follows: noun > adjective > noun / adjective