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# How is "stickage" different from "sticking"? A study of the semantic behaviour of V-age and V-ing nominalisations (on monomorphemic bases)

Chris A. Smith

► To cite this version:

Chris A. Smith. How is "stickage" different from "sticking"? A study of the semantic behaviour of V-age and V-ing nominalisations (on monomorphemic bases). Laure Gardelle; Elise Mignot; Julie Neveux. Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface, Springer International Publishing, pp.445-475, 2024, 978-3-031-44560-6. 10.1007/978-3-031-44561-3_16. hal-04567161

HAL Id: hal-04567161

https://hal.science/hal-04567161v1

Submitted on 3 May 2024

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# How is *stickage* different from *sticking*? A study of the semantic behaviour of V-*age* and V-*ing* nominalisations (on monomorphemic bases)

Chris A. Smith

Université de Caen Normandie

CRISCO EA4255

## Abstract

This chapter aims to provide a combined lexicographic and corpus-based distributional semantic analysis of the competing nominalisations V-*age* and V-*ing*. The starting point is a diachronic study of V-*age* nominals using the historical Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in order to determine the diachronic evolution of this morphological pattern. A conceptual analysis of the dictionary definitions provides a semantic typology of V-*age* nouns, which we then compare with the considerably more frequent V-*ing* nouns. Following the lexicographic treatment which provides some competing pairs of V-*age* and V-*ing* nominals, such as *stickage* and *sticking*, we test the distributional semantic behaviour of a small sample V-*age* and V-*ing* pairs in order to identify their specificities in both diachronic and synchronic corpora. The continued co-existence of the low-frequency V-*age* nouns with high-frequency V-*ing* nouns remains of interest, showing that morphological productivity and life cycles of patterns are not simply a matter of competition, but rather one of lexical variety. The conclusions of this small-scale study confirm that the competition within the semantic space of nominalisations requires a fine-grained register specific corpus-based study which will provide a more accurate visualization of the “ecology” of these nominalisations to quote Rochelle Lieber.

# 1. Suffix background on V-*age*: basis for similarity with V-*ing*

## 1.1. Brief overview of *-age*

This chapter focuses on the 188 V-*age* nouns collected in the OED³ with a view to investigating the competition between V-*age* and V-*ing* nominalisations (*postage/ posting; shippage/shipping; pavage/paving; screwage/screwing*). As the 188 V-*age* nouns are mostly monomorphemic base nominalisations, this study will focus on the nominalisation of simplex monomorphemic bases. Initial findings in Smith (2018) showed that the pattern of *-age* derivation remains remarkably stable since its beginnings around 1200 until today, with a slight preference for denominal *-age* nouns over deverbal *-age* nouns. Three major findings stand out. *-Age* became productive in Middle English (ME) and became part of the so-called “polystratal” structure of ME with the borrowed suffix attaching to native bases and inducing the loss of some native suffixes in the process, as detailed in Cowie (1999: 34), Lloyd (2011), Iordachioaia and Werner (2018: 11):

<footnote n="1">¹ Building on Smith (2018) which studies 921 *-age* derivatives in the OED3.</footnote>
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1) so-called obsolete *-age* forms in the OED3 (*ownage, pavage*) are still in use or have re-emerged, showing the remarkable productivity and adaptability of *-age* forms over the centuries (also see Cowie 1999, Palmer 2009, Bauer 2013)

2) although nominalisations show a range of possible readings, *-age* words follow a reliable semantic pattern (fitting into four main categories of ACTION/RESULT/, TAX/RIGHTS/PAYMENT, STATUS, COLLECTION/ QUANTITY). There is a predictable relation between base word and derivative, which may be a factor in explaining the continued success of *-age* forms. Novel *-age* forms are frequently colloquial or slang, or domain-specific, i.e. of technical usage (*ownage, screwage*).

3) a usage-based case study using the enTenTen13² confirmed that *-age* forms appear non-ambiguous in context, they remain transparent in their relation to the base word. They also appear to be less likely to be lexicalized given this transparency (many unattested *-age* words appear to be in use, although infrequent). This means in context the reading is not ambiguous, despite the fact that *-age* nouns can have several different readings (referential and eventive).

We will now compare these findings to an analysis of the subset of 188 V-*age* words in the OED. The earliest V-*age* words in the OED<fnref n="3" /> are *pavage* 1376, *stowage* 1390, *falsage* 1400, *fraughtage* 1440, *alterage* 1450, *mockage* 1485, *lovage* 1489. Figure 1 shows the semantic category sense distribution of V-*age* nouns, in terms of raw output. It should be noted that the PROCESS category which is given as occurring in 18% of cases is underrepresented in the dictionary data, as this sense arguably occurs near-systematically in all V-*age* words.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Proportion of features for the 188 *Vage* words in the OED3</figcaption></figure>

If we then consider the sense distribution over time, the proportion of each feature shows some disparity over certain time periods. PAYMENT is clearly less productive post 1850. It should be noted that the PAYMENT sense is often tied to a historical context such as *rowage* [1589] or *housage* [1587], also see Lieber (2016: 62) who notes “this reading is rarely found and almost always archaic”. The OED entry for *rowage*, “A charge or duty levied for

<footnote n="2">² For more information on this web-based corpus, see Jakubicek et al. (2013)</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ There are some well-known issues with using dictionary evidence for morphological analysis covered in Culpeper and Clapham 1996, Durkin 2016. One issue is the over-representation of rare historical words such as *falsage* 1400. *Falsage* is given as V-*age* from the verb *false* 1225, originating from French “Old French *false-r*”. It is a rare and obsolete term used for “deceit, falsehood”, with no more than one token appearing in the entire OED (no tokens in the EHBC, the Project Gutenberg (PG) or the COHA).</footnote>
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rowing”, labels the sense obsolete, dating its usage from 1589 to 1826. According to Palmer (2009: 117) who compared historical productivity of nominal suffixes -ness, -cion, -ity, -age and -ment, “age experienced the lowest rate of growth relative to its peers. Even so, in every subperiod the suffix did appear in a number of new forms denoting financial transactions (such as taxes): coinage, groundage, stoppage, primage, quarterage, advowsonage, pawnage and soundage”. The RESULT sense is the most productive around 1600 and the most consistent (with the exception of 1700-1750)<fnref n="4" />. The OBJECT category shows a lot of variation, although this may be down to the treatment of the OED data given that QUANTITY (Quant)/ OBJECT (Obj) and RESULT senses were frequently difficult to disentangle.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. The diachronic distribution of the semantic categories of V-age</figcaption></figure>

We now turn to the evidence of competition between V-ing and V-age based on the data from the OED3.

## 1.2. Evidence of competition between V-age and V-ing in the OED3

The dictionary definitions and examples indicate that both eventive and referential readings are frequently found in the OED definitions for V-age forms. Rattage [1807] “now rare” is a good example of this dual reading, which can be interpreted as either polysemy, or underspecification. The noun *rattage* can be used to refer to the process or action of ratting, rats collectively (collective N), as well as the damage caused by rats (RESULT of V). Similarly, the noun *driftage* can refer to the action of drifting or the material which has drifted. The conceptual classification of senses based on the OED key words in the definitions and examples corresponds to a large extent to Lieber’s semantic categories (2016). The conceptual features are: OBJECT, ACTION/PROCESS, INSTRUMENT, RESULT, which correspond to the abstract eventive readings in line with E/R (Event and Result) nominalisations. Some examples are given in Table 1 below.

<table><tr><td>Object filter</td><td>floatage [1626] (ACT OF, OBJ “flotsam”) but not *floatings, sweeppage [1606], vs sweepings, wantage [1756], shippage [1611] (rare) (what is shipped, shipping, shipment)</td></tr></table>

<footnote n="4">⁴ This time period in the OED has been shown to be less well-covered than other periods (Culpeper & Clapham 1996, Smith 2020)</footnote>
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<table><caption>Table 1. The conceptual categories of V-age nouns in OED3</caption><tr><td>Action / PROCESS filter: the action, process or act of V (eventive reading)</td><td>All 188Vage</td></tr><tr><td>Instrument filter:</td><td>wrappage [1827], caulkage [1745], stuffage [1659] although given as N or V-age (see stuffing), seasonage [1716] vs seasoning</td></tr><tr><td>Result filter</td><td>mostly with V-ing competition, stealage 1769 (losses due to stealing) with a Quantity effect, scaffoldage/scaffolding, loppage/lopping, trimmage/trimmings, loppage/loppings, seedage 1610 / seeding (rare)</td></tr></table>

The OED gives multiple senses of V-age, with the senses OBJECT/INSTRUMENT/ RESULT being given for the same lexeme: pilferage [1626] (act of pilfering, pilfered goods), coverage [1912] (US): (ACT. OBJECT/RESULT of V). From these data, we can observe some degree of overlap with V-ing nouns for the OBJECT and RESULT categories. This suggests that -ing and -age may have entered into historical competition, with -age becoming productive in ME. As covered in Palmer (2009), the factors involved in productivity are the following: analysability, frequency and naturalisation issues (i.e. when does a non-native suffix become productive). What is not however immediately visible from the OED data is that V-age words are far less frequent in use. This is hinted at by the numerous “obsolete” or “rare” mentions in the definitions of -age words. However, a historical token frequency would allow us to verify just how frequent the usage of V-age has been over time, and provide more data to compare the usage of the nominalisations in context<fnref n="5" />. Using lexicographic sources is an asset as a preliminary step to assess potential classification of senses<fnref n="6" />, but we know that semantic and morphological behaviour is not limited to the lexeme but is context-dependent. As explained in Palmer (2009), a wider context usage-based approach is required to test the results. This approach will therefore be our next step, albeit based on a small number of case studies across several corpora. It should be noted that this study does not aim to be a systematic corpus study of competition between V-age and V-ing nouns, but rather aims to provide evidence of competition and to discuss what method may allow further in-depth investigation into affixal competition in English. Our purpose is therefore exploratory, applying a historical lexicographic conceptual analysis and testing it on diachronic corpus data

## 1.3. Evidence of similarity: Hybridity of the bases: waterage

The OED data show there is some evidence of eventive shift due to base ambiguity from N to V. Waterage is given as N-age [1677] (OED) only in the sense payment, without an eventive sense given that it appears as denominal rather than deverbal. The token found in OEC in (1)

<footnote n="5">⁵ A possible hypothesis is that -age nouns have a more specific, often technical reading. The hypothesis of technicality needs to be investigated, as does the token frequency since this parameter is a major factor in explaining affix rivalry and productivity (see Sylvester et al. forthcoming).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ There is also the issue of whether the semantic categories can be considered as stable: Cowie (1999: 189) underlines that semantic behaviours of nominalisations need to be stable, and that it may not be possible “to isolate one primary or prior semantic category”, although she concludes that -ness and -ity appear to have a diachronic shift in behaviour.</footnote>
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sees *waterage* in usage alongside the concrete *-ing* nominal *grazings* with the sense access to a quantity of water. Both have a LOCATION sense (places to graze and places to get water)

(1) In most cases the Bedouin dam the main wadi and deflect the flood of the winter rains to the place they wish to cultivate. In the majority of cases the Arab prefers to wander from place to place with his flock of goats or sheep seeking new grazings and *waterage*. (OEC)

No occurrences are found in the COCA or COHA of *waterage*, making this usage likely a hapax legomena (no tokens in enTenTen13), in other words a sign of the enduring productivity of *-age*.

**1.4. Hypothesis of V-ing / V-age competition**

The observation of V-*age* nouns shows that the derivative can stem from any sense of the base word, meaning that different senses are not attributable to semantic shift in the derivative but are related to the reading of the base. This confirms that the derivative remains stable, in the sense that the pattern remains retrievable (as shown in Smith 2018)<fnref n="7" />. Take for instance the noun *stickage* from the OED definitions: the deverbal noun *stickage* produces two distinct senses which do not appear directly related but rather a product of separate deverbal affixation from two different senses of the verb *stick*. *Stickage* is attested in 1647 in the obsolete rare sense “hesitation, reluctance, delay” and can be directly correlated to the sense *stick* [1535] “stop in perplexity, be unable to progress, find an answer”. On the other hand, *stickage* attested in 1726 in the sense “tendency to jam” can be correlated with the sense of *stick* [1635] “to become lodged, mired, unable to move, jammed”.

So, what then is the difference between the behaviours of *sticking* and *stickage*? Could it be a question of + eventive reading for *-ing*, and + Quantity/measure reading for *-age* (as suggested in Lieber 2016)? The concrete reading of *-age* nouns might trigger a Quantity /measure interpretation, even in comparison with the concrete reading of *sticking* (if there is a concrete reading of *sticking*, which does not appear to be the case). A search for *stickage* and *sticking* in several corpora shows the issues of corpus-based approaches, and in particular the availability of data. There are 0 tokens of *stickage* and *sticking* in the COCA when a PoS filter is used, although *sticking* without a part of speech (PoS) filter has 12,729 – essentially verbal occurrences. In the OEC, there are 3 occurrences of *stickage* all stemming from the same context given in (2)<fnref n="8" /> and 18 tokens of the noun *sticking* as exemplified in the eventive use of *sticking* in (3).

(2) Here's the deal: as long as you two are still, technically, a couple – even one on hold – *you* are still entitled to some degree of say in the situation. When one half of a couple needs “space”, the other half should assume position at Ground Control. Request – and demand *stickage* to, on both of your parts – some guidelines: What level of “space” does *s/he* need?

(3) Recently, the police have dusted up the provisions regarding the *sticking* of posters in the city, something which was expressly prohibited by a new law over a decade ago.

<footnote n="7">⁷ This also appears to be consistent with the conclusions on *-ing* nominalisations in Lieber 2016, and Fonteyn and Hartmann 2016, see section 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ From an advice column blog (1998).</footnote>
In contrast, enTenTen13 has 46 tokens of *stickage*, many of which refer to beer stickage as in (4) or cooking as in (5).

(4) The head recedes at a medium pace, leaving fare *stickage* on the glass and a ring of bubbles along the glass wall. The beer is a cloudy honey color with very little debris, which happens to remain at the bottom of the bottle.

(5) I take out some anti-stick insurance by rubbing down the grill grates right over the fire with just a little bit of vegetable oil on a towel. Move fast. There might be a little bit of flame, but it'll be okay. I also insure against *stickage* by dabbing just a little bit of oil across all of the polenta on both sides, and I already did the first side.

From these uses, it does appear that *V-ing* is eventive (for *sticking*), whereas *V-age* (*stickage*) is more fully nominalised, being disconnected from the event itself and referring to the resulting state of the event (“the amount of stick”, or “the amount of food that has remained stuck in the pan”). It is true that *-age* is not naturally a verb nominaliser, so the nominalising reading is likely a development of the *N-age* structure, which may then continue to activate a material feature/trait. This would mean that *V-age* can never be 100% eventive (no subject, no direct complementation) and acts as a fully nominalised noun (with postmodification and determination). The hypothesis is that *-age* is resultative quantity rather than purely eventive, but this requires a more in-depth usage-based study, which we will turn to next, after a brief consideration of the background on nominalisations.

## 2. Affixal nominalisation competition

### 2.1 Background on nominalisations

For Lieber (2016: 3), “Nominalisations are complex nouns derived from verbs, adjectives and other nouns”, although the term *nominalisation* is sometimes used more strictly to exclude denominal formations. In this paper we will focus on deverbal *V-ing* and *V-age* affixal nominalisations. *-Ing* nominalisations have been widely researched in the past (Lees 1960, Chomsky 1970) and the present (Alexiadou 2013, Lieber 2016, Andreou and Lieber 2019). It is well known (Grimshaw 1990, Bauer *et al.* 2013, Lieber 2016: 6) that nominalisations can usually have dual meanings, either referential or eventive. *-Ing* nominalisation specifically appears to be the default means of nominalisation in English: all verbs, with the exception of modals, can take an *-ing* nominalisation, even if they may also take other types of nominalisations, including conversion nouns (such as *swim* or *read*) and non-native nominalisations (like *-ment*, *-ation*), as explained by Bauer *et al.* (2013: 207) who present *-ing* nominalisations as being stable, or predictable:

> All non-modal verbs exhibit *-ing* nominalizations. Nominalisations in *-ing* characteristically display eventive readings and are less prone to lexicalisation or semantic drift, although there are a few that exhibit result, product, or means interpretation [...] (Bauer *et al.* 2013: 207)

Although *-ing* is primarily associated with eventing readings, *V-ing* can also be interpreted as non-eventive in some circumstances, with a number of possible concrete readings proposed in Bauer *et al.* (2003: 209)<fnref n="9" />. Nonetheless, the result reading is said to be the most frequently

<footnote n="9">⁹ Non-eventive interpretations can take a number of forms, among them results (the outcome of *V-ing*), product (the thing or stuff that is created or comes into being by *V-ing*), instrument (the thing that *V-s*, a way of *V-ing*),</footnote>
encountered and so is “the default non-eventive meaning” (Bauer *et al.* 2013: 212). Lieber (2016: 6) points out that non-eventive readings should not be viewed as an exceptional or unusual trait due to lexicalisation. The co-existence of multiple readings should be viewed as a property of nominalisations and should be taken into account in an explanation of the semantic “chameleon-like” behaviour of deverbal nouns:

> Derived nouns that typically express collectives (pottery, acreage) can be found in contexts where they have E/R readings (the media's coverage of the tragedy, the mayor's bribery of the officer) or location readings (orphanage, nunnery), among others. Such overlap cannot be dismissed as rare, exceptional, or even as the random effect of lexicalization – this sort of chameleon-like behavior is both productive and pervasive, as I will try to show. (Lieber 2016: 6)

The question is whether the semantic instability (eventive to non-eventive) is purely contextual and predictable. While Bauer *et al.* (2013: 206) “assume that nominalisations typically display a range of meanings” due to combined effects of the semantic interaction of the base and the context, Lieber (2016) argues that interpretation cannot be purely contextual: “Syntactic context plays its part in determining meanings, but the meaning of nominalisations is unlikely to be reducible to their syntax”. Following Hanks’s theory of norms and exploitations (2013), which posits that there is no fixed predetermined meaning, Lieber (2016: 180) claims that nominalisation is associated with a set of behaviours (or “meaning potentials” for Hanks 2013) that are triggered in context, or “constructed” in context:

> I have argued that the “meaning potential” of complex nouns is what is formally constructed (and perhaps stored) in the mental lexicon – the skeleton and body of base, affix, and possibly of the complex word as a whole. The other part of meaning, what I have been calling “reading,” is what comes about in the context of a sentence or even of an entire discourse. This part of meaning is operationalised in LSF as the filling in of the underspecified portions of the skeleton and the coindexation of arguments. (Lieber 2016: 183)

Despite the resemblances, *-age* and *-ing* are treated separately in Bauer *et al.* (2013); *-ing* belongs to the chapter on “derived nouns: event, state, result”, whereas *-age* is treated in the chapter devoted to “derived nouns: quality, collective and other abstracts”. Although *-age* is said to attach to both nominal and verbal bases, it is admittedly “difficult to tell whether their bases are nominal or verbal”. Lieber (2016: 136) agrees that *-age* generally forms collectives, but also nominalisations that may bear E/R behaviour or location readings. It seems therefore to be a good starting point for a comparison between the behaviour of *V-ing* and *V-age* nouns, given that they are both potentially event-referring, result-referring, or referring to any participant in the event (location, agent, instrument etc.)<fnref n="10" />. Lieber (2016) proposes the following reading for *stoppage*, where base and affix features are coindexed to produce a more accurate reading of the semantic structure of the resulting noun:

<footnote>location (the place of *V-ing*), agents (people or person who *V-s*), measure terms (how much is *V-ed*), paths (the direction of *V-ing*), patients (thing *V-ed*, thing affected or moved but not created by *V-ing*), states (the state of *V-ing* or being *V-ed*), and what might be called instances (an instance of *V-ing*).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Lieber uses her signature LS feature analysis based on a set of basic semantic features which allow her to form a behavioural pattern, which are called a “skeleton”: +/- material, +/- dynamic, +/- IEPS (inferable eventual position or state = path), +/- Loc, +/- Bounded, +/- CI (Composed of Individuals), +/- scalar. Lieber (2016: 138) concludes that *-age* (and -ery) nouns have the following features: [α material, β dynamic, +B, +CI ([R], <base>)] (with *material* and *dynamic* being variables) which then must be coindexed with the base skeleton to obtain a narrow reading of the semantic effect.</footnote>
a. [ɑ material, +dynamic, +B, +CI ([R-i ], [+dynamic, +IEPS ([i ])]))

-age

stop

## 2.2. Shift from eventive to concrete: stability vs shift

Some, such as Bauer *et al.* (2013), have claimed that *-ing* is more resistant to semantic change, contrary to other nominalisations which tend to see the resulting nominalisation become increasingly nominal, losing its eventive/situational readings and becoming referential. Fonteyn and Hartmann (2016: 2) argue that “nominal gerunds in English, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, have undergone a semantic drift towards more ‘nouny’ construal variants” in opposition with the conclusions from other studies that indicate that *-ing* is less prone to change than other nominalisers (Demske 2002)<fnref n="11" />. Bauer *et al.* (2013: 208) conclude that *-ing* nominalisations “characteristically display eventive [i.e. verb-like] readings and are less prone to (...) semantic drift” than other nominalisation strategies in English such as zero-affixation, and related patterns in other languages, like German *-ung* nominalisation (see also Demské 2002). The admission is that these features are not exhaustive (2016: 94-95), given that there is evidence of eventive to non-eventive shift in German *-ung* nouns. Fonteyn and Hartman (2016: 11)<fnref n="12" /> propose a method to show the shift in *-ing* nominals and conclude that the results show that *-ing* nouns do behave increasingly referentially with non-eventing readings. These non-eventive readings of *-ing* are natural semantic extensions of the eventive reading (Fonteyn and Hartmann 2016: 3)<fnref n="13" /> which evolved from individual word extension into natural extensions of the pattern itself via metaphor and metonymy. Fonteyn (2018: 12) restates the conclusions reached in Fonteyn and Hartmann (2016) that “there is a growing proportion of non-eventive *ing*-nominals in Modern English, and within the eventive group the proportion of process-oriented (or atelic) and result oriented (or telic) nominal gerunds remains (relatively) stable over time.” Furthermore, the role of competition on the diachronic development of *-ing* is crucially explained by morphophonological resemblance and frequency of usage. This means that any study of competition requires a usage-based approach “to consider the observed stability or change against the background of a wide range of phonologically and semantically related constructions”.

## 2.3. Comparing the historical trajectories of *pavage* and *paving*

One of the earliest *-age* words attested in the OED is the noun *pavage*. The OED3 entry for *pavage* 1376 gives several senses: the first emerging sense is that of “paved ground”, the resultative sense given as “obsolete”; the second sense attested in 1533 is the ACTION sense “laying down paving” (historical); the tax sense is attested in 1450 (“a tax or toll towards paving”). This can be compared with the earlier noun *paving* attested in 1352 (“action of paving”), 1440 (“materials used” INSTRUMENT), and finally 1448 for the resultative sense of “paved ground”. This diachronic trajectory shows that several senses of *pavage* and *paving* coincide, although the attestation dates vary (but as we know, attestation dates are at best approximate). The question that remains (following Palmer 2009) is whether the potential

<footnote n="11">¹¹ “No such nominalization process is attested with *ing*-nouns in the history of English” (Demske 2002: 88).</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² “In fact, in the final Late Modern period (L2, 1780–1850), the nominal *ing*-construction is most often used with non-eventive semantics.”</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ These new meanings were acquired through the semantic extension mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy (cf. Panther and Thornburg 2001; Booij 2010: 78), going from the default prototypical meaning of ‘situation’ or ‘event’ to derived meanings such as concrete locations, objects, and even agents involved in these situations (Hartmann 2014a, 2014b, 2014c).</footnote>
synonyms *pavage* and *paving* were indeed both available at the same time to refer to RESULT OF V "paved ground". The OED only produces one token of this sense in (6), suggesting it may have been a rare use:

(6) c1376 in E. W. W. Veale *Great Red Bk. Bristol: Text Pt. II* (1938) 56 (*MED*) The Chamburleyns of Bristow... stonde charged with all suche ordenary and necessary reparacions of the seid londz, rentez and tenementez... Pavage and condytes.

*Pavage* is not found in the COCA, but 6 tokens are found in the EHBC, all with the legal sense of PAYMENT/ TAX, as can be seen in the nature and style of (7) and (8), 1 token in the Project Gutenberg (henceforth PG) in (9) with the sense PAYMENT/TAX:

(7) That the Citizens of London fhall be for ever acquitted of *pavage*, portage, and murrage, through all the Kings Dominions, lib. alb. fol. 36. b, c. Anno 12.

(8) And lastly, that they the said Mayor, Bayliffs and Commonalty, with all the Inhabitants of this City, should be free from Toll, passage, pontage, murage, and *pavage*, for all their goods and merchandize throughout the whole Realm of England and Ireland, and enjoy whatsoever privileges and franchises they or any of their predecessours had used to do.

(9) [...] all citizens of the said city of Londonderry and liberty of the same (as much as in us is) be for ever quit [pg 168] and free, and all their things throughout all Ireland, of all tolls, wharfage, murage, anchorage, beaconage, *pavage*, pontage, piccage, stallage, passage, and lestage, and of all other tolls and duties.

A search for the noun *paving* (with part of speech – PoS – filter) produced 213 tokens in the EHBC, although only 138 occurrences are found with the word sketch search for the noun *paving*: the tokens have both a resultative or eventive reading in (10), (11) and (12):

(10) Yea the *paving* of their ftreetes is fuch, being much of it bricke laid edge-wife, as doth vvitneſſe the generall willingneſſe of their hearts to advance any publique worke either for neceſſarie vſe or ornament [...]

(11) On the ſide of the ciferne, was a table charged with veſſell of Chriſtall and Agath, filled with ſweet waters of all forts, with bafons of the fame, and great ſtore of linnen clothes to ſerve againſt comming forth of the bath: the *paving* of the chamber was of quarries of marble, and porphry of ſeverall faſhions.

(12) UNDER the new wooden buildings of William Byron, at the Fly-market ſlip—the ſtores of John Jackſon, and thoſe on the eſtate of Leffert Lefferts, at the lower end of Fletcher ſtreet (which ſtreet requires raſing and *paving*, being at preſent a perfect mud-hole).

To test the questions posed in the preliminary study, and in order to take into account the historical usage of V-ing and V-age words, Section 3 will now focus on a sample corpus study using several corpora (the COCA, COHA, EHBC, OEC, PG and enTenTen13). Following the OED data on several -age nouns, we carry out a collexeme analysis using a distributional semantic analysis. This method is used on a large scale by Perek (2016) to track diachronic change, however we will use the method on a small sample of nominalisation competitors in order to test the validity of the lexicographic approach to competition.
**3. Corpus analysis case study of V-age and V-ing: frequency and distributional semantics**

The assumptions and questions we seek to provide answers for are the following: what are the differences in usage of *V-ing* and *V-age* pairs? Is it a question of eventive versus quantity reading? Has the payment feature evolved into the QUANTITY feature? Is *-age* less eventive than *-ing*? Is *V-age* of a more informal register (as suggested in Cowie 1999, as we shall see)? The consensus is that *V-ing* is less frequently non-eventive than *V-age*. To test this, we look at several lexicalised concrete-referring *-ing* nouns without *-age* rivals<fnref n="14" />. By *lexicalised*, we mean words and senses that are registered in the dictionary (OED), and have become semantically stabilised; also, depending on the date of lexicalisation, some may have become fossilised, in the sense that they become unanalysable relics of Middle English (ME) or even Old English (OE).

**3.1. Lexicalised V-ing versus V-age**

Based on the OED data, there are cases of non-eventive/resultative *-ing* nouns that do not have *-age* competitors. When this happens, it is a fossilised use of *V-ing*, such as *washing*, *clothing*, *heating*, *mooring*. Take the noun *washing* first attested in 1225: its first concrete sense in the OED is registered as early as 1330, and its now frequent result sense is attested in 1843 referring to “clothing that is washed”. The rival noun *washage* is indeed unattested in the OED confirming this potential bias in favour of the highly frequent fossilised *V-ing* noun. Despite the absence of a lexicalized competitor, it is necessary to enquire whether *washage* is altogether blocked or whether even rare or sporadic attestations can be found, enabling us to test the productivity of *V-age*. A corpus search confirms the existence, and the infrequency of *washage*: enTenTen13 provides 4 occurrences of *washage*, which appear to have an eventive reading as seen in (13) where *washage* appears as an informal synonym of earlier *wash*:

(13) Some of the cars are in desperate need of a wash and/or wax, but that's simply not going to be possible. The following weekend promises to be busy too, but I think there's a much better chance of getting *washage* done then...

As for the lexicalised noun *clothing* [1175], it is given as *V-ing* in OED3, has an eventive sense registered 1175, and a concrete collective sense attested around 1275 for ‘clothes collectively’. *Clothing* appears to be essentially concrete and non-eventive, and the rival **clothage* (N-age or V-age) appears unacceptable and unattested. This is potentially due to the high frequency and entrenchment<fnref n="15" /> (see Arppe et al. 2010, Schmid 2020) of the mass noun *clothing*, and its rare use as an event nominaliser, thereby constraining any competing formations. The absence of tokens of *clothage* in enTenTen13 appears to further support this proposal. The hypothesis here is based on the theory that highly entrenched lexical forms with no competitors tend to remain very stable in their meaning and are more resistant to loan words (Durkin 2014) since they occupy a prime position in the system “ecology” (to use Lieber’s analogy).

*Heating* (*V-ing*) has a concrete sense as well as an eventive reading, but no corresponding *heatage* is attested in the OED. However, *heatage* is a potential candidate for a V/N-*age* reading. A corpus search shows no hits in all 4 corpora, although enTenTen13 provides one

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ There are of course also many lexicalised and fossilised concrete-referring *V-age* nouns that do not have *V-ing* competitors such as *luggage* 1596.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ Arppe et al. (2010: 10): “[t]he usage-based hypothesis assumes that there is a connection between the usage frequency of linguistic structures and their degree of cognitive routinisation”.</footnote>
single use, part of a list of technical terms for metal etching plates in (14), used alongside
other technical terminology often directly taken from French (*soufflage*, *frottage*, *collage*):

(14) Harold Paris taught me this. I was also reading about various automatic drawing techniques used to move imagery away from conscious control. These procedures have colorful names like collage, frottage, soufflage, *heatage*, étrécissements, decalcomania, cubomania, coulage, etc. Fumage is the term for techniques using smoke.

The noun *stuffing* [1533] is also lexicalised in reference to the concrete OBJECT/RESULT in cooking; this has not blocked the formation of the later *stuffage* [1659] (given as N or V-*age*), last used in OED 1963 (see citations from the OED in (15) and (16)).

(15) 1943 *Aeronautics* Jan. 34/1 An aeroplane should be stripped for action and not a *stuffage* of gadgets.

(16) 1963 C. Roberts *Buried Books* 13 The discarded papyrus MS used as *stuffage* for the binding cannot conceivably be later.

The token frequency of *stuffage* is low; it has no hits in the EHBC, as opposed to 162 for *stuffing*. There are 4 tokens in the OEC for *stuffage*, as in (17), which are from internet-related and video game blogs, in a colloquial slang register.

(17) The DOOM Movie IGN has a new video from the upcoming Doom Movie which shows some Behind-the-scenes *stuffage*. The film begins as something goes wrong at a remote scientific research station on Mars.

A similar pattern occurs with the lexicalised *saving* [1387]/*saveage* [1507] (rare) which refers to “the action of saving something; (also) property which has been saved from fire, etc” as illustrated by (18) and (19) from the OED.

(18) 1873 *Fort Wayne (Indiana)* *Gaz.* 17 Mar. 1/5 On the above amount there will doubtless be quite a per centage *saveage*, as a large portion of the goods were removed from several of the stores and offices.

(19) 1999 L. A. Gilman & J. Sherman *Visitors* xiv. 148 It's not like I mind it when saving the world trashes my social life... But when there's no world *saveage*, then it becomes seriously unfine.

(19) shows that *saveage* is used as head of a compound noun, whereas *saving* could not assume this position and would require PP complementation “saving of the world’. (18) illustrates the quantity/ measurement triggering of the *-age* derivative ‘amount / area of goods saved’, where *saving* cannot take on this effect. The hypothesis is that lexicalised forms (*heating* for instance) may behave differently as they are more entrenched. Studies have shown that entrenched lexical items are less likely to have competitors, as Zenner *et al.* (2014: 89) point out: “The basic hypothesis is that the higher the concept frequency, the more people talk about the concept, the more entrenched/core it is, the less success the loanword will have” (also see Schmid 2020 for a theory of entrenchment).

**3.2. Non fossilised behaviours of V-ing / V-age**

Let us now examine a non-fossilised, and therefore less entrenched, -ing nominalisation such as *spotting: spotting* is less stable as it may refer to to the act of V, or the result of V, thus illustrating the multiple readings of a non-opacified V-ing form. V-age formation should be possible, even if not necessarily attested; ?*spottage* is not attested although arguably acceptable. The EHBC, COHA, OEC and COCA produce no results, but the use is attested in
enTenTen13, with a very small number of uses of *spottage*, indicating that these are likely spontaneous formations showing the productivity of the *-age* formation. Psycholinguistic research would be required to test this hypothesis, in the absence of corpus data. The 5 uses of *spottage* in enTenTen13 illustrate the variation in readings. There is an eventive sense in (21) 'act of spotting signals', a concrete collective sense in (20) 'the size of the spots' and in (22) a hybrid sense 'amount of spotting, also act of spotting' (from tooth whitening drops).

(20) Head here if you fancy trying some out for yourself. I always need spots. I haven't bought these Oliver & S City Weekend dots before, but they will be perfect for Gerry and Steve. I wasn't totally sure when I ordered them that the *spottage* wasn't a tad small, but I gambled on them being nice and they are. (enTenTen13) http://blueberry-park.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/its-downright-horrible-here-today-and.html

(21) Now I don't know if this bumper crop of signal *spottage* was simply serendipity or was due to my signal frame of mind (was driving out to pick up a mystery signal artifact) and heightened signalsense. http://blog.signaltraffic.com/index.php?paged=2

(22) In fact, if you leave them in there long enough, they will eventually turn into almost a total gel. They actually weld on to your teeth which seems to me would be good for overall coverage and less *spottage*? http://www.whitestripsdirect.co.uk/review/product/view/id/1511/

As far as motivations for innovation go, neologising does not principally fill a gap (also see
Sylvester *et al.* 2020 on lexical innovation<fnref n="16" />), but rather can provide an alternative in a
specific register, in particular slang. Cowie (1999: 44-45) remarks “that some word-formation
processes may become markers of non-standard dialect”, specifically using *-age* words as
illustrations of this (*foodage*, *tapeage*). According to Cowie (1999: 52), register is a variable
for nominalisations: “one of the many common linguistic features which differ in frequency
across register is nominal forms (nouns, nominalizations, gerunds).” In the following section
we will investigate some V-ing/ V-age alternations from a historical perspective, using
several corpora (the EHBC, COHA, OEC and COCA) for comparison.

3.3. Historical competition: *wreck, wreckage, wrecking*

A number of related morphological forms can potentially coexist or compete historically. One example is the noun *wreck* [1077], and the forms *wreckage* [1837] and *wrecking* [1775]. All three nouns have the ability to be event-referring. However, *wrecking* appears never to be used with concrete reading, possibly due to the existence of two early strongly entrenched forms: the noun *wreck* which preexists any nominalisation, and the *-age* derivative *wreckage*. A closer look at the OED entries and senses tells us the following: 1) the derivative *wreckage* [1837] is given as V-*age* with an eventive sense; 2) a concrete sense is attested in the OED as early as 1846 referring to a vessel: “Fragments or remains of a shattered or wrecked vessel; wreck”. This sense then undergoes extension around 1874 to refer to other

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ “Our final main finding is that there seems to be no link between levels of French borrowing in any given domain and the number of words per sense, either across that domain as whole or at individual CLs. This again suggests that it is not the case that borrowing fills perceived gaps in the lexicon. It also appears to confirm that lexicalisation is a function of speakers’ needs: where a term is richly lexicalised it is further enriched by borrowing and where there is a small amount of vocabulary, speakers do not seek to amplify it by drawing on available foreign-language material.” (Sylvester *et al.* 2020)</footnote>
locations/structures: “Material of or from a wrecked or shattered structure; a ruined fabric, building, etc.”

The formation of this derivative may seem surprising, as does the semantic shift, because it does not fill a gap. There is no need for the nominalisation *wreckage* given the preexistence of the simplex noun *wreck* [1077] (< Anglo-Norman *wrec*, *wrech*, *wrek* (also *werec*, *waerec*, *warec*, whence French *varech*, *varec* *varec* n.), < Old Norse *wrec*). Wreck n. [1077] refers to “something that is wrecked or destroyed, and related uses.” The noun *wreck* is attested much later in 1744 as a mass noun and a synonym of the later *wreckage*. This example clearly shows that other morphosemantic processes are at stake, with multiple diachronic forms coming into existence, such as N>V conversion and -age derivation. The formation history shows that the simplex noun *wreck* gave rise to the verb *wreck* and then from there the derivative *wreckage*: *wreck* n [1077]→ *wreck* v [1420] → *wreckage* n [1837].

A corpus analysis will help us determine frequency of usage: the EHBC for *wreckage* has no tokens, which confirms the later date of attestation of *wreckage*. The EHBC has 1,485 tokens for *wreck* noun, mostly for *shipwreck*. Since no comparison can be made based on the EHBC which predates the emergence of *wreckage*, the PG can afford more information. The collocate comparison in the PG shows that *wreckage* is far less frequent than the long-used noun *wreck*, with 7,028 versus 966 tokens.

<table><caption>Table 2. The compared collexemes of *wreckage* and *wreck* in the PG</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="4">"wreckage/wreck" and/or ...</th><th colspan="4">verbs with "wreckage/wreck" as object</th><th colspan="4">verbs with "wreckage/wreck" as subject</th></tr><tr><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>body</td><td>8</td><td>0</td><td>0.3</td><td>—</td><td>smoulder</td><td>3</td><td>0</td><td>5.5</td><td>—</td><td>float</td><td>9</td><td>9</td><td>3.8</td><td>3.8</td></tr><tr><td>beach</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>2.5</td><td>scatter</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>2</td><td>1.9</td><td>drive</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>0.1</td></tr><tr><td>corps</td><td>0</td><td>6</td><td>—</td><td>3.3</td><td>strew</td><td>4</td><td>6</td><td>4.2</td><td>4.5</td><td>lay</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>—</td><td>0.2</td></tr><tr><td>cruise</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>4.9</td><td>cause</td><td>5</td><td>14</td><td>1.1</td><td>2.6</td><td>roll</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>1.4</td></tr><tr><td>disaster</td><td>0</td><td>14</td><td>—</td><td>4.9</td><td>float</td><td>3</td><td>10</td><td>2.2</td><td>3.8</td><td>disappear</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>1.5</td></tr><tr><td>wreck</td><td>0</td><td>12</td><td>—</td><td>5.2</td><td>clear</td><td>6</td><td>22</td><td>2.9</td><td>4.7</td><td>happen</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>—</td><td>1.8</td></tr><tr><td>loafer</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>5.4</td><td>mangle</td><td>0</td><td>5</td><td>—</td><td>5.5</td><td>lie</td><td>0</td><td>25</td><td>—</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>ruin</td><td>0</td><td>52</td><td>—</td><td>5.6</td><td>dismantle</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>—</td><td>5.5</td><td>clear</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>—</td><td>2.3</td></tr><tr><td>ferryman</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>6</td><td>splinter</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>—</td><td>5.5</td><td>discharge</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>2.9</td></tr><tr><td>snag</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>—</td><td>6.4</td><td>plunder</td><td>0</td><td>12</td><td>—</td><td>5.8</td><td>occur</td><td>0</td><td>15</td><td>—</td><td>3.1</td></tr><tr><td>sandbar</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>6.4</td><td>survive</td><td>0</td><td>49</td><td>—</td><td>6.8</td><td>drift</td><td>0</td><td>5</td><td>—</td><td>3.4</td></tr><tr><td>sawyer</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>6.5</td><td>strand</td><td>0</td><td>18</td><td>—</td><td>7.5</td><td>encumber</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>—</td><td>5.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

A collexeme comparison using Sketch Engine provides an overview of the shared significant collocates of both nouns. Table 2 provides the list of significant collocates favoured by *wreck* and the collocates favoured by *wreckage* in three lexicogrammatical positions. These lexicogrammatical positions are, from left to right: *wreckage* AND/OR X (such as *wreckage* and *disaster*), V + *wreckage*<sub>object</sub>, and *wreckage*<sub>subject</sub> +V. Note that further lexicogrammatical positions may also be pertinent for the analysis of nouns, such as the premodifier position of *wreck/wreckage* (*vicious*<sub>premodifier</sub> *wreckage*), or prepositional phrase (PP) compliment position (*wreckage* of X), which we will develop on.

The figures in each column provide the number of occurrences with *wreckage* (Freq 1 and Score 1), and then with *wreck* (Frequency 2 and Score 2). Frequency refers to the total number of co-occurrences of the target with the collocate, and Score refers to the LogDice measure of significance of the cooccurrence. Unsurprisingly the lack of data for *wreckage* creates an imbalance in the collocate list which favours *wreck*.

If we take the same approach and consider the contemporary OEC corpus (2000-2006), the frequency statistics show the noun *wreck* remains more frequent than the nominalisation *wreckage*.
<table><caption>Table 3. The compared collexemes of *wreckage* and *wreck* in the OEC</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="4">and/or</th><th colspan="4">V obj N*</th><th colspan="4">V obj2 N*</th></tr><tr><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th><th>Freq 1</th><th>Freq 2</th><th>Score 1</th><th>Score 2</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>rubble</td><td>12</td><td>0</td><td>7.5</td><td>— strew</td><td>33</td><td>0</td><td>7.7</td><td>— call</td><td>0</td><td>6</td><td>—</td><td>1.3</td></tr><tr><td>remains</td><td>8</td><td>0</td><td>6.6</td><td>— comb</td><td>28</td><td>0</td><td>7.5</td><td>— make</td><td>0</td><td>29</td><td>—</td><td>2.4</td></tr><tr><td>corpse</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>6.5</td><td>— pile</td><td>18</td><td>0</td><td>6.6</td><td>— leave</td><td>0</td><td>33</td><td>—</td><td>6.1</td></tr><tr><td>survivor</td><td>9</td><td>0</td><td>5.9</td><td>— sift</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>6</td><td>—</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>debris</td><td>20</td><td>5</td><td>6.8</td><td>4.6 survey</td><td>123</td><td>20</td><td>7.4</td><td>4.7</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>ruin</td><td>6</td><td>9</td><td>6</td><td>6.3 inspect</td><td>42</td><td>11</td><td>6.4</td><td>4.3</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>coral</td><td>0</td><td>8</td><td>—</td><td>6.5 salvage</td><td>8</td><td>22</td><td>5.3</td><td>6.5</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Springs</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>—</td><td>6.7 lie</td><td>0</td><td>22</td><td>—</td><td>5.4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>diving</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>—</td><td>6.8 sink</td><td>0</td><td>20</td><td>—</td><td>5.6</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>dive</td><td>0</td><td>12</td><td>—</td><td>7 fish</td><td>0</td><td>9</td><td>—</td><td>5.6</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>wreck</td><td>0</td><td>10</td><td>—</td><td>7.2 photograph</td><td>0</td><td>20</td><td>—</td><td>5.8</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>reef</td><td>0</td><td>70</td><td>—</td><td>9.3 dive</td><td>0</td><td>194</td><td>—</td><td>10.2</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

In Table 3, the collocate rankings in both and/or position and V taking *wreck/ wreckage* as objects positions<fnref n="17" /> confirm that the more frequent *wreck* favours water-related circumstances. As previously, the figures in each column provide the number of co-occurrences with *wreckage* (Freq 1 and Score 1), and then with *wreck* (Frequency 2 and Score 2). Collexemes of *wreck* in predicate position are *lie*, *sink*, *fish*, *dive*. However, the concordance shows some errors in tagging as some cases are in fact PP premodifiers rather than verbs, such as ... *sunk wrecks*, or V subject reversals as in (23). AND/OR collocates are *diving coral*, *dive*, *reef*, suggesting that *wreck* is frequently associated with water-related contexts as in (24):

(23) Just off the shore here **lies the wreck** of the Superior Producer. DiverNet.com: Travel (2004)

(24) There are **too many wrecks and scenic dives** to go through one by one. DiverNet.com: Travel (2004)

On the other hand, the less frequent *wreckage* tends to favour collocates indicative of destruction, disintegration of buildings or vehicles. The collexemes *debris/rubble/remains/deaths* are found significantly in AND/OR distribution with *wreckage*, while *strew/comb/pile/sift* appear significantly as verbs taking *wreckage* as object, confirming a destruction context.

As for *wrecking* n, the OEC has 109 tokens, and the collexeme analysis shows that the usage of *wrecking* is mostly in line with the eventive reading (the deliberate process of wrecking):

<table><caption>Table 4. The collexemes of *wrecking* in AND/OR position in the OEC</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="3">and/or</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>Freq</th><th>Score</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>salvage</td><td>1</td><td>5.9</td></tr><tr><td>dumping</td><td>1</td><td>5.3</td></tr><tr><td>sabotage</td><td>1</td><td>4.6</td></tr><tr><td>burning</td><td>1</td><td>4.5</td></tr><tr><td>killing</td><td>1</td><td>2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Green</td><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>bomb</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ The notations used by Sketch Engine for the word sketch search can vary from corpus to corpus, however the positions indicate the same lexicogrammatical information.</footnote>
This is confirmed by the collexemes in the premodifier position (collexeme X modifies N, such as *vicious wrecking*, *needless wrecking*), many of which suggest malicious deliberate action of destruction (either physical or figurative):

<table><caption>Table 5. The collexemes of *wrecking* in premodifier position in the OEC</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="3">X mod N*</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>Freq</th><th>Score</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>near-complete</td><td>1</td><td>6.8</td></tr><tr><td>unilateralist</td><td>1</td><td>5.8</td></tr><tr><td>gleeful</td><td>1</td><td>4.7</td></tr><tr><td>vengeful</td><td>1</td><td>4.1</td></tr><tr><td>needless</td><td>1</td><td>3.5</td></tr><tr><td>deliberate</td><td>6</td><td>3.4</td></tr><tr><td>document</td><td>1</td><td>2.4</td></tr><tr><td>vicious</td><td>1</td><td>0.9</td></tr><tr><td>attempt</td><td>1</td><td>0.9</td></tr><tr><td>persistent</td><td>1</td><td>0.5</td></tr><tr><td>systematic</td><td>1</td><td>0.4</td></tr><tr><td>subtle</td><td>1</td><td>0.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

The collexemes in Of-compl position (*wrecking of Medicare*, *wrecking of the summit*) in Table 6 are indicative of eventive readings:

<table><caption>Table 6. The collexemes of *wrecking* in “PP comp” position in the OEC</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="3">X* of N</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>Freq</th><th>Score</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Vendôme</td><td>1</td><td>9.1</td></tr><tr><td>Kormoran</td><td>1</td><td>8.8</td></tr><tr><td>Harriet</td><td>1</td><td>7.9</td></tr><tr><td>Valdez</td><td>1</td><td>7.7</td></tr><tr><td>Sirius</td><td>1</td><td>7.6</td></tr><tr><td>Canyon</td><td>1</td><td>7.2</td></tr><tr><td>Cheltenham</td><td>1</td><td>6.6</td></tr><tr><td>Plaza</td><td>1</td><td>6.6</td></tr><tr><td>Dunbar</td><td>1</td><td>6.6</td></tr><tr><td>Medicare</td><td>2</td><td>6.1</td></tr><tr><td>Buddhas</td><td>1</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Summit</td><td>1</td><td>5.1</td></tr></tbody></table>

It appears that individual behaviour of the V-ing and V-age forms depends on the interaction between the senses of the terms available for the set of morphological words in the category. The ecosystem of uses means there is specialising in one area or another of various words. *Saving* is lexicalised whereas *wrecking* is not. *Save* and *wreck* are both available nominalisations which also have specific uses, thereby constraining the meaning of *saveage* and *wreckage*. The lexicalisation, specialisation and fossilisation of some forms (like *wreckage*) also impacts the behaviour of competing nominalisations (like *wrecking*).
4. Summary and conclusions: competition, polysemy and system ecology

This paper aimed to investigate the competition between -ing and the internalised naturalised suffix -age using a corpus-based analysis of a small number of V-ing and V-age alternatives in both diachronic (the COHA and EHBC) and synchronic corpora (the COCA and OEC). Two main questions have arisen from the study of the morphosemantic behaviour of -age and -ing - on the one hand, the question of polysemy and semantic instability, and on the other hand, the issue of the correlation between affixal diversity and polysemy. First, as mentioned earlier, -ing nouns are known to be polysemous or rather to have interpretations that rely on contextual information (see Bauer 2013, Lieber 2016). As Lieber (2016: 6) puts it, “chameleon-like behavior is productive and pervasive”, meaning that the norm is not one word - one meaning, but one word - multiple uses or behaviours. If one assumes that polysemy does not exist because words do not have a meaning outside of their use (as suggested by Hanks 2013), then there still needs to be an explanation of how interpretations come about in context, and what processes influence that interpretation, such as how the “lexicogrammatical context in which the nominalization occurs helps to arrive at the precise interpretation” (Fonteyn and Hartmann 2016: 4). This requires a framework, as underlined in Lieber (2016). Secondly, is there any correlation between the size of the affixal inventory in a language and the degree to which individual affixes display polysemy? In other words, in languages which have a larger inventory of noun-forming affixes (or other processes) than English, are individual morphological types less subject to radical polysemy than English nouns (see Lieber 2016: 181)? This brings us to the issue of the motivation of change and how competition induces pressures on the system to evolve. The borrowing and extension of non-native suffixes like -age has led to the development of new internal nominalisation, which in turn may have affected -ing nominalisations (see Fonteyn 2018: 12). The question raised is why several nominalisation suffixes continue to exist, if they form synonymous word forms, and what motivates competition in the lexicon (see Weinreich 1953, Cowie 1999, Palmer 2009, 2014; Trips 2009, Arndt-Lappe 2014, Lieber 2016). Bybee (2010: 75) argues that high token frequency has a conserving effect (also see Arppe et al. 2010), and leads to increased cognitive stability (see Weinreich 1953: 57) as theorised in entrenchment theory in Zenner et al. (2016) and Schmid (2020).

But the designative inadequacy of a vocabulary in naming new things is not the only cause of
lexical innovation. Internal linguistic factors also contribute to the innovating process. One
such internal factor is the low frequency of words. It has been shown that, other things being
equal, the frequent words come easily to mind and are therefore more stable; relatively
infrequent words of the vocabulary are, accordingly, less stable, more subject to oblivion and
replacement (Bybee 2010: 75).

Finally, what are our conclusions in light of the questions we asked in section 3? What are the differences in usage of V-ing and V-age pairs? Is it a question of eventive versus quantity reading, i.e. is -age less eventive than -ing? Has the PAYMENT sense evolved into the QUANTITY sense? And is V-age of a more informal register?

In terms of overall frequency over time, -age words have remained relatively low-frequency
words. Surprisingly however, despite the low token frequency, -age continues to produce
new words (type frequency), undergoing a revival in slang (as suggested in Cowie 1999), and
in technical registers. In these registers -age continue to exhibit a Quantity/Measurement
feature which distinguishes it from other nominalisations, even those with concrete readings.
It appears that V-age is a less eventive nominaliser with a stronger Quantity feature likely
inherited from the PAYMENT sense of historical N-*age* forms. This Quantity effect appears to
create a humourous or dysphemistic effect when used outside of a technical register
(*slippage, shortage, heatage, etc.*), emphasizing the size/cost/scope of something (as with
*stickage, ownage, spottage, stuffage, washage*).

This research shows the relevance of using lexicographic material alongside corpus-based
methodology: an in-depth study of V-ing and V-age is hindered by the small token frequency
of -age words. Yet the continued presence of -age words, although rarified in the corpora,
points to the continued productivity of -age in certain registers. A register-specific analysis
could be the next step to investigate register-sensitive usage of nominalisations.

## References

### Corpora and Dictionaries

EHBC, *English Historical Book Collection* (EEBO, ECCO and EVANS corpora) available
via Sketch Engine.

Davies, Mark. 2008-, *The Corpus of Contemporary American English* (COCA). Available online at https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/.

Davies Mark, 2010-, *The Corpus of Historical American English* (COHA): 400 million
words, 1810-2009, available online at https://www.english-corpora.org/coha/.

Project Gutenberg, Corpus from Project Gutenberg html ebooks, available via Sketch Engine
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OEC, *Oxford English Corpus*, *Oxford University*, access granted and available via Sketch
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(7) Calthrop, Henry, 1642. *The Liberties, Usages and Customes of the City of London, confirmed by especial Acts of Parliament, with the time of their Confirmation.*

(8) Dugdale, William, 1656. *The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated; From Records, Leiger-Books, Manuscripts, Charters, Evidences, Tombes, and Armes: Beautified With Maps, Prospects and Portraitures.*

(9) Godkin, James, 1870, *The Land-War in Ireland*.

(10) Scott, Thomas, 1622. *The Belgicke Pismire: Stinging the slothfull Sleep, and Awaking the Diligent to fast, watch, pray; And Work Out Their owne Temporall and Eternall Salvation With Feare and Trembling.*

(11) 1636. *Ariana in Two parts.* Translated out of French and presented to my Lo: Chamber Sold by Tho: Walkley at ye flying horse neare yorke House Melintus.

(12) Bayley Richard, 1799. *Letters from the health-office, submitted to the Common Council of the City of New York.*
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## Biography

Chris Smith is associate professor of English linguistics at the University of Caen Normandy. She has a PhD from the Sorbonne University and holds a habilitation from the University of Jean Moulin Lyon. Her research area is (cognitive) diachronic lexical semantics, with an
interest in phonosemantics, lexical competition and usage-based methods for researching
language change in the lexicogrammatical continuum of English. Her publications include
“Tracking fl- monomorphemes in the OED” published in the *Journal of Historical
Linguistics* (2016).

Acknowledgments

I would like to sincerely thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their feedback and
suggestions which have helped to improve on an earlier version of this chapter. Any
remaining errors or inconsistencies are entirely my own.