‘Morphological transposition’ as a recategorization process: the case of 'luxe' in Dutch

Koutsoukos, Nikolaos [UCL] Van Goethem, Kristel [UCL]

In this presentation we compare different syntactic and morphological processes of category change, with a focus on syntactic transposition and morphological conversion. On the basis of a detailed corpus study of the Dutch lexical item 'luxe', which displays nominal and adjectival properties, we show that the distinction between these processes is not always clear-cut. We apply specific formal and functional criteria in order to determine the synchronic categorial status of 'luxe' and examine its diachronic developments. It is shown that the degree of recategorization is subject to regional variation (almost complete N>A change in Netherlandic Dutch, but only incipient category change in Belgian Dutch). As a conclusion, we propose our new account of this type of change, in terms of ‘morphological transposition’.