"Affixation and Its Semantic Productiveness within Lexical Neighborhoods"
This paper examines how derivational affixes in English—especially those from overlapping Germanic and Romance paradigms—create dense semantic ecosystems within lexical neighborhoods. By focusing on same-class derivational allomorphs, this research shows how affix competition and specialization sharpen connotation, style, and register across similar lexical roots. It argues that English’s morphological complexity is not chaotic but structured around pressures for nuance, enabling speakers to make fine-grained semantic and stylistic distinctions through affix choice.