THE THEORY OF WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

This article examines the scholarly development of the field of word formation in English linguistics during the 20th century. The study successively analyzes the theoretical views on word formation of H.Marchand, R.B.Lees, V.Adams, M.Aronoff, and other leading linguists. In particular, it discusses Marchand’s analytical-descriptive approach, Lees’s works in the field of transformational grammar, Adams’s systematic classification, and Aronoff’s research in the generative direction. The article sheds light on the long period during which the field of word formation remained on the periphery of linguistic research, and on the period of scholarly revival beginning in the 1960s, assessed as “the revival of the field.” Likewise, the prospects for studying derivational processes from the standpoint of cognitive and generative linguistics are also identified.