Sociolinguistic variation in English derivational productivity

The research presented in this book explores sociolinguistic variation and change in the morphological productivity of the nominal suffixes -ness and -ity from Early Modern English to Present-day English. To do this, it employs robust methods to compare item frequencies over time and across social categories. Developed in collaboration with computer scientists, the methods include measures of statistical significance as well as visualisations revealing variability within (sub) corpora and facilitating exploration. In addition to research into individual linguistic features, the methods can be used to compare corpora and study genre continuity.