The Suffix -ster in Present-day English: A Usage-based and Network Model Account

Abstract

In this paper, we provide an analysis of the present-day distribution of the -ster suffix in English and account for that distribution through the diachronic forces that shaped it. Taking a constructional approach (Bybee 2010), we show that words with the -ster suffix in Middle English constituted a semantically coherent set in so far as the items in that set mostly referred to professions. In the latter part of the first half of the Modern English period, we find a renaissance of -ster usage, albeit with a semantic shift toward the identification of a human agent (usually male) involved in activities that were subversive, illicit or even criminal, e.g. gangster. We sketch out a model in which certain of the constructions stand as central members, or exemplars, which then serve as analogical bases to which other constructions with -ster are extended. We argue that the cumulative effect of the central exemplars of this set strengthens the representation of -ster as formally independent and imbues it with the emergent meaning of subversion, illicitness, or criminality. The result of these diachronic process is a very healthy productivity of -ster in later modern English and a distribution across several domains.