A LEXEME-BASED STUDY OF THE AGENTIVE FRENCH SUFFIXES -ANT - EUR AND -ISTE

Construction Morphology which is fast becoming an alternative term to Derivational Morphology is known to be rooted in Lexeme-Based Morphology and is noted for its Lexeme Formation Rules that are formulated to account for the construction of existing derivational words which serve as models for the creation of other yet-to-be-attested words in human languages. The advent of Lexeme-Based Morphology is as a result of the inability of morpheme-based models to adequately account for some morphologically derived words. Proponents of lexeme-based morphology, hence, believe that it is more appropriate to analyze morphologically formed words when lexemes are seen as the basic units of morphological operation. It is in the light of this hypothesis that we set out in this paper to do a lexeme-based study of the agentive French suffixes –ant, –eur and –iste in order to examine its analytical adequacy. After a careful analysis, the study reveals that the lexeme-based approach to construction morphology seems to be more adequate than the morpheme-based approach.