Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics

The talk introduces a large-scale project covering word-formation systems in 73 languages of Europe. The basis for their comparison is 100 word-formation comparables representing 12 word-formation processes. The data is used to examine (a) the structural richness of word-formation systems at the level of individual languages, language genera, families and the linguistic area of Standard Average European by means of the parameter of Saturation Value; this parameter indicates the degree to which a particular word-formation system makes use of all the word-formation options under examination; and (b) the parameter of the Maximum Comparable Occurrence that identifies those word-formation comparables that are present in all languages under consideration, i.e., in all languages of a genus, a family or a linguistic area (Standard Average European). In the latter case, it identifies the so-called Euroversals. The paper first presents the fundamental theoretical and methodological principles and, subsequently, illustrates the results in selected areas of research.