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12
Introduction
Shakespeareanneologism,orforacontrastivejuxtapositionofaShakespearean
agentiveformationwiththeModernEnglishone.
Conceptually,themonographfallsintotwoparts:thetheoretical-descriptive,
whosemainaimistoformulateaworkingdefinitionofanagent,aswellasto
developanappropriatemodelwithintheframeworksofwhichthestudycould
beconducted,whilethesecondpartisthepropermorphosemanticanalysisof
thesampleddata.
Structurally,theworkisdividedintosixchapters.Chapter1focuseson
theproblemofnominalisationsinselectedlinguistictheories,suchas,among
others,TGG,GS,andCognitiveLinguistics.Attentionisdrawnbothtothose
aspectsofagivengrammarwhichcouldprofitablybeemployedinthestudy
ofnominalisations,aswellastotheproblemsanddifficultiesstemmingfrom
theholisticapplicationofagivenmodel.Theselectionoftheframeworksdis-
cussedinthechapterhasbeenmadewithaviewtodevelopthemethodology
thatcouldbesuccessfullyappliedtotheanalysisofthedatasampledinthe
corpusofShakespeare’splays.
Chapter2discussesthenotionofproductivityinword-formation.Different
modesoftheconceptualisation,operationalisation,andevaluationofproductiv-
ityaresurveyed,andaspecialemphasisisputontheproblemofestimating
theproductivityofagivenprocessinhistoricallanguagestudies.
Thefollowingtwochapters(3and4)relateNominaAgentistothetheory
ofcategorisation.Itisshownhowtheprototypesemantics,developedoriginally
byEleanorRoschandsubsequentlyborrowedbycognitivelinguists,canbeem-
ployedtodealwithfuzzyboundariesbetweensomelinguisticcategories,like,
forexample,NominaAgentisandNominaInstrumenti.Thetheoryalsoproves
effectiveinincorporatingdenominalperformersofactionsintothecategoryof
agents(theproblemisdiscussedinChapter4).Chapter4alsodiscussesfiner
distinctionswithinsubjectnominalisations,forexample,thenotionofanex-
periencer.AbriefsurveyofModernEnglishmethodsofderivingagentnouns
canalsobefoundhere.
Chapter5presentsalinguisticandextralinguisticbackgroundofEarly
ModernEnglish.Itprovidesaninsightintoexternalandinternalfactorsthat
shapedthelanguageoftheShakespeareanepoch.Thechapterfocusesonissues
directlyconnectedwithword-buildingandwordmeaning,hencethediscussion
ofinternalfeaturesofthelanguagehasbeenrestrictedtoword-formationand
semanticchanges.
Chapter6istheempiricalpartofthestudy,whereShakespearean
agent-formingtechniquesarepresentedandanalysed.Eachsuffixisstudied
fromboththeformalandthesemanticperspective.Anattemptatevaluating
theproductivityofagivenprocessisalsomade.
Since,ashasbeenshowninChapter1,noneofthecurrentlyavailablethe-
oriesisinclusiveenoughtodealwiththecomplexaspectsofnominalisations,