Osmotic Depletion in Structural Condensation with Special Reference to Word Formation in English

Abstract

As basic building blocks of language, words need to be compact so that they are under rather strict spatial constraints. Thus a supralexical entity often gets depleted when it morphs into a word, i.e. when it gets (end) osmosed into the cramped space of a word. This seems to be especially the case in the formation of compound words and of derivatives thereof. Building upon Park (1992, 2001, 2002, 2003), the present paper takes a look at this (end)osmotic depletion and related phenomena with reference to English.