From proper names to common nouns Italian ‑ismo/‑ista and Ancient Greek ‑ismós/‑istḗs formations

Abstract

This study aims to investigate if there is a specific grammar for proper names, in particular in the field of morphology, or more precisely, in nominal derivation. We will concentrate on a class of derived nouns in a language with an open corpus, i.e. Italian (from now on It.), and in a language with a closed corpus, i.e. Ancient Greek (from now on AG). At stake here are the nouns formed from proper names with the suffixes -ismo/‑ista in Italian and respectively with ‑ismós/‑istḗs in AG. In both languages, these suffixes are highly productive (see below Section 3). Furthermore, they combine not only with proper names but also with common nouns, adjectives and other lexical categories.