Quantitative approaches to productivity and borrowing in Maltese derivation

This paper applies quantitative measures of productivity to a selection of Maltese derivational affixes borrowed from Italian/Sicilian. The productivity rankings of the selected affixes are compared to their Italian sources revealing identical rankings for the most productive affixes and slightly deviating rankings for the less productive affixes. It is argued that morphological productivity scores and the subsequent rankings form a pattern that is established in the recipient language by the sum of matter borrowings of formations involving the respective affixes. In conjunction with a discussion of the mixed lexicon and morphology of Maltese, a case is made that converging or diverging productivity rankings can be explained by well-studied variables in language contact studies: intensity of contact, availability of registers/repertoires, and route of borrowing (direct/indirect). In addition it is shown that the cross-linguistic application of other quantitative measures, including a newly proposed Integration Factor and Seifart’s criteria for direct and indirect borrowing, can help uncover where the distributions of donor and recipient language affixes diverge, providing an exploratory tool for morphologist and contact linguists alike.