MARGINAL ZERO DERIVATION IN MACEDONIAN BASED ON THE MARGINALITY OF THIS PROCESS IN ENGLISH

Abstract

The process of zero derivation is a derivational phenomenon that connects lexemes which have one and the same form, expanded meaning, but belong to different lexical categories. The process doesn’t allow any derivational intervention, and is, therefore, named zero derivation when the most that can be used from derivational point of view is a zero derivational suffix, while inflectional material, which is part of the word form and not of the word base and has grammatical meaning, can be used for the purpose of the process. In analytic languages, like English, the marginal type of the process is manifested by orthographic changes that inevitably lead to changes in pronunciation, by changes only in pronunciation, and changes of accent, but in Macedonian, due to its different structure as an isolating, inflectional language, the marginal character of the process is present only with the orthographic changes that happen to the lexeme subject to the zero derivational process. The lexeme before the process and the one after it differ in their orthography, belong to different lexical categories, but what unites them is the similar semantics that they both share.