English word-formation: suffix competition in nominalization

After giving a brief overview of English morphology and word formation, the first chapter provides an examination of derived state/event/result nouns formed by the use of suffixes, with particular attention to the morpho-syntactic characteristics of the verbal base they attach to. In some cases more than one suffix is used to derive the same or similar meaning, therefore I will analyze suffix competition in the formation of nouns and its semantic consequences, as well as providing notions about suffixes characteristics. In the second chapter I will investigate in detail the concept of polymorphism, furnishing a brief review of theoretical approaches to competition. The last part will take a closer look to competition between derivational suffixes -ation and -ment, taking in examination some particular cases of verbs that take both suffixes, both from a synchronic and dyachronic prospective.