RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN VIEWPOINT-WISE.

The article examines the development in the usage of the suffix -wise. The suffix can be formulated as in the manner of, with respect to, in regard to and concerning. The form has become productive again, as it originally was in Old English, but mainly in a different meaning. Also, the adverbs that result from -wise can have scope over phrases, as well as individual lexemes. The suffix -wise originated in Old English as an independent word meaning manner, fashion. Over time it came to be used as a derivative suffix, restricted primarily to adverbial expressions. In the earlier manner/dimension formations, -wise could be suffixed to both adjectival and nominal bases. However, newer manner/dimension formations have nominal bases only. They belong primarily to the lexical field of measure. In the 1992 Switchboard Corpus, nouns that serve as for -wise formations of either type are bare, as are those participial gerunds that occur. In different instances -wise occurs in initial position where it is used to contrast with another expressed or implied adverbial. With respect to increased freedom of occurrence, works on lexicalization has pointed to the general unindirectionality of lexicalization from complex phrases to single words, a process often called univerbation.