The clipping of common and proper nouns

Abstract

This paper takes issue with the general claim that clipping is a quite unpredictable und irregular derivational process in English. An analysis of 955 clippings is performed with a focus on the contrast between foreclipping and backclipping. The decision for or against backclipping is shown to be influenced by several factors – the stress pattern, the length and the lexical class (i.e. common or proper noun) of the base lexeme. A multifactorial analysis reveals that non-initial stress, a high number of syllables, and first-name status decrease the probability of backclipping, which is generally more frequent than foreclipping. A combined psycholinguistic and pragmatic account is developed which relies on a productive constraint facilitating foreclipping and a perceptual constraint facilitating backclipping. Because first names are typically used in highly restrictive pragmatic contexts and are highly predictable, they tolerate even radical forms of clipping which under normal circumstances would strain listeners’ word recognition capacity. By contrast, common nouns are less predictable and therefore support only less disruptive forms of clipping.