Reduplicative nominalisations of phrasal verbs: a case of "throwaway" morphology?

This paper examines English reduplicative nominalisations (RNs) derived from phrasal verbs (e.g. "filler inner"). It expands on previous studies by examining a wide number of possible suffixed particles in corpus data. The findings are mostly in line with the literature: RNs are generally infrequent as both types (0.004 pmw) and tokens (0.011 pmw); they are lexically varied, each type having one or a few tokens; they are not relatable to shared semantic fields, which shows their creative productivity; they include one frequent and highly lexicalised form, "fixer-upper", which most often denotes ‘a house needing a lot of work’; they exemplify only 14 suffixed particles (esp. upper); their referents usually denote agents; they are occasionally coordinated with other -er-suffixed forms (e.g. "course setter, flag hanger and picker upper"); and they usually derive from verbs of Germanic origin, as is the case for most phrasal verbs. However, the findings partly depart from the literature: they also show that RNs are slightly more frequent and more varied in American than British English; that they may occasionally serve as premodifiers of head nouns; that they exemplify previously unattested -er-suffixed particles (e.g. "byer"); and that they illustrate meaning extensions of fixer upper (e.g. ‘someone handy at doing things’). Overall, RNs appear to be creative coinages which are produced within a constellation of phonological, semantic and stylistic conditioning environments.