The interpretation of adverbial constructions with the suffix “-wise”. An empirical study

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Fachbereich 05 Department of English and Linguistics), course: English Linguistics (Master): Adjectives and Adverbs, language: English, abstract: The usage of "-wise" as a suffix within adverbial constructions such as in "crabwise" or "weatherwise" has clearly increased over the last decades and became progressively more popular in the mid-twentieth century. Although it is mostly used in spoken discourse, its usage is not restricted to speech but expands to the written word as for example in newspapers or scholarly journals. This stems from the fact that this kind of genre quickly picks up new trends. However, while -wise has been accepted in the adverbial sense, "-wise" as a suffix for new words with the meaning 'with regard to' is criticized.