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(linguistics, of an affix or word construction rule) Consistently applicable to any of an open set of words.
1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 138:
Moreover, this relationship is a productive one, in the sense that when new Adjectives are created (e.g. ginormous concocted out of gigantic and enormous), then the corresponding Adverb form (in this case ginormously) can also be used. And in those exceptional cases where Adverbs do not end in -ly, they generally have the same form as the corresponding Adjective, as with hard, fast, etc.
In English, the plural suffix “-es” is productive because it can be appended to an open set of words (singular nouns ending in sibilants). Thus, if a new word with that pattern becomes an English noun (e.g. *examplex), it would have a default plural (e.g. *examplexes) because “-es” is productive.
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