Semantic Influence on Linkers in Dutch Noun-Noun Compounds

Abstract

As in many other languages, the constituents of nominal compounds in Dutch are often separated by a linking element. This study investigates to what extent form and semantic properties of the right constituents in Dutch compounds affect the choice of the linker Using both lexical statistics and experimentation, we show that the left and right constituent families affect the choice of the linker independently of the semantic categories of the left and right constituents themselves. We also show that the choice of the linker is co-determined by the animacy and concreteness of the left constituent. No role for the semantic class of the head constituent was observed in the experiment. Apparently, linkers are non-canonical Suffixes in the sense that their occurrence is codetermined by the form properties of the constituent to their right.

The Nature of Anterior Negativities Caused by Misapplications of Morphological Rules

“…Furthermore, decisions on the well-formedness of visually presented existing and novel compounds led to more accurate and faster responses when the interfixes of the compounds were supported by the bias of the left constituent family. Apart from the dominant effect of the left constituent family, behavioral and simulation studies have also shown some effect of the right constituent family as well as of properties of the left constituent, such as semantic class, rhyme, and suffix (Krott, Krebbers, Schreuder, & Baayen, 2002;Krott, Schreuder, & Baayen, 2002a;Krott et al, 2001). …”

Compound stress assignment by analogy: the constituent family bias

“…For German, Krott et al (2007) even showed that the right constituent does not contribute at all to the decision which linking element will be used. Krott et al (2002a) investigate semantic effects and find that there is a relation between the semantic class of the left and right constituent (in terms of animacy and concreteness) and the choice of the linking morpheme in Dutch, but the semantic effects are generally stronger for the left constituent, and are sometimes even totally absent for the right constituent. Thus we can say that the greater impact of the left constituent in analogical decisions is not only very plausible from a psycholinguistic point of view but is also independently, and cross-linguistically, confirmed for other compound phenomena.…”

The Indonesian prefixes PE- and PEN-: A study in productivity and allomorphy

“…Although in derivation, paradigmatic relations are less tightly knit compared to typical inflectional paradigms such as Latin or Estonian(Dressler 1989), derivation also can show paradigmatic organisation(Stekauer 2014). For the importance of paradigmatic organisation for linking elements in compounds, as well as for stress assigment in compounds, seeKrott et al (2009) andPlag (2006) respectively.…”