Linking schwa in Dutch compounds: a phonomorpheme?
Anneke Neijt · Radboud Repository (Radboud University) · 2003
In Dutch, compounds are formed with or without linking elements, cf. zin+s+bouw ‘sentence structure’, woord+en+boek ‘dictionary’ (lit. ‘word book’) and woord+bouw ‘word structure’. The use of linking elements has been the subject of investigations since the dissertation on Dutch compounds by van Lessen (1927), who concludes that linking elements are historic relics of stem allomorphy and case. Rule-based approaches taking a synchronic point of view (Mattens 1970, 1984 and 1987 and van den Toorn 1981 and 1982) conclude that no strict rules, but only tendencies can be formulated, and Krott (2001) shows that the combined effort of these tendencies explains only 32% of the distribution of linking elements in the compounds found in the CELEX database (Baayen, Piepenbrock and Gulikers 1995). Still, speakers of Dutch know how to use linking elements in existing compounds and although variation in the use of linking elements exists, it is not dominant; for most compounds only one form is in use. How is this knowledge available to the speaker? Having concluded that the rule-based approach is incapable of explaining the distribution of linking elements, Krott (2001) proposes a new account based on paradigmatic analogy. In this account, linking elements in new compounds are chosen on the basis of the distribution of linking elements in existing compounds. The left constituent of a compound would be the strongest predictor of linking elements in Dutch noun-noun compounds, but also the right constituent contributes to the choice of linking elements. To give an example: on the basis of many compounds with bank as the left constituent and without a linking element, new forms with bank are predicted to occur without a linking element as well. Thus, existing forms such as bankgeheim, bankgebouw, bankdirecteur etc. ‘bank secret, bank building, bank manager’ predict the formation of the new forms bankfilter, bankgewicht ‘bank filter, bank weight’. Similarly, on the basis of many compounds with boer as the left constituent and the linking element en, new forms with boer are predicted to occur with the linking element en as well. Thus, existing forms such as boerenmarkt, boerenschuur, boerenbedrijf etc. ‘farmer’s market, farmer’s barn, farmer’s company’ predict the formation of new forms such as boerenknobbel and boerenkiosk ‘farmer’s knowledge, farmer’s stand’. Krott shows that paradigmatic analogy based on left constituents predicts 92% of the distribution of linking elements and that right constituents or semantic factors such as animacy and concreteness of the left constituent play a minor role. In this contribution, the hypothesis is forwarded that three independent constraints play a major role in the use of linking en in noun-noun compounds: