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Chapter 9. Evaluative morphology in German, Dutch and Swedish

Constructional networks and the loci of change
  • Malte Battefeld , Torsten Leuschner and Gudrun Rawoens
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Category Change from a Constructional Perspective
This chapter is in the book Category Change from a Constructional Perspective

Abstract

The separation or ‘debonding’ of prefixoids in informal language use in Germanic and the question whether spelling reflects re-categorization of such compound members as adjectives have recently been attracting increased attention among linguists. This contribution focuses on category changes involving lexical items with an evaluative function, both bound (prefixoids, loan prefixes) and unbound (bare nouns), that give rise to defective adjectives in German, Dutch and Swedish. This occurs via two loci of change: the non-head position in nominal and adjectival compounds and the predicative position in sentence constructions. The diverse items serving as ‘evaluatives’ are unified by one abstract schema for ‘evaluative compounds’ across these languages which is paradigmatically related to other, free uses of such items.

Abstract

The separation or ‘debonding’ of prefixoids in informal language use in Germanic and the question whether spelling reflects re-categorization of such compound members as adjectives have recently been attracting increased attention among linguists. This contribution focuses on category changes involving lexical items with an evaluative function, both bound (prefixoids, loan prefixes) and unbound (bare nouns), that give rise to defective adjectives in German, Dutch and Swedish. This occurs via two loci of change: the non-head position in nominal and adjectival compounds and the predicative position in sentence constructions. The diverse items serving as ‘evaluatives’ are unified by one abstract schema for ‘evaluative compounds’ across these languages which is paradigmatically related to other, free uses of such items.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Part I. Introduction
  5. Chapter 1. Category change from a constructional perspective 3
  6. Part II. Category genesis
  7. Chapter 2. Category genesis in Chitimacha 15
  8. Chapter 3. Derivation without category change 47
  9. Part III. Category change in syntactic constructions
  10. Chapter 4. Grammaticalization, host-class expansion and category change 93
  11. Chapter 5. Why would anyone take long ? 119
  12. Chapter 6. Category change in the English gerund 149
  13. Chapter 7. The emergence of a new adverbial downtoner 179
  14. Part IV. Category change in morphological constructions
  15. Chapter 8. Category change in construction morphology 209
  16. Chapter 9. Evaluative morphology in German, Dutch and Swedish 229
  17. Chapter 10. Constructional change on the contentful-procedural gradient 263
  18. Part V. Discussion
  19. Chapter 11. Change in category membership from the perspective of construction grammar 291
  20. Construction index 309
  21. Subject index 311
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.20.09bat

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Part I. Introduction
  5. Chapter 1. Category change from a constructional perspective 3
  6. Part II. Category genesis
  7. Chapter 2. Category genesis in Chitimacha 15
  8. Chapter 3. Derivation without category change 47
  9. Part III. Category change in syntactic constructions
  10. Chapter 4. Grammaticalization, host-class expansion and category change 93
  11. Chapter 5. Why would anyone take long ? 119
  12. Chapter 6. Category change in the English gerund 149
  13. Chapter 7. The emergence of a new adverbial downtoner 179
  14. Part IV. Category change in morphological constructions
  15. Chapter 8. Category change in construction morphology 209
  16. Chapter 9. Evaluative morphology in German, Dutch and Swedish 229
  17. Chapter 10. Constructional change on the contentful-procedural gradient 263
  18. Part V. Discussion
  19. Chapter 11. Change in category membership from the perspective of construction grammar 291
  20. Construction index 309
  21. Subject index 311
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