Derivational Morphology under the Influence of Language Contact in French and German

Abstract

This paper analyses deverbal nominalisations in English, German and French: under special consideration is the -ing-suffixation which appears in all three languages. In German and French, more and more -ing-derived loans have been adopted into the language during the past decades. In both languages, they have developed semantic and morphological properties of their own that overlap or contrast with rival native processes, such as the productive -ung and -en for German, and -age, -(t)ion and -ment for French. I will analyse this evolution especially from a semantic point of view and give reasons why the loan as well as the native forms can co-exist. Moreover, I will discuss the question of how far the -ing-suffixation can be considered an established and transparent word-formation rule for French and German.

Finnish -Ariderivatives: A diachronic study of a new word-formation pattern

“…Previous studies of derivational borrowing in other languages have shown that the reasons for adopting a foreign derivational schema are typically semantic and morphological , but phonological factors are also known (see e.g. Heinold 2009:82). In general, there need not necessarily be any functional reason for assimilating new models into a language, although if such a reason does exist it helps to develop and establish the new category in the language.…”

“…This may have been true of the Finnish - Ari suffix, which stylistically differs clearly from the productive - jA suffix (see e.g. Heinold 2009:82).…”

“…Derivational suffixes are not borrowed from one language into another as separate elements, but as part of existing derived words (e.g. Itkonen 1966:134; Häkkinen 1990:263‒264; Heinold 2009; Booij 2012:260‒269; for examples of derivational borrowing see e.g. Matras 2009:209‒212, 2014:10‒13).…”

“…The process in which an element appearing in loan vocabulary starts to be interpreted as a derivational element, or to be used in native word-formation, takes time (for an example of this process, see e.g. Heinold 2009).…”