Expressive compounds in German

Abstract

German adjectival and nominal compounds like ratten+scharf (‘rat sharp’) sau+schlecht, (‘sow bad’) Hammer+auftritt (‘hammer performance’), Arsch+gesicht (‘arse face’) contain meliorative or pejorative elements as part of their structure. The left-hand evaluative members of these compounds are usually considered as so-called semi-prefixes. Contrary to recent approaches within constructional morphology ( Booij 2009 , 2010 ), I will argue that these elements are still lexemes, but that they have undergone metaphorical extension. Evidence stems from the consideration of right-hand members like Kommunisten+schwein (‘communist pig’), which have never been considered as semi-suffixes in a similar way. The metaphorical meaning of these heads and non-heads is systematically connected with expressive meaning. It will be shown that the criteria for expressive meaning proposed by Potts (2007) by and large apply. Furthermore, I will argue against a possible analysis in terms of conventional implicature, as proposed by Williamson (2009 , 2010 ) with respect to the meanings of ethnical slur terms like spic.