New High German -el- in Nominal Compounds

Abstract

In a paper entitled Assimilation and Dissimilation, read at the Linguistic Institute in the summer of 1936,1 Roland G. Kent explained these two types of linguistic change as the products of psychological conditions. They are due to the fact that 'the thinking of the speaker is ahead of his utterance' and they are hence for the most part regressive. REGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION is caused by an attempt to catch up with the thought, resulting in the replacement of one phoneme by another more similar to or identical with a subsequent phoneme. REGRESSIVE DISSIMILATION is caused by an endeavor to avoid identity with what is coming by preventing the recurrence of the same phoneme within the same form. Because of the psychological factors involved, assimilation and dissimilation prove to be semiregular processes, that is to say, they are linguistic changes very different from the gradual and unnoticeable alterations of 'phonetic change'. They consist in a redistribution of phonemes which is unpredictable, even though under certain conditions they occur with considerable regularity.2 A very striking example of this sort of regressive dissimilation that seems to have gone unnoticed in our handbooks on German and Germanic word formations is offered by the many nominal compounds in New High German whose prior member ends in -el-. Of course, this element as it appears in New High German has different historical origins in different words. If the first part of the compound is a noun, -elusually reflects an old -1-suffix, IE -lo-, -elo-, -ld-, -eld-, etc., PGmc. -la-, -ila-, -15-, -il5-, etc., OHG -al (-ul), -il, -ala, -ila, etc., MHG -el. Such is the case in NHG Vogel-beer (OHG fogal, PGmc. *fugla-), NHG Schliissel-loch (OHG sluzzil, PGmc. *slutila-), NHG Schaufel-blech (OHG scavala, PGmc. *skffla-), NHG Eichel-hdher (OHG eihhila, PGmc. *aikil5-), etc. Semantically these nouns in -el are usually divided into three classes, viz. agents, instruments, and diminutives, to which must be added the small group of loanwords like Esel, Kessel, Kiimmel, Orgel, etc.4 However, in a considerable number of compounds containing -el-, especially in those used as topographical designations, like Hagelberg, Lindelbach, Eichelberg, Hesselhurst, Birkelholz, Eschelbach, whose first elements are not used outside of composition, the group -elmust be explained on a different basis, as suggested