Dutch Compounds Research Articles

Dutch compound constructions in additional language acquisition

Abstract Studies have demonstrated that Dutch has a much stronger tendency towards compounding than French (e.g., Du. badkamer vs Fr. salle de bains ‘bathroom’) when adopting a restrictive approach of compounding in which the presence of prepositions and/or internal inflection in multi-word expressions is considered evidence for their syntactic formation. The example above illustrates that Dutch compounding differs from French in another important aspect: while Germanic compounding is by definition right-headed, French has a general tendency towards left-hand headed compounds and phrases. In this study, we investigate the impact of these typological differences on the acquisition of Dutch nominal compounds by French-speaking learners in the context of multilingual Belgium. We provide an in-depth corpus analysis of the acquisition of Dutch compounds at different levels of abstraction (schematic and substantive compound constructions). Moreover, we investigate the impact of additional target-language input through CLIL programs (Content and Language Integrated Learning) on the acquisition of Dutch compounds by French-speaking learners of Dutch. The results are described and interpreted from the perspective of Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG), which conceptualizes the linguistic competence of multilingual speakers as one integrated network of constructions, containing language-specific idioconstructions and shared diaconstructions.

De invloed van het Nederlands op de syntaxis en de woordenschat van het Japans

The Netherlands traded extensively with Japan between 1609 and 1854. During this period the Dutch exported not only goods into Japan, but also books which they sold to the Japanese. In due course, Japanese interpreters and intellectuals began to translate these books into Japanese and by about 1850 they had translated around 1,000 Dutch books. This article examines the influence of the Dutch language on Japanese, resulting from the translation of these books and from language contact. This influence was twofold, syntactic and lexical. As for the former, in order to render Dutch texts into Japanese, translators introduced several features including a new relative pronoun, tokoro no, and a new compound word, ni yotte, in order to translate the Dutch word door’(‘by’) in passive sentences. As concerns the latter, Japanese translators used a number of approaches in order to render new objects and ideas in Japanese. They occasionally created a new compound word from the constituent parts of a Dutch compound word. In other cases, they formed new compounds from Dutch and Japanese words and morphemes, or transcribed Dutch words in the Japanese katakana syllabary. This final approach was also used for loanwords which Japanese adopted as a result of language contact with Dutch, such as, for example, in the case of kokku (コック) from the Dutch kok.

Your ns are numbered! On linking morphemes in Dutch

The expression of number (#) within the noun phrase has been argued tovary between a high (num) and a low position, which Kramer (2014) associates with n, providing the root with a syntactic category. We argue that Linking Morphemes (L) in Dutch provide new evidence for such a split, and moreover, for a low expression of # in a language that is normally considered to have high #. By taking L to instantiate n, the presence or absence of L can be taken as a diagnostic of the size of non-head elements. Combined with recent work on Germanic compounds (Harðarson2016, De Belder 2017) this makes a prediction about the order of modifiers in Dutch compounds, which we show is borne out

Regional origin affects the interpretation of linking elements in spoken Dutch compounds

In Dutch, the linking element en in compounds is often homophonous with the regular plural suffix -en. Both are pronounced as [ә], [әn] or [ṇ] in different regions of the Netherlands. As a consequence, speakers of standard Dutch may interpret linking en in spoken compounds as a plural marker. The present study investigates whether the regional origin of the participants affects their interpretation of regional speech variants of linking en. In an auditory decision task, speakers from four regions decided if a compound was singular or plural. While all critical compounds required the singular response, reaction times were delayed when the compound contained a linking en: All speech variants of en produced interference for speakers from four regions of the Netherlands. Region North showed the greatest interference compared to the Middle region. Also, region Northeast revealed larger interference effects for linking [ә] and region South for linking [ṇ]. We conclude that a speaker’s regional origin affects interpretation.

Lexical processing of nominal compounds in first- and second-language learners across primary grades

We investigated processing strategies in the reading of Dutch compound words (e.g., ‘bezemsteel’ [broomstick]) by young first- (L1) and second-language (L2) learners in three grades of primary school. Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (L2) and Dutch monolingual children (L1) from second, fourth and sixth grade performed a lexical decision task in which the frequency of the whole compound, the frequency of the first constituent and the frequency of the second constituent was manipulated. We found that reaction times and accuracy scores were influenced by both whole-word and constituent information in both the L1 and L2 learners in all grades. However, the L2 learners were typically less efficient in processing this information. In addition, the way in which whole-word and constituent frequency was processed by the L1 and L2 learners was not stable across grades. The results are discussed in terms of theories on morphological processing and reading acquisition.

Reuze bedankt, het was echt top! - Een vergelijkend onderzoek naar ‘loskoppeling’ van samenstellingscomponenten

By means of a comparative corpus study, this paper investigates the rise of new adjectives and adverbs from nominal compound members through a process of ‘debonding’. This is ‘a composite change whereby a bound morpheme in a specific linguistic context becomes a free morpheme’ (Norde 2009, p. 186). It can be illustrated by the adjectival and adverbial uses of the Dutch compound member reuze (een reuzenstap; reuzeleuk; het was reuze; het is reuze meegevallen). It will be argued that debonding is subject to a series of language-specific factors, in particular the degree of compound cohesion and the complexity of adjective inflection. These factors predict that debonding will be more common in French and English than in German and Dutch. However, debonding still occurs in the latter. This can be accounted for by an interaction of multiple processes. Finally, a specific case study of the Dutch word top will indicate how and which different processes interact in the rise of its adjectival uses.

The Factory and the People of Nagasaki: Otona, Tolk, Compradoor

The Dutch East India Company was forced to move its factory in Japan from Hirado to Nagasaki by the order of the bakufu in 1641. Following that move, the Dutch were no longer allowed to freely go out into the city or to trade with city people. In order to have any contact with the people outside Deshima, they needed proper mediation of the Japanese officials. The interpreters (tolken, Oranda-tsūji, ) are well known as the intermediaries between the Japanese authorities and the Dutch residents of Deshima, but they were not the only ones who worked between the two sides. In this paper, I would like to deal with the Deshima Otona as the official responsible for the Dutch compound, and the compradoors, suppliers of the daily necessities for the Dutch factory, and to consider these officials within the context of the Nagasaki city system in order to compare this situation with that prevailing in Canton.Otona literally means “head” or “chief” and indicates a prominent member who is in charge of a certain group. In the cities of Edo-period Japan, the townspeople were controlled through their organisation in groups, which were given a considerable amount of autonomy. These groups consisted, in their turn, of members who were officially recognised by both the group organisation itself and the lord of the domain in which the city was located, because they owned a house, ran a family business, and performed some kind of public service (kuyaku, ).

Plurals as modifiers in Dutch and English noun-noun compounds express plurality in production

The present study investigates the relation between conceptual plurality and the occurrence of a plural morpheme in novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. Using a picture-naming task, we compared the naming responses of native Dutch speakers and native English speakers to pictures depicting either one or multiple instances of the same object serving as a possible modifier in a novel noun-noun compound. While the speakers of both languages most frequently produced novel compounds containing a singular modifier, they also used compounds containing a plural modifier and did this more often to describe a picture with several instances of an object than to describe a picture with one instance of the object. Speakers of English incorporated some regular plurals into the noun-noun compounds they produced. These results contradict the words-and-rules theory of Pinker (1999) and also the semantic constraints for compounding put forth by Alegre and Gordon (1996). Interestingly, it appears, however, that the acceptability constraints put forth by Haskell, MacDonald, and Seidenberg (2003) apply to the production of compounds.

Preference for linking element -en- in Dutch noun-noun compounds: native speakers and second language learners of Dutch

In Dutch, variation occurs in the formation of noun-noun compound words. Some compounds always add the linking element -en- between the two nouns; some compounds never use such a linking element; and still others allow both options. The element -en- is homophonous with the regular plural ending in Dutch, and we therefore investigated if plural semantics creates a preference for the linking element -en- in novel Dutch noun-noun compounds. We also investigated if the preference for linking -en- is influenced by just meaning (i.e., a semantic plural), form (i.e., a formal plural), or perhaps both. The influence of native language on preferences for Dutch compounds was also investigated. In study 1, we tested native speakers of Dutch; in study 2, Frisian-Dutch bilinguals; and, in study 3, speakers of German with Dutch as a second language. Plurality played a role in the preferences for Dutch compound formation in all tested groups. For native speakers of Dutch, Frisian, and German, moreover, the preference for a linking element in novel Dutch compounds was influenced by both the semantic plural and the formal plural. However, these effects were smaller for the native speakers of German. These findings confirm the findings of earlier studies (e.g. Schreuder et al. in Language and Cognitive Processes 13(5):551–573, 1998) showing linking -en- to carry an intrinsic plural meaning. Kiparsky’s level-ordering hypothesis (Linguistics in the morning calm, pp. 3–91, 1982) and Pinker’s words-and-rules theory (Words and rules: the ingredients of language, 1999) are re-considered in light of the present findings.

Semantic and prosodic effects of Dutch linking elements

The studies presented here investigate the contribution of linking -en- and rhythm to a compound’s conceptual plurality. Participants were asked to estimate the conceptual plurality of the modifier constituents of Dutch compounds. In the first study, pseudo-compounds (compounds composed of pseudo-words, burb+en+tijpis) and novel compounds (novel combinations of existing nouns, aap+en+leraar, ‘monkey teacher’) with linking -en- were investigated. In study two, we examined written existing compounds that occur with and without -en- (bloem+bak or bloem+en+bak, ‘flower box’) and present a stress clash or not at the constituent boundaries. Finally, study three investigated the same question as study two for spoken existing compounds. The results reveal that existing compounds written or spoken with linking -en- are considered to bear more plural meaning than the ones without linking element. Furthermore, an effect of rhythm on plurality was observed in pseudo-compounds and in spoken existing compounds. When these compounds contain linking -en- to prevent a stress clash, they are considered to bear less plural meaning than those with linking -en- in a neutral context. These studies demonstrate that rhythm can affect the interpretation of linking elements. The fact that we only find a rhythmic effect in pseudo-compounds and spoken existing compounds but not in written existing compounds is explained in terms of processing.

The hyphen as a segmentation cue in triconstituent compound processing: It’s getting better all the time

Inserting a hyphen in Dutch and Finnish compounds is most often illegal given spelling conventions. However, the current two eye movement experiments on triconstituent Dutch compounds like voetbalbond"footballassociation" (Experiment 1) and triconstituent Finnish compounds like lentokenttätaksi"airporttaxi" (Experiment 2) show that inserting a hyphen at constituent boundaries does not have to be detrimental to compound processing. In fact, when hyphens were inserted at the major constituent boundary (voetbal-bond"football-association"; lentokenttä-taksi"airport-taxi"), processing of the first part (voetbal"football"; lentokenttä"airport") turns out to be faster when it is followed by a hyphen than when it is legally concatenated. Inserting a hyphen caused a delay in later eye movement measures, which is probably due to the illegality of inserting hyphens in normally concatenated compounds. However, in both Dutch and Finnish we found a learning effect in the course of the experiment, such that by the end of the experiments hyphenated compounds are read faster than in the beginning of the experiment. By the end of the experiment, compounds with a hyphen at the major constituent boundary were actually processed equally fast as (Dutch) or even faster than (Finnish) their concatenated counterparts. In contrast, hyphenation at the minor constituent boundary (voet-balbond"foot-ballassociation"; lento-kenttätaksi"air-porttaxi") was detrimental to compound processing speed throughout the experiment. The results imply that the hyphen may be an efficient segmentation cue and that spelling illegalities can be overcome easily, as long as they make sense.

Reading polymorphemic Dutch compounds: Toward a multiple route model of lexical processing.

This article reports an eye-tracking experiment with 2,500 polymorphemic Dutch compounds presented in isolation for visual lexical decision while readers' eye movements were registered. The authors found evidence that both full forms of compounds (dishwasher) and their constituent morphemes (e.g., dish, washer) and morphological families of constituents (sets of compounds with a shared constituent) played a role in compound processing. They observed simultaneous effects of compound frequency, left constituent frequency, and family size early (i.e., before the whole compound has been scanned) and also observed effects of right constituent frequency and family size that emerged after the compound frequency effect. The temporal order of these and other observed effects goes against assumptions of many models of lexical processing. The authors propose specifications for a new multiple-route model of polymorphemic compound processing that is based on time-locked, parallel, and interactive use of all morphological cues as soon as they become even partly available to the visual uptake system.

The influence of spelling conventions on perceived plurality in compounds

Dutch compounds with ‘e’ or ‘en’ as linking element between modifier and head were presented to mother tongue speakers of Afrikaans in an experimental setting that explored the possibility that these different spelling formats would suggest a singular or plural meaning of the modifier. The participants appeared to interpret ‘en’ in the linking element as an indication for singular, and ‘e’ as signifying plural. This outcome supported the findings in comparable studies on Dutch, which also revealed a tendency to understand the spelling of the linking schwa in relation to conventions for the spelling of the plural suffix. In Afrikaans the spelling of the plural forms is ‘e’, whereas in Dutch the spelling of plural forms is ‘en’. This explains why the results of the Dutch and Afrikaans experiments, while using the same materials, are each other’s mirror image.

Rhythm versus Analogy: Prosodic Form Variation in Dutch Compounds

Creating compound nouns is the most productive process of Dutch morphology, with an interesting pattern of form variation. For instance, staat 'nation' simply combines with kunde 'art' (staatkunde 'political science, statesmanship'), but needs a linking element s or en to form staatsschuld 'national debt' and statenbond 'confederation'. Previous research has shown that the use of linking elements is guided by paradigmatic analogy, a factor that in the absence of other factors would lead to paradigm uniformity. However, there is considerable freedom in the use of linking elements, suggesting that other factors are relevant as well. We present studies showing that both stress and length affect their use, and that, in an experimental setting, the linking element en is less favored in lengthened compounds. However, the results observed in this experiment can only be explained satisfactorily in terms of rhythm: the preference for a recurrent pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The general conclusion of this study concerns the distinction between language behavior guided by stored knowledge or by processing factors. Models based on analogy (exemplar-based models) rely on stored knowledge. This study shows that apart from that, rhythm plays its own role. Rhythmic structures facilitate language processing, and a preference for perfect rhythm explains which variant of a compound (with or without the linking element) is chosen. Given the universal nature of analogy and rhythm, the issue of the balance between these two components of linguistic knowledge is relevant for a wide array of languages.

Morphological predictability and acoustic duration of interfixes in Dutch compounds

This study explores the effects of informational redundancy, as carried by a word's morphological paradigmatic structure, on acoustic duration in read aloud speech. The hypothesis that the more predictable a linguistic unit is, the less salient its realization, was tested on the basis of the acoustic duration of interfixes in Dutch compounds in two datasets: One for the interfix -s- (1155 tokens) and one for the interfix -e(n)- (742 tokens). Both datasets show that the more probable the interfix is, given the compound and its constituents, the longer it is realized. These findings run counter to the predictions of information-theoretical approaches and can be resolved by the Paradigmatic Signal Enhancement Hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that whenever selection of an element from alternatives is probabilistic, the element's duration is predicted by the amount of paradigmatic support for the element: The most likely alternative in the paradigm of selection is realized longer.

Formal and semantic constraints on the interpretation of the suffix ‑s in reading Dutch nominal compounds

This study addresses the interpretation of a Dutch homonymic suffix, s, as it appears in Dutch compounds. In a series of reading experiments we manipulated the presence versus absence of this suffix in existing compounds as well as in compounds with a pseudoword as left constituent. We observed an asymmetry in the effects of addition and deletion, with deletion not affecting response latencies, and addition leading to increased identification latencies and, conditional on the phonological structure of the left constituent, to a plural interpretation of the left constituent. Our results illustrate how phonological and semantic constraints conspire to induce a plural interpretation of this homonymic suffix.

The Nature of Anterior Negativities Caused by Misapplications of Morphological Rules

This study investigates functional interpretations of left anterior negativities (LANs), a language-related electroencephalogram effect that has been found for syntactic and morphological violations. We focus on three possible interpretations of LANs caused by the replacement of irregular affixes with regular affixes: misapplication of morphological rules, mismatch of the presented form with analogy-based expectations, and mismatch of the presented form with stored representations. Event-related brain potentials were recorded during the visual presentation of existing and novel Dutch compounds. Existing compounds contained correct or replaced interfixes (dame + s + salons > damessalons vs. *dame + n + salons > *damensalons "women's hairdresser salons"), whereas novel Dutch compounds contained interfixes that were either supported or not supported by analogy to similar existing compounds (kruidenkelken vs. ?kruidskelken "herb chalices"); earlier studies had shown that interfixes are selected by analogy instead of rules. All compounds were presented with correct or incorrect regular plural suffixes (damessalons vs. *damessalonnen). Replacing suffixes or interfixes in existing compounds both led to increased (L)ANs between 400 and 700 msec without any evidence for different scalp distributions for interfixes and suffixes. There was no evidence for a negativity when manipulating the analogical support for interfixes in novel compounds. Together with earlier studies, these results suggest that LANs had been caused by the mismatch of the presented forms with stored forms. We discuss these findings with respect to the single/dual-route debate of morphology and LANs found for the misapplication of syntactic rules.

Sublexical units and supralexical combinatorics in the processing of interfixed Dutch compounds

This study addresses the supralexical inferential processes underlying wellformedness judgements and latencies for a specic sublexical unit that appears in Dutch compounds, the interfix. Production studies have shown that the selection of interfixes in novel Dutch compounds and the speed of this selection is primarily determined by the distribution of interfixes in existing compounds that share the left constituent with the target compound, i.e. the “left constituent family”. In this paper, we consider the question whether constituent families also affect wellformedness decisions of novel as well as existing Dutch compounds in comprehension. We visually presented compounds containing interfixes that were either in line with the bias of the left constituent family or not. In the case of existing compounds, we also presented variants with replaced interfixes. As in production, the bias of the left constituent family emerged as a crucial predictor for both acceptance rates and response latencies. This result...

Sublexical units and supralexical combinatorics in the processing of interfixed Dutch compounds

This study addresses the supralexical inferential processes underlying wellformedness judgements and latencies for a specic sublexical unit that appears in Dutch compounds, the interfix. Production studies have shown that the selection of interfixes in novel Dutch compounds and the speed of this selection is primarily determined by the distribution of interfixes in existing compounds that share the left constituent with the target compound, i.e. the “left constituent family”. In this paper, we consider the question whether constituent families also affect wellformedness decisions of novel as well as existing Dutch compounds in comprehension. We visually presented compounds containing interfixes that were either in line with the bias of the left constituent family or not. In the case of existing compounds, we also presented variants with replaced interfixes. As in production, the bias of the left constituent family emerged as a crucial predictor for both acceptance rates and response latencies. This result supports the hypothesis that, as in production, constituent families are (co-)activated in comprehension. We argue that this co-activation is part of a supralexical inferential process, and we discuss how our data might be interpreted within sublexical and supralexical theories of morphological processing.

The minimal unit of phonological encoding: prosodic or lexical word

Wheeldon and Lahiri (JournalofMemoryandLanguage37 (1997) 356) used a prepared speech production task (Sternberg, S., Monsell, S., Knoll, R. L., & Wright, C. E. (1978). The latency and duration of rapid movement sequences: comparisons of speech and typewriting. In G. E. Stelmach (Ed.), Informationprocessinginmotorcontrolandlearning (pp. 117–152). New York: Academic Press; Sternberg, S., Wright, C. E., Knoll, R. L., & Monsell, S. (1980). Motor programs in rapid speech: additional evidence. In R. A. Cole (Ed.), Theperceptionandproductionoffluentspeech (pp. 507–534). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum) to demonstrate that the latency to articulate a sentence is a function of the number of phonological words it comprises. Latencies for the sentence [Ik zoek het] [water] ‘I seek the water’ were shorter than latencies for sentences like [Ik zoek] [vers] [water] ‘I seek fresh water’. We extend this research by examining the prepared production of utterances containing phonological words that are less than a lexical word in length. Dutch compounds (e.g. ooglid ‘eyelid’) form a single morphosyntactic word and a phonological word, which in turn includes two phonological words. We compare their prepared production latencies to those syntactic phrases consisting of an adjective and a noun (e.g. oudlid ‘old member’) which comprise two morphosyntactic and two phonological words, and to morphologically simple words (e.g. orgel ‘organ’) which comprise one morphosyntactic and one phonological word. Our findings demonstrate that the effect is limited to phrasal level phonological words, suggesting that production models need to make a distinction between lexical and phrasal phonology.