Article published In: The Mental Lexicon
Vol. 8:1 (2013) ► pp.53–74
Plurals as modifiers in Dutch and English noun-noun compounds express plurality in production
Published online: 29 April 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.8.1.03ban
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.8.1.03ban
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.
Keywords: morphological structure, compounding, novel compounds, picture-naming, plurality, Dutch, English
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Clahsen, Harald, Sabrina Gerth, Vera Heyer & Esther Schott
2015. Morphology constrains native and non-native word formation in different ways
. The Mental Lexicon 10:1 ► pp. 53 ff.
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