The productivity of Dutch diminutives
This study reports on an investigation of the productivity of the Dutch diminutive paradigm, which gives rise to
five suffixal allomorphs, against the background of
Yang’s (2016) Tolerance Principle.
It shows how, by studying the frequency of the allomorphs and the environments in which they occur, we can use the Tolerance
Principle to determine if a productive rule system can be found for the Dutch diminutives. In doing so, we also describe how we
collected the necessary data by setting up a corpus study on Dutch diminutives, including a specific one with data from child
directed speech.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Dutch diminutives
- 2.1Empirical background
- 2.2Theoretical accounts
- 2.3Acquisition findings
- 3.Quantifying the relevant diminutive data distribution
- 3.1The tolerance principle
- 3.2Corpus research: Determining allomorphs
- 3.3Corpus research: Feature selection
- 4.A Tolerance Principle based analysis of Dutch diminutives
- 4.1Finding a productive rule system
- 4.2Discussion
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Note
-
References
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Yang, Charles
2023.
A User’s Defense of the Tolerance Principle: Reply to Enger (2022).
Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 145:4
► pp. 563 ff.
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Yang, Charles
2024.
Phonological Regularity and Breakdown. An Account of Vowel Length Leveling in Middle English. In
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► pp. 237 ff.
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