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First-language acquisition of synthetic compounds in Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian and Saami

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Abstract

In this first cross-linguistic study of the emergence and early development of synthetic compounds we present the strictly parallel analysis of systematically collected longitudinal data from seven languages: the Finno-Ugric languages Finnish, Saami, Estonian and the Indo-European languages Lithuanian, Russian, Greek and German. The data of spontaneous interactions between children and parents allow insights usually not obtainable via transversal formal tests. For example, the target of acquisition is the specific parental child-directed speech and not the target languages as represented in grammars, dictionaries and adult electronic corpora.

The distribution, dates and orders of emergence of various formal and semantic subtypes of synthetic compounds, i.e. instrument, agent, result, action, local deverbal synthetic compounds, differs among the languages studied. These differences are better explained by the relative richness of patterns of synthetic compounds than by other typological criteria such as belonging to, or approaching, the agglutinating vs. the inflecting-fusional language type.

The analyses offer support for a building-block model of the rise of morphological complexity, for synthetic compounds being taken up by children as compounds and not as derivations, but being more complex than other types of compounds. Thus, synthetic compounds become productive later than nominal compounds in general.

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Notes

  1. With the exception of a single lemma, personal communication by Laila Kjærbæk, University of Southern Denmark, Odense.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vienna, Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Porzellangasse 4/2/408, 1090, Wien, Austria

    Wolfgang U. Dressler

  2. Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Postgasse 7-9, 1010, Wien, Austria

    Sabine Sommer-Lolei

  3. University of Vienna, Porzellangasse 4/2/407, 1090, Wien, Austria

    Katharina Korecky-Kröll

  4. Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, Room S-556, 10120, Tallinn, Estonia

    Reili Argus

  5. Vytautas Magnus University, K. Donelaičio str. 58, 44248, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Ineta Dabašinskienė & Laura Kamandulytė-Merfeldienė

  6. Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Hánnoluohkká 45, 9520, Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway

    Johanna Johansen Ijäs

  7. Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tuchkov per., 9, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Victoria V. Kazakovskaya

  8. University of Tampere, Kalevantie 4, 33014, Tampereen yliopisto, Finland

    Klaus Laalo

  9. Democritus University of Thrace, 1 P. Tsaldari Str., ‘Block B’, 69100, Komotini, Greece

    Evangelia Thomadaki

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  1. Wolfgang U. Dressler
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  2. Sabine Sommer-Lolei
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  5. Ineta Dabašinskienė
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  8. Victoria V. Kazakovskaya
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Correspondence to Sabine Sommer-Lolei.

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S. Sommer-Lolei is recipient of a DOC-team fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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Dressler, W.U., Sommer-Lolei, S., Korecky-Kröll, K. et al. First-language acquisition of synthetic compounds in Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian and Saami. Morphology 29, 409–429 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-019-09339-0

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