Abstract
The substandard Dutch diminutive suffix -ke occurs in words of four different categories: nouns, predicatively used adjectives, adverbs, and interjections. In nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, the suffix may trigger an epenthetic consonant, which is not available for the interjections. This seems to go hand in hand with a syntactic distinction: for the interjections the suffix is not to be analysed as a diminutive, but as an honorific. I argue that in all contexts, the suffix realises scalar features, but of different natures. The phonological contrasts follow from the extravagant meandering through the syntax-phonology interface.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Extravagant Morphology |
| Subtitle of host publication | Studies in rule-bending, pattern-extending and theory-challenging morphology |
| Editors | Matthias Eitelmann, Dagmar Haumann |
| Publisher | John Benjamins |
| Chapter | 5 |
| Pages | 101-129 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789027257956 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789027210869 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Publication series
| Name | Studies in Language Companion Series |
|---|---|
| Volume | 223 |
| ISSN (Print) | 0165-7763 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I would like to thank Gertjan Postma, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors Dagmar Haumann and Matthias Eitelmann for the helpful comments that surely improved this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 John Benjamins Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Diminutives
- Distributed morphology
- Epenthetic consonants
- Honorifics
- Syntax-phonology interface