Sprachwandel anhand von Produktivitätsverschiebungen in der schweizerdeutschen Derivationsmorphologie

Abstract

Claims about productivity of a given affix are often made categorically without any empirical evidence. This paper deals with the question of derivational productivity in a German variety spoken in Switzerland. Although there are a few studies regarding German suffixes and their productivity, it does not exist any study for this special variation of German. Four German suffixes (-nis, -heit/-keit/-igkeit, -ung and -sal) should be explored in a diachronic way. The question explored is whether there are changes in productivity of these suffixes during time. There are several possibilities of measuring morphological productivity, by counting frequencies (token and types) and to use probabilistic models. Both methods should be applied in this study. By using the Schweizer Textkorpus it is possible to examine a period of hundred years (1900–2000). It can be shown that there is a morphological change during the 20th century in this German variety. Some of these suffixes become more productive whereas other suffixes lose their efficiency of building new words.