Evaluative compounding. Insights from two Dutch case studies on its productivity and competition
(2025) Word-Formation Theories VII Typology and Universals in Word-Formation VI — Location: P.J. Safarik University, Kosice, Slowakia (25.June.2025)
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- Štekauer (2015: 47) claims that affixation is “by far the most common strategy employed in evaluative morphology”. Accordingly, the primary focus of evaluative morphology (Grandi & Körtvélyessy 2015) has traditionally been on derivational processes, such as diminutive suffixes and intensifying prefixes (e.g., Dressler & Barbaresi 1994, Manova et al. 2023). Štekauer (2015: 51) also highlights an interesting paradox, noting that although compounding, along with suffixation, is one of the most widespread word-formation processes in general, this does not extend to evaluative formation. In certain languages, however, compounding serves as a highly productive source of evaluative morphology. This paper aims to provide evidence for this claim by presenting two case studies of evaluative compounding in Dutch, with particular attention to its productivity and competition with corresponding evaluative phrasal constructions. The first case study will focus on Dutch nominal ameliorative compounds with corresponding expressive binominal phrasal constructions. Specifically, we will compare the morphological and phrasal constructions involving pracht (‘beauty’), droom (‘dream’), and wonder (‘wonder’) (e.g., een prachtvrouw ‘lit. a beauty-woman; a beautiful woman’ vs. een pracht van een vrouw ‘lit. a beauty of a woman; a beautiful woman’). The second case study will concentrate on adjectival evaluative compounds that express intensification through comparison, also called “similes” or “elative compounds” (Hoeksema 2012), as well as their phrasal counterparts (e.g., apetrots ‘lit. monkey-proud’ / zo trots als een pauw ‘lit. as proud as a peacock; very proud’). The differences and similarities between the evaluative compounds and their corresponding phrases will be determined through a detailed corpus analysis of their semantic and formal properties, as well as their productivity. The corpus data will be taken from the Dutch Web Corpus 2020 (nlTenTen20), available on SketchEngine (Kilgarriff et al. 2014). On a theoretical level, the case studies will allow us to address the question of whether the evaluative compounds and their corresponding phrasal patterns are complementary or in competition with each other. Our studies will show that some subpatterns form good alternates (e.g., [een pracht-N] vs. [een pracht van een N]), while others are used in quite divergent ways ([een droom-N] vs. [een droom van een N]). References Dressler, W. U., & Barbaresi, L. M. (1994). Morphopragmatics. Diminutives and intensifiers in Italian, German, and other languages. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Grandi, N., & Körtvélyessy, L. (Eds.). (2015). The Edinburgh handbook of evaluative morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hoeksema, J. (2012). Elative compounds in Dutch: Properties and developments. In G. Oebel (Ed.), Crosslinguistic comparison of intensified adjectives and adverbs (pp. 97-142). Hamburg: Kovač Verlag. Kilgarriff, A., Baisa, V., Bušta, J., Jakubiček, M., Kovař, M., Michelfeit, J., Rychly, P., & Suchomel, V. (2014). The Sketch Engine: Ten years on. Lexicography, 1, 7-36. Manova, S., Grestenberger, L., & Korecky-Kröll, K. (Eds.). (2023). Diminutives across languages, theoretical frameworks and linguistic domains. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Štekauer, P. (2015). Word-formation processes in evaluative morphology. In N. Grandi & L. Körtvélyessy (Eds.), Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology (pp. 43-60). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
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Van Goethem, K. (2025). Evaluative compounding. Insights from two Dutch case studies on its productivity and competition. Word-Formation Theories VII Typology and Universals in Word-Formation VI, P.J. Safarik University, Kosice, Slowakia. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/245898