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Project A4 - Dynamics of linguistic representations in morphology

PI and Ko-PI: Prof. Dr. Lameli, Prof. Dr. Scharinger and Prof. Dr. Spieß
Ph.D.-student: Denise Al-Rubaye-Jung

Research Context

Project A4 focusses on the german diminutive forms. This topic is a heterogenous and historically dynamic field, affected by processes of change and reorganization. Preliminary work already showed the replacement of the -lein suffix and the historically short use of the -gen suffix that eventually gave rise to the dominant use of the -chen suffix. But even though diminuition is highly dependent of situation and adressee the question remains when exactly speakers use which kind of diminutive. Furthermore it is unclear if diminutition has declined in the recent past and in today’s spoken german and if so to what extent. From the language typological point of view the question to the connection of analytical and synthetical formation of diminutives arises. It is possible that speakers prefer to use a prefixed adjective (e.g. der kleine Junge) instead of a suffix to mark diminution. Center of all research questions is the dynamic of mental representation in the use of diminutives and the question how diminituives are processed on a cognitive level.

Current dissertation project

Aims

The goal of the project is to make solid statements about the development and use of diminutives from 1950 until today. Corpus analyses should show how frequent and in which contexts diminutives are used. Experimental methods are used to help to make a precise statement about representation and use of diminutives in today’s spoken german and throughout different generations.

Methods

To analyze the use of diminutives in written german and in parent-child interaction extensive corpus analysis be conducted for the time span from 1950 until 2018 (written german) and from 1971 onwards (parent-child interaction). To gain reliable and more current data about the parent-child interaction it will be considered to take new records and analyze those. In order to draw conclusions about todays usage of diminutives in spoken german an online questionnaire (decision task) will be conducted.

Preliminary work

Preliminary work for the corpus analysis part can be found in Lamelis’ work, e.g. in his corpus analysis where he examined data for the time span from 1600 to 1900 (Lameli 2018). The results showed that the -lein-suffix was dominant until 1650. From the 18th century onwards, initiated by a -gen-suffix, it came to a replacement through the -chen-suffix. This process was accompanied by a general reduction in the use of diminutives that stabilized again afterwards. The more frequent use of the -chen-suffix also led to a change in which literature they were used. While until then the -lein-suffix was pimarily used in non-scientific and theological literature it now was used mainly in fairy tales. With the more frequent use of -chen, which was until then mainly used in botanical literature, came a rise of all diminutive suffixes in all genres. This eventually ceased, the -gen-suffix was not used anymore, -lein mainly in fairy tales and -chen became the dominant diminutive suffix. There is also evidence that suggests a decline in the use of diminutives in the present.

Considering nowadays spoken german Korecky-Kröll (2011,2022) examined the use of regional and high german diminutives. Her work was able to highlight some obstacles when it comes to terms of method (e.g. diminutive refusal) when examining spoken german. The author was also able to find a higher use of diminutives in parent-child interaction (2011). Since the use of diminutives often has an emotional aspect to it, she was able to call attention to the importance of a credible situation in an experimental setting.