naa a22 4500 510742351 CHVBK 20180411083032.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180411e20130201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11525-013-9213-9 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11525-013-9213-9 Linking elements in German Origin, Change, Functionalization [Elektronische Daten] [Damaris Nübling, Renata Szczepaniak] Contemporary German is known for its complex system of linking elements. They not only show different degrees of productivity (between unproductive -es- and very productive -s-), but also exhibit functional diversity, with some of them even allowing plural interpretation, e.g. -er- in Völk+er+kunde ‘ethnology' vs. Volk+s+kunde ‘folklore'. In this paper, we argue that this is due to the complex historical development from two different sources. The first layer of linking elements, which arose out of Germanic primary suffixes, was reduced to one member, the "older” linking -e-, already in Old High German (e.g. in NHG Tag+e+werk ‘daily task'). The current functional diversity of the linking elements is primarily due to the later evolution out of inflectional endings. The dissociation from the second source has included a gradual change of the assignment rules from lexical (gender, declension class) to prosodic (formal) level. Thus, the current distribution of the most developed linking -s- is the most formalized one, as it can be directly deduced from the prosodic form of the first constituent. The development of the second layer of linking elements resembles the process of grammaticalization. However, linking elements form part of word formation and therefore are not the typical result of grammaticalization. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2013 Linking elements nationallicence Compounds nationallicence Grammaticalization nationallicence Exaptation nationallicence Language change nationallicence Nübling Damaris Deutsches Institut, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Jakob Welder-Weg 18, 55099, Mainz, Germany aut Szczepaniak Renata Institut für Germanistik, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany aut Morphology Springer Netherlands 23/1(2013-02-01), 67-89 1871-5621 23:1<67 2013 23 11525 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-013-9213-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-013-9213-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Nübling Damaris Deutsches Institut, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Jakob Welder-Weg 18, 55099, Mainz, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Szczepaniak Renata Institut für Germanistik, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Morphology Springer Netherlands 23/1(2013-02-01), 67-89 1871-5621 23:1<67 2013 23 11525 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer