Fuge-n-kitt, voeg-en-mes, fuge-masse und fog-e-ord - Fugenelemente im Deutschen, Niederländischen, Schwedischen und Dänischen : ein Grenzfall der Morphologie im Sprachkontrast. (Linking elements in German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish contrast)

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This article compares linking elements occurring in nominal compounds in
German, Dutch, Swedish and Danish. The linking systems differ most strikingly
with respect to syllabic elements. These are primarily distributed with
respect to declension classes and gender in German and Swedish, semantics in
Danish, and declension class and plural meaning in Dutch. Regarding functionalization,
there are tendencies to mark nouns with animate reference in
Danish (and secondary in German and Swedish) and to build trochaic structures
in word languages. The most consistent parallel between the languages
is found in the linking-s becoming a perceptual marker signalling the end of
morphologically (and in German phonologically) complex modifiers.