Processes for the construction of German words as functional condensers of grammatical information

Abstract

Word-formation processes in German are now considered as highly important grammatical resources for linguistic economy. Thus, far from being conceived as mere arbitrary units endowed with signifier and signified, they must be thought of as grammatical resources, though often very complex, which carry a great many different nuances. The correct interpretation of these depends on the background knowledge the interlocutors possess about this type of speech acts; or, even, on the background knowledge the interlocutors possess or assume they possess of one another. The aim of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, it sets out to account for the different possibilities of information purported by processes of derivation, as well as by processes of composition. Secondly, it aims at describing the morpho-syntactic scene where those mechanisms appear as more or less recurrent. Finally and most importantly, its purpose is to identify the lexematic bases available for us in cases of high productivity.