Dataset: The Plural Interpretability Of German Linking Elements ("Morphology")

<strong>This dataset accompanies a paper to be published in "Morphology" (JOMO, Springer). Under the present DOI, all data generated for this research as well as all scripts used are stored. The paper itself is not CC-licensed, refer to Springer's "Morphology" website for details!</strong> <strong>Abstract</strong> In this paper, we take a closer theoretical and empirical look at the linking elements in German N1+N2 compounds which are identical to the plural marker of N1 (such as <em>-er</em> with umlaut, as in <em>Häus-er-meer</em> 'sea of houses'). Various perspectives on the actual extent of plural interpretability of these pluralic linking elements are expressed in the literature. We aim to clarify this question by empirically examining to what extent there may be a relationship between plural form and meaning which informs in which sorts of compounds pluralic linking elements appear. Specifically, we investigate whether pluralic linking elements occur especially frequently in compounds where a plural meaning of the first constituent is induced either externally (through plural inflection of the entire compound) or internally (through a relation between the constituents such that N2 forces N1 to be conceptually plural, as in the example above). The results of a corpus study using the DECOW16A corpus and a split-100 experiment show that in the internal but not external plural meaning conditions, a pluralic linking element is preferred over a non-pluralic one, though there is considerable inter-speaker variability, and limitations imposed by other constraints on linking element distribution also play a role. However, we show the overall tendency that German language users do use pluralic linking elements as cues to the plural interpretation of N1+N2 compounds. Our interpretation does not reference a specific morphological framework. Instead, we view our data as strengthening the general approach of probabilistic morphology.本数据集随附一篇即将发表于《形态学》（Morphology，JOMO，Springer出版社）的学术论文。本DOI项下存储了本研究产生的全部数据及所用的所有脚本代码。本文本身未采用CC（Creative Commons，知识共享）许可协议授权，详细规则请参阅Springer旗下《形态学》期刊官网。 <strong>摘要</strong> 本研究从理论与实证两个维度，对德语N1+N2型复合词中与N1复数标记（plural marker）一致的连接成分（linking element）展开深入探讨。例如带变音符号的<em>-er</em>，如<em>Häus-er-meer</em>，意为“房屋之海”。学界针对此类复数型连接成分（pluric linking element）的复数可解释性实际范围，存在多种不同学术观点。本研究旨在通过实证检验复数形式与语义间的关联程度，厘清这类连接成分在何种复合词中出现，以此澄清这一学术争议。 具体而言，本研究将探讨复数型连接成分是否更频繁地出现在以下两类复合词中：一是其首成分的复数含义通过外部诱导产生（即整个复合词发生复数屈折变化），二是其复数含义通过内部诱导产生（即构成成分间的语义关系使N2迫使N1在概念上呈现复数含义，如前例所述）。 本研究依托DECOW16A语料库开展语料分析，并结合拆分100实验（split-100 experiment），结果显示：仅在内部诱导的复数语义条件下，相较于非复数型连接成分，受试者更倾向于使用复数型连接成分；尽管存在受试间的显著个体差异，且连接成分分布的其他约束限制也会产生影响。 但本研究证实，德语使用者整体上确实会将复数型连接成分作为识别N1+N2型复合词复数语义的线索。本研究的阐释并未依托特定的形态学理论框架，而是将所得数据视为对概率形态学（probabilistic morphology）通用研究路径的进一步支撑。