Fugenelemente diachron

Drawing on a historical text corpus (1500–1710), this study shows how linked N+N-compounds develop and alter existing word formation patterns. The New High German “love of compounds” is directly attributable to these changes in productivity. Of particular interest is the non-paradigmatic s-compound. A proposed (transient) function of the s-compound results in the classification of the new type within existing models of language change.