In this term-paper I will examine the German word-forming element pseudo-/Pseudo- in order to find out about its meaning and function, its properties but also about its transparency and productivity.
First of all I describe the procedure of collecting data and go into some essential basics. I will handle this in chapter two: Methodology. In chapter three I highlight meaning and origin of the element with information from dictionaries. Chapter four is about the dif-ferent properties of pseudo-. The subparagraph “morphological and syntactic proper-ties” deals with the classification of morphemes according to Kortmann but also with the lexical category of the base and with the finding of particular suffixes. The phono-logical properties offer an analysis concerning syllables, stress pattern and pronuncia-tion whereas the semantic properties is about pseudo- as an pejorative prefix. Chapter five is called “morphological status” and here I make a discussion about combining forms. In chapter six “transparency”, I define this term and describe how transparent the element is. The chapter of frequency and productivity (Chapter 7) is about how of-ten the element occurs and from this it follows a debate about its productivity rate. In the last chapter I compare pseudo- with möchtegern- and analyze it concerning a certain rivalry between the two morphemes.
The analysis of the element pseudo- is based on the data collection of several corpora. I used the online dictionary and linguistic data base DWDS (Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jh.). One of the eight corpora that the DWDS provides is called Corpus Berliner Zeitung. This corpus contains all online articles that have been appeared in the Berliner Zeitung from 3.1.1994 to 31.12.2005. It’s scale is about 252 million tokens in 869.000 articles.
I searched for pseudo* and I got 9 pages full of different pseudo-combinations. I tried to sort out the words that were not useful regarding to my analysis. Therefore I elimi-nated proper nouns or word formations that are well-established. For example pseudois-idorische Dekretalen (kirchenrechtliche Fälschungen) or pseudocýperus (Pflanzen-name). I put the words that can be found in a dictionary in brackets and therefore I did not include them in my analysis because dictionary words are not useable concerning an analysis of neologism.
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
2 METHODOLOGY
3 MEANING AND ORIGIN
4 PROPERTIES
4.1 Morphological and syntactic properties
4.2 Phonological properties
4.3 Semantic properties
5 MORPHOLOGICAL STATUS
6 TRANSPARENCY
7 FREQUENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY
8 COMPARISONS, RIVALLING ELEMENTS
9 CONCLUSION
Research Objectives and Key Topics
This paper investigates the German word-forming element "pseudo-" to analyze its linguistic meaning, functional properties, transparency, and productivity within the German language. By examining data from the "Berliner Zeitung" corpus and online sources, the study aims to classify the morpheme's morphological status and explore its competitive relationship with other elements.
- Morphological and syntactic classification of the prefix "pseudo-".
- Analysis of phonological and semantic properties in word formation.
- Measurement of frequency and productivity using corpus-based data.
- Comparison with the rivalling element "möchtegern-".
- Investigation into the transparency of pseudo-compounds.
Excerpt from the Book
4.2 Phonological properties
„Phonology (linguistics) scientific study of the organization of speech sounds (including phonemes), esp. in particular languages.“ (OED)
According to this quotation from the OED, I analyzed the element concerning its syllables, its stress pattern and the pronunciation.
By looking through the DWDS-data of the adjectives it becomes obvious that the affix prefers being attached to polysyllabic bases. I found only 10 monosyllabic bases in the corpus “Berliner Zeitung“ namely: pseudoklug, pseudohart, pseudoschrill, pseudo-forsch, pseudoschlau, pseudocool, pseudodeutsch, pseudolinks, pseudoneu and pseudo-schräg.
But nevertheless pseudo- can also be attached to monosyllabic bases. By natural introspection (that means “that we simply use our own intuition as competent speakers to decide whether certain formations are possible or impossible” Plag 2003: 33) it becomes clear that pseudo- can be attached to every monosyllabic noun or adjective. I tested this by myself and attached pseudo- to any monosyllabic word that came in my mind. Nearly everything works subject to the condition that the base is a noun or an adjective. (e.g. Pseudoklein, Pseudomensch, pseudoblöd. Nonsense words: Pseudomit*, Pseudodoch*, Pseudound*)
And of course also polysyllable nouns and adjectives like to merge with the given affix. We find the highest occurrence with 3-syllabled bases (64 times). From 4-syllabled bases on there is an obvious downward drift of frequency. For example a 7-syllabled base occurs only once in the whole corpora. But I think the explanation for this downward drift is that polysyllables with many syllables are not very frequent at all.
Summary of Chapters
1 INTRODUCTION: Presents the research scope concerning the meaning, function, properties, transparency, and productivity of the "pseudo-" element.
2 METHODOLOGY: Details the data collection process, specifically using the DWDS (Berliner Zeitung corpus) and Google search results to identify and filter word formations.
3 MEANING AND ORIGIN: Explores the etymological roots of "pseudo-" in Late Latin and Greek and classifies its various semantic nuances like "false" or "spurious".
4 PROPERTIES: Analyzes the morphological, syntactic, phonological, and semantic behavior of the element, including its preference for specific adjectival suffixes and base types.
5 MORPHOLOGICAL STATUS: Discusses whether "pseudo-" functions as an affix or an initial combining form within neoclassical compounds.
6 TRANSPARENCY: Examines the semantic transparency of compounds formed with "pseudo-", characterizing them as typically endocentric.
7 FREQUENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY: Calculates the productivity of "pseudo-" based on the occurrence of hapax legomena in the corpus.
8 COMPARISONS, RIVALLING ELEMENTS: Compares "pseudo-" with "möchtegern-" and assesses their respective competitive roles in noun and adjective formation.
9 CONCLUSION: Summarizes findings regarding the transparency and productivity of the element and acknowledges the inherent uncertainties in linguistic analysis.
Keywords
pseudo-, linguistics, word formation, morphology, productivity, corpus analysis, neologism, syntax, phonology, semantic transparency, combining forms, derivational prefix, German language, möchtegern-, hapax legomena
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this linguistic paper?
The paper focuses on the analysis of the German word-forming element "pseudo-", examining its semantic meaning, morphological classification, and structural properties.
Which specific themes are addressed regarding "pseudo-"?
The study covers its origin, its phonological patterns, its productivity rate, its degree of transparency in compounds, and its role as a prefix or combining form.
What is the main research objective?
The main objective is to determine how "pseudo-" functions within German word formation, how productive it is based on corpus data, and how it interacts with the language.
What methodology is applied in this research?
The research relies on corpus linguistics, utilizing the "Berliner Zeitung" corpus (via DWDS) and web-based data from Google to perform a frequency and productivity analysis.
What aspects of word formation are explored in the main body?
The main body examines morphological status, stress patterns, semantic pejorative effects, and the statistical frequency of occurrences with various base word categories.
Which keywords best describe this study?
Key terms include "pseudo-", word formation, morphology, productivity, corpus analysis, neologisms, and linguistic transparency.
How does the author define the productivity of "pseudo-"?
Productivity is measured by counting hapax legomena (words occurring only once) within the corpus relative to the total number of tokens found for the element.
What is the nature of the rivalry between "pseudo-" and "möchtegern-"?
The author observes that while both compete as noun-forming elements, they are complementary when forming adjectives, meaning they are used in different contexts.
- Quote paper
- Sandra Thillmann (Author), 2007, A linguistic analysis of the word forming element 'pseudo-', Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/88693
