Esther Hanssen

Two languages, two sets of interpretations: Language-specific influences of morphological form on Dutch and English speakers' interpretation of compounds

Abstract The present study investigates linguistic relativity. Do form differences between Dutch and English influence the interpretations which speakers have? The Dutch element en in noun-noun compounds, for example in aardbeienjam ‘strawberry jam’ is homophonous and homographic with the regular plural suffix -en. English, in contrast, has no such typical linking elements in compounds. We therefore investigated the interpretation of Dutch modifiers in compounds and their English equivalents. We compared the plurality ratings of Dutch modifiers with and without the linking element en by native Dutch speakers, and the plurality ratings of English modifiers by native Dutch speakers and native English speakers. If the Dutch linking en induces plural meaning, we expected a difference between the plurality ratings by English speakers for English modifiers and by Dutch speakers for Dutch modifiers, such that the estimation of the number of strawberries in strawberry jam is lower for the English speakers than the number of aardbeien in aardbeienjam for the Dutch speakers. This is exactly what we found. Moreover, when native Dutch speakers rate the English equivalents, their interpretation of strawberry jam is the same as for native English speakers, which shows the language being used to influence semantic interpretations.

The similarity of plural endings and linking elements in regional speech variants of Dutch.

The plural suffix -en (noot+en, ‘nuts’) is pronounced differently by speakers coming from different regions of the Netherlands. In this study, we compared the pronunciation of the plural suffix -en in phrases (noot+en kraken, ‘to crack nuts’) with linking en in compounds (noot+en+kraker, ‘nutcracker’), because some claim that both are similar (Schreuder, Neijt, van der Weide, & Baayen, 1998), whereas others claim that they are not (Verkuyl, 2007). The pronunciations of 109 participants coming from five regions of the Netherlands were therefore compared in a picture naming task. A systematic relation between the pronunciations of plural -en and linking en was detected: Speakers from the Northern and Eastern regions produced [(ᵊ)n] most often for both the linking elements and plural endings, while speakers from the Middle and Western regions produced [ᵊ] most often for both. For speakers from the Southern region, we found no preference to pronounce either [ᵊ] or [ᵊn] in compounds or phrases. It is concluded that Dutch speakers often do not distinguish plural -en from linking en in their speech production. Possibly, speakers of Dutch consider linking en and plural -en as the same morpheme.