N-N compounding and derivation in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese: at the crossroads between morphology, syntax and semantics
Abstract
In Spanish, inflectional affixes attach to the morphological and semantic head of Noun- Noun (N-N) compounds, which implies that the plural of casa cuna or hombre lobo is casaS cuna and hombreS lobo respectively, while *casa cunaS and *hombre loboS are ungrammatical because the inflectional affix is attached to the modifier. However, there seems to be more flexibility in the case of derivational affixes, specifically evaluative diminutive affixes such as -ito, as for some native speakers, this suffix can have scope over the entire compound whether it is attached to the head (casITA cuna / hombrecITO lobo) or to the modifier (casa cunITA / hombre lobITO). In this article, data elicited via a Picture Interpretation Task and an Acceptability Judgment Task that were administered to a group of Peninsular Spanish speakers and to a group of Brazilian Portuguese speakers, show that derivative affix -ito is significantly more acceptable when attached to the head of the N-N compound, as is the case with inflectional affix -s.
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