Derivational morphology under the influence of language contact in French and German

Abstract

This paper analyses deverbal nominalisations in English, German and French: under special consideration is theing-suffixation which appears in all three languages. In German and French, more and moreing-derived loans have been adopted into the language during the past decades. In both languages, they have developed semantic and morphological properties of their own that overlap or contrast with rival native processes, such as the productive - ung and - en for German, and - age, -(t)ion and -ment for French. I will analyse this evolution especially from a semantic point of view and give reasons why the loan as well as the native forms can co-exist. Moreover, I will discuss the question of how far theing-suffixation can be considered an established and transparent word-formation rule for French and German.