Univerbation in Afrikaans verbal diminutives

Abstract

Abstract This paper concerns the verbal diminutive suffixes -el and -er in Afrikaans. In previous work (Cavirani-Pots et al. 2023), these suffixes have been analysed on par with their Dutch counterparts. In this paper we present the results of a nonsense word experiment on these suffixes in Afrikaans (94 participants) and Dutch (242 participants). The results show that the Afrikaans participants significantly underperform in guessing the meaning of these suffixes compared to the Dutch participants. We take this to mean that the underlying structure of verbs containing these suffixes is different in the two languages. Based on the three-way division of affix types of Creemers et al. (2018), we follow Cavirani-Pots et al. (2023)’s analysis of the Dutch -el and -er suffixes as being level Ia suffixes, i.e. suffixes that appear right above the stem they attach to. For Afrikaans, however, we propose that -el and -er have lost their suffixal status, and have undergone univerbation with the stem.