Refine
Document Type
- Article (2)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (2) (remove)
Keywords
- emotional valence (2) (remove)
Publicationstate
- Postprint (1)
- Veröffentlichungsversion (1)
- Zweitveröffentlichung (1)
Reviewstate
- Peer-Review (2)
Publisher
- Peter Lang (1)
- Wiley (1)
This replication study aims to investigate a potential bias toward addition in the German language, building upon previous findings of Winter and colleagues who identified a similar bias in English. Our results confirm a bias in word frequencies and binomial expressions, aligning with these previous findings. However, the analysis of distributional semantics based on word vectors did not yield consistent results for German. Furthermore, our study emphasizes the crucial role of selecting appropriate translational equivalents, highlighting the significance of considering language-specific factors when testing for such biases for languages other than English.
Based on the privative derivational suffix -los, we test statements found in the literature on word formation using a – at least in this field – novel empirical basis: a list of affective-emotional ratings of base nouns and associated -los derivations. In addition to a frequency analysis based on the German Reference Corpus, we show that, in general, emotional polarity (so-called valence, positive vs. negative emotions) is reversed by suffixation with -los. This change is stronger for more polarized base nouns. The perceived intensity of emotion (so-called arousal) is generally lower for -los derivations than for base nouns. Finally, to capture the results theoretically, we propose a prototypical -los construction in the framework of Construction Morphology.