On the way from morphology to phonology: German linking elements and the role of the phonological word

German linking elements are sometimes classified as inflectional affixes, sometimes as derivational affixes, and in any case as morphological units with at least seven realisations (e.g. -s-, -es-, -(e)n-, -e-). This article seeks to show that linking elements are hybrid elements situated between morphology and phonology. On the one hand, they have a clear morphological status since they occur only within compounds (and before a very small set of suffixes) and support the listener in decoding them. On the other hand, they also have to be analysed on the phonological level, as will be shown in this article. Thus, they are marginal morphological units on the pathway to phonology (including prosodics). Although some alloforms can sometimes be considered former inflectional endings and in some cases even continue to demonstrate some inflectional behaviour (such as relatedness to gender and inflection class), they are on their way to becoming markers of ill-formed phonological words. In fact, linking elements, above all the linking -s-, which is extremely productive, help the listener decode compounds containing a bad phonological word as their first constituent, such as Geburt+s+tag ‘birthday’ or Religion+s+unterricht ‘religious education’. By marking the end of a first constituent that differs from an unmarked monopedal phonological word, the linking element aids the listener in correctly decoding and analysing the compound. German compounds are known for their length and complexity, both of which have increased over time—along with the occurrence of linking elements, especially -s-. Thus, a profound instance of language change can be observed in contemporary German, one indicating its typological shift from syllable language to word language.     

Source- and product-oriented strategies in L2 acquisition of plural marking in German

This article deals with the acquisition of the German plural system. It raises the question how morphologically complex words are represented in the mental grammar and in the lexicon of children and how this representation emerges.There are several theoretical accounts dealing with this question. These accounts are basically of two kinds. One approach models the German number system as rule-based; i.e. source-oriented rules are postulated that operate on the singular form of the noun. The second approach is schema-based. Essential to this approach is the idea that speakers form the plural of a given noun according to prototypical plural shapes. Empirical evidence can be found for both approaches, but neither of them seems to be able to fully explain acquisitional paths on its own.On the basis of the analysis of acquisitional data, this article argues for an expanded schema account that embraces both source- and product-oriented mechanisms. We propose an acquisition model according to which learners start out with storing plural forms holistically in an associative network; then they abstract product-oriented schemas from these stored forms that focus on the typical gestalts of German plural forms. In a last step, they establish source-oriented schemas that relate singular schemas with plural schemas.The data for this study were gathered in a nonce word elicitation experiment from children aged 6 to 10 learning German either as their native or second language. In the latter case, the children’s L1 was either Russian or Turkish.     

Semantic and prosodic effects of Dutch linking elements

The studies presented here investigate the contribution of linking -en- and rhythm to a compound’s conceptual plurality. Participants were asked to estimate the conceptual plurality of the modifier constituents of Dutch compounds. In the first study, pseudo-compounds (compounds composed of pseudo-words, burb+en+tijpis) and novel compounds (novel combinations of existing nouns, aap+en+leraar, ‘monkey teacher’) with linking -en- were investigated. In study two, we examined written existing compounds that occur with and without -en- (bloem+bak or bloem+en+bak, ‘flower box’) and present a stress clash or not at the constituent boundaries. Finally, study three investigated the same question as study two for spoken existing compounds. The results reveal that existing compounds written or spoken with linking -en- are considered to bear more plural meaning than the ones without linking element. Furthermore, an effect of rhythm on plurality was observed in pseudo-compounds and in spoken existing compounds. When these compounds contain linking -en- to prevent a stress clash, they are considered to bear less plural meaning than those with linking -en- in a neutral context. These studies demonstrate that rhythm can affect the interpretation of linking elements. The fact that we only find a rhythmic effect in pseudo-compounds and spoken existing compounds but not in written existing compounds is explained in terms of processing.     

The period gene of the German cockroach and its novel linking power between vertebrate and invertebrate

Circadian clock protein PERIOD (PER) is essential for the endogenous clockworks in diverse lineages within Metazoa, but the protein sequences, the clock protein interactions, and the photic responses are variant and different between vertebrate and invertebrate PER homologs. Here we identified the German cockroach PER homologs and found it could bridge the huge phylogenetic gap and make possible a more precise protein sequence comparison between vertebrate and invertebrate PER homologs. Seven blocks of conserved regions (c1-c7) interspersed within PER proteins were defined, and two new significant homologies were found in the upstream portion of c3 region and in the c7 region, respectively. In addition, we found all dipteran insects PER homologs lack the c7 region and its following amino acid residues. Our results not only reveal the homology and divergence, but also imply the constraint and plasticity of divergent PER proteins during the course of evolution. These findings lay a solid foundation for understanding the general and divergent properties of circadian clockworks in diverse lineages within Metazoa.     

Linking elements in German Origin, Change, Functionalization

Contemporary German is known for its complex system of linking elements. They not only show different degrees of productivity (between unproductive -es- and very productive -s-), but also exhibit functional diversity, with some of them even allowing plural interpretation, e.g. -er- in Völk+er+kunde ‘ethnology’ vs. Volk+s+kunde ‘folklore’. In this paper, we argue that this is due to the complex historical development from two different sources. The first layer of linking elements, which arose out of Germanic primary suffixes, was reduced to one member, the “older” linking -e-, already in Old High German (e.g. in NHG Tag+e+werk ‘daily task’). The current functional diversity of the linking elements is primarily due to the later evolution out of inflectional endings. The dissociation from the second source has included a gradual change of the assignment rules from lexical (gender, declension class) to prosodic (formal) level. Thus, the current distribution of the most developed linking -s- is the most formalized one, as it can be directly deduced from the prosodic form of the first constituent. The development of the second layer of linking elements resembles the process of grammaticalization. However, linking elements form part of word formation and therefore are not the typical result of grammaticalization.     

Enhancement of tomogram interpretability using the locked self-rotation function

The interpretation of cryo-electron tomograms of macromolecular complexes can be difficult because of the large amount of noise and because of the missing wedge effect. Here it is shown how the presence of rotational symmetry in a sample can be utilized to enhance the quality of a tomographic analysis. The orientation of symmetry axes in a sub-tomogram can be determined using a locked self-rotation function. Given this knowledge, the sub-tomogram density can then be averaged to improve its interpretability. Sub-tomograms of the icosahedral bacteriophage phiX174 are used to demonstrate the procedure.     

The influence of feature selection methods on accuracy, stability and interpretability of molecular signatures

Biomarker discovery from high-dimensional data is a crucial problem with enormous applications in biology and medicine. It is also extremely challenging from a statistical viewpoint, but surprisingly few studies have investigated the relative strengths and weaknesses of the plethora of existing feature selection methods. In this study we compare 32 feature selection methods on 4 public gene expression datasets for breast cancer prognosis, in terms of predictive performance, stability and functional interpretability of the signatures they produce. We observe that the feature selection method has a significant influence on the accuracy, stability and interpretability of signatures. Surprisingly, complex wrapper and embedded methods generally do not outperform simple univariate feature selection methods, and ensemble feature selection has generally no positive effect. Overall a simple Student's t-test seems to provide the best results.     

The logic linking protein acetylation and metabolism

Protein acetylation now rivals phosphorylation in frequency of occurrence but is incompletely understood. A?picture is presented in which protein acetylation is linked to available energy via the NAD-dependent deacetylases. This model suggests that protein acetylation regulates metabolic strategy and also helps store energy in cells.