Restricting suffix combinations in German and English: Closing suffixes and the monosuffix constraint*

Ιn both German and English many fewer combinations of derivational suffixes exist than should be possible, given the types of selectional restrictions that have been posited in the existing literature. For each language we found a pervasive restriction that is responsible for the missing combinations: German has closing suffixes, which individually prevent further suffixation. English allows only one Germanic suffix per word. In both languages the restriction holds for inflection and for clitics as well. For German, we also found that all closing suffixes are followed by linking elements ίn compounds, and that this constitutes the major productive use of linking elements. For English, we also found that Latinate suffixes are much more susceptible to combination, so that the Germanic and Latinate suffixes follow complementary patterns. Our findings for English show that the often-repeated observation that English inflectional morphology is simpler than that of related languages extends to derivation as well