German Participle Formation

German participle formation through affixation is generally predictable but not foreseeable by the surface structure of the verb. For monomorphemic verbs, a German participle is formed by attaching the participle marker ge- and a participle suffix to the verb stem. Depending on the verb, the participle suffix can either be -t (e.g. saugen - gesaugt ‘vacuum – vacuumed’) or -en (e.g. geben - gegeben ‘to give-gave’). -t participles are considered productive (or regular) and –en participles unproductive (or irregular) forms. Both forms can legally occur with a vowel change in the stem, as in reiten - geritten ‘to ride- ridden’ or brennen - gebrannt ‘to burn- burned’ (Smolka, Zwitserlood et al., 2007). Four classes of German participles are proposed

The ‘regular’ participles consist of the infinitive stem and a -t-suffix. Dual-mechanism accounts such as Sonnenstuhl et al. (1999) consider this the productive class, which is applied to new verbs (e.g. loan verbs such as skaten- geskatet ‘to skate- skated’). It is also by far the most frequent group of participles in German (Smolka et al., 2007). In theoretical work on German linguistics these are considered weak verbs ‘schwache Verben’(Bredel & Töpler, 2007). No vowel change occures in category ‘irregular 1’ verbs with the -en-suffix. The -en-suffix combined with a vowel change in the stem identify ‘irregular 2’ verbs. No distinction between the two groups is made in theoretical German grammar, both are classified as strong verbs ‘starke verben’ (Bredel & Töpler, 2007). ‘Irregular 3’ participles are made up from the ‘regular’ -t-suffix and a stem with vowel change, considered mixed verbs ‘gemischte

notlanden ‘to ditch’, staubsaugen ‘to vacuum’). This particular group of verbs, classified as non-V2-verbs (Freywald & Simon, 2007) or immobile verbs ‘bewegungsresistente verben’ (Fortmann, 2007), is able to produce at least two legal participle forms (e.g. genotlandet – notgelandet ‘ditched’). Some, like staubsaugen ‘to vaccum’, are decomposable into noun plus verb, which creates a third possibility for participle formation:

(1) Peter hat Staub gesaugt

(1) ‘Peter vacuumed’. Non-V2- verbs stem from a wide variety of German derivation processes: composite verbs, conversion, regression and incorporation (Table 1), their unifying feature being the syntactic constraint (Freywald & Simon, 2007; Fortmann, 2007). Fortmann (2007) argues that immobility is due to two separate reasons. First projection restrictions apply for whole complex verb forms like ‘wetteifern ‘to contend for sth.’ and second their inability to detach a particle to move to V2.

Possible derivation processes of non-V2-verbs in German (Freywald & Simon, 2007; Fortmann,