Carson T Schutze: Noun Compounding Question (reply to Rolf Noyer)

[Martha McGinnis]

Just a data clarification:

>First, I do not think it is correct that the compound stem form is always
>the same as the plural unless it is linking -s-. The example that I am
>familiar with is Stern-en-schein  'starshine' but Stern-e 'stars'.

Indeed Clahsen et al. have a footnote on this where they claim the apparent
linking -n is not productive, occurring in "a few isolated nominal
compounds". Interestingly the example they give is based on the same root
as Rolf's example: Sternenbanner

Even if there were two productive linking segments, I don't think that
would change the nature of the problem, would it? According to this source,
there is no predictability as to which stems will take linking -s in
compounds and which won't, which I guess effectively means we need a third
'principal part' for German nouns even if we didn't need to worry about a
few instances of linking (i.e., not-part-of-plural-allomorph) -n.