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In-Reply-To: <memo.852141@cix.compulink.co.uk> petex@cix.compulink.co.uk (Peter Christian)

> > If masculine and neuter nouns change their ending in the genitive as -es, as in
> > die Mutter meines Vaters, and feminine nouns don't have the -es ending, as in
> > der Vater meiner Mutter, why when making compound nouns with feminine nouns is
> > there sometimes something like die VergangenheitSbewaeltigung?  Notice the
> > genitive 's' there, I would conjecture that it follows from a pronunciation
> > rule,
> 
> I don't *know* the answer to this but I can think of two
> non-exclusive answers. 1) The point you suggest about pronunciation (not
> a rule, though, it's too irregular for that), i.e. to ease the
> transition between two consonants. 2) But initially probably the analogy
> of the masc. & neuters where people must have come to regard it as a
> compounding feature rather than as a reflex of the genitive. It would
> certainly be interesting to find the earliest example of this -s-
> with a feminine.

A fuller version of the latter hypothesis:

Originally it was possible for the genitive to precede the headword,
as in Des Kaben Wunderhorn, Des Teufels General etc. And the compound
with a masc. or neut. determinative derived its -s- from this
genitive. However, once the syntactical rule changed and the genitive
could only follow the head, the case function of the -s- was obscured
and it was taken to be a feature of compounding in general and thus
transferable to feminines.

I think this motivates the usage better.

Peter
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Peter Christian                         
  Dept of European Languages              peter@gold.ac.uk
  Goldsmiths' College, London.            petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
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