Between Abi and Propjes: Some remarks about clipping in English, German, Dutch and Swedish

This paper discusses clipping in a few Germanic languages, English, Dutch, Swedish and German. It deals with older monosyllabic clipped forms as well as with recently borrowed disyllabic clipping patterns with final -o. Attention is also given to a more traditional pattern in which clipping goes hand in hand with diminutive or hypocoristic suffixation. The data discussed in this paper show on the one hand how output resemblances influence possible innovations and on the other hand how prosodic preferences may reinforce such innovations. It is also shown how crucial the role of the naive language user is when it comes to innovation. This language user borrows a coherent set of lexemes from a foreign language, subsequently finds out what possible system governs this set and introduces this pattern into his own language, where it becomes productive.