Morphosemantic Role of the Regular Plural Morpheme Within English Compounds

This study investigates the semantic role of the regular plural morpheme in the modifiers of English compounds (e.g., publications catalogue, weapons inspection), specifically examining whether this morpheme functions solely as a grammatical connector or also contributes semantic meaning. Sixty-seven monolingual native English speakers rated the acceptability of 80 sentences containing novel compounds with a medial regular plural morpheme. The compounds were divided into two types: those referring to many tokens of the same entity, such as *cars collection, and those referring to multiple types within a category, such as vehicles exhibition. The results revealed a statistically significant preference for compounds referring to multiple types, with participants rating these compounds as more acceptable than those indicating many tokens of the same entity. Such results provide evidence that the regular plural morpheme inside compounds contributes to semantic distinctions when it denotes categorical diversity. The findings have important implications for linguistic theory, demonstrating that the regular plural morpheme within compounds is not simply a grammatical linking element observed in noun compounds of other Germanic languages, but rather one that carries morphosemantic weight. In conclusion, the study argues that the regular plural within compounds operates similarly to lexical plurals, contributing semantic distinctions beyond its function as an inflectional marker.