Methoden der Produktivitätsmessung in diachronen Korpusstudien

This study examines methods of assessing the productivity of derivational patterns in diachronic corpora. Using the example of (Early) New High Ger-man adjectival derivation, canonical methods – such as so-called realized productivity and potential productivity – are put under scrutiny. In addition, the study presents less canonical methods that are based on a) the finite Zipf-Mandelbrot model and b) the relation to all derivational patterns of a given part of speech. The data shed new light on both the power and the problems of each method. It is demonstrated how to assess productivity by way of comparing the results of several methods while factoring in their shortcomings. Finally, a qualitative approach, aiming at the part of speech of the base, is examined.