Using a data set of nicknames of elite athletes compiled from the mainstream British sporting press and media, this article explores grammatical patterns in the way we create hypocoristic nicknames like Hughesie, Robbo and Macca. It outlines the purpose of nicknames and their particular role in sport, and provides an analysis of the predictable morphological and phonological rules that apply to a type of nickname categorised here as ‘transparent’. It offers some initial observations on the social distribution of particular nickname variants and on the potential for creativity and playfulness inherent in transparent nicknaming processes.

Phonological characteristics and frequencies of stems and allomorphs have been explored as possible factors causing differences in production accuracies between allomorphic forms. However, previous findings are not consistent and the relative contributions of these factors are unclear. This study investigated target and erroneous productions of the Dutch diminutive, which has five allomorphs with varying type frequencies and of which the selection depends on the phonological characteristics of the stems. Typically developing children (N = 115, 5;1–10;3) were tested on their production of real and nonce diminutives. Linear mixed effects modelling was used to analyse the data taking nonverbal IQ into account. Type frequencies of the allomorphs and differences in phonological characteristics of the stems were found to be related to differences in production accuracies between the allomorphs. However, phonological characteristics of the stems appeared to have a bigger impact, mainly due to the phonological complexity of these characteristics.

In 1968 Emmerick proposed the existence of a present stem type D. It is shown here from morphophonological patterning that his category contains two subtypes, temporarily labelled D1 and D2. By comparing vocalic contractions from the nominals with the D1 endings, it is clear that the D1 stems end synchronically in -a- and take the regular type A endings. The D2 stem vowel in contrast, behaves partly like nominal stems in -a-, and partly like stems in -i-. By reviewing contraction evidence relating to all vowels, it is shown that the D2 stems end synchronically, albeit abstractly, in -e- and take the regular type A endings. Two further verbs from Emmerick's type C are shown also to end in -e- and take the regular endings.

This study examined the production of the Dutch past tense in Dutch–Hebrew bilingual children and investigated the effect of type of past tense allomorph (de versus te) and token frequency on productions of the past tense. Seven-year-old bilingual children (n=11) were compared with monolingual children: age-matched (n=30) and younger vocabulary-matched (n=21). Accuracy of regular and novel past tense was similar for the bilingual and monolingual groups, but the former group was worse on irregular past tense than the age-matched monolingual peers. All three groups showed effects of type frequency: te past tenses were more accurate than de. The difference between the bilingual and monolingual children surfaces in the extent of the effect: for the bilingual children it was most pronounced in verbs with low token frequency and novel verbs. Results are interpreted as stemming from a learning strategy or from phonological transfer from the Hebrew morphosyntactic system.