Geert Booij
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199226245
- eISBN:
- 9780191710360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226245.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
Languages sometimes give complex systems for the expression of inflectional properties, in which inflection classes play an essential role. An inflectional class is a set of words with the same kind ...
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Languages sometimes give complex systems for the expression of inflectional properties, in which inflection classes play an essential role. An inflectional class is a set of words with the same kind of inflectional marking. Word forms are presented in paradigms, and the assumption of paradigm implies the introduction of notions such as suppletion and periphrasis.Less
Languages sometimes give complex systems for the expression of inflectional properties, in which inflection classes play an essential role. An inflectional class is a set of words with the same kind of inflectional marking. Word forms are presented in paradigms, and the assumption of paradigm implies the introduction of notions such as suppletion and periphrasis.
Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith, Maria Goldbach, and Marc-Olivier Hinzelin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199589982
- eISBN:
- 9780191728884
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589982.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Historical Linguistics
This book uses detailed analysis of data from Romance inflectional morphology to cast new light on the role of autonomous morphological structure in the diachrony and synchrony of the Romance ...
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This book uses detailed analysis of data from Romance inflectional morphology to cast new light on the role of autonomous morphological structure in the diachrony and synchrony of the Romance languages. It constitutes a major contribution to Romance historical morphology in particular, and to our understanding of the nature and importance of morphomic (i.e. morphologically autonomous) structure in language change in general. It will therefore appeal both to Romance linguists and to morphological theorists at large.Less
This book uses detailed analysis of data from Romance inflectional morphology to cast new light on the role of autonomous morphological structure in the diachrony and synchrony of the Romance languages. It constitutes a major contribution to Romance historical morphology in particular, and to our understanding of the nature and importance of morphomic (i.e. morphologically autonomous) structure in language change in general. It will therefore appeal both to Romance linguists and to morphological theorists at large.
Silvio Cruschina, Martin Maiden, and John Charles Smith (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678860
- eISBN:
- 9780191758089
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678860.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
This book considers whether in some languages there are phenomena which are unique to morphology, determined neither by phonology or syntax. Central to these phenomena is the notion of the ...
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This book considers whether in some languages there are phenomena which are unique to morphology, determined neither by phonology or syntax. Central to these phenomena is the notion of the ‘morphome’, conceived by Mark Aronoff in 1994 as a function, itself lacking form and meaning but which serves systematically to relate them. The classic examples of morphomes are determined neither phonologically or morphosyntactically, and appear to be an autonomous property of the synchronic organization of morphological paradigms. The nature of the morphome is a problematic and much debated issue at the centre of current research in morphology, partly because it is defined negatively as what remains after all attempts to assign putatively morphomic phenomena to phonological or morphosyntactic conditioning have been exhausted. However, morphomic phenomena generally originate in some kind of morphosyntactic or phonological conditioning which has been lost while their effects have endured. Quite often, vestiges of the original conditioning environment persist, and the boundary between the morphomic and extramorphological conditioning may become problematic. In a series of pioneering explorations of the diachrony of morphomes this book throws important new light on the nature of the morphome and the boundary—seen from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives—between what is and is not genuinely autonomous in morphology.Less
This book considers whether in some languages there are phenomena which are unique to morphology, determined neither by phonology or syntax. Central to these phenomena is the notion of the ‘morphome’, conceived by Mark Aronoff in 1994 as a function, itself lacking form and meaning but which serves systematically to relate them. The classic examples of morphomes are determined neither phonologically or morphosyntactically, and appear to be an autonomous property of the synchronic organization of morphological paradigms. The nature of the morphome is a problematic and much debated issue at the centre of current research in morphology, partly because it is defined negatively as what remains after all attempts to assign putatively morphomic phenomena to phonological or morphosyntactic conditioning have been exhausted. However, morphomic phenomena generally originate in some kind of morphosyntactic or phonological conditioning which has been lost while their effects have endured. Quite often, vestiges of the original conditioning environment persist, and the boundary between the morphomic and extramorphological conditioning may become problematic. In a series of pioneering explorations of the diachrony of morphomes this book throws important new light on the nature of the morphome and the boundary—seen from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives—between what is and is not genuinely autonomous in morphology.
Mark Aronoff
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678860
- eISBN:
- 9780191758089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678860.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
Recent morphological theories have highlighted two very different views of what roots are. Within Distributed Morphology, roots are the basic meaningful lexical units of language. Within autonomous ...
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Recent morphological theories have highlighted two very different views of what roots are. Within Distributed Morphology, roots are the basic meaningful lexical units of language. Within autonomous morphology, where the meaningful lexical units are lexemes, roots play a very different role and their necessary meaningfulness has been called into question (Aronoff 1976, 1994, 2007). In this article, I will provide detailed evidence from English irregular verbs that roots are purely morphological entities and that English verb roots cannot be meaningful. I will then trace the history of the study of roots in Semitic grammar, beginning with the earliest Arabic grammarians and moving on to the early Hebrew grammatical tradition. I will show that, although traditional Arabic grammar dealt with roots, it was the Hebrew grammarians who gave roots the special status that they acquired in Western grammatical description from the Renaissance on. I will finally review evidence from inside and outside formal linguistics on the status of roots in modern Semitic languages and conclude that, although much points to the reality of roots in these languages, there is little or no evidence that these roots are meaningful as opposed to purely morphological entities. This calls into question the basis of Distributed Morphology, or any theory that relies on meaningful roots as fundamental theoretical entities.Less
Recent morphological theories have highlighted two very different views of what roots are. Within Distributed Morphology, roots are the basic meaningful lexical units of language. Within autonomous morphology, where the meaningful lexical units are lexemes, roots play a very different role and their necessary meaningfulness has been called into question (Aronoff 1976, 1994, 2007). In this article, I will provide detailed evidence from English irregular verbs that roots are purely morphological entities and that English verb roots cannot be meaningful. I will then trace the history of the study of roots in Semitic grammar, beginning with the earliest Arabic grammarians and moving on to the early Hebrew grammatical tradition. I will show that, although traditional Arabic grammar dealt with roots, it was the Hebrew grammarians who gave roots the special status that they acquired in Western grammatical description from the Renaissance on. I will finally review evidence from inside and outside formal linguistics on the status of roots in modern Semitic languages and conclude that, although much points to the reality of roots in these languages, there is little or no evidence that these roots are meaningful as opposed to purely morphological entities. This calls into question the basis of Distributed Morphology, or any theory that relies on meaningful roots as fundamental theoretical entities.
Dunstan Brown
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198712329
- eISBN:
- 9780191780882
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198712329.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
Inflectional classes are an instance of autonomous morphology, where expression in form cross-cuts syntactically relevant distinctions. However, most analyses assume some kind of ‘containment’, where ...
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Inflectional classes are an instance of autonomous morphology, where expression in form cross-cuts syntactically relevant distinctions. However, most analyses assume some kind of ‘containment’, where choice of inflectional allomorphs is largely restricted to a part of speech. In default inheritance accounts of morphology higher defaults are assumed to correspond to recognizable parts of speech. Data from Archi and Noon indicate that violations of containment are not so implausible, but even here there is a role for principles, such as Network Morphology’s ‘morphological projection’, or Spencer’s ‘morpholexically coherent lexicon’, that entail a relationship between parts of speech and default morphological classes.Less
Inflectional classes are an instance of autonomous morphology, where expression in form cross-cuts syntactically relevant distinctions. However, most analyses assume some kind of ‘containment’, where choice of inflectional allomorphs is largely restricted to a part of speech. In default inheritance accounts of morphology higher defaults are assumed to correspond to recognizable parts of speech. Data from Archi and Noon indicate that violations of containment are not so implausible, but even here there is a role for principles, such as Network Morphology’s ‘morphological projection’, or Spencer’s ‘morpholexically coherent lexicon’, that entail a relationship between parts of speech and default morphological classes.
Richard Hudson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198712329
- eISBN:
- 9780191780882
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198712329.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter applies a cognitive theory of language—Word Grammar—to the analysis of French pronoun clitics, with default inheritance as the underlying logic. It outlines the relevant cognitive ...
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This chapter applies a cognitive theory of language—Word Grammar—to the analysis of French pronoun clitics, with default inheritance as the underlying logic. It outlines the relevant cognitive apparatus that seems to be available in general cognition, then shows in general terms how this apparatus supports autonomous morphology, default morphology, and the treatment of clitics as words realized by affixes. It then turns to French pronouns, with separate formal network analyses for enclitics, proclitics, and clitic-climbing to auxiliaries (arguing that other kinds of clitic-climbing are syntactic rather than morphosyntactic).Less
This chapter applies a cognitive theory of language—Word Grammar—to the analysis of French pronoun clitics, with default inheritance as the underlying logic. It outlines the relevant cognitive apparatus that seems to be available in general cognition, then shows in general terms how this apparatus supports autonomous morphology, default morphology, and the treatment of clitics as words realized by affixes. It then turns to French pronouns, with separate formal network analyses for enclitics, proclitics, and clitic-climbing to auxiliaries (arguing that other kinds of clitic-climbing are syntactic rather than morphosyntactic).
Martin Maiden
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678860
- eISBN:
- 9780191758089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678860.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
This study deals with the alternation in Italian (and Romanian) between velar and palatal consonants in verb roots as a classic example of the emergence of allomorphy in inflectional paradigms due to ...
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This study deals with the alternation in Italian (and Romanian) between velar and palatal consonants in verb roots as a classic example of the emergence of allomorphy in inflectional paradigms due to historically regular sound change, asking when the phonological process ceases and morphological conditioning takes over, and what the relationship is between them if the original conditioning environment persists. Despite claims that the alternation remains phonologically conditioned, evidence from diachrony has hitherto suggested early morphologization of the phenomenon, the distribution of the alternation becoming independent of the phonological environment, and indeed ‘morphomic’. I adduce new historical evidence for a more nuanced view of the relation between morphological and phonological conditioning, such that the alternations, while remaining fundamentally ‘morphomic’, also appear sensitive to features of their phonological environment. I reflect on the kind of synchronic relationship between autonomously morphological phenomena and their phonological pendants which such data imply.Less
This study deals with the alternation in Italian (and Romanian) between velar and palatal consonants in verb roots as a classic example of the emergence of allomorphy in inflectional paradigms due to historically regular sound change, asking when the phonological process ceases and morphological conditioning takes over, and what the relationship is between them if the original conditioning environment persists. Despite claims that the alternation remains phonologically conditioned, evidence from diachrony has hitherto suggested early morphologization of the phenomenon, the distribution of the alternation becoming independent of the phonological environment, and indeed ‘morphomic’. I adduce new historical evidence for a more nuanced view of the relation between morphological and phonological conditioning, such that the alternations, while remaining fundamentally ‘morphomic’, also appear sensitive to features of their phonological environment. I reflect on the kind of synchronic relationship between autonomously morphological phenomena and their phonological pendants which such data imply.
Silvio Cruschina, Martin Maiden, and John Charles Smith
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678860
- eISBN:
- 9780191758089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678860.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
The introductory chapter introduces and defines autonomous morphology, introducing this area of scholarship and the chapters that follow.
The introductory chapter introduces and defines autonomous morphology, introducing this area of scholarship and the chapters that follow.
Ana Luís and Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198702108
- eISBN:
- 9780191771804
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702108.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
This volume offers a selection of original contributions by leading scholars, all linked by a shared interest in the concept of the morphome, but representing different areas of expertise ...
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This volume offers a selection of original contributions by leading scholars, all linked by a shared interest in the concept of the morphome, but representing different areas of expertise (morphology, phonology, semantics, typology) and different views on how linguistic theory ought to account for putatively morphomic patterns. Empirical evidence is drawn from a wide range of typologically distinct languages, such as Archi, Gaelic, German, Kayardild, Latin, Marsalese, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Selkup, Serbo-Croat, Ulwa, and American Sign Language. One of the book’s unique strengths, therefore, lies in its broad empirical coverage and embracing theoretical scope, notably including proponents and critics of autonomous morphology. No current book-length study addresses the problem of morphomic patterns from such various theoretical perspectives and on the basis of such a wide range of cross-linguistic data.Less
This volume offers a selection of original contributions by leading scholars, all linked by a shared interest in the concept of the morphome, but representing different areas of expertise (morphology, phonology, semantics, typology) and different views on how linguistic theory ought to account for putatively morphomic patterns. Empirical evidence is drawn from a wide range of typologically distinct languages, such as Archi, Gaelic, German, Kayardild, Latin, Marsalese, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Selkup, Serbo-Croat, Ulwa, and American Sign Language. One of the book’s unique strengths, therefore, lies in its broad empirical coverage and embracing theoretical scope, notably including proponents and critics of autonomous morphology. No current book-length study addresses the problem of morphomic patterns from such various theoretical perspectives and on the basis of such a wide range of cross-linguistic data.
Peter Arkadiev and Francesco Gardani (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198861287
- eISBN:
- 9780191893346
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198861287.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
The volume deals with the multifaceted nature of morphological complexity understood as a composite rather than unitary phenomenon as it shows an amazing degree of crosslinguistic variation. It ...
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The volume deals with the multifaceted nature of morphological complexity understood as a composite rather than unitary phenomenon as it shows an amazing degree of crosslinguistic variation. It features an Introduction by the editors that critically discusses some of the foundational assumptions informing contemporary views on morphological complexity, eleven chapters authored by an excellent set of contributors, and a concluding chapter by Östen Dahl that reviews various approaches to morphological complexity addressed in the preceding contributions and focuses on the minimum description length approach. The central eleven chapters approach morphological complexity from different perspectives, including the language-particular, the crosslinguistic, and the acquisitional one, and offer insights into issues such as the quantification of morphological complexity, its syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic aspects, diachronic developments including the emergence and acquisition of complexity, and the relations between morphological complexity and socioecological parameters of language. The empirical evidence includes data from both better-known languages such as Russian, and lesser-known and underdescribed languages from Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as well as experimental data drawn from iterated artificial language learning.Less
The volume deals with the multifaceted nature of morphological complexity understood as a composite rather than unitary phenomenon as it shows an amazing degree of crosslinguistic variation. It features an Introduction by the editors that critically discusses some of the foundational assumptions informing contemporary views on morphological complexity, eleven chapters authored by an excellent set of contributors, and a concluding chapter by Östen Dahl that reviews various approaches to morphological complexity addressed in the preceding contributions and focuses on the minimum description length approach. The central eleven chapters approach morphological complexity from different perspectives, including the language-particular, the crosslinguistic, and the acquisitional one, and offer insights into issues such as the quantification of morphological complexity, its syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic aspects, diachronic developments including the emergence and acquisition of complexity, and the relations between morphological complexity and socioecological parameters of language. The empirical evidence includes data from both better-known languages such as Russian, and lesser-known and underdescribed languages from Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as well as experimental data drawn from iterated artificial language learning.
Martin Maiden
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199660216
- eISBN:
- 9780191800375
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199660216.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Language Families
This book is the first ever comprehensive comparative–historical survey of patterns of alternation in the Romance verb that appear to be autonomously morphological in the sense that, although they ...
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This book is the first ever comprehensive comparative–historical survey of patterns of alternation in the Romance verb that appear to be autonomously morphological in the sense that, although they can be shown to be persistent through time, they have long ceased to be conditioned by any phonological or functional determinant. Some of these patterns are well known in Romance linguistics, while others have scarcely been noticed. The sheer range of phenomena that participate in them far surpasses what Romance linguists had previously realized. The patterns constitute a kind of abstract leitmotif, which runs through the history of the Romance languages and confers on them a distinctive morphological phsyiognomy. Although intended primarily as a novel contribution to comparative–historical Romance linguistics, the book considers in detail the status of patterns that appear to be, in the terminology of Mark Aronoff, ‘morphomic’: a matter of ‘morphology by itself’, unsupported by determining factors external to the morphological system. Particular attention is paid to the problem of their persistence, self-replication, and reinforcement over time. Why do abstract morphological patterns that quite literally do not make sense display such diachronic robustness? The evidence suggests that speakers, faced with different ways of expressing semantically identical material, seek out distributional templates into which those differences can be deployed. In Romance, the only available templates happen to be morphomic, morphologically accidental effects of old sound changes or defunct functional conditionings. Those patterns are accordingly exploited and reinforced by being made maximally predictable.Less
This book is the first ever comprehensive comparative–historical survey of patterns of alternation in the Romance verb that appear to be autonomously morphological in the sense that, although they can be shown to be persistent through time, they have long ceased to be conditioned by any phonological or functional determinant. Some of these patterns are well known in Romance linguistics, while others have scarcely been noticed. The sheer range of phenomena that participate in them far surpasses what Romance linguists had previously realized. The patterns constitute a kind of abstract leitmotif, which runs through the history of the Romance languages and confers on them a distinctive morphological phsyiognomy. Although intended primarily as a novel contribution to comparative–historical Romance linguistics, the book considers in detail the status of patterns that appear to be, in the terminology of Mark Aronoff, ‘morphomic’: a matter of ‘morphology by itself’, unsupported by determining factors external to the morphological system. Particular attention is paid to the problem of their persistence, self-replication, and reinforcement over time. Why do abstract morphological patterns that quite literally do not make sense display such diachronic robustness? The evidence suggests that speakers, faced with different ways of expressing semantically identical material, seek out distributional templates into which those differences can be deployed. In Romance, the only available templates happen to be morphomic, morphologically accidental effects of old sound changes or defunct functional conditionings. Those patterns are accordingly exploited and reinforced by being made maximally predictable.
Louise Esher
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678860
- eISBN:
- 9780191758089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678860.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
The stem identity of the Romance synthetic future and conditional is frequently attributed to a common semantic value. Drawing on data from modern varieties of Occitan, I show that while the future ...
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The stem identity of the Romance synthetic future and conditional is frequently attributed to a common semantic value. Drawing on data from modern varieties of Occitan, I show that while the future and conditional do share semantic content, most plausibly the value ‘projection’, the distribution of the characteristic future/conditional stem does not correlate with any semantically defined natural class. I argue that the set future+conditional is an example of a ‘weakly morphomic’ distribution, partly but not exhaustively determined by extramorphological (in this case semantic) factors. The arbitrary nature of the distribution is underlined by numerous attestations of asymmetry, in which the familiar stem identity between future and conditional is sporadically broken.Less
The stem identity of the Romance synthetic future and conditional is frequently attributed to a common semantic value. Drawing on data from modern varieties of Occitan, I show that while the future and conditional do share semantic content, most plausibly the value ‘projection’, the distribution of the characteristic future/conditional stem does not correlate with any semantically defined natural class. I argue that the set future+conditional is an example of a ‘weakly morphomic’ distribution, partly but not exhaustively determined by extramorphological (in this case semantic) factors. The arbitrary nature of the distribution is underlined by numerous attestations of asymmetry, in which the familiar stem identity between future and conditional is sporadically broken.
Martin Maiden
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199660216
- eISBN:
- 9780191800375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199660216.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Language Families
The chapter discusses in further detail the nature of morphomes and of morphomic structure, demonstrating the crucial role played by diachronic data in diagnosing the psychological reality of ...
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The chapter discusses in further detail the nature of morphomes and of morphomic structure, demonstrating the crucial role played by diachronic data in diagnosing the psychological reality of putative morphomic structures and addressing some serious misapprehensions in the literature with regard to the kind of criteria adopted in this book. It is also argued here that the identification of morphomic structures is a necessary part of linguistic description, independently of theoretical considerations. It is stressed that the crucial problem is to explain why morphomic structures persist in diachrony.Less
The chapter discusses in further detail the nature of morphomes and of morphomic structure, demonstrating the crucial role played by diachronic data in diagnosing the psychological reality of putative morphomic structures and addressing some serious misapprehensions in the literature with regard to the kind of criteria adopted in this book. It is also argued here that the identification of morphomic structures is a necessary part of linguistic description, independently of theoretical considerations. It is stressed that the crucial problem is to explain why morphomic structures persist in diachrony.
Louise Esher
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198840176
- eISBN:
- 9780191875724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198840176.003.0017
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
By detailed comparative study of data from historical and descriptive grammars, this chapter traces the source of pervasive syncretism patterns in Occitan varieties of the Limousin region (‘Lemosin ...
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By detailed comparative study of data from historical and descriptive grammars, this chapter traces the source of pervasive syncretism patterns in Occitan varieties of the Limousin region (‘Lemosin varieties’). The majority of these patterns are shown to result from regular sound change causing mergers of previously distinct forms; subsequently, speakers are able to infer a morphological generalization that the forms realizing a given pair of cells are identical, and exploit the patterns as productive templates for morphological analogy. The behaviour of these patterns, and their interaction with established ‘metamorphomes’ (abstract templates for the paradigmatic distribution of inflectional exponents), is captured by treating the rise of syncretism as an example of ordinary change to metamorphomes, in which paradigm cells are reassigned from one metamorphomic template to another: this approach facilitates principled predictions about the susceptibility of metamorphomes to change in diachrony.Less
By detailed comparative study of data from historical and descriptive grammars, this chapter traces the source of pervasive syncretism patterns in Occitan varieties of the Limousin region (‘Lemosin varieties’). The majority of these patterns are shown to result from regular sound change causing mergers of previously distinct forms; subsequently, speakers are able to infer a morphological generalization that the forms realizing a given pair of cells are identical, and exploit the patterns as productive templates for morphological analogy. The behaviour of these patterns, and their interaction with established ‘metamorphomes’ (abstract templates for the paradigmatic distribution of inflectional exponents), is captured by treating the rise of syncretism as an example of ordinary change to metamorphomes, in which paradigm cells are reassigned from one metamorphomic template to another: this approach facilitates principled predictions about the susceptibility of metamorphomes to change in diachrony.
Martin Maiden
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199660216
- eISBN:
- 9780191800375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199660216.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Language Families
The chapter introduces the notion of morphomic phenomena in the history of the Romance verb, gives some initial definitions of the notion of morphome, and presents its history. Methods of diagnosing ...
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The chapter introduces the notion of morphomic phenomena in the history of the Romance verb, gives some initial definitions of the notion of morphome, and presents its history. Methods of diagnosing and analysing morphomic structure and diachrony receive a preliminary discussion. The aims of the book and its structure are set out, and there is a preliminary discussion of terminology.Less
The chapter introduces the notion of morphomic phenomena in the history of the Romance verb, gives some initial definitions of the notion of morphome, and presents its history. Methods of diagnosing and analysing morphomic structure and diachrony receive a preliminary discussion. The aims of the book and its structure are set out, and there is a preliminary discussion of terminology.
