Cover not available
Part of
Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change: Studies in honor of Henning Andersen
Edited by Lars Heltoft, Iván Igartua, Brian D. Joseph, Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh and Lene Schøsler
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 345] 2019
► pp. 125–150

Diachronic morphology, indexical function and a critique of the morphome analysis

The content and expression of Danish forstå

With a critical assessment of morphomic morphology (Aronoff 1994, Maiden 2008) as point of departure, this paper presents an analysis of the structure of the Danish verb forstå ‘understand’ and its development from Early Middle Danish to Modern Danish. Based on a semiotic-functional framework (Andersen 1980, 2010; Harder 1996), the analysis examines the strong past tense form forstod ‘understood’ and its relation to the inflection of the simplex verb stå ‘stand’. The original isomorphism between expression plane and content plane has been lost, but indexical relations on the two planes ensure that structural meaningfulness is maintained. The structure and development of forstå is compared to that of the verb overvære ‘attend, witness’, and the paper offers an alternative strategy to Aronoff’s (1976, 1994) morphome analysis of English understand.
Keywords: diachronic morphology, Danish, indexicality, morphomes, verbal inflection, paradigms, isomorphism, compositionality, metaphor
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Autonomous morphology and the stand morphome
  • 3.Content and expression of morphology
    • 3.1The problem with autonomous syntax and morphology
    • 3.2Sign relations in grammar
  • 4.The history of forstå and overvære
    • 4.1Forstå
    • 4.2Overvære
  • 5.Explaining forstå and overvære
    • 5.1Compositionality and metaphoricity
    • 5.2Indexicality
    • 5.3Isomorphism and non-isomorphism
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.345.05nie
References (59)
References
Andersen, Henning. 1980. Morphological change: Towards a typology. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Recent developments in historical morphology, 1–50. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. From morphologization to demorphologization. In Silvia Luraghi & Vit Bubenik (eds.), The Bloomsbury companion to historical linguistics, 117–146. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R. 1992. A-morphous morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anttila, Raimo. 1975. The indexical element in morphology. (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Vorträge 12). Innsbruck: Sprachwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität.Google Scholar
Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word formation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 1994. Morphology by itself: Stems and inflectional classes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Basbøll, Hans. 2005. The phonology of Danish. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Form, substance and difference. In Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 455–472. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.Google Scholar
Beard, Robert. 1995. Lexeme-morpheme base morphology. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1935. Language. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Bokmålsordboka [The dictionary of Bokmål Norwegian], 3rd edn. 2007. Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel. J. & Elisabeth C. Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brøndum-Nielsen, Johannes. 1971. Gammeldansk grammatik VI [Old Danish Grammar, vol. VI]. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.Google Scholar
. 1973. Gammeldansk grammatik VIII [Old Danish Grammar, vol. VIII]. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Danmarks gamle landskabslove, II: Jyske lov [The old provincial laws of Denmark, vol. II: The provincial law of Jutland]. 1933. Peter Skautrup (ed.). Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft & Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen (eds.). 1996. Content, expression and structure: Studies in Danish Functional Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft, Michael Herslund & Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen. 2005. Dansk Funktionel Lingvistik. Copenhagen & Roskilde: University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Business School & Roskilde University.Google Scholar
Falk, Hjalmar S. & Alf Torp. 1960. Norwegisch-Dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, erster Teil [Norwegian-Danish etymological dictionary, part I]. Oslo & Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Gammeldansk Ordbog [Dictionary of Old Danish] (GDO), preliminary online edition, [URL]
Gammeldansk Seddelsamling [Old Danish note collection] (GDSS), online edition, [URL]
Harder, Peter. 1996. Functional semantics. A theory of meaning, structure and tense in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 1999. Partial autonomy: Ontology and methodology in cognitive linguistics. In Theo Janssen & Gisela Redeker (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope and Methodology, 195–222. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005a. Dansk Funktionel Lingvistik: En introduktion [Danish Functional Linguistics: An introduction]. In Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen et al.. 2005, 1–38.
. 2005b. DFL: En afsluttende oversigt [DFL: A concluding overview]. In Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen et al.. 2005, 142–159.
. 2006. Dansk Funktionel Lingvistik [Danish Functional Linguistics]. NyS 34-35. 92–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heltoft, Lars. 1996. Paradigmatic structure, word order and grammaticalization. In Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen et al.1996, 469–494.
Hjelmslev, Louis. 1943 [1993]. Omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse[Prolegomena to a theory of language] (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague Vol. XXV). Copenhagen: The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1987. Refurbishing our foundations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kalkar, Otto. 1881-1918. Ordbog til det ældre danske sprog (1300–1700) [Dictionary of the older Danish language (1300–1700)]. Copenhagen: Thiele.Google Scholar
Kristensen, Marius. 1906. Fremmedordene i det ældste danske skriftsprog [Foreign words in the earliest Danish written language]. Copenhagen: Det Schubotheske Forlag.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. The death of dead metaphor. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 2(2). 143–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luís, Ana & Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero (eds.). 2016. The morphome debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maiden, Martin. 2005. Morphological autonomy and diachrony. In Geert Booij & Jan van Marle (eds.), Yearbook of morphology 2004, 137–175. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Lexical nonsense and morphological sense. In Thórhallur Eythórsson (ed.), Grammatical change and linguistic theory: The Rosendal papers, 307–328. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mattiello, Elisa. 2013. Extra-grammatical morphology in English: Abbreviations, blends, reduplicatives, and related phenomena. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mel’čuk, Igor. 2006. Aspects of the theory of morphology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Moberg, Peter. 1815. Försök till en lärobok för nybegynnare i allmänna och svenska grammatiken [Attempt at a textbook for beginners in general and Swedish grammar]. 1st edn. Stockholm: Marquardska Tryckeriet.Google Scholar
Molbech, Christian. 1859. Dansk Ordbog [Dictionary of Danish]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Nedergaard Thomsen, Ole. 2002. Complex predicate formation and incorporation: Towards a typology. In Ole Nedergaard Thomsen & Michael Herslund (eds.), Complex predicates and incorporation: A functional perspective (Travaux du cercle linguistique de Copenhague XXXII), 288–338. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel.Google Scholar
Newman, John. 2001. How to understand understand. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 2, CII. 185–199.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Peter Juul. 2016. Functional structure in morphology and the case of nonfinite verbs: Theoretical issues and the description of the Danish verb System (Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory 9). Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Review of Elisa Mattiello, Extra-grammatical morphology in English (= Topics in English Linguistics 82). Word Structure 10.2. 256–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens, Lars Heltoft & Lene Schøsler. 2011. Connecting grammaticalisation: The role of paradigmatic structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ordbog over det Danske Sprog [Dictionary of the Danish Language (ODS)], Online edition ([URL]).
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1966. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), online edition, [URL].
Rix, Helmut, Martin Kümmel, Thomas Zehnder, Reiner Lipp & Brigitte Schirmer. 2001. LIV: Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben: Die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen [Encyclopedia of Indo-Germanic verbs: The roots and their primary stem formations]. 2nd edn. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert.Google Scholar
de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1916 [1964]. Cours de Linguistique Générale [Course in general linguistics]. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Skautrup, Peter. 1944. Det danske Sprogs Historie I [History of the Danish language, vol I]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
. 1947. Det danske Sprogs Historie II [History of the Danish language, vol II]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
. 1953. Det danske Sprogs Historie III [History of the Danish language, vol III]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Steele, Susan. 1995. Towards a theory of morphological information. Language 71.2. 260–309. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Glossary of the Swedish Academy], 7th edn. 1900. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien.Google Scholar
Svensk Ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish], online edition, [URL].
Söderwall, Knut Fredrik. 1884–1918. Ordbok öfver svenska medeltidsspråket I–III [Dictionary of Medieval Swedish, vols. I-III]. Lund.Google Scholar
Vedel, Valdemar. 1890. Studier over Guldalderen i Dansk Digtning [Studies in the Golden Age of Danish poetry]. Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsens Forlag.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Nielsen, Peter Juul
2022. The affactivefå‘get’ construction in Danish. Constructions and Frames 14:1 ► pp. 78 ff. DOI logo
Maiden, Martin
2021. The Morphome. Annual Review of Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 89 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.