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Historical Linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Naples, 27-31 July 2015
Edited by Michela Cennamo and Claudia Fabrizio
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 348] 2019
► pp. 149–170

Chapter 8
Diachrony and morphological equilibrium

The case of the southern New Indo-Aryan verb

Marathi-Konkani varieties exhibit a series of verbal formations that derive from the univerbation of a participle plus a form of ‘be’. In the creation of these new, resynthesised, sections of the verbal paradigm, several instances of systematic homonymies arose, which recurrently involve the cells of the first and second person plural and affect several dimensions of the paradigm (aspect syncretism, mood syncretism and gender-agreement syncretism are all observed). At the same time, in inherited synthetic verb forms, the first and second person plural cells show neutralisation of inflection-class distinctions. According to the analysis proposed here, these homonymies can be exhaustively explained neither in terms of phonological development, nor with reference to the characteristics of morphosyntactic properties, but are at least in part due to a general tendency to “morphological equilibrium” that disfavours non-syncretic cumulative exponents uniquely associated with critically rare paradigm-cells.
Keywords: New Indo-Aryan, Marathi, Konkani, syncretism, morphology, verb
Article outline
  • 1.Compensatory syncretism and morphological equilibrium
  • 2.Old and new synthetic verb forms in Southern New Indo-Aryan
  • 3.Inflection class neutralisation in primary formations
  • 4.Aspect and mood syncretism in secondary formations
  • 5.Patterns of syncretism involving gender and number
  • 6.Person syncretism interacting with gender syncretism
  • 7.Some person syncretism patterns independent of the hypothesised equilibrium tendency
  • 8.Cumulative exponence of gender and person in the singular of Marathi secondary inflections
  • 9.General observations
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.348.08mil
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