Remotivating inflectional classes
An unexpected effect of grammaticalization
In Titsch, a Walser German dialect spoken in the
Aosta Valley, a remodeling of the old strong/weak verb classes found
in the rest of the Germanic languages has taken place, whereby verbs
belonging to the strong class turn out to display both strong and
weak past participles. This outcome results from the reuse or
exaptation of the original morphological differentiation based on a
purely lexically-governed distribution which has been remotivated by
associating the morphological features with specific constructional
schemas resulting from several processes of grammaticalization.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Grammaticalization as an adaptive change
- 2.1Grammaticalization and the complexity mismatch
- 2.2Grammaticalization and decategorialization
- 3.The complexity mismatch in Walser German
- 3.1Conservative and innovative features in the Titsch verbal
complex
- 3.2Remodeling the complexity mismatch
- 4.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
Bibliography
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