Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 4:2 (2014) ► pp.161–191

Testing the Semantic Homogeneity Constraint

Analogical change and Russian verbs

| UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Although it has been widely assumed in historical linguistics that semantics plays a crucial role in analogical change, it is difficult to pinpoint the contribution of the semantic factor, since meaning and form work closely together in bringing about language change. The purpose of the present article is to shed light on the issue by means of two case studies from Russian, which enable us to isolate the role of semantics. The hypothesis we test is that analogical change is restricted to semantically homogeneous domains. We call this the Semantic Homogeneity Constraint. Two phenomena from Russian conjugation are explored: suffix shift and NU-drop. Although they seem parallel, analogical change occurs in the former, but not in the latter. It is argued that this is because the verbs involved in suffix shift constitute a semantically homogeneous domain, within which analogical change can take place. By contrast, NU-verbs are semantically diverse, and these semantic differences create boundaries which block analogical change. The findings have implications both for Russian and general linguistics. While suffix shift and NU-drop are well-known phenomena in Russian conjugation, they have not been juxtaposed and compared before. Our comparison provides new insights about the differences and similarities of the two phenomena. From the perspective of historical linguistics, the present article contributes to the theory of analogy, insofar as we provide empirical evidence for the Semantic Homogeneity Constraint, which places restrictions on semantic domains where analogical change can take place.

Keywords: suffix shift, Russian verbs, analogical change, corpus linguistics, NU-drop, quantitative analysis of language data
Published online: 30 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.4.2.01nes
References (103)
Ackerman, Farrell, James P. Blevins & Robert Malouf
2009 Parts and Wholes: Implicative Patterns in Inflectional Paradigms. In James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, eds., 54–82.Google Scholar
Albright, Adam
2008 Explaining Universal Tendencies and Language Particulars in Analogical Change. In Jeff Good, ed., 144–182.Google Scholar
2009 Modeling Analogy as Probabilistic Grammar. In James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, eds., 185–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andersen, Henning
1973 Abductive and Deductive Change. Language 49:4. 765–793. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1980 Russian Conjugation: Acquisition and Evolutive Change. Papers from the 4th International Conference on Historical Linguistics ed. by Elizabeth C. Traugott, 285–301. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1989 Markedness—The First 150 Years. Markedness in Synchrony and Diachrony ed. by Olga Mišeska Tomić, 47–66. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Markedness and the Theory of Linguistic Change. Actualization: Linguistic Change in Progress ed. by Henning Andersen, 21–57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Noget om analogi. Dramatikken i grammatikken ed. by Rita Therkelsen & Eva Skafte Jensen, 15–25. Roskilde: Institut for Kultur og Identitet, Roskilde Universitet.Google Scholar
Anttila, Raimo
1977 Analogy. The Hague, Paris & New York: Mouton Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1989 Historical and Comparative Linguistics. 2nd revised ed. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1977 Analogy. The Hague, Paris & New York: Mouton Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Analogy: The Warp and Woof of Cognition. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda, eds., 425–440.Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna
2006 Predicting the Productivity of Argument Structure Constructions. Berkeley Linguistics Society 321.467–478. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The Rise of Dative Substitution in the History of Icelandic: A Diachronic Construction Grammar Approach. Lingua 121: 1. 60–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Laurie
1997 A Class of English Irregular Verbs. English Studies 781.545–555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blevins, James P. & Juliette, Blevins
eds2009a Analogy in Grammar: Form and Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blevins, James P. & Juliette Blevins
2009b Introduction: Analogy in Grammar. In James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, eds., 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bulaxovskij, Leonid A
1950 Istoričeskij kommentarij k russkomu literaturnomu jazyku. Kiev: Gosudarstvennoe učebno-pedagogičeskoe izl’stvo “Radjans’ka škola”.Google Scholar
1954 Russkij literaturnyj jazyk pervoj poloviny XIX veka. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe učebno-pedagogičeskoe izdatel’stvo ministra prosveščenija RSFSR.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L
1985 Morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Regular Morphology and the Lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes 10: 5. 425–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007a Diachronic Linguistics. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics ed. by Dirk Geeraerts & Hubert Cuyckens, 945–974. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2007b Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Dan Slobin
1982 Rules and Schemas in the Development and Use of the English Past Tense. Language 581.265–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Černyšev, Vasilij I
1915 Pravil’nost’ i čistota russkoj reči. 2nd ed, Vol. 21. Petrograd: Tipografija M. Merkuševa.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard, Gerald Stone & Maria Polinsky
1996 The Russian Language in the 20th Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William
2000 Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow, Essex: Longman.Google Scholar
Deacon, Terrence W
1997 The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
De Smet, Hendrik
2012 The Course of Actualization. Language 88:3.601–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dickey, Stephen M
2001 “Semelfactive” -nǫ- and the Western Aspect Gestalt. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 9:1.25–48.Google Scholar
Dickey, Stephen M. & Laura A. Janda
2009 Xoxotnul, sxitril: The Relationship between Semelfactives Formed with -nu- and s- in Russian. Russian Linguistics 33:3.229–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang U. & Natalia V. Gagarina
1999 Basic Questions in Establishing the Verb Classes of Contemporary Russian. Essays in Poetics, Literary History and Linguistics Presented to V. V. Ivanov on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday ed. by L. Fleishman, M. Gasparov, T. Nikolaeva, A. Ospovat, V. Toporov, A. Vigasin, R. Vroon & A. Zaliznjak, 754–760. Moscow: OGI.Google Scholar
Enger, Hans-Olav
2007 Grammaticalisation Due to Homonymy Avoidance in Gudbrandsdalen /æpr˛ede/? Transactions of the Philological Society 105:1. 42–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner
2002 The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Finkel, Raphael & Gregory Stump
2009 Principal Parts and Degrees of Paradigmatic Transparency. In James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, eds., 13–53.Google Scholar
Gagarina, Natalija
2003 The Early Verb Development and Demarcation of Stages in Three Russian-Speaking Children. Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective ed. by Dagmar Bittner, Wolfgang U. Dressler & M. Kilani-Schoch, 131–170. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Andrew
2008 Paradigmatic Uniformity and Markedness. In Jeff Good, ed., 125–143.Google Scholar
Gentner, Dedre
1989 The Mechanisms of Analogical Learning. Similarity and Analogical Reasoning ed. by Stella Vosniadou & Andrew Ortony, 199–241. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Good, Jeff, ed
2008 Linguistic Universals and Language Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gor, Kira
2007 Experimental Study of First and Second Language Morphological Processing. Methods in Cognitive Linguistics ed. by Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Irene Mittelberg, Seana Coulson & Michael J. Spivey, 367–398. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gor, Kira & Tatiana Chernigovskaya
2004 Generation of Complex Verbal Morphology in First and Second Language Acquisition: Evidence from Russian. Nordlyd 31:6.819–833. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 Formal Instruction and the Acquisition of Verbal Morphology. Investigations in Instructed Second Language Acquisition ed. by Alex Housen & Michel Pierrard, 103–139. New York & Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gorbačevič, Kirill S
1971 Izmenenie norm russkogo literaturnogo jazyka. Leningrad: Prosveščenie.Google Scholar
1978 Variantnost’ slova i jazykovaja norma. Leningrad: Nauka.Google Scholar
Gorbachov, Yaroslav V
2007 Indo-European Origins of the Nasal Inchoative Class in Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. Harvard University doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
Graudina, Ljudmila K., Viktor A. Ickovič & Lija P. Katlinskaja
1976  Grammatičeskaja pravil’nost’ russkoj reči . Opyt častotno-stilističeskogo slovarja variantov. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
2001 Grammatičeskij pravil’nost’ russkoj reči: stilističeskij slovar’ variantov. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Hock, Hans Henrich
1991 Principles of Historical Linguistics. 2nd ed revised and updated. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Analogical Change In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda, eds., 441–461.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Douglas R
1995 On Seeing A’s and Seeing As. Stanford Humanities Review 4.2. Available at [URL]
2001 Epilogue: Analogy as the Core of Cognition. The Analogical Mind. Perspectives from Cognitive Science ed. by Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak & Boicho N. Kokinov, 499–538. Cambridge, MA & London: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Isačenko, Aleksandr V
1960 Grammatičeskij stroj russkogo jazyka v sopostavlenii s slovackim—Čast’ vtoraja: morfologija. Bratislava: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1948 Russian Conjugation. Word 4:3.155–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janda, Laura A., Tore Nesset & R. Harald Baayen
2010 Capturing Correlational Structure in Russian Paradigms: A Case Study in Logistic Mixed-Effects Modeling. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 6:1.29–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joseph, Brian D
2011 A Localistic Approach to Universals and Variation. Linguistic Universals and Language Variation ed. by Peter Siemund, 394–414. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian D. & Richard D. Janda
eds. 2003 The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joseph, John E
2012 Saussure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kiebzak-Mandera, Dorota, Magdalena Smoczyńska & Ekaterina Protassova
1997 Acquisition of Russian Verb Morphology: The Early Stages. Studies in Pre- and Protomorphology ed. by Wolfgang U. Dressler, 101–114. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
King, Bruce M. & Edward Minium
2008 Statistical Reasoning in the Behavioral Sciences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Kraska-Szlenk, Iwona
2007 Analogy: The Relation between Lexicon and Grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Krysin, Leonid P
ed. 1974 Russkij jazyk po dannym massovogo obsledovanija. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy
1995 [1949]. The Nature of the So-called Analogical Processes. Translated into English and with an introduction by Margaret E. Winters. Diachronica 12:1.113–145. [Originally published in 1949 in Acta Linguistica 5.17–34]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, Julia & Anastasia Makarova
2012 Distribution of Two Semelfactives in Russian: -nu- and -anu-. OSLa (Oslo Studies in Language) 4:1.155–176.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Erez, Jean-Baptiste Michel, Joe Jacson, Tina Tang & Martin A. Nowak
2007 Quantifying the Evolutionary Dynamics of Language. Nature 4491.713–716. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Makarova, Anastasia & Laura A. Janda
2009 Do It Once: A Case Study of the Russian -nu- Semelfactives. Scando-Slavica 551.78–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mańczak, Witold
1958a Tendances générales des changements analogiques. Lingua 71.298–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1958b Tendances générales des changements analogiques II. Lingua 71.387–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1980 Laws of Analogy. Historical Morphology ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 283–288. The Hague, Paris & New York: Mouton Publishers.Google Scholar
Matthews, Peter
1994 Greek and Latin Linguistics. History of Linguistics. Volume II: Classical and Medieval Linguistics ed. by Giulio Lepschy, 1–133. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Nesset, Tore
1998 Russian Conjugation Revisited. Oslo: Novus Press.Google Scholar
2008a Abstract Phonology in a Concrete Model. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008b Ob’’jasnenie togo, čto ne imelo mesto: Blokirovka suffiksal’nogo sdviga v russkix glagolax. Voprosy jazykoznanija 61.35–48.Google Scholar
2010a Suffix Shift in Russian Verbs: A Case for Markedness? Russian Linguistics 34:2.123–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010b Why Not? Prototypes and Blocking of Language Change in Russian Verbs. Cognitive Linguistics in Action: From Theory to Application and Back ed. by Elzbieta Tabakowska, Michal Choinski & Lukasz Wiraszka, 125–144. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2013 The History of the Russian Semelfactive: The Development of a Radial Category. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 21:1.123–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nesset, Tore & Laura A. Janda
2010 Paradigm Structure: Evidence from Russian Suffix Shift. Cognitive Linguistics 21:4.699–725. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nesset, Tore & Julia Kuznetsova
2011 Stability and Complexity: Russian Suffix Shift over Time. Scando-Slavica 57:2.268–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nesset, Tore & Anastasia Makarova
2011 “Nu-drop” in Russian Verbs: A Corpus-Based Investigation of Morphological Variation and Change. Russian Linguistics 35:4.41–63.Google Scholar
Padučeva, Elena V
1996 Semantičeskie issledovanija. Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann
1975 [1880] Prinzipien der Sparchgeschichte. Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Plungian, Vladimir A
2000 ‘Bystro’ v grammatike russkogo i drugix jazykov. Slovo v tekste i v slo­vare: sbornik statej k semidesjatiletiju akademika Ju. D. Apresjana ed. by Leonid L. Iomdin & Leonid P. Krysin, 212–222. Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team
2011 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0. Available at [URL]Google Scholar
Rozental’, Ditmar È
1977 Praktičeskaja stilistika russkogo jazyka. Moscow: Vysšaja škola.Google Scholar
Schuyt, Roel
1990  The Morphology of Slavic Verbal Aspect : A Descriptive and Historical Study. Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Skousen, Royal
2002 An Overview of Analogical Modeling. Analogical Modeling: An Exemplar-Based Approach to Language ed. by Royal Skousen, Deryle Lonsdale & Dilworth B. Parkinson, 11–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Expanding Analogical Modeling into a General Theory of Language Prediction. In James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, eds., 166–184.Google Scholar
Smith, Carlota S
1997 [1991] The Parameter of Aspect. 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Švedova, Natalija Ju
ed. 1980 Russkaja grammatika. Vol. 11. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Svistunova, Tatiana I
2008 Organizacija mental’nogo leksikona: Formirovanie v ontogenze i raspad pri narušenijax jazykovoj sistemy glagol’noj slovoizmenitel’noj morfologii (èksperimental’noe issledovanie). St. Petersburg State University kandidatskaja dissertacija.Google Scholar
Timberlake, Alan
2004 A Reference Grammar of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tkachenko, Elena & Tatiana Chernigovskaya
2010 Input Frequencies in Processing of Verbal Morphology in L1 and L2: Evidence from Russian, Oslo Studies in Language 2:2.281–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Turner, Mark
2001 Cognitive Dimensions to Social Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno
1957 Verbs and Times. Philosophical Review 661.143–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vinogradov, Viktor V. & Natalija Ju. Švedova, eds
1964 Glagol, narečie, predlogi i sojuzy v russkom literaturnom jazyke XIX veka. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Wanner, Dieter
2006  The Power of Analogy : An Essay on Historical Linguistics. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wurzel, Wolfgang U
1984 Flexionsmorphologie und Natürlichkeit. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.Google Scholar
1989 Inflectional Morphology and Naturalness. Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Zaliznjak, Andrej A
1980 Grammatičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka. Moscow: Russkij jazyk.Google Scholar
Zaliznjak, Anna A. & Aleksej D. Šmelev
2000 Vvedenie v russkuju aspektologiju. Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by 3 other publications

Nesset, Tore
2022. Language Change and Cognitive Linguistics, DOI logo
Gonzalez-Trujillo, Ricardo & Ernesto Priego
2021. Searching for a Common Ancestry: Linguistic and Biological Analogies in Comic Art. The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship 11:1 DOI logo
Wandl, Florian
2020. On the relative chronology of the II regressive and the progressive palatalizations of Common Slavic. Russian Linguistics 44:1 ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 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.