Analyzing language change through a formalist framework
This article serves as a case study on using formal morphological models to analyze systematic language change processes in inflectional morphology. By drawing on data from four Germanic varieties at two points in time (Old Swedish, Övdalian, Old High German and Visperterminen Alemannic) and applying the concepts of paradigm linkage theory to them, we are able to exemplarily monitor and model changes concerning case syncretism in nominal inflection in a way that is more differentiated than previous analyses. Thus, while the pure empirical results on Germanic morphology already are revealing by themselves, we also provide both a diachronic extension to formal morphology as well as finer granularity and appropriateness of description to historical linguistics as a whole.
Article outline
- 1.Motivation and overview
- 2.Theory: Formal inflectional models
- 3.Synchronic and diachronic analysis
- 3.1Traditional inflection classes
- 3.2Content paradigms
- 3.3Realized paradigms
- 3.4Form paradigms
- 4.Summary
- 5.Outlook
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
References
Åkerberg, Bengt
2012
Älvdalsk grammatik. Under medverkan av Gunnar Nyström. Mora: Ulum Dalska.
Allen, Cynthia L.
2006 Case syncretism and word order change. In
The Handbook of the History of English,
Ans van Kemenade &
Bettelou Los (eds), 201–223. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Anderson, Stephen R.
1992 A-morphous Morphology. Cambridge: CUP.
Baechler, Raffaela & Pröll, Simon
2018 Loss and preservation of case in Germanic non-standard varieties.
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1), 113: 1–35.
Braune, Wilhelm
2004 Althochdeutsche Grammatik: Laut- und Formenlehre, Vol. 1, 15th edn. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Braunmüller, Kurt
1999 Die skandinavischen Sprachen im Überblick, 2nd edn. Tübingen: Francke.
Dahl, Östen & Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
2006 The resilient dative and other remarkable cases in Scandinavian vernaculars.
Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 59: 56–75.
Elspaß, Stephan
2012 Wohin steuern Korpora die Historische Sprachwissenschaft? Überlegungen am Beispiel des ʻNeuhochdeutschenʼ. In
Historische Sprachwissenschaft: Erkenntnisinteressen, Grundlagenprobleme, Desiderate,
Péter Maitz (ed.), 201–225. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Eyþórsson, Þórhallur, Johannessen, Janne Bondi, Laake, Signe & Åfarli, Tor A.
2012 Dative case in Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese: Preservation and nonpreservation.
Nordic Journal of Linguistics 35: 219–249.
Garbacz, Piotr
2010 Word Order in Övdalian: A Study in Variation and Change. PhD dissertation, Lund University.
Levander, Lars
1909 Älvdalsmålet i Dalarna: Ordböjning ock syntax. Stockholm: Norstedt.
Noreen, Adolf
1904 Altschwedische Grammatik mit Einschluss des Altgutnischen. Halle: Niemeyer.
Pröll, Simon & Kleiner, Stefan
2016 Silbengrenzen im Gebrauchsstandard: Empirie, Theorie und Typologie.
Deutsche Sprache 44(3): 193–213.
Seiler, Guido
2003 Präpositionale Dativmarkierung im Oberdeutschen. Suttgart: Steiner.
Spencer, Andrew
2004 Morphology: An overview of central concepts. In
Projecting Morphology,
Louisa Sadler &
Andrew Spencer (eds), 67–109. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Stump, Gregory
2001 Inflectional Morphology: A Theory of Paradigm Structure. Cambridge: CUP.
Stump, Gregory
2016 Inflectional Paradigms. Content and Form at the Syntax-morphology Interface. Cambridge: CUP.
Svenonius, Peter
2015 The morphological expression of case in Övdalian. In
Studies in Övdalian Morphology and Syntax: New Research on a Lesser-known Scandinavian Language [
Linguistics Today 221],
Kristine Bentzen,
Henrik Rosenkvist, &
Janne Bondi Johannessen (eds), 177–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Trudgill, Peter
2011 Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Oxford: OUP.
Wipf, Elisa
1910 Die Mundart von Visperterminen im Wallis. Frauenfeld: Huber.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Giménez García, Roser, Sheila Queralt & F. Xavier Moreno Vila
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 march 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.