Analogy and Morphological Change (Edinburgh Historical Linguistics)

169 Pages·2013·1.596 MB·English

by  David L Fertig

EDINBURGH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
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EDINBURGH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
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Series Editors: Joseph Salmons and David Willis A
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ANALOGY AND
Edinburgh Historical Linguistics is a series of advanced textbooks, where individual G
volumes cover key subfields within Historical Linguistics in depth. The series provides Y
a comprehensive introduction to this broad and increasingly complex field. A
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CHANGE
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ANALOGY AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE
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‘Fertig’s valuable and insightful book on analogy and morphological change
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is an extremely welcome contribution to the field.’ L
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Lyle Campbell, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
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This advanced textbook provides a thorough, critical examination of traditional
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approaches to analogical change and an in-depth introduction to important recent work L
in a variety of frameworks. Key topics include the relationship between covert reanalysis C
ANATOLIAN
and overt innovation, the relative importance of acquisition, repetition, and speaker H TOCHARIAN
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creativity in grammatical change, the status of several supposedly less important types
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of change including folk etymology, blending, and back formation, and various aspects
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of the relationship between analogical change and sound change. It also takes a close E HITTITE LUWIAN
look at the value of concepts such as ‘naturalness’ for explaining and predicting directions
INDO-IRANIAN
of change. GERMANIC
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Although the focus is on morphological change, the book also examines the role of ITALO-CELTIC SANSKRIT AVESTAN
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analogy in syntactic, semantic, and phonological change. Numerous examples are GOTHIC
provided from English and a wide variety of other languages, making this an absorbing GREEK OLDENGLISH
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and illuminating read for advanced students in linguistics. a CELTIC ITALIC
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David Fertigis Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University
at Buffalo (SUNY). He is the author of Morphological Change Up Close(2000). Fer OLDIRISH WELSH OSCAN LATIN BALTIC SLAVIC
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OLDCHURCHSLAVONIC
ROMANIAN
POLISH
OLDFRENCH RUSSIAN
ITALIAN
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Cover design: www.hayesdesign.co.uk
ISBN 978-0-7486-4621-0
DAVID FERTIG
Series Editors:
www.euppublishing.com Joseph Salmons and David Willis
Analogy and Morphological
Change
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David Fertig
© David Fertig, 2013
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in Times New Roman by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, UK, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 4622 7 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4621 0 (paperback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4623 4 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 8422 9 (epub)
The right of David Fertig
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
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Series Editors’ Preface vii
Preface and Acknowledgements viii
1 Fundamental Concepts and Issues 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Essential Historical Background: Hermann Paul and the
Neogrammarian Period 2
1.3 Preliminary (Narrow) Definitions 4
1.4 Conceptual and Terminological Fundamentals 4
1.4.1 The term ‘analogy’ 4
1.4.2 Analogy vs. analogical innovation/change 5
1.4.3 Speaker-oriented approaches 6
1.4.4 Change vs. diachronic correspondence 7
1.4.5 Innovation vs. change 7
1.4.6 Defining historical linguistics 9
1.5 Clarifying the Definition of Analogical Innovation/Change 9
1.5.1 Narrow vs. broad definitions of analogical innovation 9
1.5.2 Toward a more adequate definition of analogical
innovation/change 11
1.5.3 Some other definitions 12
1.6 Analogical Change as Opposed to What? 13
1.6.1 Analogy vs. reanalysis 13
1.6.2 Analogy and sound change 13
2
1.6.3 Analogy and language contact 14
2
1.6.4 Changes attributable to extra-grammatical factors 15
1.6.5 What about grammaticalization? 15
1.7 Proportions and Proportional Equations 15
1.8 Why Study Analogy and Morphological Change? 16
2 Basic Mechanisms of Morphological Change 19
2.1 Introduction 19
2.2 Defining (Re)analysis 20
iv Analogy and Morphological Change
2.3 Associative Interference 21
2.4 (Re)analysis, Analogy and Grammatical Change 21
2
2.4.1 History, synchrony, diachrony, panchrony 22
2.4.2 ‘Language change is grammar change’? 23
2.4.3 The role of transmission/acquisition in grammatical
innovation 24
2.4.4 The relationship of analogical innovation to
grammatical change in static and dynamic models of
mental grammar 25
2.5 Types of Morphological Reanalysis 27
2.5.1 D-reanalysis 28
2.5.2 C-reanalysis 29
2.5.3 B-reanalysis 32
2.5.4 A-reanalysis 35
2.5.5 Summary of A-, B-, C- and D-reanalysis 36
2.5.6 Exaptation 37
2.6 Chapter Summary 40
3 Types of Analogical Change, Part 1: Introduction and
Proportional Change 42
3.1 Introduction 42
3.2 Outcome-Based vs. Motivation-Based Classifications 42
3.3 Terminology and Terminological Confusion 43
3.4 Proportional vs. Non-Proportional Analogy 43
3.5 Morphological vs. Morphophonological Change 47
3.6 A Critical Overview of Traditional Subtypes of Proportional
Change 47
3.6.1 Four-part analogy 47
3.6.2 Extension 48
3.6.3 Backformation 51
3.6.4 Regularization and irregularization 55
3.6.5 Item-by-item vs. across-the-board change 56
4 Types of Analogical Change, Part 2: Non-Proportional
Change 57
4.1 Introduction 57
4.2 Folk Etymology 57
4.3 Confusion of Similar-Sounding Words 61
4.4 Contamination and Blends 62
4.4.1 Contamination 62
4.4.2 Double marking of grammatical categories 65
4.4.3 Blends and related phenomena 66
5 Types of Analogical Change, Part 3: Problems and
Puzzles 71
5.1 A Problem Child for Classification Schemes: Paradigm
Leveling 71
Contents v
5.2 Analogical Non-Change 76
5.3 Phantom Analogy 77
5.3.1 ‘Regularization is much more common than
irregularization’: a case study in circular reasoning 80
5.4 Summary of Types of Analogical Change (Chapters 3–5) 83
6 Analogical Change beyond Morphology 85
6.1 Introduction 85
6.2 Syntactic Change 85
6.3 Lexical (Semantic) Change 88
6.4 Morphophonological Change 90
6.5 Phonological Change 92
6.6 Regular Sound Change as Analogy 94
6.7 The Interaction of Analogy and Sound Change 95
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6.7.1 Sturtevant’s so-called paradox 97
6.7.2 ‘Therapy, not Prophylaxis’ 98
6.8 Chapter Summary 101
7 Constraints on Analogical Innovation and Change 102
7.1 Introduction 102
7.2 Predictability and Directionality 104
7.3 Constraints on the Interparadigmatic Direction of Change 104
7.3.1 Analogical change as ‘optimization’ 104
7.3.2 Formal simplification/optimization of the grammar 105
7.3.3 Preference theories 106
7.3.4 System-independent constraints 106
7.3.5 System-dependent constraints 110
7.3.6 Analogical extension of patterns with initially low
type frequency 113
7.3.7 System-dependent naturalness vs. formal simplicity/
optimality 114
7.3.8 Universal preferences and ‘evolutionary’
grammatical theory 114
7.4 Constraints on the Intraparadigmatic Direction of Change 116
7.5 Token Frequency 118
7.6 Teleology 118
7.7 Chapter Summary 120
8 Morphological Change and Morphological Theory 122
8.1 Introduction 122
8.2 Grammatical Theory and Acquisition 123
8.3 The Nature and Significance of Linguistic Universals 124
8.4 Static vs. Dynamic Conceptions of Grammar 125
8.5 Exemplar-Based vs. Rule-Based Models 129
8.6 Analogy vs. Rules 130
8.6.1 Dual-mechanism models 131
8.7 Rules vs. Constraints 132
vi Analogy and Morphological Change
8.8 Syntagmatic/Compositional vs. Paradigmatic/
Configurational Approaches to Morphology 134
8.8.1 Asymmetric vs. symmetric paradigmatic models 137
8.8.2 Paul’s proportional model 138
8.9 Chapter Summary 139
References 141
Index 157
Series Editors’ Preface
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With this volume, we are delighted to introduce to the world of linguistics
Historical Linguistics, a series of advanced textbooks on language change and
comparative linguistics, where individual volumes cover key subfields within
Historical Linguistics in depth. As a whole, the series will provide a comprehen-
sive introduction to this broad and increasingly complex field.
The present volume, we believe, exemplifies the kind of content, tone and
format we aim for in the series, and the volumes that are coming down the pike
do as well. The series is aimed at advanced undergraduates in Linguistics and
students in language departments, as well as beginning postgraduates who are
looking for an entry point. Volumes in the series are serious and scholarly univer-
sity textbooks, theoretically informed and substantive in content. Every volume
will contain pedagogical features such as recommendations for further reading,
but the tone of the volumes is discursive, explanatory and critically engaged,
rather than ‘activity-based’.
Authors interested in writing for the series should contact us.
Joseph Salmons ([email protected])
David Willis ([email protected])
Preface and Acknowledgements
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Analogy and morphological change are among the major topics covered in any
introductory historical linguistics textbook, but advanced students and interested
scholars looking for a coherent book-length survey of the subject will find a very
limited selection. This book is intended for readers who have at least some basic
background in historical linguistics and are trying to make sense of morphologi-
cal change, especially of the various things historical linguists mean when they
describe a development as ‘analogical’. Important theoretical work on analogy
and morphological change spans the history of modern linguistics, and one of the
major goals of this book is to do justice to both the crucial foundational work of
the Neogrammarians and their contemporaries in the late nineteenth century, and
the major advances and new insights that have come from scholars working in a
wide variety of theoretical frameworks in recent years and decades.
I could fill many pages with a list of people who have contributed to the
completion of this project. The support from family, friends, and colleagues has
been constant and wonderful throughout the process. Steady encouragement and
inspiration has come from all of my colleagues in the Department of Linguistics
and many others at the University at Buffalo. Our current chair Jean-Pierre
Koenig and former chairs Karin Michelson and Robert Van Valin deserve special
mention in this regard, as does Wolfgang Wölck, whose time as chair was before
my time but whose leadership continues to be a big part of what makes our
department such a great place to work.
I cannot possibly name all of the colleagues in historical and Germanic linguis-
tics whose ideas and constructive feedback have been so important in shaping my
own thinking. One person I do want to single out is Neil Jacobs, whose friend-
ship matters so much to so many of us. The greatest professional thanks must be
reserved for Joe Salmons. It was a stroke of extraordinary good fortune for me that
I got to know Joe while I was still in graduate school. If even a few of us had the
means to repay Joe for everything he has done for us, he would be a very rich man.
Finally, I am so grateful to my terrific family, to my brother, Lamar, my
sisters, Pat and Melinda, and to my mother for love and support, and most of all
to my wife, Sigrid, and my kids Elisabeth, Alexander, and Benjamin. As always,
they are the ones who make it all make sense.
1
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Fundamental Concepts and Issues
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1.1 Introduction
A book about analogy and morphological change? That is so not what I was
expecting. I never imaginated there’d ever be such a book. I guess I had
another thing coming. Who’d of thunk it?
The short paragraph above contains at least four recognizable examples of some
of the different kinds of innovations that we will be exploring in this book. That
is so not . . . is an example of analogical change in syntax. Until recently, the
intensifier so could only be used directly before an adjective or adverb. Now
some speakers regularly use it in other syntactic contexts, such as before the neg-
ative particle not. This change can be attributed to the analogy of other intensi-
fiers such as really (Kuha 2004). The next sentence contains the verb imaginate,
which sounds very odd to many English speakers today but has been around since
1541. It means the same thing as the much more common and older verb imagine
and may have been created by backformation from the noun imagination, on the
analogical model of pairs like speculation–speculate, dedication–dedicate, etc.
The fourth sentence contains an altered version of the familiar expression to have
another think coming, meaning ‘to be seriously mistaken about something’. For
at least a century, English speakers/learners have sometimes mistaken the word
think in this expression for thing. This kind of change is called folk etymology.
It occurs when speakers identify one element in an expression with a different,
often historically unrelated element. The word of (for ’ve) in the final sentence
of the paragraph could also be considered folk etymology. Finally, thunk is obvi-
ously an innovative past-participle form corresponding to standard thought. It is
based on analogical models such as sink–sank–sunk or stick–stuck.
As the title indicates, this book is about two things. Analogy and morphologi-
cal change are not two names for the same thing. Not all aspects of morphologi-
cal change are analogical – at least not in the sense in which historical linguists
most often use that term – and analogical change is by no means restricted to
morphology, but analogy and morphology have always been intimately con-
nected in historical linguistics, and this book will focus especially on the domain
where they intersect. Beyond this, we will explore many aspects of the broader