The loss of inflection as grammar complication

Sims‐Williams, Helen; Enger, Hans-Olav

doi:10.1075/dia.19050.sim

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…For example, Thomason (1976) discusses a case where analogical change could be regarded as simplifying grammar only if it were to proceed through the whole lexicon, but has not done so. Similarly, it is not hard to find examples where analogical mergers between inflection classes only affect a subset of paradigm forms, so that analogy effectively creates new unpredictable hybrid classes (Vincent 1974, Sims-Williams & Enger 2021. The analogical extension of morphomic distribution of stem variants (Maiden 2018) is a problem for optimization-based accounts of analogy because it often involves the replacement of morphosyntactically motivated patterns of distribution within paradigms with morphosyntactically unmotivated ones.…”

Section: Is Analogy Grammar Optimization?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Analogy in Inflection

Lindsay-Smith,

Baerman,

Beniamine

et al. 2024

Annu. Rev. Linguist.

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Analogy has returned to prominence in the field of inflectional morphology as a basis for new explanations of inflectional productivity. Here we review the rising profile of analogy, identifying key theoretical and methodological developments, areas of success, and priorities for future work. In morphological theory, work within so-called abstractive approaches places analogy at the center of productive processes, though significant conceptual and technical details remain to be settled. The computational modeling of inflectional analogy has a rich and diverse history, and attention is now increasingly directed to understanding inflectional systems through their internal complexity and cross-linguistic diversity. A tension exists between the prima facie promise of analogy to lead to new explanations and its relative lack of theoretical articulation. We bring this to light as we examine questions regarding inflectional defectiveness and whether analogy is reducible to grammar optimization resulting from simplicity biases in learning and language use. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Is Analogy Grammar Optimization?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Analogy in Inflection

Lindsay-Smith,

Baerman,

Beniamine

et al. 2024

Annu. Rev. Linguist.

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“…Yet speakers do not necessarily notice a pattern that is obvious to trained linguists (see e.g. Joseph 2011, Sims-Williams & Enger 2021. The formal identity is inherited from ON, and what has happened to the suffix in Halling is phonology.…”

Section: Infinitive and (3rd) Plural Present Tensementioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-morphomic patterns in North Germanic

Enger

2021

Nord J Linguist

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The paper presents examples of meta-morphomes (a kind of morphomic patterns, involving syncretisms) in North Germanic. There has been some debate over the notion of such patterns, and the aim is therefore to present relatively clear cases. Five cases are presented, involving inflection in verbs, nouns and adjectives. The syncretisms are all ‘unnatural’; they do not make much sense for syntax, semantics or phonology. While patterns that are obvious to the linguist are not necessarily obvious to speakers, the paper presents diachronic evidence that these morphomic patterns have been noticed by speakers. At least some criticism against ‘morphomic’ analyses is based on implausible premises: An analysis in terms of features is not automatically preferable only by being possible; the idea of ‘taking morphology seriously’ is untenable; the claim that the morphomic approach is a mere enumeration of facts may involve a self-contradiction.

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“…Miestamo, Karlsson & Sinnemäki 2008, Sampson, Gil & Trudgill 2009), analogy often seems to be neutral in its effect on the complexity of grammar, and sometimes appears to complicate it (e.g. Thomason 1976, Sims-Williams & Enger 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Token frequency as a determinant of morphological change

Sims‐Williams¹

2021

J. Ling.

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This paper demonstrates that morphological change tends to involve the replacement of low frequency forms in inflectional paradigms by innovative forms based on high frequency forms, using Greek data involving the diachronic reorganisation of verbal inflection classes. A computational procedure is outlined for generating a possibility space of morphological changes which can be represented as analogical proportions, on the basis of synchronic paradigms in ancient Greek. I then show how supplementing analogical proportions with token frequency information can help to predict whether a hypothetical change actually took place in the language’s subsequent development. Because of the crucial role of inflected surface forms serving as analogical bases in this model, I argue that the results support theories in which inflected forms can be stored whole in the lexicon.

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The loss of inflection as grammar complication

Cited by 5 publications

References 53 publications

Analogy in Inflection

Analogy in Inflection

Meta-morphomic patterns in North Germanic

Token frequency as a determinant of morphological change

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