Variation and change in morphology and syntax
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Michele Loporcaro
Abstract
Romance past participle agreement in perfective periphrastics, it is argued, has to be analyzed as object agreement. This paper provides a general characterization of Romance object agreement in a typological perspective (Section 2) and then discusses the different diachronic developments of the Proto-Romance rule into the daughter languages (Section 3). The results suggest that change affecting the syntactic working or the morphological marking of agreement can be initiated at either the morphological, the morphosyntactic or the syntactic levels. It may proceed independently on either without affecting the others or may else have repercussions beyond the component from which it started. Special attention is devoted (Section 4) to a case study from a southern Italo-Romance dialect in which syntactic change and the resulting synchronic rule were sensitive to morphology, in a way that is excluded on deductive grounds under many current theories of the morphology-syntax interplay.
Abstract
Romance past participle agreement in perfective periphrastics, it is argued, has to be analyzed as object agreement. This paper provides a general characterization of Romance object agreement in a typological perspective (Section 2) and then discusses the different diachronic developments of the Proto-Romance rule into the daughter languages (Section 3). The results suggest that change affecting the syntactic working or the morphological marking of agreement can be initiated at either the morphological, the morphosyntactic or the syntactic levels. It may proceed independently on either without affecting the others or may else have repercussions beyond the component from which it started. Special attention is devoted (Section 4) to a case study from a southern Italo-Romance dialect in which syntactic change and the resulting synchronic rule were sensitive to morphology, in a way that is excluded on deductive grounds under many current theories of the morphology-syntax interplay.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Affixation vs. conversion. 15
- The -alis/-aris allomorphy revisited 33
- French property nouns based on toponyms or ethnic adjectives 53
- Morphological variation in the construction of French names for inhabitants 75
- The invisible hand of grammaticalization 89
- Paradigmatic realignment and morphological change 107
- Areal-typological aspects of word-formation 129
- Variation and change in morphology and syntax 149
- Optional multiple plural marking in Maay 177
- Lettered words 193
- Word creation 201
- Pleonastic morphology dies hard 217
- Index of languages and terms 245
- Index of subjects and terms 247
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Affixation vs. conversion. 15
- The -alis/-aris allomorphy revisited 33
- French property nouns based on toponyms or ethnic adjectives 53
- Morphological variation in the construction of French names for inhabitants 75
- The invisible hand of grammaticalization 89
- Paradigmatic realignment and morphological change 107
- Areal-typological aspects of word-formation 129
- Variation and change in morphology and syntax 149
- Optional multiple plural marking in Maay 177
- Lettered words 193
- Word creation 201
- Pleonastic morphology dies hard 217
- Index of languages and terms 245
- Index of subjects and terms 247
