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A typological perspective on the loss of inflection*

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Abstract

The loss of inflectional morphology is a diachronic process which has played a major role in shaping our linguistic landscape, but has never been the target of focussed research in the same way that the origin of inflectional morphology has been. We offer here a preliminary typology of the operations involved in inflectional loss, distinguishing three change types: the loss of forms, the loss of features, and loss of both at the same time – that is, the loss of entire paradigm cells. These are illustrated with examples from a typologically, genetically and areally diverse set of languages.

Abstract

The loss of inflectional morphology is a diachronic process which has played a major role in shaping our linguistic landscape, but has never been the target of focussed research in the same way that the origin of inflectional morphology has been. We offer here a preliminary typology of the operations involved in inflectional loss, distinguishing three change types: the loss of forms, the loss of features, and loss of both at the same time – that is, the loss of entire paradigm cells. These are illustrated with examples from a typologically, genetically and areally diverse set of languages.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Lost in Change 1
  4. Part I. Modelling loss: Description, theory and method
  5. A typological perspective on the loss of inflection* 21
  6. So -adj- a construction as a case of obsolescence in progress 51
  7. The impersonal construction in the texts of Updated Old English 75
  8. Corpus driven identification of lexical bundle obsolescence in Late Modern English 101
  9. A constructional account of the loss of the adverse avertive schema in Mandarin Chinese 131
  10. Part II. Motivations and explanations for loss: Language-internal and external factors
  11. Loss or variation? Functional load in morpho-syntax – Three case studies 161
  12. “The next Morning I got a Warrant for the Man and his Wife, but he was fled” 199
  13. On the waning of forms – A corpus-based analysis of decline and loss in adjective amplification 235
  14. Decline and loss in the modal domain in recent English* 261
  15. German so -relatives 291
  16. Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) 333
  17. Index 363
Lost in Change
This chapter is in the book Lost in Change
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.218.01sim

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Lost in Change 1
  4. Part I. Modelling loss: Description, theory and method
  5. A typological perspective on the loss of inflection* 21
  6. So -adj- a construction as a case of obsolescence in progress 51
  7. The impersonal construction in the texts of Updated Old English 75
  8. Corpus driven identification of lexical bundle obsolescence in Late Modern English 101
  9. A constructional account of the loss of the adverse avertive schema in Mandarin Chinese 131
  10. Part II. Motivations and explanations for loss: Language-internal and external factors
  11. Loss or variation? Functional load in morpho-syntax – Three case studies 161
  12. “The next Morning I got a Warrant for the Man and his Wife, but he was fled” 199
  13. On the waning of forms – A corpus-based analysis of decline and loss in adjective amplification 235
  14. Decline and loss in the modal domain in recent English* 261
  15. German so -relatives 291
  16. Loss of object indexation in verbal paradigms of Koĩc (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) 333
  17. Index 363
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