Trivial Truths and Genetic "Patterns"

David L. White dlwhite at texas.net
Wed Jul 4 12:53:19 UTC 2001


> Dr White indicated that verb
> morphology might have some preemptive claim over those other forms.

        Yes, that is my claim.  Cases known (to me) are so few that sampling
error (in a somewhat informal sense) is a real possibility, but it seems
that borrowing of nominal morphology typically (or at least often) involves
a sort of creeping infiltration, as in Rumanian or Old Lithuanian, whereas
borrowing of finite verbal morphology, if it has occurred, which I doubt,
would involve borrowing of the whole set.  This in turn raises the
possibility that such cases have been mis-conceptualized, that it is not the
finite verbal morphology that has been borrowed but everything else.
Admittedly this seems a bit wild at first, but the case of Anglo-Romani
indicates that things of the sort, "abrupt relexification" or whatever, are
within the range of possiblility.  Either way, no "creeping infliltration"
of finite verbal morphology is known, so it would seem that though our first
instinct might be to think that nominal morphology and finite verbal
morphology would "act" the same in borrowing, the truth (such as we can
grasp it) appears to be that there is an unanticipated assymmetry between
the two.  But lest I anticpate my Parvum Opus to much, I will shut up now.

Dr. David L. White



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