17.3174, Qs: Sound-Change-Driven Grammatical Category Loss?

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List: Vol-17-3174. Mon Oct 30 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.3174, Qs: Sound-Change-Driven Grammatical Category Loss?

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project / Long Now Foundation  
         <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Kevin Burrows <kevin at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually
best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is
then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was
instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we
would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.

In addition to posting a summary, we'd like to remind people that it
is usually a good idea to personally thank those individuals who have
taken the trouble to respond to the query.

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.


===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 28-Oct-2006
From: Matthew Juge < mattjuge at txstate.edu >
Subject: Sound-Change-Driven Grammatical Category Loss? 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:58:19
From: Matthew Juge < mattjuge at txstate.edu >
Subject: Sound-Change-Driven Grammatical Category Loss? 
 


Dear Colleagues,

I am looking for (counter-)parallels of cases in which sound change leads
to the elimination of a grammatical category, as in the widely cited loss
of the Latin case system in Romance nouns. I am particularly interested in
examples where it turns out that the relevant sound changes do not actually
seem to fully explain the loss of the grammatical categories, as seems to
be the case for both the Latin future and the Latin passive, despite
earlier claims. I am not only interested in examples from languages with
extensive documentation but also in cases involving solid reconstructions
that show that the sound changes of language X ''shouldn't'' have led to
the complete elimination of a given grammatical category (whether it was
later replaced or not) but that language nonetheless lacks the inherited
version of the category.  Naturally, I would especially appreciate any
information on other factors known or believed to have contributed to the
loss of such categories.

Thanks in advance.
Matt Juge 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Morphology
                     Phonetics
                     Phonology




-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-17-3174