Sum: reversal of merger

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Several weeks ago I posted a query about published analyses of
apparent cases of reversal of merger.  That query elicited a modest
but interesting set of replies, but only one or two additions to my
provisional list.  For some reason, the replies spilled over onto the
LINGUIST list.
 
Perhaps a little clarification is in order.  I am not attempting to
attack or defend any position here.  In particular, I am not trying
to argue for or against the reality of reversal of merger, I am not
maintaining that any particular development in any language either
did or did not involve either a merger or a reversal of merger, and I
am not arguing for or against the correctness of any published
analysis.  My goal is much more modest: I am merely trying to compile
a list of all the different ways of accounting for apparent cases of
reversal of merger that have been published, regardless of whether
these analyses agree that any reversal of merger ever occurred.
 
All this is merely for the purpose of writing an entry in a reference
book I am preparing.
 
Alice Faber has kindly sent me two of her papers on the subject, but
these only arrived this morning, and I haven't had a chance to read
them yet.  Ernst Haakon Jahr drew my attention to his article
`Language planning and language change', in which he concludes that a
well-advanced merger in Icelandic was reversed by the semi-official
action of influential individuals who took exception to it.
 
My thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Alice Faber, Matthew Gordon,
Henry Hoenigswald, Ernst Haakon Jahr, Alexis Manaster-Ramer, Sam
Martin, Roger Wright, and one other person whose reply I
inadvertently deleted in a burst of over-zealous housecleaning --
sorry.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk