[Lingtyp] morpheme -> empty morph -> epenthetic formative?

[Jan Rijkhoff]

Another publication, that might cover some of the phenomena discussed here:

Williams, Jeffrey P. (ed.) 2013. The Aesthetics of Grammar. Sound and meaning in the languages of mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The languages of mainland Southeast Asia evidence an impressive array of elaborate grammatical resources, such as echo words, phonaesthetic words, chameleon affixes, chiming derivatives, onomatopoeic forms, ideophones and expressives. Speakers of these languages fashion grammatical works of art in order to express and convey emotions, senses, conditions and perceptions that enrich discourse. This book provides a detailed comparative overview of the mechanisms by which aesthetic qualities of speech operate as part of speakers' grammatical knowledge. Each chapter focuses on a different language and explores the grammatical information of a number of well- and lesser-known languages from mainland Southeast Asia. It will be of great interest to syntacticians, morphologists, linguistic anthropologists, language typologists, cognitive scientists interested in language, and instructors of Southeast Asian languages.

On exaptation, see also e.g.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1991a. "The last stages of grammatical elements; contrastive and expansive desemanticization", in Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization, 2 Vols.. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 301-314.

Jan R

J. Rijkhoff, Linguistics
School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1485-621
DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK
Phone: (+45) 87162143
URL: http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/linjr@cc.au.dk

________________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Osgarby <david.john.osgarby at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 3, 2020 11:44 PM
To: TALLMAN Adam; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] morpheme -> empty morph -> epenthetic formative?

Hi Adam,

Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru (Mirndi, AU) have an 'epenthetic syllable' (Schultze-Berndt 2000: 99) that is a reflex of a desiderative morpheme, which '[...] is maintained only when the pronominal complex is consonant-final, and hence would have provided a pre-existing strategy to adhere to a preference for final vowels, avoiding potentially dispreferred consonant clusters [...]' (Osgarby 2018: 271).

Best,
David

Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2000. Simple and Complex Verbs in Jaminjung: A Study of Event Categorisation in an Australian Language. MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 14. Wageningen: Ponsen & Looijen.

Osgarby, David. 2018. “Reconstructing Proto-Mirndi Verbal Morphology: From Particles and Clitics to Prefixes.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 38 (2): 223–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2018.1400504.

On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 00:11, TALLMAN Adam <Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr<mailto:Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr>> wrote:
Hey everyone,

I'm asking if anyone has described or found likely cases where some epenthetic segment(s) has/have been exapted from previously meaningful morphology.

So think of a morpheme that once meant something, becomes semantically bleached, but then acquires a function as an epenthetic element to meet minimality conditions or to avoid vowel hiatus or something else.

I understand (from wikipedia) that /t/ in French interrogatives comes from habet and could be an example of this and the insertion of /n/ in English after 'a' determiner #vowel  is also an example. I'm wondering about more sources on diachronic processes like these. Also any good sources on the French and English processes would also be helpful.

best,

Adam





Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)
ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant
CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)
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