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

Thu Feb 6 18:51:09 UTC 2020

There exists also the well-known case of the Latin -*sc- *suffix,
originally an inchoative suffix: *pallesco *"I become pale", *senesco *"I'm
getting old". In Italian we have *finisco, finisci, finisce *(1-3 Sg)
but *finiamo,
finite* (1 and 2 Pl. -- not **finisciamo, *finiscete *!*) *and,again,*
finiscono (*3rd Pl.). In French you get: *je,tu finis,  il/elle finit * and
in Plural *nous finissons* (not **finions*!), *vous finissez* (not *
*finiez *!),* ils/elles finissent.* Impf.* finiss- *for all the persons, in
Sg. as well as in Pl. The -*sc*- suffix has lost its original function and
has been incorporated into the end morpheme, more radically in French than
in Italian: cp. *fini-ss-ons* vs, *fini-amo. *Why in It. we have* fini-amo *and
no*t fini-sci-amo *remains unclear. Reasons of 'columnar accent' have been
suggested. At any rate -*sc*- can be considered an epenthetic, semantic
bleached element.
Best,
P.Rt.

prof. dr. Paolo Ramat
 Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
##39 0382 27027
347 044 98 44

Il giorno mar 4 feb 2020 alle ore 17:13 Paul J Hopper <hopper at cmu.edu> ha
scritto:

> Also the idea of phonogenesis--ex-morphemes reanalyzed as new phonological
> segments.
>
>
> - Paul Hopper
>
>
> Paul J. Hopper, 1994. “Phonogenesis.” In W. Pagliuca and G. Davis, eds., *Perspectives
> on Grammaticalization*. pp 29-46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
>
> --1990 “Where do words come from?” In W. Croft, K. Denning, & S. Kemmer,
> eds., *Studies in Typology and Diachrony for Joseph Greenberg*, 151-160.
> Amsterdam: John Benjamins
>
> (both on academia.edu)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Jan Rijkhoff <linjr at cc.au.dk>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 4, 2020 3:56:15 AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] morpheme -> empty morph -> epenthetic formative?
>
> 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)
> Numero celular en bolivia: +59163116867
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200206/40c7e86d/attachment.htm>