Li7 Historical linguistics
Analogy
1 ANALOGY
• makes related forms more similar to each other in form
• counteracts sound change: sound change is regular but produces
irregularity, analogy is irregular but produces regularity (Sturtevant's Paradox)
• motivated by psychological grammar-internal factors (contrast sound
change)
2 TRADITIONAL TYPOLOGY OF SYSTEMATIC ANALOGY
2.1 Levelling
• fairly regular – may affect an entire class within a grammatical category
• operates within the 'paradigm'
1S
2S
3S
1P
2P
3P
OLD FRENCH
aim 'I love'
aimes
aimet
amons
amez
aiment
MODERN FRENCH
aime
aimes
aime
aimons
aimez
aimet
>
>
• implies that paradigms have psychological reality for speakers
2.2 Four-part analogy (proportional analogy, analogical extension)
• generalisation of a morphological operation (e.g. ending) already present in
the language
• operates between lexical items
a : a´
b : b´
stone : stones [z]
cow : cows [z] (instead of kine)
• the 'a' pattern must be a pattern not just one item
• residues, especially of frequent words, usually remain (e.g. foot : feet)
• the generalising pattern must be (synchronically) productive
• overgeneralisation is comprehensible (mouses vs. hice)
• applied to new creations or loans
• this just begs the question (see below)
• similar analogical creations present in child language (see below)
• can operate in inflectional (as above) or derivational morphology:
land : landscape
moon : x = moonscape
sea : x = seascape
2.3 Problems
2.3.1 Distinguishing the two
Sometimes the distinction between the two is unclear. Is this levelling or fourpart analogy?
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OLD ENGLISH
lang
lengra
lengest
MODERN ENGLISH
long
longer
longest
The two together?
nom. sing.
acc. sing.
gen. sing.
dat. sing.
LATIN
'honour'
honōs > honor
honōrem
honōris
honōrī
'sister'
soror
sorōrem
sorōris
sonōrī
• honos has honor- in most of its paradigm = levelling
• there are other words with -r- throughout their paradigm = four-part analogy
2.3.2 Which analogy?
Less productive patterns sometimes replace more productive patterns e.g.
dive : dived > dive : dove (in US English) (on model of drive : drove)
sneak : snuck
dwarf : dwarfs > dwarf : dwarves (on model of wolf : wolves)
scarf : scarves
Minor productive patterns sometimes spread by analogy e.g.
catch : caught (formerly catched)
on model of teach : taught
bring : brought : brought > bring : brang : brung (dialectally)
on model of sing : sang : sung
Very minor patterns sometimes innovate to become regular (Maiden 1998)
e.g. Romanian fem. nouns with stressed /a/ form their nom.-acc. plur. and
gen.-dat. singular by adding -/i/ and changing /a/ to /ə/ e.g. mare ‘sea’, mări
‘seas’, barcă ‘boat’, bărci ‘boats’.
The alternation initially arose in two items only (ţară ~ ţări ‘land(s)’ and pradă
~ prăzi ‘prey, booty’), then spread to (virtually) all feminine nouns.
Welsh regular 3s past tense ending -odd appears to have generalised from
one verb (lladdodd ‘killed’).
The productive form can be low in frequency: the German productive plural
ending is -s, but it is low in overall frequency.
Conclusions
• predictability is valued over regularity?
• regularity applies to morphological subclasses?
• still leaves the question ‘what makes a process productive?’
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3 TENDENCIES OF ANALOGICAL CHANGE
3.1 Kuryłowicz's laws
I.
Complex markers replaces simple ones
German sing. Gast 'guest' : plur. Gäste (vowel alternation + suffix)
hence sing. Baum 'tree' : plur. Baume > Bäume
(but cf. long above)
II.
Basic forms influence derived forms
How is basicness determined (for Kuryłowicz 'within their spheres of usage')?
Often there is no way of determining what is 'derived', cf.
OE
cēozan : cēas : gecoren > Mod. English choo[z]e : cho[z]e : cho[z]en
OHG kiosan : kōs : gikoran > Mod. German küren : kor : gekoren
Backformation is a counterexample (e.g. lazy gives rise to a new verb laze).
III.
Transparent stem + affix forms are used as a basis for remodelling
opaque forms
English cow : kine > cow : cows
IV.
Old (unaffected by analogical change) forms may survive in secondary
meanings e.g. brethren, elder., wrought (past participle of work).
V.
Distinctions of marginal significance may be given up in order to
maintain a distinction of central significance e.g. number marking was reestablished in Spanish by giving up case marking:
LATIN
SPANISH
nom. sing.
acc. sing.
nom. plur.
acc. plur.
>
EXPECTED
clāvis
clāvem
clāvēs
clāvēs
SPANISH
**llaves
llave
llaves
llaves
ACTUAL
llave
llave
llaves
llaves
What is the order of 'significance'? Tense > number > case??? Is it the same
for verbs and nouns? Is it the same universally?
VI.
A native form may be remodelled on the basis of a (more prestigious)
non-native form:
Welsh sing. pregethwr 'preacher': plur. pregethwrs (dialectally, for standard
pregethwyr) on model of English stone : stones
3.2 Maczak's tendencies (Ma¨czak 1958, 1980)
I.
Longer words tend to be reformed on the basis of shorter words =
Kuryłowicz's II.
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II.
Root alternations tend to be abolished i.e. levelling is more frequent
that analogical introduction of alternation = a reformulation of Kuryłowicz's III?
And the counterexample to Kuryłowicz's I?
III.
Longer inflections are remodelled on the basis of shorter ones, except
if the shorter suffix is zero e.g. Latin calfacere 'to heat' > calefāre (> Fr.
chauffer 'to heat') on model of e.g. amāre 'to love'.
IV.
Zero endings tend to be replaced by full ones e.g.
Old English
>
Modern English
sing. stān : plur. stānas 'stone'
sing. word : plur. word 'word'
word : words
(but the reverse in OE fugol : fuglas > Mod. English fowl : fowl)
V.
Monosyllabic endings are more frequently replaced by polysyllabic
ones than vice versa.
Middle Welsh sing. neges : plur. negesseu 'errand(s), message(s)' > ModW.
neges : negeseuon (cf. sing. cariad : plur. cariadon 'lover(s)').
VI.
The indicative reshapes other moods (subjunctive, imperative) rather
than vice versa.
VII.
The present reshapes other tenses rather than vice versa.
VIII. Place names are more archaic than related common nouns (see
tendency IX).
IX.
Place names reform on the basis of local case forms (e.g. dative) e.g.
German Baden Baden for earlier nom. Bad : dat. Baden; Latin. aqua 'water' >
French eau, but dat. plur. Aquīs > French Aix.
3.3 Superordinate generalisations? (Vincent 1974)
I.
Basic categories (indicative, present, singular) tend to be the model for
analogy
II.
Clear (long) exponents of grammatical categories tend to spread
III.
Alternation within a paradigm and multiple expression of the same
information tends to be eliminated
4 STUDIES OF ENGLISH STRONG AND IRREGULAR VERBS
4.1 The historical data
New members of the string ~ strung class
IN OLD ENGLISH
IN DIALECTS
fling ~ flung
ring ~ rung (standard rang)
sling ~ slung
bring ~ brung (standard brought)
sting ~ stung
sneak ~ snuck (US, British sneaked)
string ~ strung
shake ~ shuck (standard shook)
hang ~ hung
drag ~ drug (standard dragged)
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stick ~ stuck
strike ~ struck
dig ~ dug
spring ~ sprung (standard sprang)
drink ~ drunk (standard drank)
sink ~ sunk (standard sank)
stink ~ stunk (standard stank)
New members of the ride ~ rode class
IN OLD ENGLISH
LATER
dive ~ dove
bide ~ bode
strive ~ strove
drive ~ drove
thrive ~ throve
ride ~ rode
weave ~ wove
rise ~ rose
speak ~ spoke
smite ~ smote
shine ~ shone
stride ~ strode
write ~ wrote
break ~ broke
freeze ~ froze
New members of the break ~ broke class
swear ~ swore
bear ~ bore
wear ~ wore
tear ~ tore
Other classes have made occasional gains, but have generally lost members.
4.2 Moder (1982)
• adult subjects asked to form past tense of nonce strong and irregular verbs
• frequency of regularisation indicates productivity
Class
string ~ strung
ride ~ rode
break ~ broke
sing ~ sang
feed ~ fed
build ~ built
find ~ found
blow ~ blew
catch ~ caught
take ~ took
slide ~ slid
sweep ~ swept
spell ~ spelt
hit ~ hit
bear ~ bore
Frequency of non-regularisation of nonce verbs (%)
No. of verbs
in class
Total frequency
of class
35
33
30
24
15
14
11
9
8
8
6
5
4
4
2
13
12
3
8
8
6
4
6
7
3
4
14
3
25
4
199
365
155
419
226
147
284
608
638
483
46
656
4
373
108
• this measure of productivity correlates well with observed changes in the
history of English
• the number of verbs in the class and the frequency of the verbs correlates
poorly
• we’re still none the wiser what makes something productive
4.3 Bybee & Slobin (1982)
• adult and child subjects asked to form the past tense of real verbs (adults
under pressure)
• commonest ‘mistakes’:
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1. inappropriate vowel change in swim ~ swam group
2. regularisation of weep ~ wept group
3. general regularisation of less frequent verbs
4. regularisation of hit ~ hit group
• 1–3 are common to all ages groups
• these changes are like historical changes in English
• 4 accounts for a larger proportion of adult errors than child errors > adults
are responsible for change??
READING
Anttila, Raimo. 1970. Analogy. The Hague: Mouton.
Bauer, Laurie. 2001. Morphological productivity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bybee, Joan L. and Slobin, Dan I. 1982. Why small children cannot change
language on their own: Suggestions from the English past tense. In
Papers from the 5th International Conference on Historical Linguistics,
edited by A. Ahlqvist. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 29–37.
Hock, Hans Heinrich. 1986. Principles of historical linguistics. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter, chapter 10.
Hogg, Richard M. 1979. Analogy and phonology. Journal of Linguistics 15:
55–85.
Hogg, Richard M. 1981. Analogy without rule loss. Neophilologus 65: 436–
439.
Kiparsky, Paul. 1974. Remarks on analogical change. In Historical linguistics
I, ed. by John M. Anderson and Charles Jones. Amsterdam: North
Holland, 257–275.
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy. 1949. La nature des procès dits 'analogiques'. Acta
Linguistica 5:15–37. Reprinted in Readings in linguistics II, ed. by E. P.
Hamp, F. W. Householder and R. Austerlitz. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 158–174.
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy. 1965. The evolution of grammatical categories. Diogenes
51:55–71.
Lahiri, Aditi. 2000. Analogy, levelling, markedness: Principles of change in
phonology and morphology, Trends in Linguistics. Studies and
Monographs 127. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maiden, Martin. 1998. Towards an explanation of some morphological
changes which 'should never have happened'. In Historical linguistics
1997: Selected papers from the 13th International Conference on
Historical Linguistics, Düsseldorf, 10–17 August 1997, eds. Monika S.
Schmid, Jennifer R. Austin and Dieter Stein. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Mańczak, Witold. 1958. Tendences générales des changements analogiques.
Lingua 7:298–325, 387–420.
Mańczak, Witold. 1980. Laws of analogy. In Historical morphology, edited by
J. Fisiak. The Hague: Mouton, 283–288.
Moder, Carol Lynn. 1992. Rules and analogy. In Explanation in historical
linguistics, eds. Garry W. Davis and Gregory K. Iverson, 179–191.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Vincent, Nigel. 1974. Analogy reconsidered. In Historical linguistics I, ed. by
John M. Anderson and Charles Jones. Amsterdam: North Holland, 427–
445.
Winters, Margaret E. 1997. Kuryłowicz, analogical change and cognitive
grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 8: 359–386.
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