Abstract
The most frequent source for new morphological forms cross-linguistically is from the univerbation of multiple formerly independent words into a single wordform. Much of the literature has approached this from the perspective of ‘grammaticalization’, focussing primarily on semantic and syntactic changes (Hopper & Traugott 1993; Traugott & Trousdale 2010). However, comparatively little attention has been paid to the relationship of the innovative forms to the existing morphological structures into which they arrive.
In this talk I build upon the multivariate typology of univerbation of (Haspelmath, 2011), proposing further improvements based upon a paradigmatic view of morphological structure. The characterisation of the process of univerbation that results has three main components. Firstly, it originates in the inherent ambiguity of the speech stream, permitting multiple possible analyses and speaker variation as to the extent to which they segment the speech stream into word-like units. Secondly, the mechanism by which the changes to which the label ‘univerbation’ is applied is proposed to be analogy, with ‘innovative’ analyses permitting analogical changes on the basis of existing wordforms. Thirdly, the entities that this process of univerbation manipulates are realizations, with effects on more abstract paradigmatic structure arising as a result of the introduction of these new realizations into paradigmatic opposition to existing wordforms.
References:
Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. The gradual coalescence into ‘words’ in grammaticalization. In Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization, 324–355. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199586783.013.0027. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199586783.013.0027 (26 September, 2024).
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Graeme Trousdale. 2010. Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Graeme Trousdale (eds.), Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization, 19–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/surrey/detail.action?docID=623359 (18 February, 2025).
Bio
John Hutchinson is currently finishing his PhD studies with the Surrey Morphology Group at the University of Surrey. His research focusses on historical typology, with a particular focus on the diachronic behaviour of morphology and phonology.