The boundaries of inflexion and periphrasis

Abstract

This chapter discusses what counts as inflexion and what counts as periphrasis. The discussion is intended as a contribution to general linguistic theory, and data are drawn from a variety of languages, but the main focus is on Romance. Structurally, inflexion and periphrasis are distinguished by a simple typological parameter: inflexion is synthetic, whereas periphrasis is analytic. However, whilst this is a necessary condition, it is by no means a sufficient one. Although several criteria have been adduced to define inflexion and periphrasis, different criteria may produce different results when applied to a given form or construction, and even individual criteria may sometimes prove ambivalent, yielding boundaries that are fuzzy. Monolithic definitions of both inflexion and periphrasis are elusive, and an adequate approach to the issue must recognize the scalar nature of these phenomena. Case studies of gender, number, vocatives, and constructions involving auxiliary verbs reveal that the data which serve to define several key concepts in both inflexional morphology and periphrasis are subject to structural and sociolinguistic variation, with the result that notions such as clitic, affix, morphome, defectiveness, overabundance, and paradigmatic intersectivity, and hence inflexion and periphrasis themselves, must be regarded as linguistic variables.