Loss Of Inflection Research Articles

The history of second-person pronouns in European Portuguese

Abstract European Portuguese is known for the complexity of its second-person pronouns system. Despite this fact, there are not many works that deal with its evolution, since most analyses focus on case studies. In this article, I aim to pinpoint the diachrony of the second-person pronominal system of European Portuguese through the analysis of a corpus consisting of letters that cover the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The data will be compared to the available information regarding the previous centuries as well as the present. The results show that the European variety has journeyed through three very specific periods in its history, triggering both loss of inflection and person disagreements. Moreover, it has always maintained the spectrum of distance or power as the unmarked form of politeness – in contrast to the fashions attested in other languages and elsewhere in Europe.

Synonyms as the Semantic Component of Conversion

Conversion is very common in modern English. The main condition for the formation of a new language unit through conversion is the change of the syntactic function of the word, which is observed by the change of meaning. It is sometimes necessary to change the basic syntactic environment that is needed for conversion. A word formed by the conversion takes all the inflectional forms of the part of the language to which it belongs. Conversion, as a means of forming verbs and nouns, has become one of the characteristic features of the English language since the XIII century. The conversion formed as a result of the collapse of the inflectional system at the beginning of the Central Asian period. From 1150, a number of derivative verbs formed by conversion from adjectives appeared, and from the 13th-15th centuries, verbs derived from adverbs and participles appeared. In the Middle English period, until about the 15th century, the formation of verbs from nouns and adjectives significantly decreased due to the emergence of a large number of nouns and verbs borrowed from French. The grammatical homonymy of many English verbs and nouns resulting from the loss of inflection was only one of the prerequisites for the emergence of conversion as a new way of word formation.

Analyticization in Brazilian Portuguese inflection and derivation

This work discusses the tendency of analyticization in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) using the following datasets with a synthetic-analytic alternation: a) verbal forms with simple future meaning; b) verbal forms with pluperfect meaning; c) parasynthetic verbs; d) directional verbs. By integrating these phenomena, we not only confirm the tendency of analyticization in BP, argued for in recent papers about loss of inflection in this language, but show that it affects derivational elements as well. Based on Huang’s (2015) proposal, we show that the analytic counterparts of the alternations examined can all be analyzed as a general preference for short, phase-internal movements in BP. As a result, the various syntactic changes BP goes through can also be analyzed through a typological perspective.

The loss of inflection as grammar complication

AbstractThe loss of inflectional categories is often thought of as a type of simplification. In this paper we present a survey of phenomena involving the reduction of adjective agreement in Scandinavian, using examples from Norwegian, and discuss their diachronic origins, including a new account of the development of indeclinability in adjectives such askry‘proud’. These examples each involve lexically restricted non-canonical inflection – syncretism, defectiveness, overdifferentiation and periphrasis – in particular paradigm cells or syntactic environments. They show that the loss of inflection does not necessarily simplify grammar, and in some cases, can increase grammatical complexity by adding lexical exceptions to general rules. This excludes simplification as the motivation, even if it is the eventual result. We argue from these historical developments that speakers are liable to analyse idiosyncratic patterns of inflection as lexically specified, even where more general (but perhaps more abstract) alternatives are possible. Thus speakers do not always operate with a maximally elegant, reductionist approach to inflection classes.

Analogy, reanalysis and exaptation in Early Middle English: the emergence of a new inflectional system

From Old English to Middle English inflection is gradually lost. It is assumed that this is mainly due to phonological and syntactic changes. This article, however, argues that the loss of inflection is not a linear process but new systems can emerge, and that morphological changes play an important role. The nominal inflection of the Lambeth Homilies – an Early Middle English manuscript from the southwest Midlands and dated around 1200 – is investigated in detail. It will be shown that analogical changes within and across inflection classes do not simply lead towards a reduction of inflection. The increase in syncretism and decrease in allomorphy result in a new inflectional system. This new system distinguishes singular from plural, feminine from non-feminine (in the singular and plural), and possessive from non-possessive (in the singular and plural). Additionally, the original inflection classes related to different stems are almost lost, except the weak inflection classes. The inflection classes are instead related to gender; that is, gender is the information that best predicts how a noun is inflected.

Inflectional Variation in the Old English Participle. A Corpus-based Analysis

This article deals with the coexistence of verbal and adjectival inflection in the Old English past participle. Its aim is to assess the degree of variation in the inflection of the participle so as to determine whether or not the change starts in the Old English period. The analysis is based on two corpora, the “York Corpus of Old English” and the “Dictionary of Old English Corpus”. With these corpora the following variants of the inflection of the participle are analysed: genre (prose and verse), tense (present and past), morphological class (weak vs. strong) and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental). The main conclusion of the article is that the quantitative evidence from the corpora indicates that the degree of variation presented by the participle in Old English shows that diachronic change is underway. Overall, the past participle and poetic texts clearly reflect the loss of inflection, while the adjectival inflection of the participle co-occurs with its adjectival function.

Cues and expressions

A number of European languages have undergone a change from object-verb to verb-object order. We focus on the change in English and Icelandic, showing that while the structural change was the same, it took place at different times and different ways in the two languages, triggered by different E-language changes. As seen from the English viewpoint, low-level facts of inflection morphology may express the relevant cue for parameters, and so the loss of inflection may lead to a grammar change. This analysis does not carry over to Icelandic, as the loss of OV there took place despite rich case morphology. We aim to show how this can be explained within a cue-style approach, arguing for a universal set of cues. However, the relevant cue may be expressed differently among languages: While it may have been expressed through morphology in English, it as expressed through information structure in Icelandic. In both cases, external effects led to fewer expressions of the relevant (universal) cue and a grammar change took place.

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

There are several theories concerning the etiology of Alzheimer's disease. This is probably due to the fact that the disorder is really a syndrome with numerous etiological factors, and may be subdivided into the presenile type (hereditary transmission not known), the intermediary type (with hereditary trends), and the juvenile type (hereditary transmission not known). Two cases have been reported in association with lesions of the choroid plexus. (Fuller, Malamud-Lowenberg.) This case, in which the etiological factors are quite obscure, offers little assistance in arriving at the cause of the disease. Since the disorder began at the age of 49 years, it is difficult to regard it as an early senility. Hereditary factors can also be excluded since the ancestry is characterized by longevity and preservation of mental faculties in advanced years, and three elder siblings show no mental symptoms. There was no evidence of disturbance of the hemato-cephalic barrier, bromide permeability being within normal limit...