Token frequency as a determinant of morphological change

Helen Sims-Williams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

This paper demonstrates that morphological change tends to involve the replacement of low frequency forms in inflectional paradigms by innovative forms based on high frequency forms, using Greek data involving the diachronic reorganisation of verbal inflection classes. A computational procedure is outlined for generating a possibility space of morphological changes which can be represented as analogical proportions, on the basis of synchronic paradigms in ancient Greek. I then show how supplementing analogical proportions with token frequency information can help to predict whether a hypothetical change actually took place in the language’s subsequent development. Because of the crucial role of inflected surface forms serving as analogical bases in this model, I argue that the results support theories in which inflected forms can be stored whole in the lexicon.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages34
JournalJournal of Linguistics
Early online date22 Dec 2021
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 22 Dec 2021

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • analogy
  • morphology
  • token frequency
  • morphological change
  • Greek

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