160133 VO Lecture on Morphology (2023W)

For anyone frustrated with learning languages, it is easy to relate to Aronoff's (1998:413) description of morphology as ‘inherently unnatural ... a disease, a pathology of language’. But, since functionalists cannot be entirely wrong, we must address an important question: Why don't languages consistently simplify over time? At times, languages become easier; at other instances, they grow in morphological complexity.

This semester, we will explore the evolution of verbal morphology from Latin to Romance languages. Latin verbs are relatively straightforward, with just three stem forms that are closely tied to semantics. However, in Medieval and Modern Romance languages, verbs exhibit a vast array of stem variations, which seem to bear no clear rationale for their distribution, be it phonological or syntactico-semantic. How did the straightforward Latin verb morph into the chaotic and intricate Romance verb?

The Romance example reveals two main pathways of morphomogenesis, through which unmotivated “morphomic” patterns can emerge from initially motivated morphological patterns:
- the loss of semantic consistency in a previously meaningful grammatical distinction
- reanalysis of increasingly opaque outcomes of sound changes
We will see how the synchronically morphomic autonomy of these patterns manifest itself also in its influence over the diachronic behaviour. These emergent "metamorphomes" play a significant role in the evolution of morphological processes, including the most extreme form of unmotivated morphology: suppletion.

By examining the transition from Latin to Romance languages, we aim to introduce some of the key concepts in contemporary morphology. Our goal is to present these ideas in a concrete manner, with full texture from the linguistic details, and highlight their relevance to various theoretical, cognitive and diachronic understandings of linguistic morphology.