Semantics drives analogical change in Germanic strong verb paradigms: a phylogenetic study

TL;DR

This study investigates how semantic importance influences the persistence of irregular verb forms in Germanic languages, revealing that semantic distinctions drive the long-term stability of certain allomorphic patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a hierarchical phylogenetic model to analyze the influence of semantics on morphological change across multiple Germanic languages, providing new insights into irregularity preservation.

Findings

ABB pattern is more prevalent where past participle extends the narrative past tense

Verbs with ABB are more likely to preserve this pattern in semantically significant contexts

Results support preservation of irregular patterns over active irregularization

Abstract

A large body of research on morphological paradigms makes the prediction that irregular morphological patterns of allomorphy are more likely to emerge and persist when they serve to mark important functional distinctions. More specifically, it has been observed that in some Germanic languages in which narrative past tense is expressed by the past participle, there is a greater affinity for stem allomorphy shared by preterite forms and past participles to the exclusion of present forms (the so-called ABB pattern), as it serves to enhance marking of the binary semantic opposition between present and past. Using data from 107 cognate verbs attested across 14 archaic and contemporary Germanic languages and a novel hierarchical phylogenetic model, we show that there is a greater long-term preference for this alternation pattern in situations where narrative past tense has been extended to the past participle, confirming this hypothesis. We further elucidate the mechanisms underlying this association, demonstrating that this association holds because verbs with the ABB pattern are more likely to preserve it in situations where it marks an important binary semantic opposition; however, there is less evidence that the ABB pattern is extended to verbs with different patterns under the same circumstances. These results bear on debate as to whether the distribution of irregularity we observe cross-linguistically is due primarily to (1) the preservation of irregular patterns or (2) an active drive toward irregularization in certain contexts, and are more in line with the first hypothesis.