Cyclic changes in verbal person-number indexes are unlikely

Bibliographic Data

ID21463053
AuthorsIlja A Seržant (0000-0002-8066-9251, Department of Slavonic Studies , Kiel University (CAU) , Kiel , Germany, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume55
Issues42-s1
Pages49-86
Publication date2021-08-26
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolia Linguistica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-4004 • E-ISSN: 1614-7308
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/flin-2021-2014
OpenAlexW3195893187
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited72

This paper discusses the emergence and demise of verbal person-number indexes on the basis of a sample of 310 languages. First, qualitative evidence is provided to show that there are different ways in which indexes may emerge, and that independent anaphoric pronouns are not the only possible source. Second, quantitative evidence is provided against the claim that indexes tend to demise via phonological attrition in the course of time. A considerable degree of demise is not a universally likely process, but rather a major restructuring process that requires additional – areal – triggers in order to come about. Thus, 92% of the languages of my sample do not show any strong tendency toward losing their indexes, and the degree of demise of their indexes is persistently low when compared to the proto-forms. This is despite the fact that indexes constantly change over time, and the phonetic shape found in the proto-languages is never faithfully preserved in the modern languages. Finally, those few languages that exhibit a relatively high degree of demise are not randomly distributed across the world, but are clustered in the following areas: Northwestern Europe, Eastern South East Asia with Oceania and, possibly, Mid Africa as well Northern South America

Attrition · Demise · Geography · Linguistics · Political science · Restructuring · Authorship Attribution and Profiling · History · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy

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