Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:36:34.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analogy, simplification, and the history of French

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Douglas C. Walker
Douglas C. Walker*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In traditional studies of historical phonology, there is frequently a division between sound change and analogy. Sound change is said to proceed gradually and inexorably under strictly phonetic conditions; “La règle générale est que les transformations phonétiques s’opèrent avec une constance absolue c’est-à-dire que les mêmes phonèmes placés dans les mêmes conditions, se développent d’une manière identique.” (Schwan-Behrens 1963: 12). Occasionally, when the conditions are not apparent, there may be some concern until further research uncovers the conditioning factors. Such was the case with Verner’s law, for example. Yet in any interesting situation, there remains a body of forms for which the proper phonetic environment cannot be found. The items just do not follow the normal phonetic “laws.” In these cases, analogy is often called on to explain the discrepancy, and also to account for the reintroduction of regularity into a system “ravaged” by the forces of phonological change; “L’analogie joue un rôle considérable en roman (et en français) qui s’est reconstitué, comme on l’a dit, sur les ruines du latin où les ravages d’une évolution phonétique brutale avaient entièrement boulversé le système des oppositions morphologiques et de leurs valeurs” (Guiraud 1965: 63).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Spring 1974 , pp. 67 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Campbell, L. 1971 Review of King (1969). Language 47.191–208.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N., and Halle, M. 1968 The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Fouché, P. 1958 Phonétique historique du français. Les voyelles. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Fouché, P. 1967 Morphologie historique du français. Le verbe. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. 1966 Language Universals. In Sebeok, T. (ed.) Current Trends in Linguistics 3.61–112.Google Scholar
Guiraud, P. 1965 Les mots savants. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Harris, J. 1970 Paradigmatic regularity and the naturalness of grammars. Paper read at the 1970 Winter meeting, LSA.Google Scholar
Kino, R. 1969 Historical Linguistics and Generative Grammar. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, p. 1965 Phonological Change. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Pope, M. 1934 From Latin to Modern French. Manchester: Manchester UP.Google Scholar
Postal, P. 1968 Aspects of Phonological Theory. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Schane, S. 1968 French Phonology and Morphology. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schane, S. 1970 The notion of markedness and its morphosyntactic consequences. Actes du Xe Congrès International des Linguistes (Bucarest, 1967) 2.758–763.Google Scholar
Schwan-Behrens, 1963 Grammaire de l’ancien français, (trans. O. Bloch). Leipzig: Reisland.Google Scholar
Vennemank, T. 1971 Phonetic analogy and conceptual analogy. Unpublished paper, UCLA.Google Scholar
Walker, D. 1971 Old French Phonology and Morphology. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, UC San Diego.Google Scholar
Wang, W. 1969 Competing change as a cause of residue. Language 45.9–26.Google Scholar