Morphological Change

• morphology of a language can change (new word forms, new morphological processes and rules)
• closely associated with analogical change   * proportional analogy is a big factor in reducing irregularity in language   * there are many cases of changing a series of forms to fit all existing pattern
• paradigm leveling: analogy reduces allomorphs and makes everything rule based (makes everything simpler)
• lesser types of morphological changes   * affixation   * compounding   * zero derivation: changing the word into a new lexical category     * also adds a stress shift   * back formation: normal process of derivation is reverse     * can also happen with pluralization   * folk etymology: speakers incorrectly make analyses because they don’t have the historical knowledge   * clippings: using only part of the word form   * blends: guesstimate ➝ guess and estimate   * acronyms: just use letters. asap, ok, (not like usa)   * coinages: word formations from literature or elsewhere
• syntactic change   * reanalysis: speakers words are interpretable in different ways and listener takes wrong meaning   * co-occurrence: changes the syntax of a language by changing what needs to occur in a sentence

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