Morphological Externalisation and the Old Irish Verbal ParticleRo¹

Abstract

The basic claim of this paper is that the noticeable variation in the positioning of the Old Irish (= OIr.) perfectivising particle ro in the verbal complex can be accounted for in terms of a process of morphological externalisation. In order to make clear the extent of this claim, I first offer a brief description of the morphological structure implied by the OIr. verbal complex and I propose a classification of the OIr. forms including the particle ro. Second, I develop a notion of morphological externalisation, specifically, of its mechanism of change, according to which externalisation involves a sequence of paradigmatic reanalysis and proportional analogy, and which may serve to explain the reordering of morphemes observed both in Haspelmath's (1993) and in Mithun's (1999) studies. Finally, I explain the assumed change in which the particle ro changes its position within the OIr. verbal complex as an example of externalisation in complex morphological structures of the type dealt with in Mithun's study.

The type Tánicc in the Old Irish glosses: affix ordering, frequency and phonotactics

“…preverbal elements is clearly ‘semantic relevance’, the main morphological consequence of which has been stated by Bybee (: 15, 33–4): the more affected the meaning of a lexical basis is by the meaning of a morpheme, the closer the latter is located to that basis in comparison to other morphemes which affect the meaning of the lexical basis less directly. As proposed in García Castillero (: 125–32), this morphological principle is the basic reason for the externalisation of the OIr. perfectivising particle ro .…”

“…period which can be observed in all OIr. collections of glosses, there being some frequent verbs such as as · beir ‘says’ and do · gní ‘makes’ (seen in section 4.1) which do not externalise the particle ro , as observed in García Castillero (: 124).…”

“…forms appearing in the textual neighbourhood may be a further factor in the spread of the innovative prot. form, as assumed in García Castillero (: 135) for the innovative arruneillestar ‘when he polluted’ (instead of expected OIr. * an as · roilen ), which appears in the same gloss after the regular form arruculigestar ‘when he profaned’.…”

“…glosses shows a certain degree of variation which can be interpreted perfectly in diachronic terms. A good example is the externalisation process of the perfectivising (preverbal) particle ro described in García Castillero (). As suggested later, that particle ro has some points of contact with the question involved in the type tánicc , which I shall now briefly describe .…”