Stress and stem allomorphy in the Romance perfectum: emergence, typology, and motivations of a symbiotic relation

Abstract

Perfective stem allomorphy and stress are morphological traits which interact in complex ways in Romance verbal inflection. This article surveys the whole range of variation of these traits across Romance varieties, typologizes the observed interactions between the two, and examines attested and unattested possibilities. A comparison between the modern-day and the original Latin systems suggests that there is a strong pan-Romance bias against having verbs with a concrete combination of properties: perfective root-stress and no perfective stem alternation. This is a combination of traits that would have frequently resulted in diagonal syncretisms between past and present given the phonological changes attested in the daughter languages. Homophony avoidance (and the adaptive-discriminative role of morphology more generally) are therefore argued to motivate the observed bias.

Short vs Long Stem Alternations in Romance Verbal Inflection: The S‐Morphome

“…In agreement with it, reflexes of FUÈC can only be found in Italo‐Western Romance, reflexes of N are generally absent from Sardinian, while the PYTA morphology can be found across Romance, except in those varieties (e.g. Romansh and Friulian, see Herce 2021) where it has since disappeared.…”

“…Romance stem alternations have been the object of abundant research in recent years (e.g. Maiden 2005, 2018; Esher 2015, Herce 2021) concerning the autonomy of morphology and the architecture of inflectional paradigms. Abstract exclusively morphological templates known as morphomes (Aronoff 1994) have been argued to constitute a powerful predictor for the distribution and evolution of stem (also suffixal) allomorphy in the family.…”

Possessive inflection in Chichimec inalienable nouns

“…It remains to be explored in more detail if this accretion of morphological layers at different points in time (probably due to homophony/ambiguity avoidance (see Baerman 2011, andHerce 2022) is typical of (or maybe the main route towards) multilayered systems of exponence in general. Another domain where the Chichimec nominal data might inspire further research is that of syntagmatic predictability and the orthogonality of different inflectional layers (Parker & Sims 2019).…”

Short vs long stem alternations in Romance verbal inflection: the S-morphome

“…The most notable exception to this was the perfectum stem alternations (see Esher 2015, Herce 2021) present in many/most second and third conjugation verbs. These perfective alternations were associated with morphological strategies (e.g.…”

“…Romance stem alternations have been the object of abundant research in recent years (e.g. Maiden 2005Maiden , 2018Esher 2015, Herce 2021 concerning the autonomy of morphology and the architecture of inflectional paradigms. Abstract exclusively morphological templates known as morphomes (Aronoff 1994) have been argued to constitute a powerful predictor for the distribution and evolution of stem (also suffixal) allomorphy in the family.…”