Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch
In this article we examine the allomorphic variation found in Pennsylvania Dutch plurality. In spite of over 250 years of variable contact with English, Pennsylvania Dutch plural allomorphy has remained largely distinct from English, except for a number of loan words and borrowings from English. Ado...
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MDPI AG
2022-04-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/2/86 |
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| author | Rose Fisher David Natvig Erin Pretorius Michael T. Putnam Katharina S. Schuhmann |
| author_facet | Rose Fisher David Natvig Erin Pretorius Michael T. Putnam Katharina S. Schuhmann |
| author_sort | Rose Fisher |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this article we examine the allomorphic variation found in Pennsylvania Dutch plurality. In spite of over 250 years of variable contact with English, Pennsylvania Dutch plural allomorphy has remained largely distinct from English, except for a number of loan words and borrowings from English. Adopting a One Feature-One Head (OFOH) Architecture that interprets licit syntactic objects as spans, we argue that plurality is distributed across different <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msqrt><mrow><mi>root</mi></mrow></msqrt></semantics></math></inline-formula>-types, resulting in stored lexical-trees (L-spans) in the bilingual mental lexicon. We expand the traditional feature inventory to be ‘mixed,’ consisting of both semantically-grounded features as well as ‘pure’ morphological features. A key claim of our analysis is that the <i>s</i>-exponent in Pennsylvania Dutch shares a syntactic representation for native and English-origin <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msqrt><mrow><mi>roots</mi></mrow></msqrt></semantics></math></inline-formula>, although it is distinct from a ‘monolingual’ English representation. Finally, we highlight how our treatment of plurality in Pennsylvania Dutch, and allomorphic variation more generally, makes predictions about the nature of bilingual morphosyntactic representations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:17:53Z |
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| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2226-471X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:17:53Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
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| spelling | doaj.art-c16e53e6e70246bbbf654ee959fdde4d2023-11-23T17:33:42ZengMDPI AGLanguages2226-471X2022-04-01728610.3390/languages7020086Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania DutchRose Fisher0David Natvig1Erin Pretorius2Michael T. Putnam3Katharina S. Schuhmann4Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures and Center for Language Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USADepartment of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, NorwayDepartment of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town 7535, South AfricaDepartment of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures and Center for Language Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USAInstitute for German Studies, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 26129 Oldenburg, GermanyIn this article we examine the allomorphic variation found in Pennsylvania Dutch plurality. In spite of over 250 years of variable contact with English, Pennsylvania Dutch plural allomorphy has remained largely distinct from English, except for a number of loan words and borrowings from English. Adopting a One Feature-One Head (OFOH) Architecture that interprets licit syntactic objects as spans, we argue that plurality is distributed across different <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msqrt><mrow><mi>root</mi></mrow></msqrt></semantics></math></inline-formula>-types, resulting in stored lexical-trees (L-spans) in the bilingual mental lexicon. We expand the traditional feature inventory to be ‘mixed,’ consisting of both semantically-grounded features as well as ‘pure’ morphological features. A key claim of our analysis is that the <i>s</i>-exponent in Pennsylvania Dutch shares a syntactic representation for native and English-origin <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msqrt><mrow><mi>roots</mi></mrow></msqrt></semantics></math></inline-formula>, although it is distinct from a ‘monolingual’ English representation. Finally, we highlight how our treatment of plurality in Pennsylvania Dutch, and allomorphic variation more generally, makes predictions about the nature of bilingual morphosyntactic representations.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/2/86syntax-morphology interfaceexponencybilingual mental lexiconpluralityPennsylvania Dutch |
| spellingShingle | Rose Fisher David Natvig Erin Pretorius Michael T. Putnam Katharina S. Schuhmann Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch Languages syntax-morphology interface exponency bilingual mental lexicon plurality Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title | Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title_full | Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title_fullStr | Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title_full_unstemmed | Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title_short | Why Is Inflectional Morphology Difficult to Borrow?—Distributing and Lexicalizing Plural Allomorphy in Pennsylvania Dutch |
| title_sort | why is inflectional morphology difficult to borrow distributing and lexicalizing plural allomorphy in pennsylvania dutch |
| topic | syntax-morphology interface exponency bilingual mental lexicon plurality Pennsylvania Dutch |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/2/86 |
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