Univerbation as Maintenance and Repair

<p dir="ltr">This paper is part of the proceedings from the 15th Newcastle and Northumbria Postgraduate Conference in Language and Linguistics, held at Northumbria University in April 2024. The conference was jointly organised by PhD and MA students from both Northumbria University and Newcastle University. More information about the conference can be found <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://northumbriaenglish.org/exploring-linguistic-frontiers-the-15th-nnpcill-conference-2024/&data=05|02|as.researchdata@northumbria.ac.uk|75fb4a02a3604fe830aa08ddcf6ccce9|e757cfdd1f354457af8f7c9c6b1437e3|0|0|638894788372187161|Unknown|TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ==|0|||&sdata=JPqT7UtlMannCCuWsGNco2Qkwek2Y6fs7g/oNs/Z5Ug=&reserved=0" target="_new">here</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">The work was presented and authored by John George Hutchinson. He holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Cambridge, where he graduated with a 2.i, and an MA in Linguistics from SOAS, University of London (2020–21), with a focus on typology and language documentation. Since 2022, he has been pursuing a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Surrey. His doctoral research, titled <i>The Evolution of Morphological Systems as Words Undergo Fusion</i>, explores diachronic morphological typology.</p><p dir="ltr">Univerbation of formerly independent words frequently results in the addition of morphological categories as the endpoint of a broader process of grammaticalization (Hopper and Traugott 1993), (Lehmann 2020). However, it can also be preservative, where an inflectional contrast at risk of loss receives reinforcement through the addition of new material. We will explore an example of this and its implications for morphological change more broadly. In Sicilian, the contrast between the 2SG Perfect <i>-sti</i> and 2PL Perfect <i>-stis</i> in Latin was at risk of disappearing due to a general loss of coda - <i>s</i>. We find that the 2PL form exhibits an additional suffix <i>-vu</i>, e.g. <i>cantastivu</i> ‘you (pl.) sang’, deriving from univerbation of the free subject pronoun <i>vu</i> with the verb (Cruschina and Rinollo 2013). Notably, only a subset of 2^nd person forms exhibit univerbation of subject pronouns in this manner. The data suggest that univerbation in this instance occurred in order to avoid a merger, with a number of further consequences for the morphological system. Firstly, the lack of <i>-vu</i> in the Present (where we find a <i>-ti</i> suffix instead) means that this <i>-vu</i> suffix does not simply mark 2PL but also non-Present. Secondly, the existence of a <i>-vu</i> suffix marking the 1SG Perfect means that univerbation has directly resulted in syncretism. Thirdly, it has also resulted in distributed exponence of person and number features over the word. Thus for <i>cantastivu</i>, the 2PL feature is distinguished from the 1SG <i>cantavu</i> by the presence of <i>-sti</i> and from the 2SG <i>cantasti</i> by the presence of <i>-vu</i>.</p>