Loss of Inflection

语言之间的一个主要反差来自于词尾变化所起的作用。例如，在一种有屈折变化的语言中，如西班牙语，有数十种动词形式在主语人称和时态等类别上表示不同，如在Bebo中，我喝了，bebe你喝了，bebiste你喝了。在没有词尾变化的语言中，如越南语，相应的动词只有一种形式：Uong‘Drink’。但这不仅仅是一种语言的特征，它还区分了同一语言的不同历史阶段。在过去的1200年里，英语几乎失去了所有复杂的屈折系统，从根本上改变了它的特征，世界各地的语言史上都出现了类似的发展。乍一看，这看起来就像是腐烂，这通常就是它在公众想象中的形象，就像对英语中“谁”的区别的死亡的抱怨所证明的那样。但词尾变化的丧失是一个复杂而多维的过程。从这个词的角度来看，屈折范式是一个由相互关联的部分组成的系统，其关系网络随着其组成部分的任何变化而变化。从整个语法的角度来看，词的表达特性的损失将不得不以某种方式得到补偿，例如通过使用词序和虚词来完成相同的工作。从一个独特的角度来看，屈折变化的过程是一个潜在的洞察语法运作的来源。我们通过以下研究问题来利用这一点。(1)某些形态句法特征比其他的更容易丢失吗？(2)某些类型的形态标记比其他类型更容易丢失吗？(3)屈折系统的复杂性是否会影响其稳定性？(4)屈折系统的丢失与句法变化之间有什么关系？(5)屈折变化的自然丢失是否不同于接触诱导的变化？尽管许多语言在其历史过程中失去了部分或全部屈折系统，但我们对这些问题缺乏满意的答案。这在一定程度上是因为每种语言的形态特征都是独一无二的，不利于大规模的概括。当然，历史记录中的明显缺陷在我们的知识中留下了巨大的缺口。因此，我们采用了两种平行研究策略。一是编写一份跨语言的屈折损失实例样本，包括目前所描述的所有看似合理的实例。这些将构成跨语言数据库的基础，其参数将围绕五个研究问题进行组织。这将确保覆盖面的广度，并使我们能够比较以前仅单独研究的一组例子。第二种策略是详细研究词法、句法和语篇因素。因为这将很难或不可能从大多数可用数据(基于文本证据或重建)中恢复，我们可以通过研究相关语言或语言变体的当代变异来对这些机制有一个公正的了解，在这些语言或语言变体中，不同程度的保护和创新反映了历史过程。因此，我们将与选定的这些领域的专家密切协商，对个别语言和方言群体进行五个深入的案例研究。

A major point of contrast between languages comes from the role played by inflection. For example, in a language with inflection, like Spanish, there are dozens of verb forms that express differences in categories such as subject person and tense, as in bebo 'I drink', bebes 'you drink', bebiste 'you drank'. In a language without inflection, such as Vietnamese, the corresponding verb will have just one form: uong 'drink'. But this is not just a property that characterizes individual languages, it also distinguishes different historical stages of the same language. Over the last 1200 years English has lost nearly all of its complex inflectional system, radically transforming its character, and similar developments have occurred in the histories of language all across the world. At first glance this looks simply like decay, and this is often how it figures in the public imagination, as complaints about the death of the 'who' ~ 'whom' distinction in English can attest. But the loss of inflection is a complex and multidimensional process. From the perspective of the word, an inflectional paradigm is a system of interlocking parts, whose network of relationships change in response to any change in its constituents. And from the perspective of the grammar as a whole, a loss in the expressive properties of words will have to be compensated for somehow, for example by using word order and function words to do the same job. The processes of inflectional loss are a potential source of insight into the workings of grammar, seen from a unique perspective. We exploit this through the following research questions. (1) Are some morphosyntactic features more likely to be lost than others? (2) Are some types of morphological marking more likely to be lost than others? (3) Does the complexity of an inflectional system affect its stability? (4) What is the relationship between inflectional loss and syntactic change? (5) Is the 'natural' loss of inflection different from contact-induced change?Although many languages have lost some or all of their inflectional systems over the course of their history, we lack satisfactory answers to these questions. This is partly due to the fact that the morphological particulars of each language are idiosyncratic, discouraging large-scale generalizations. And of course the obvious imperfections in the historic record leave large gaps in our knowledge. Therefore we adopt two parallel research strategies. One is to compile a cross-linguistic sample of instances of inflectional loss, comprising all the plausible examples so far described. These will form the basis of a cross-linguistic database whose parameters will be organized around the five research questions. This will ensure breadth of coverage, and allow us to compare sets of examples that previously had been studied only in isolation. The second strategy will be to look in detail at the morphological, syntactic and discourse factors involved. Because this would be difficult or impossible to recover from most of the available data (which is based on textual evidence or reconstruction), we can gain a fair picture of the mechanisms by studying contemporary variation across related languages or varieties of a language, where different degrees of conservation and innovation mirror the historic processes. Therefore we will conduct five in-depth case studies of individual language and dialect groups, in close consultation with chosen experts in these areas.