Negative Analogy: A New Direction for Analogical Change
Fernando Tejedo (UW-Madison, Spanish & Portuguese) and Jason Doroga (Ouachita Baptist University)
Analogy is generally described in historical linguistics as a mechanism of linguistic change that accounts for the creation of new forms (and the extension of existing ones) based on the influence of another form or class of forms. In this presentation we propose a new type of analogical change that has remained overlooked by the scholarship: the elimination of a form by analogical extension. To illustrate this new direction for analogical change, we examine the history of the past participle forms of Spanish romper ‘to break.’ First, we document the analogical creation of rompido ‘broken,’ which established itself as the preferred perfective participle form since Old Spanish and led to the expected specialization of roto ‘broken’ (the etymological past participle) as an adjectival past participle. Second, we document the drastic change in usage in the 18th century that contributed to the triumph of roto, as the only past participle form in all functions of the language. Finally, we propose the concept of ‘negative analogy’ to account for a different cycle of analogical change that reversed (and eliminated) the original analogical creation of rompido. This presentation contributes a renewed focus on cycles of analogy, and the relationship between analogical change and changing patterns of language use in the speech community.