Analogy and paradigms

Changes within a paradigm

Sound change operates on phonological environments and can leave one lexeme with several stem shapes. Analogy remodels a form on the pattern of another form or paradigm. These mechanisms answer different questions. If an old alternation disappears from the later record, demonstrate the relevant sound history first, then the attested model that could have supported leveling. Do not label every unexplained ending “analogy”; it must have a plausible source pattern and chronology.

Essentials of Linguistics compares Middle English help, halp, holpen with modern help, helped, helped. The later paradigm follows a productive past and participle pattern. The same chapter gives ring as a counterweight: an earlier pattern with less stem alternation developed ring, rang, rung under the influence of other strong verbs. Analogy can increase as well as reduce alternation. A claim that all languages inevitably simplify their paradigms would miss this contrast.

Reanalysis

Reanalysis changes how speakers assign structure to an existing sequence. The English history of a napron becoming an apron, presented in the same textbook, is an article boundary shifting from noun to article. The change is not a regular sound law that deletes n from all words beginning with n; it concerns a frequent phrase and a plausible boundary ambiguity. Later speakers can acquire the resulting noun as ordinary vocabulary without knowing its earlier segmentation.

Historical corpora rarely show the moment a speaker changes an analysis. The analyst observes older and newer forms, possible intermediate variation, and patterns in related expressions. If only late copies survive, the date of the innovation may be a range. Keep the attested stages and the proposed psychological process on separate lines.

Practice

For one historical paradigm, list the earliest attested forms in each cell and the later forms. Mark which outcomes a regular sound change predicts. For any remaining change, state the model form that analogy may have extended. Try an alternative account and identify the dated form that would distinguish the two.