This article presents an investigation of the ongoing change in grammatical gender in Norwegian dialects, specifically the dialect of Oslo. We find that the feminine indefinite article ei and the prenominal possessives mi/di/si have disappeared from the Oslo dialect, resulting in a two-gender system with common and neuter. While the feminine definite suffix -a and the postnominal possessives mi/di/si have been found in previous studies to be generally retained in other dialects, we find less use of these forms in Oslo. We argue that the erosion of these two forms is due to the loss of feminine gender, resulting in a common gender with two competing declension classes. We consider the theoretical status of these forms and argue that our empirical data is better explained within an analysis where definite suffixes are analysed as declension class markers and the postnominal possessive no longer expresses feminine gender.

Despite the attention (ing) has received in variationist literature, it is comparatively understudied in the North West of England where it holds something of a unique sociolinguistic profile. Variation in this region is between three competing forms: [ɪŋɡ] appears alongside the usual [ɪn]/[ɪŋ] variants. Based on sociolinguistic interviews with 32 speakers from this region, this study investigates whether [ɪŋɡ] replaces [ɪŋ] as the local standard or exists alongside it to fulfill a different sociolinguistic role. Results suggest that [ɪŋ] is maintained as the standard variant, and that [ɪŋɡ] occupies its own functional space as a feature of emphatic and hyper-articulate speech, appearing almost exclusively before pause. (ing) also shows no sensitivity to part of speech, despite the strength of this effect in other varieties of English. These results are discussed in the context of broader questions regarding the underlying representation of this variation, specifically its allophonic or allomorphic nature.

The Galician definite article and direct object clitics exhibit allomorphy-like alternations which raise a number of questions for the morphology-phonology interface. This squib highlights inadequacies of allomorphic approaches to these alternations, outlining a novel way forward in which segmental changes apply to a stem in a fashion reminiscent of Celtic mutation. Differences between the article and the object clitic can then be ascribed to their prosodic weights, evident elsewhere in the language. Taken together, these findings expand our view of potential triggers for morphophonological alternations.

In Standard Yiddish, -s and -ən are used as default allomorphs for plural word formation. It is argued here that the choice is left to the phonology, with -s acting as a default within a default. This status is used to explain the exclusive use of -s in the pluralization of proper names, which are claimed to be formed with no sensitivity to the phonological form of the base.

Amuzgo (Otomanguean: Mexico) has a large inventory of lexically arbitrary tonal inflection classes in person/number paradigms, where inflectional tones overwrite the root's lexical tone. In causatives, however, inflectional tones are predictable from phonological properties of the root, primarily lexical tone. The inertness of root inflection classes in causatives is argued to follow from cyclicity: once the causative Voice head triggers spell-out, lexical inflection-class specifications are no longer visible, and only phonological information can condition allomorphy in the outer domain of person/number agreement. The grammatical behaviour of inflectional tone thus reflects its structural morphosyntactic position, as distinct from its linear phonological one. I distinguish between several possible analyses of phonologically conditioned tonal-overwriting allomorphy, and propose that the Amuzgo case involves constraint-mediated competition among a priority-ranked list of allomorphs in the input, rather than creation of tonal allomorph candidates purely within the phonology or subcategorisation frames in the lexical representations of allomorphs.

We investigate the role of awareness in learning non-salient grammar features in a second language during oral interaction. We conducted a learning experiment during which forty-eight adult Dutch-speaking advanced learners of German and a native German-speaking experimenter engaged in a scripted oral dialogue game. The experimenter and learner in turn produced sentences based on pictures eliciting German strong verbs with stem-vowel alternations, a morphosyntactic feature that represents a persistent learning difficulty. While learners in the implicit condition were merely instructed to focus on sentence meaning, learners in the explicit condition were encouraged to also pay attention to and learn from the target structure in the experimenter's input. Although the explicit group achieved higher accuracy scores overall, both groups had similar (absolute) learning gains, showing that oral input provided during interactive exchanges can lead to substantial learning not only under explicit, learning-targeted conditions, but also without an explicit directive to learn.

Numerals and ordinals occupy a special place in the typology of suppletion. In generative work, one basic cross-linguistic parameter is whether ordinal allomorphy displays internal vs. external marking. Internal marking is when irregular forms propagate from lower ordinals to higher ones (English ‘first’$ \to $‘twenty-first’), whereas external marking is the lack of propagation. We catalog ordinal formation in Armenian dialects through both formal-generative and functional-typological perspectives. We find that Eastern Armenian and Early Western Armenian are uniformly external-marking systems for the ordinals of ‘1–4’. However, Modern Western Armenian is a mixed system: ‘1’ displays external-marking while ‘2–4’ display internal-marking. Simultaneously, the ordinal of ‘1’ uses a suppletive portmanteau, while the ordinals of ‘2–4’ use agglutinative allomorphs. We formalize these differences in a derivational approach to morphology (Distributed Morphology). We argue that mixed systems arise from allomorphy rules that are sensitive to either constituency or linearity. The Western mixed system seems typologically rare and novel. Given our formal analysis, we then uncover other asymmetries in the propagation of irregular ordinals and the retention of portmanteau morphology across 35 Armenian varieties. The end result is a strong functional correlation between suppletion, external marking, and lower numerals.

In this paper, we investigate an ongoing change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian. Previous research has shown that the feminine form of the indefinite article is quickly disappearing from several dialects, which has led to claims that the feminine gender is being lost from the language. We have carried out a study of the status of the feminine in possessives across five age groups of speakers of the Tromsø dialect. Our findings show that the prenominal possessives are affected by the change to the same extent as the indefinite article, while forms that have been argued not to be exponents of gender (the definite suffix and the postnominal possessive) are generally unaffected.

This article examines the various realizations of the Italian definite article and concludes, against all previous accounts of this phenomenon, that neither the singular nor the plural realizations constitute a case of allomorphy stricto sensu. Significantly extending Larsen's (1998) analysis, the paper argues that all of the realizations of the definite article, including the problematic [i] and [ʎi], share a single underlying representation. It is proposed that the definite article is associated with a template with separate sites for definiteness and φ-features. It is further argued that [ʎ] is not a primitive entity in Italian; rather, it emerges from a very specific configuration in which /i/ and /l/ are conjoined and followed by a second realized vowel /i/. The templatic and segmental decompositions yield a morphologically unified analysis in which all of the realizations of the definite article are based on a single lexical representation followed by the application of regular phonology.

This paper focuses on the complex derivational and inflectional morphology of Somali (East Cushitic) verbs. Somali verbs are traditionally cast in three major classes, depending on specific lexical suffixes (Saeed 1993). It is assumed that these classes must be distinguished because the relevant suffixes trigger a morphologically conditioned allomorphy. We argue against this view and claim that the allomorphic patterns targeting each class are epiphenomenal. Our analysis, couched within the theoretical framework of Government Phonology (Kaye, Lowenstamm & Vergnaud 1985, 1990) and the CV-model (Lowenstamm 1996), shows that the allomorphy in question is in fact phonologically conditioned. In particular, we establish unified representations of the two major lexical suffixes – the causative and the autobenefactive – and claim that all surface realizations of these markers result from the application of regular phonological rules. Thus, contrary to what appears at first sight, Somali displays a single verbal class whose three subclasses are phonologically (not morphologically) defined.