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Stable Complexity: Verbal Inflection In Prominent And Frequent Environments, Lukas Denk

Linguistics ETDs

Despite presenting challenges for speakers, complex linguistic features such as lexically conditioned inflection (LCI) persist across different languages. LCI forms part of not entirely predictable paradigms which require lexeme-specific knowledge to master. Moreover, LCI remains one of the oldest morphological phenomena in certain languages. Previous research has linked the persistence of such complexity to language-external factors like geographic and social circumstances of speech communities.

This dissertation delves into the question whether language-internal properties are associated with the distribution of inflectional complexity. LCI is compared with other inflectional paradigms across 41 genetically and geographically distant languages. The study shows that LCI …