Overabundance in diachrony: a case study⋆
Chiara Cappellaro · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
This study investigates ‘overabundance’, or the phenomenon whereby one paradigmatic cell is filled by more than one synonymous form (Thornton 2011), by focusing on the diachrony of Italian third person pronouns (m.sg egli/esso and f.sg ella/essa in particular). It claims that the diachronic maintenance of overabundance correlates with lower frequency and affects items that are not acquired as core grammar/lexicon in early acquisition. It thus proposes that the Principle of Contrast (Clark 1987) or a similar cognitive mechanism must cease to operate in later stages of acquisition and in L2 acquisition. The study claims that overabundance and defectiveness, both involving deviation from the one form–one meaning principle at the level of the individual cell, appear to operate under similar pressures, namely speakers’ uncertainty in knowing which morphological pattern to generalize or which one to discard among competing forms.