Abstract

ZACARIAS PONCE DE LEON, Ramón F.. Defective verbs, between regularity and irregularity: the case of abolir. Nueva rev. filol. hisp. [online]. 2021, vol.69, n.1, pp.261-277.  Epub Mar 02, 2021. ISSN 2448-6558.  https://doi.org/10.24201/nrfh.v69i1.3714.

In this paper we discuss verbal defectiveness as a manifestation of the hesitations that speakers experience when choosing a type of inflectional form, regular or irregular. This type of formal defectiveness (NGLE 2009) occurs because the representation that certain verbal words would normally assume is not similar to the corresponding analogical forms in rival productive paradigms, one regular and another one irregular. This mismatch causes speakers to reject both possible forms, leave the corresponding cells unused, and thereby create a “defect” in the paradigm. However, if any of the rejected forms begin to be used and is imposed in the speech community, then the verb will cease to be defective. This is what has happened recently with the verb abolir (‘to abolish’), which has regular forms documented as: abolo, abole, abola, abolen.

Keywords : defective verbs; onomasiology; rivalry in morphological schemes; Spanish verb abolir; paradigmatic morphology.

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