Morphomes and predictability in the history of Romance perfects

Abstract

In mediaeval Gallo-Romance, due to regular sound change, the reflexes of Latin perfectum forms develop stem allomorphy linked to alternation between rhizotonic and arrhizotonic stress. Both the allomorphy and the stress alternation are subsequently eradicated. By contrast, in early Italo-Romance, existing stem allomorphy is redistributed by analogy so that, in the reflexes of Latin perfectum forms, stem alternation and stress alternation have the same distribution, a situation which persists into modern Italo-Romance. These developments illustrate a tendency for the exponents of morphomic distributions to be aligned with one another, facilitating reliable inferences about the forms realising different paradigm cells.