> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Eric
Christopherson
> Hi, all. I've been wondering for a while about a kind of language
> change I've read about and noticed, where a form (or class of
forms)
> which is inflected for a certain category gets reanalyzed in such
a
> way that it no longer falls into that category.
>
> Examples:
> - People who interpret _drowned_ as a present tense instead of
past
> (and hence form a new past tense, _drownded_)
> - Recently I saw the word _concocked_ online, used as a past tense
> verb, no doubt due to misinterpreting the present tense _concoct_
> - Reanalysis of neuter plural -a in Latin as feminine singular
> - In that Sapir paper mentioned lately, he mentions nouns which
are
> already marked as possessed, but then subsequently get another
> possessor marking affixed
I really don't know if there's a name to it. It seems to be a sign
of language being influenced by ignorance of the "correct" forms.
Another is "hertz" which those ignorant to its correct usage
interpret as a plural so they'll make a singular "hert".