Re: A language change question (longish)

Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>How do these things happen? I can understand someone interpreting
>e.g. _concoct_ as _concocked_ if it were used in complete isolation  -- but
>how can that kind of reanalysis take place when the word  _concoct_ fits
>into a "slot" which is clearly present tense,  according to the context?
In those dialects that simplify final clusters, concoct > "concock", then
"concocked" would be I suppose an analogical formation (note that it's still
pronounced as if it were "concoct". One might say too that "concoct" was
felt to be a past tense, then concock by _back formation_ -- that's a common
change.

But I think the dialectal explanation works better-- we know there are such
dialects. I've heard "desses" as the plur of "des(k)",  and "joisses" <
"jois(t)".

>And is there a name for this phenomenon?
>
>Also probably related: in some languages you find words that show two  or
>more inflectional morphemes serving the same function, e.g.  _children_ in
>English, where both -(e)r and -en were once plural  markers. This might
>come from the same process.
>
>(Also, I recall reading a few months ago that the ending -ate in  Latinate
>English verbs originally had a perfect participle meaning,  as its Latin
>etymon does, but that it eventually became possible to  use -ate words as
>verbs, and then the verbal reading became the most  common. The explanation
>I read said that the change of -ate words  into verbs was due to a
>reanalysis of locutions like "they do  congregate", in which _congregate_
>was originally a verbal noun and  _do_ was the main verb; later _do_ became
>more modal and _congregate_  was interpreted as the main verb. Apparently
>such phrases with non- emphatic _do_ were more common in the past, as they
>are in some  dialects to this day. I'm not sure how this would relate to
>the other  examples I gave, but it's food for thought.)