Analogy

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Analogy Summary

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Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics

analogy

Synchronic or diachronic ( synchrony vs diachrony) process by which conceptually related linguistic units are made similar (or identical) in form, especially where previous phonetic change had created a variety of forms. Analogy is often regarded as the result of the move towards economy of form or as a way to facilitate the acquisition of the morphological forms of a language.

The main types of analogy are as follows (see Hock 1986:167–237). (a) Analogical leveling (also ‘paradigmatic leveling’), or the reduction or elimination of morphophonemic alternation within a morphological paradigm ( morphology, morphophoneme, paradigmatic vs syntagmatic relationship), especially if there is no semantic differentiation involved (e.g. OE cēo—san—cēas—curon—(ge) coren vs Mod. Eng. choose—chose—chose—chosen, where both the vowel and the consonant alternates have been leveled). (b) Proportional analogy, in which a regularity is carried over to irregular forms according to the formula A:A′=B:X (e.g. the replacement of the original plural form kine by the analogized form cows according to the pattern stone: stone-s=cow: X (=cow-s)). Proportional analogy can affect (i) morphology, as in the above example; (ii) orthography (e.g. ME ‹wolde›, ‹coude›, becoming Mod. Eng. ‹would›, ‹could›, respectively); (iii) word formation (in the creation of neologisms), e.g. xeroxing. Proportional analogy can work in combination with morphological reanalysis in word formation as well (e.g. Hamburger with the original meaning ‘from Hamburg,’ reanalyzed as ham+burger and yielding analogized forms such as cheeseburger, turkeyburger).

Analogy is also an important factor in sound change. When a sound A becomes A' in word X, then it will usually undergo the same change in other words, given the same phonological conditioning ( phonologically conditioned). Such inductive rules can become too ‘potent,’ especially under extralinguistic motivation, creating incorrect forms through overgeneralization ( hypercorrection), for example forms found in children’s speech, such as *foots for feet or *goed for went.

The concept of analogy goes back to classical times, but was then understood differently from today ( Analogists vs Anomalists). Central to the modern notion is the Neogrammarian view of sound laws, where analogy was set forth as the ‘psychological counterpart of physiologically motivated sound laws’ (see Boretzky 1977:131) in order to ‘explain away exceptions to supposedly exceptionless sound laws as form associations and thereby justify the autonomy of the sound level’ (cf. Sturtevant 1961). The transformational grammarians (transformational grammar) interpret analogy as an instance of the universal process of simplification. In the case of analogy, a complex group of rules is simplified by a single rule that takes on the function of several others, which are then eliminated.

References

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Becker, T. 1990. Analogie und morphologische Theorie. Munich.

Best, K.H. 1973. Probleme der Analogieforschung. Munich.

Boretzky, N. 1977. Einführung in die historische Linguistik. Reinbek.

Chene, B.de 1975. The treatment of analogy in a formal grammar. PCLS 11. 152–64.

Hermann, E. 1931. Lautgesetze und Analogie. Berlin.

Hock, H.H. 1986. Principles of historical linguistics. Berlin. (2nd edn 1991).

Kuryłowicz, J. 1949. La nature des procès dits ‘analogiques.’ ALH 5. 15–37.

Lehmann, W.P. 1962. Historical linguistics: an introduction. New York.

(3rd edn London, 1994.)

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——1980. Laws of analogy. In J.Fisiak (ed.), Historical morphology. The Hague. 283–8.

Meyerthaler, W. 1979. Aspekte der Analogietheorie. In H.Lüdtke (ed.), Grundlagen des Sprachwandels. Berlin. 80–130.

Paul, H. 1880. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle. (9th edn. Tübingen, 1975.). Ch. 5.

Rogge, C. 1925. Die Analogie im Sprachleben. Archiv für die ges. Psychologie 52. 441–68.

Ross, J.F. 1982. Portraying analogy. Cambridge.

Sapir, E. 1921. Language. New York.

Saussure, F.de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale, ed. C.Bally and A.Sechehaye. Paris. (Course in general linguistics, trans. R.Harris. London, 1983.)

Skousen, R. 1989. Analogical modeling of language. Dordrecht.

Sturtevant, E.H. 1961. Linguistic change. Chicago, IL. (Orig. 1907.)

Vennemann, T. 1972. Phonetic analogy and conceptual analogy. In T.Vennemann and T.Wilbur (eds), Schuchardt, the Neogrammarians, and the transformational theory of phonological change. Frankfurt. 181–204.