Morphological change vs. phonological change in north-western Catalan

Abstract

This paper aims to determine whether the dedialectalisation process undergone by the northwestern varieties of the Catalan language in Catalonia and Andorra affects the morphological and phonological components of the language in differing degrees. Through the generative analysis of the body of writings from this region we distinguish unpredictable—or morphological— aspects from predictable—or phonological—aspects, hence enabling us to calculate the morphological and phonological distances among the north-western varieties separately and view—through a multidimensional analysis—the different evolutions of the morphological and the phonological components of these varieties in four generations of northwestern Catalan speakers. In a word, we aim to shed a bit more light on the debate as to what language components are most susceptible to the influences of standard language due to prestige. We reach the conclusion that at the very least in north-western Catalan, the hierarchy of stability among linguistic elements is clear: morphology has levelled off faster than phonology. As a result, most of these speech varieties have undergone an accentuation process.

Key words: sociolinguistic variation, dialectometry, phonological change, morphological change, north-western Catalan.