The origin and spread of velar allomorphy in the Spanish verb : a morphomic approach

This article examines the origin and spread of the verbs which display a velar allomorph in Spanish and, in particular, the paradigmatic pattern which this allomorphy exhibits. I draw upon Maiden’s studies (1992, 2001b) of velar allomorphy in Italian and Spanish which define the different cells that display this allomorphy as an autonomous morphological structure, or morphome (Aronoff 1994) and I argue that the theoretical construct of the morphome offers a more convincing, rigorous and theoretically motivated account for the origin and spread of velar allomorphy in Spanish, as opposed to recourse to the word ‘analogy’. However, I maintain that Maiden’s conclusions for the spread of the velar in Italian are not entirely valid for Spanish since they predict the wrong result. I argue that the explanations offered by Maiden need to be nuanced, along with the concept of the morphome itself. More specifically, I argue that in Spanish the velar allomorph should not be considered as part of the lexical root but rather a semantically vacuous formative which is an allomorph of the verbal ‘endings’. I present evidence from within the history of Spanish to support this hypothesis.