Morphomes in Sardinian verb inflection

Based on first hand fieldwork data on four Sardinian dialects, this paper investigates the paradigmatic organization of irregularity in Sardinian verb inflection and its relevance for morphological change. Its main focus is on morphomic distribution patterns of stem allomorphy and, among them, especially on the two that Maiden (2003, 2005, 2011) labels the L- and the N-patterns. While the L-pattern has arisen and, like elsewhere in Romance, has acted as a driving force for morphological change, the results of the present investigation show that in this domain Logudorese Sardinian differs significantly from the other Romance languages: in particular, it seems to be unique in allowing the stem occurring in the 1st person singular of the present indicative to be distinct, in case of allomorphy, from both that occurring in the rest of the present indicative and the one found in the present subjunctive. The paper explores the consequences of this structural difference for change. In a following step, possible candidates for an N-pattern distribution are described and discussed, from different Sardinian dialects. Most of the cases have not been considered previsously in overall investigations of Romance (autonomous) morphology. Expanding the database, it will be shown, leads to slightly different conclusions than those arrived at in Maiden (2011).