Abstract
Fratini et al. (Fratini et al. 2014, Frequency and morphological irregularity are independent variables. Evidence from a corpus study of Spanish verbs. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 10[2]. 289–314) concluded that frequency and morphological irregularity are in Spanish, unlike in English, independent variables. In this paper, I take issue with that claim. On the one hand, it is argued that the borders between regularity and irregularity are diffuse, many of the verbs they classify as irregular might, therefore, not be so. In addition, the choice of lexemes they analyzed was far from adequate. Their set of irregular verbs contained many verbs formed by adding some prefix to a more frequent irregular verb (e. g. a-venir, a-tener, con-decir, con-mover, etc.) and many highly infrequent lexemes in general, barely in use in the speech community (e. g. abnegar, ablandecer, amoblar, amodorrecer, etc.). In an alternative corpus analysis, it has been found that, when these and other shortcomings in their research are dealt with, morphological irregularity and frequency are indeed strongly correlated variables also in Spanish.
About the author
Borja Herce Calleja works as a predoctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country. After graduating in Economics and working for some time in the private sector, he decided to take the risk and pursue his passion. He graduated in English Studies and got an MA in Linguistics, with his Bachelor and Master Theses receiving the highest marks. His research interests revolve around diachronic and typological aspects of grammar.
Acknowledgements
The financial support of the European Commission’s Backis Programme (2012-2741/001-001 – EMA2) and of the Government of the Basque Country (PRE_2015_1_0175) is gratefully acknowledged. I also thank two anonymous reviewers of JCLLT for their helpful comments.
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