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The Fate Of Morphological Complexity in Language Death: Evidence from East Sutherland Gaelic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Nancy C. Dorian
Nancy C. Dorian*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Abstract

Simplification in structure, and also confluence between the local-language structure and the prestige-language structure, are usually predicted in language death as in pidginization. For a dying Scottish Gaelic dialect, speakers representing a broad proficiency continuum were tested in the two most excessively complex morphological structures the dialect offers, the noun plural and the gerund. The forms supplied by the semi-speakers at the bottom of the proficiency continuum show considerable simplification, as expected, but very much less than in ‘classical’ pidginization; confluence with English is also quite limited. Marked functional differences between this dying dialect and the typical pidgin are invoked to account for the difference in outcome.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , September 1978, pp. 590 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by Linguistic Society of America

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