Page "Drift (linguistics)" Paragraph 1
from
Wikipedia
Structural symmetry seems to have brought about the change: all other wh-words are monomorphic ( consists of only one morpheme ).
For example, in the English language, there was the Great Vowel Shift, first described and accounted for in terms of drift by Jespersen ( 1909 – 1949 ).
Another example of drift is the tendency in English to eliminate the-er comparative formative and to replace it with the more analytic more.
In English, it may be the competition of the-er agentive suffix which has brought about this drift, i. e. the eventual loss of the Germanic comparative system in favor of the newer system calqued on French.
Page 1 of 1.
2.064 seconds.