Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the velarization process undergone by the participles of the 2nd Catalan conjugation. According to the morphomic connection between the PyTA morphome (i.e., perfect and related tenses) and the participle (Wheeler 2011: 205), the participle will adopt the same velar extension type that shows the PyTA pattern of any given verb. This extension may be /g/, in verbs like beure ‘to drink’ (3rd begué‘drank’, 3rd beguera ‘drank’, 3rd begués ‘drank’), or /sk/, in verbs like nàixer ‘to be born’ (3rd nasqué ‘was born’, 3rd nasquera ‘was born’, 3rdnasqués ‘was born’). From a corpus of Catalan works ranging from the 13th to the 19th century, we date the velarization process of some verb classes and we show that, indeed, there is a morphomic connection between PyTA forms and participles. However, the analogical regularization of participles usually appears at a later stage than in the PyTA forms and, in some cases, it does not even occur at all. Thus, based on the corpus data, we analyze the factors that favour or disfavour the penetration of the velar extension in the participle forms.