[Histling-l] Deflexion query

[Nigel Vincent]

Dear Cindy,
I was intrigued by your query and took a quick look at the indexes of some volumes to hand on my shelves. I found nothing in the immediately obvious places but then came across multiple references (with the spelling 'deflection') in the index of Yakov Malkiel 'From Particular to General Linguistics. Essays 1965-1978'. This a collection of his papers and the earliest that uses the term there is from 1968. He treats it as an ordinary term with no special attempt to define it so I guess it was current well before that time.
Best
Nigel


Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester

Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester



https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
________________________________
From: histling-l <histling-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Cynthia Allen <cynthia.allen at anu.edu.au>
Sent: 19 March 2021 8:48 AM
To: histling-l at mailman.yale.edu <histling-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Histling-l] Deflexion query


Greetings,

I’ve been trying to nail down the earliest use of ‘deflexion’/’deflection’ in reference to loss of inflection/inflectional categories. It is not a widely used term, but has been prominently used in the early 2000s by Muriel Norde and then myself, for example. The earliest reference I have found is in Trask’s (2000) The dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics. I would like to find out who first used this term, and would be grateful for any earlier references.



Dr Cynthia L. Allen FAHA

Emeritus Fellow, Australian National University

Baldessin Precinct Building Room W2.09



School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics

Building 110

Australian National University

Acton ACT  2601


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