Anti-homophony and resource distribution in Aragonese

Abstract Homophony is often removed from languages to improve form-function isomorphism; this removal is known as homophone avoidance or ANTI-HOMOPHONY (AH). This article examines diachronic data from Aragonese and argues that AH, mediated by resource redistribution (ostensibly, suffix-borrowing), played a key role in the development of its verbal morphology. Of primary interest are the 1st singular (1s) and 3rd singular (3s) forms of the Pyrenean highland varieties of Ansó, Panticosa, Tella, and Benasque. While various authors have proposed that contrastive 1s and 3s have emerged as an AH effect (e.g., Ansotano tenebay ∼ teneba ; Benasqués teneba ∼ tenebe ; Tellano tenebe ∼ teneba ; as opposed to Panticuto teneba ∼ teneba ‘I had ∼ he/she had)’, AH as an organizing principle in Aragonese has not been rigorously explored, nor have the implications of AH for morphological structure been systematically evaluated in a more general sense. This study argues that AH in Aragonese draws upon distributional resources that vary across dialects, thereby mediating or impeding the resolution of 1s3s homophony. Verb data reveal how the absence of resources allows homophony to persist, though presumably in a state of tension.