Language change. Notes on the catalan possessive system

The possessive system in Romance languages constitutes an interesting area of research on linguistic change. In this presentation, we specifically explore some changes observed in Catalan, in order to develop an explanation within the Distributed Morphology framework. Concretely, we study the development of analogic feminine possessives and the loss of the one-possessor/multiple-possessor distinction in the third person paradigm. Our goal is to answer the following questions in the Distributed Morphology framework: what changes? and how is this change explained? We conclude that the modifications in the possessive system of Catalan are the result of changes in the Morphological Structure. Moreover, following the discussions outlined and the comparison with the possessive systems in other Romance languages we present arguments against the directionality of language change.