How – and Why – Do Inflectional Classes Arise? 1 A Case Study on Swedish and Norwegian Conjugation

This article addresses a highly instructive example of inflectional class change: the emergence of a new weak conjugation class (the so called 3rd conj.) in Swedish and Norwegian, e.g. SWE tro – trodde – trott ‘believe’. As inflectional classes are mostly looked upon as formal complication without functional gain, the rise of a new class is a thought-provoking event for inflectional class theorists. Thi