On the alleged functions of word-order in wulfilian gothic

hf.uio.no

Valency over Time, 2021

This paper investigates Gothic valency patterns and alternations applying the methodology of the ValPaL project. Our data consists of 87 verb meanings based on those in the ValPaL corpus, which we supplemented due to gaps in coverage. Valency alternations are divided into uncoded and coded patterns. The uncoded group includes partitive, null object, external possessor, cognate/kindred object, applicative, (marginally) causal : non causal, and (marginally) reflexive alternations. The coded group comprises the applicative, passive, causal : noncausal, reflexive, and reciprocal alternations. The nature of the Gothic corpus (extension, genre, and nature of the text) influenced the results: some constructions were less frequently attested than expected; genre influenced the frequency of some verbal usages; some marginally attested constructions are owed to the Greek translational source. Most remarkably, we showed that: (i) in respect to the debated issue regarding the interpretation of Gothic passives, these can be employed to express noncausal situations; (ii) within the causal : noncausal alternation, whereas the causal domain is tied to ja-suffixation, the noncausal domain can be expressed by a variety of means, including na-verbs. Our results confirmed Ottósson's (2013) view that the noncausal domain was systematized at a later stage than the causal one.

Sitaridou, I. (2012). ‘A comparative study of word order in Old Romance’. Folia Linguistica, 46/2, “The pace of Grammaticalisation in Romance”, (guest eds.) A. Carlier, B. Lamiroy & W. De Mulder). 553-604

The main objective of this article is to discuss word-order phenomena in Old French, Old Spanish, Old Portuguese, and Old Occitan from a comparative perspective. In particular, the following are examined: (i) the empirical evidence in order to assess the theoretical arguments for and against a verbsecond analysis of the Old Romance languages; (ii) verb movement in Old Romance; and (iii) whether the changes in the word-order patterns in the history of the Romance languages can be captured as yet another instance of grammaticalisation. By means of a uniform methodology and statistical analysis of novel data, it is claimed that: (a) Old Romance does not possess a Germanic V2; (b) there is variation in terms of word order among Old Romance languages, which is shown to be linked to the individual history of the languages; (c) V2 order is mostly an epiphenomenon of the discourse mechanisms and the nature of the left functional field in these languages.

Diachronica, 2008

Syntactic analysis of an historical language at the level of detail and rigor required by modern standards of syntactic description is a difficult undertaking. The challenges are particularly great in a case like that of Old High German (hereafter, OHG), whose corpus is not only scant but widely variable along dimensions of dialect, date and genre and generally fraught with indeterminacies, contradictions, exceptions and gaps, and whose prose consists almost exclusively of translations with variable degrees of faithfulness to the Latin model. Axel builds a compelling case that extracting syntactic generalizations from this problematic corpus is not only doable, with sufficient care and ingenuity, but a crucial undertaking, given the situation of OHG in the development of Germanic syntax. On the one hand, OHG is more modern in a number of respects than its sister Germanic languages. Unlike Gothic and Old English, it no longer demonstrates unambiguously verbfinal main clauses. And while Gothic exhibits what has been claimed recently to be a particle-typing syntax, in which the illocutionary force of sentence is encoded by particles (e.g., the-u of yes/no questions), rather than verb position, OHG has moved markedly in the direction of the modern pattern of encoding sentence typing by verb position (e.g., verb-second (V-2) in declaratives, verb-first (V-1) in yes/no interrogatives). While Gothic seems to have been a strong pro-drop language like Greek, OHG exhibits a much more restricted sort of pro-drop. On the other hand, OHG is still not fully modern in its clausal syntax, still differing from NHG in a number of respects. While it generally exhibits verb-final subordinate clauses, it allows constituents to follow the subordinate verb with greater freedom than NHG. While it moves the verb leftward in all main clauses, it is not as strict a V-2 language as NHG, allowing both verb-first declarative sentences and verbthird sentences to a greater extent than does the latter. While it mainly signals illocutionary type by verb position, Axel claims that it preserves at least vestiges of an earlier particle-typing syntax. While it allows pro-drop less freely than does Gothic, it still permits it in more contexts than does NHG. Thus, OHG is a language caught midway between the syntax of early Germanic and that of NHG, and therefore a promising domain in which to explore in detail syntactic change in the clausal periphery. It is doubly interesting since a number of the transitions

Studia Neophilologica, 2018

This article deals with the Old English adjectival construction that consists of the copulative verb bēon 'to be' and the past participle. Grammaticalization is gauged as to the agreement between the subject noun phrase and the past participle and from the perspective of deflexion, which is considered the final stage of grammaticalization. The highest rates of agreement are found in AElfrician texts and translations from Latin, while other texts like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle not only evince remarkably lower figures of agreement, but also show a decrease over time. The conclusion is reached that, although the grammaticalization of the past participle in passive constructions is not complete on the basis of deflexion, the process is well underway in Old English.

Previous work has unearthed much about how grammaticalisation proceeds, but little to how it starts. This paper focuses on the development of passive auxiliaries from copula verbs, offering a model of the initial steps in the grammaticalisation process towards passive. The model emphasises the role of semantic factors in the compositional structure of the relevant copula constructions. We present evidence and a theoretical foundation for why atypical – " misfit " – constellations of constructions may begin the grammaticalisation path by prompting reanalysis. The data come from Old and Middle English and Old and Middle High German. We investigated the aktionsart combinations of copula constructions with 'become' (OHG werdan, OE weorðan) from Old English and Old High German to Middle English and Middle High German. The crucial difference between English and German is that combinations of 'become' and activity/semelfactive verbs become more frequent in German, which is what our theoretical model predicts.

The paper focuses on the instances where synthetic and periphrastic passives are used in similar contexts. The wairþan-passive and its spreading into the present tense seems to hold the key to the whole process of substitution of synthetic forms with periphrastic ones.

2012

With these studies, I present 14 papers dedicated to exploring different issues concerning basic word order and synchronic and diachronic variation in word order, written in the years 2000-2007. After my dissertation on restructuring infinitives in West Germanic, I have started to examine the nature of variation in the headcomplement parameter focussing on (synchronic) comparative investigations on word order in German and English. On the basis of the wide-held opinion (cf. Kemenade 1987) that English started out as an OV-language, I have extended these investigations with diachronic studies, since the development of English promised to yield interesting insights into the nature of this parameter. As it turns out, both English and German started out with mixed OV/VO orders (cf. Pintzuk 1999 for English and Hinterholzl 2010 for German), raising new and interesting questions about the nature of the variation and about the factors responsible for the development of word order in the tw...

Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology, 2006

In this paper, I present an analysis of the statal and processual passive in Old Saxon, using the theory of Cognitive Grammar (Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987 Langacker , 1991. The data to be discussed are the examples of the statal and processual passive from the Heliand and Genesis.