Why a Determiner? The Possessive + Determiner + Adjective Construction in Old English (original) (raw)
Related papers
Possessives and determiners in Old English
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2006
This paper investigates the properties of two constructions in Old English (OE) in which a possessive and a determiner co-occur. The Det Poss construction, in which the determiner precedes a possessive, is well known and is similar to constructions found in many other languages. The Poss Det construction, with the opposite order, is much less well documented and when discussed at all, has usually been treated as a variant of the Det Poss construction. However, a systematic examination of a large corpus shows that the two constructions had different properties and require different analyses. I argue that the typologically unusual Poss Det construction, found only with adjectives, was possible because adjective phrases could be complements to determiners in OE.
Til en ung en kjekk en kar: Indefinite determiner spreading in Scandinavian and beyond
The Sign of the V: Papers in Honour of Sten Vikner, 2019
This study investigates multiple indefi nite determiners in structures involving adjectival modifi cation in a Norwegian dialect. Determiner spreading has been observed in numerous non-standard Germanic varieties but has been most extensively explored in Modern Greek. This paper considers recurring indefi nites in Norwegian in light of Greek polydefi nites, fi nding numerous similarities. In both languages, structures involving multiple determiners allow violations of adjectival ordering restrictions (AORs) and are prohibited with adjectives that may not occur in predicative position. However, these similarities are only apparent, as both can be explained by the fact that polyindefi nites in Norwegian involve parallel direct modifi cation. Furthermore, they are homophonous with nominal proforms such as a big one (en stor en). These facts, together with their prosodic characteristics, hints at an analysis where these polyindefi nites are nominal proforms.
The English Dative Alternation from 1410-1680 by
2018
The English dative alternation has received much study; its semantic roles and reasons for driving the choice of structure have been debated by many scholars. Despite the extensive studies carried out, however, no consensus has been reached by scholars as to whether the dative alternation is a completely random choice or if slight semantic differences understood, albeit subconsciously, by L1 English speakers do exist. Apart from the work of Wolk et al. (2013), however, all studies have been conducted into the usage of the different structures in Present Day English only. The examination carried out by Wolk et al. looks into the development of the dative and genitive alternations from 1650 to the end of the 20 th century. They identified some patterns which showed that certain structures were preferred for themes such as animacy, for example. Taking this study as a starting point, it was decided that the period from when case endings had almost completely been syncretised [c 15 th century] up to the beginning of Wolk et al.'s work [mid17 th century] was an interesting field for further investigation, and the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence was chosen as a basis for this. Data collected from 16 th century correspondence did show some anomalies when compared with findings from other eras. Whilst the scope of the project did not allow for further investigation into the possibility, the fact that this was the era of the Inkhorn Controversy cannot be ignored. During the data collection process, some patterns were, tentatively, identified. The most remarkable discovery, however, was that there emerged a strong possibility that social deixis could also have a bearing on use of the dative alternation. Prepositional phrases were shown to be used more often when addressing superiors or opponents, whereas the Double Object construction appeared more often in correspondence with peers and close family and friends. Whilst this was not the main object of the study, originally, and the need for deeper examination to collaborate or repudiate the findings is necessary, this new area of investigation into the driving choice for dative has been identified.
This book is a revision of Carola Trips' dissertation, submitted to the University of Stuttgart in 2001. The goal of the study is to show Scandinavian influence on the syntax of English by detailed analysis of the Ormulum, a twelfth-century text written in the East Midlands. Given this goal, the title is somewhat misleading. Although Trips mentions that her hypothesis is that the shift from OV to VO in English is due to Scandinavian influence, she focuses on finding evidence of other cases of Scandinavian influence rather than the actual shift from OV to VO. Her assumption is that finding evidence of Scandinavian influence on Middle English syntax in general will prove that the shift in English from OV to VO is also due to this Scandinavian influence, but this of course may not necessarily be the case. Despite the fact that language contact plays an important role in Trips' hypothesis, the book is strikingly lacking in discussion of literature on this topic, such as , , and other works concerned with formulating general tendencies and principles of linguistic borrowing.
The English Dative Alternation from 1410 -1680
The English Dative Alternation from 1410 - 1680, 2018
The English dative alternation has received much study; its semantic roles and reasons for driving the choice of structure have been debated by many scholars. Despite the extensive studies carried out, however, no consensus has been reached by scholars as to whether the dative alternation is a completely random choice or if slight semantic differences understood, albeit subconsciously, by L1 English speakers do exist. Apart from the work of Wolk et al. (2013), however, all studies have been conducted into the usage of the different structures in Present Day English only. The examination carried out by Wolk et al. looks into the development of the dative and genitive alternations from 1650 to the end of the 20th century. They identified some patterns which showed that certain structures were preferred for themes such as animacy, for example. Taking this study as a starting point, it was decided that the period from when case endings had almost completely been syncretised [c 15th century] up to the beginning of Wolk et al.’s work [mid17th century] was an interesting field for further investigation, and the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence was chosen as a basis for this. Data collected from 16th century correspondence did show some anomalies when compared with findings from other eras. Whilst the scope of the project did not allow for further investigation into the possibility, the fact that this was the era of the Inkhorn Controversy cannot be ignored. During the data collection process, some patterns were, tentatively, identified. The most remarkable discovery, however, was that there emerged a strong possibility that social deixis could also have a bearing on use of the dative alternation. Prepositional phrases were shown to be used more often when addressing superiors or opponents, whereas the Double Object construction appeared more often in correspondence with peers and close family and friends. Whilst this was not the main object of the study, originally, and the need for deeper examination to collaborate or repudiate the findings is necessary, this new area of investigation into the driving choice for dative has been identified.
The aim of this journal article is to carry out a structural-functional analysis of the formation of Old English adjectives by means of affixation. By analysing the rules and operations that produce the 3,356 adjectives which the lexical database of Old English Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) turns out as affixal derivatives, a total of fourteen derivational functions have been identified. Additionally, the analysis yields conclusions concerning the relationship between affixes and derivational functions, the patterns of recategorization present in adjective formation and recursive word-formation.
Ditransitives in Middle English: On semantic specialisation and the rise of the dative alternation
This paper discusses the plausibility of a correlation or even a causal relation between two phenomena that can be observed in the history of English ditransitives. The changes concerned are: First, the emergence of the 'dative alternation', i.e. the establishment of a link between the double-object construction (DOC) and its prepositional paraphrase, and second, a reduction in the range of verb classes associated with the DOC, with the construction's semantics becoming specialised to basic transfer-senses. Empirically, the paper is based on a quantitative analysis of the occurrences of the DOC as well as its prepositional competitors in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition (PPCME2). On the basis of these results, it will be argued that the semantic narrowing and the increasing ability of ditransitive verbs to be paraphrased by a to-prepositional construction (to-POC) interacted in a bidirectional causal manner.
English Language and Linguistics, 2021
Reviewed by Rodrigo Pérez Lorido , University of Oviedo This monograph is the first large-scale corpus-based diachronic study of external possession (EP) constructions in the English language. The study focuses on structures like (1), in which an NP in the dative case (dem Kind / me, the possessor), which behaves as an external argument of the clause, establishes some semantic relationship of possession with another NP in that clause (die Haare / el dedo, the possessum). This kind of structure was available in the Old and Middle English periods, but is preserved in Present-day English only in a few set phrases and expressions of the type look someone in the eye, having overall been replaced by internal possession (IP) structures containing a premodifier in the genitive case, like those in the idiomatic translations in (1a, b). (1) (a) Die Mutter wäscht dem Kind die Haare The mother washes the DAT child the hair 'The mother is washing the child's hair.' (Example from van de Velde and Lamiroy 2016: 353) (b) Lucía me vendó el dedo Lucía me 1SG.DAT bandage 1SG.PAST the finger 'Lucía bandaged my finger.' A characteristic of dative external possessors (DEP henceforth) is that they systematically display a strict affectedness condition, i.e. they are necessarily associated with beneficial or negative effects on the possessor (Haspelmath 1999: 111). From a typological-areal perspective, DEPs are considered as prototypically European, and external possession structures of this type are found in languages such as French, Spanish, German, Greek or Russian, to name a few. Allen's study seriously challenges two widely accepted hypotheses concerning the history of DEP structures in English and their demise over time: the strict connection between the disappearance of DEPs in English and the loss of the dative/accusative distinction (Ahlgren 1946), and the impact of the contact with the Celtic linguistic substratum in accelerating (or actually triggering) the change after the Germanic invasions. Allen does so in a very convincing way, combining-as is usual in her-formal linguistic analysis, thorough corpus research and absolute philological rigour. In English Language and Linguistics, page 1 of 7.