A Quantitative Analysis of the Loss of V2 in the History of English (original) (raw)
Related papers
On the Left Periphery of V2 Languages
Rivista di Grammatica Generativa
New comparative data concerning the distribution of V1 and V3 orders in the Medieval Romance languages is presented in order to propose an analysis of the role these ‘deviant’ orders play in Verb Second (V2) grammars. It is proposed that neither V1 nor V3 orders are incompatible with a V2 grammar and that the synchronic variation found with regard to the licensing of V1 and V3 in Romance and cross-linguistically is linked to whether the locus of the V2 property is either ‘low’ in the C-domain on Fin or ‘high’ on Force.
Second Position Effects in the Syntax of Germanic and Slavic Languages
2016
This book examines second position effects in syntax, the V2 order in Germanic and second position cliticization in Slavic. These are unique syntactic mechanisms, which seem to be constrained only by the requirement that an element, a finite verb or a clitic, occurs after a category-neutral, clause-initial constituent, with few restrictions as to what this constituent might be. The main aim of this work is to establish a parametric property that triggers V2 and second position clitic placement. Both effects were hypothesized to be related phenomena already in their first analysis due to Wackernagel (1892), but so far they have not been examined in a comparative way in detail, especially in a diachronic perspective. This work shows that neither of them is a uniform syntactic operation, and it is necessary distinguish between Force-related and generalized second position placement. What unifies them is Tense dependency: V2 structures are restricted to tensed environments, whereas the development of second position cliticization in Slavic is shown to have been contemporaneous with the decline of morphological tense marking on the verb, analyzed as the loss of TP. The book can be ordered from the publisher: http://ebooki.wuwr.pl/category/628 (e-book, pdf format); http://www.wuwr.com.pl/products/1855.html (paper version)
Typological studies in language, 1995
Initial verbs are a rather popular topic in word order studies, as shown by the titles of the papers in this volume. My paper, while approaching the same topic as others, does not fit in the main stream of studies on inital verbs, in that it is not devoted to any verb-initial language. The languages that I will discuss all have a possible verb-initial word order pattern, which, however, does not represent either the basic or the most frequent word order.
Syntax and Information Structure: Verb Second variation in Middle English
Investigating the variation between verb-second (V2) and non-V2 word order in declaratives in Middle English, this chapter explores how syntax and information structure interact in the word order development during this period. It compares this interaction to similar variation in wh -questions in Present-Day Norwegian. The study makes a distinction between nominal and pronominal subjects across the four subperiods of Middle English, showing how word order is determined by syntax and information structure in different contexts. It discusses the diachronic development attested in light of findings from first language acquisition.
Lingua, 2010
Jouitteau's 2005 generalization that absolute V1 is not allowed introduces an interesting perspective on the possible structural relatedness between V1 and V2 grammatical systems. This article examines whether Celtic and Germanic display additional convergences beyond those that involve the left periphery. The verb-subject order in finite declarative clauses is one of them. It is shown that, once certain assumptions are made concerning the syntax of formal features (they ''fission'' when unsatisfied) and the featural endowment of Tense (the phi-requirement should carefully be distinguished from the EPP-requirement), some of the characteristics of the Celtic and Germanic peripheries straightforwardly follow from the properties of the inflectional domains. As far as the latter are concerned, three dimensions of variation are isolated, which decisively contribute to shaping clausal structure and determining word order: the inflectional richness of verbal forms, whether tense has a featural/morphemic representation within vP, and the presence/absence/optionality of T's [EPP].
From V1 to V2 in West Germanic
Lingua, 2010
Declarative clauses in Old High German (OHG) display V1-and V2-orders. In this paper, we show that verb placement in OHG is determined by information-structural (IS-) conditions: the verb serves to separate the aboutness topic from the rest of the clause (the comment). In this system, V1-clauses appear in sentences that lack a topic-comment division. The generalization of the V2 rule in German came about by extending the pattern representing topic comment structures onto sentences representing other discourse relations. In this process, the sentence-initial position was IS-neutralized, supporting an analysis of V2 in the modern language as verb movement to a unique head position with an EPP-feature. We compare this scenario with the system of verb placement in Old English (OE) and argue that English did not develop a generalized V2 rule, since the position of the verb in OE did not serve to separate a special topic from the rest of the clause, but separated all background elements from the focus domain of the clause. Finally, we argue that the V2-pattern in OHG derives from a construction in which a topic and a V1-clause were juxtaposed. Thus, the historic scenario as a whole provides support for the analysis of V2 in German as being derived from an original V1 system. #