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<p>Continuity and Change in Grammar</p><p>Volume 159</p><p>Continuity and Change in Grammar</p><p>Edited by Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts and David Willis</p><p>General Editors</p><p>Werner Abraham</p><p>University of Vienna /</p><p>Rijksuniversiteit Groningen</p><p>Elly van Gelderen</p><p>Arizona State University</p><p>Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph</p><p>studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical</p><p>and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics,</p><p>morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust</p><p>empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.</p><p>Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA)</p><p>Advisory Editorial Board</p><p>Josef Bayer</p><p>University of Konstanz</p><p>Cedric Boeckx</p><p>ICREA/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona</p><p>Guglielmo Cinque</p><p>University of Venice</p><p>Liliane Haegeman</p><p>University of Ghent</p><p>Hubert Haider</p><p>University of Salzburg</p><p>Terje Lohndal</p><p>University of Maryland</p><p>Christer Platzack</p><p>University of Lund</p><p>Ian Roberts</p><p>University of Cambridge</p><p>Lisa deMena Travis</p><p>McGill University</p><p>Sten Vikner</p><p>University of Aarhus</p><p>C. Jan-Wouter Zwart</p><p>University of Groningen</p><p>Continuity and Change</p><p>in Grammar</p><p>Edited by</p><p>Anne Breitbarth</p><p>Ghent University</p><p>Christopher Lucas</p><p>Sheila Watts</p><p>David Willis</p><p>University of Cambridge</p><p>John Benjamins Publishing Company</p><p>Amsterdam / Philadelphia</p><p>Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data</p><p>Continuity and change in grammar / edited by Anne Breitbarth...[et al.].</p><p>p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 159)</p><p>Includes bibliographical references and index.</p><p>1. Language and languages--Variation. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general. 3. Socio-</p><p>linguistics. I. Breitbarth, Anne, 1976-</p><p>P120.V37C667 2010</p><p>417’.2--dc22 2010014516</p><p>isbn 978 90 272 5542 6 (Hb ; alk. paper)</p><p>isbn 978 90 272 8807 3 (Eb)</p><p>© 2010 – John Benjamins B.V.</p><p>No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any</p><p>other means, without written permission from the publisher.</p><p>John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands</p><p>John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa</p><p>The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of</p><p>American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of</p><p>Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.</p><p>8 TM</p><p>Table of contents</p><p>List of contributors vii</p><p>Introduction: Continuity and change in grammar 1</p><p>Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>part i. Continuity</p><p>What changed where? A plea for the re-evaluation of dialectal evidence 13</p><p>Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings:</p><p>The Final-over-Final Constraint 35</p><p>Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>Continuity is change: The long tail of Jespersen’s cycle in Flemish 61</p><p>Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of</p><p>word-order convergence in Welsh–English bilingual speech 77</p><p>Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change:</p><p>The Spanish of Catalan bilinguals in Majorca 97</p><p>Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 119</p><p>Remus Gergel</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian</p><p>and Middle Low German 145</p><p>John D. Sundquist</p><p>part ii. Change</p><p>Directionality in word-order change in Austronesian languages 169</p><p>Edith Aldridge</p><p>Negative co-ordination in the history of English 181</p><p>Richard Ingham</p><p>Formal features and the development of the Spanish D-system 201</p><p>Masataka Ishikawa</p><p>The rise of OV word order in Irish verbal-noun clauses 225</p><p>Elliott Lash</p><p>The great siSwati locative shift 249</p><p>Lutz Marten</p><p>The impact of failed changes 269</p><p>Gertjan Postma</p><p>A case of degrammaticalization in northern Swedish 303</p><p>Henrik Rosenkvist</p><p>Jespersen’s Cycle in German from the phonological perspective</p><p>of syllable and word languages 321</p><p>Renata Szczepaniak</p><p>An article on the rise: Contact-induced change and the rise</p><p>and fall of N-to-D movement 335</p><p>Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova & Valentin Vulchanov</p><p>Language index 355</p><p>Subject index 357</p><p>vi Continuity and Change in Grammar</p><p>Edith Aldridge</p><p>Department of Linguistics</p><p>University of Washington</p><p>A210 Padelford Hall</p><p>Box 354340</p><p>Seattle, WA 98195-4340</p><p>USA</p><p>eca1@u.washington.edu</p><p>Katrin Axel</p><p>Universiteit Göttingen</p><p>Seminar für Deutsche Philologie</p><p>Jacob-Grimm-Haus</p><p>Käte-Hamburger-Weg 3</p><p>D-37073 Göttingen</p><p>Germany</p><p>katrin.axel@phil.uni-goettingen.de</p><p>Theresa Biberauer</p><p>Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages</p><p>University of Cambridge</p><p>Sidgwick Avenue</p><p>Cambridge</p><p>CB3 9DA</p><p>UK</p><p>mtb23@cam.ac.uk</p><p>Anne Breitbarth</p><p>Universiteit Gent</p><p>Vakgroep Engels</p><p>Rozier 44</p><p>9000 Ghent</p><p>Belgium</p><p>anne.breitbarth@ugent.be</p><p>Peredur Davies</p><p>The Department of Linguistics & English</p><p>Language</p><p>University of Wales</p><p>Bangor</p><p>Gwynedd</p><p>LL57 2DG</p><p>UK</p><p>p.davies@bangor.ac.uk</p><p>Margaret Deuchar</p><p>The Department of Linguistics &</p><p>English Language</p><p>University of Wales</p><p>Bangor</p><p>Gwynedd</p><p>LL57 2DG</p><p>UK</p><p>m.deuchar@bangor.ac.uk</p><p>Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>Universitat de les Illes Balears</p><p>Departament de Filologia Espanyola,</p><p>Moderna i Llatina</p><p>Edifici Ramon Llull</p><p>Cra de Valldemossa Km 7,5</p><p>E-07122 Palma (Balears)</p><p>Spain</p><p>andres.enrique@uib.es</p><p>Remus Gergel</p><p>Descriptive & Theoretical Linguistics</p><p>English Department</p><p>University of Tübingen</p><p>Wilhelmstr. 50, R. 407</p><p>D-72074 Tübingen</p><p>Germany</p><p>remus.gergel@uni-tuebingen.de</p><p>Liliane Haegeman</p><p>Universiteit Gent</p><p>Vakgroep Engels</p><p>Rozier 44</p><p>9000 Ghent</p><p>Belgium</p><p>Liliane.Haegeman@UGent.be</p><p>Richard Ingham</p><p>The School of English</p><p>Birmingham City University</p><p>City North Campus</p><p>Perry Barr</p><p>Birmingham</p><p>B42 2SU</p><p>richard.ingham@bcu.ac.uk</p><p>List of contributors</p><p>Masataka Ishikawa</p><p>Sogokagakubu</p><p>Hiroshima University</p><p>Kagamiyama 1-7-1</p><p>Japan 739-8521</p><p>ishkwammgb@hiroshima-u.ac.jp</p><p>Elliott Lash</p><p>Faculty of Modern and Medieval</p><p>Languages</p><p>University of Cambridge</p><p>Sidgwick Avenue</p><p>Cambridge</p><p>CB3 9DA</p><p>UK</p><p>ejfl2@cam.ac.uk</p><p>Lutz Marten</p><p>Department of Africa</p><p>School of Oriental and African Studies</p><p>Thornhaugh Street</p><p>Russell Square</p><p>London WC1H 0XG</p><p>UK</p><p>lm5@soas.ac.uk</p><p>Glenda Newton</p><p>Faculty of Modern and Medieval</p><p>Languages</p><p>University of Cambridge</p><p>Sidgwick Avenue</p><p>Cambridge</p><p>CB3 9DA</p><p>UK</p><p>gen21@cam.ac.uk</p><p>Gertjan Postma</p><p>Meertens Instituut</p><p>Postbus 94264</p><p>1090 GG Amsterdam</p><p>Gertjan.Postma@meertens.knaw.nl</p><p>Henrik Rosenkvist</p><p>Centre for Language and Literature</p><p>Lund University</p><p>Box 201</p><p>221 00 Lund</p><p>Sweden</p><p>Henrik.Rosenkvist@nordlund.lu.se</p><p>Michelle Sheehan</p><p>School of English Literature, Language and</p><p>Linguistics</p><p>Percy Building</p><p>University of Newcastle upon Tyne</p><p>Newcastle upon Tyne</p><p>NE1 7RU</p><p>UK</p><p>michelle.sheehan@ncl.ac.uk</p><p>John Sunquist</p><p>Department of Foreign Languages</p><p>640 Oval Drive</p><p>Stanley Coulter 170</p><p>West Lafayette, IN 47907</p><p>USA</p><p>sundquist@purdue.edu</p><p>Renata Szczepaniak</p><p>Institut für Germanistik I</p><p>Von-Melle-Park 6</p><p>20146 Hamburg</p><p>Germany</p><p>renata.szczepaniak@uni-hamburg.de</p><p>Valentin Vulchanov</p><p>Institutt for moderne fremmedspråk</p><p>NTNU</p><p>7491 Trondheim</p><p>Norway</p><p>valentin.vulchanov@hf.ntnu.no</p><p>Mila Vulchanova</p><p>Institutt for moderne fremmedspråk</p><p>NTNU</p><p>7491 Trondheim</p><p>Norway</p><p>mila.vulchanova@hf.ntnu.no</p><p>Helmut Weiß</p><p>Institut für Kognitive Linguistik</p><p>Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität</p><p>Grüneburgplatz 1 (Fach 161)</p><p>60629 Frankfurt a. M. (Briefe)</p><p>60323 Frankfurt a. M. (Pakete)</p><p>Germany</p><p>weiss@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de</p><p>viii Continuity and Change in Grammar</p><p>Introduction</p><p>Continuity and change in grammar</p><p>Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas,</p><p>Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>Ghent University/University of Cambridge</p><p>The present volume brings together 16 contributions selected from papers presented</p><p>at the conference on Continuity and Change in Grammar that took place at the Uni-</p><p>versity of Cambridge 18–20 March 2008. The aim of the conference was to foster an</p><p>exchange of ideas on various aspects of linguistic transmission in different frameworks</p><p>(e.g. generative vs. functionalist)</p><p>a higher frequency of extraposition than modern Standard German</p><p>(e.g. Patocka 1997: 320–358; Weiß 1998: 55–58 on Bavarian).</p><p>1. The maximal superordinate verb, i.e. the finite verb, receives the index ‘1’ (= V1), the verb</p><p>governed by it receives the index ‘2’ (= V2) and so forth.</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>In general, deviations do not occur in bipartite verbal complexes as in (21). They are</p><p>only possible in verbal clusters with three or more verbs, but even here there are many</p><p>restrictions regarding the question as to which types of verbs may invert from the</p><p>canonical order, which exact orders are allowed and so on. It is a well-known fact that</p><p>in earlier stages of the language there was much more variation in verbal clusters and</p><p>that in bipartite clusters the inverted order (V1 > V2) was also possible (see Robinson</p><p>1997; Axel 2007: ch. 2; Weiß to appear on Old High German; Paul 2007: 453–456 on</p><p>Middle High German; Ebert et al. 1993: 438–440 on Early New High German). The</p><p>decisive period for verb-order change in the verbal cluster was the Early New High</p><p>German period (1350–1650). During this period there was a general decline of the</p><p>inverted order (Härd 1981; Maurer 1926: 151; Ebert 1981, 1998; Bies 1996; Reifsnyder</p><p>2003; Sapp 2006). In more recent studies there has been growing consensus that this</p><p>is a ‘change from above’, passed down from the chancery style (Ebert 1981, 1998; Bies</p><p>1996). Reifsnyder (2003), in her study of the Early New High German dialect of</p><p>Augsburg, comes to the conclusion that there was a prevalence of V2 > V1 orders in</p><p>the official texts, as well as an increase in frequency over time, which she argues results</p><p>from the adoption of a standard language ideology. To our knowledge there have been</p><p>no studies to date looking at when the inverted order became completely ungrammati-</p><p>cal in bipartite clusters in the standard language.</p><p>However, in most modern dialects bipartite verbal clusters may still be realized</p><p>with inverted order (V1 > V2) and tripartite clusters show orders that are not possible</p><p>in Standard German, as is illustrated by the Austrian German examples in (22) (cf. also</p><p>Lötscher 1978; Wurmbrand 2004 on Swiss German; Weiß 1998 on Bavarian; Wurmbrand</p><p>2004 on Austrian dialects):</p><p>(22) a. dea den Gaia håt åhagschossn (Styria)</p><p>rel the hawk has1 down-shot2</p><p>‘who shot down the hawk.’</p><p>b. wånn a Kind is taaft gwoadn (Styria)</p><p>when a child is baptized-ppp aux-ppp2</p><p>‘when a child was baptized.’ (Patocka 1997: 290)</p><p>Sapp (2006) carried out controlled experiments (magnitude estimation) on verbal</p><p>clusters in some contemporary dialects (mostly on Austrian and Swabian German)</p><p>and compared these findings and those from an extensive survey of the secondary</p><p>literature on various dialects with the results of his quantitative investigation of the</p><p>texts from the online version of the Bonner Frühneuhochdeutschkorpus. He comes</p><p>to the conclusion (p. 170) that although “many dialects appear to have the same</p><p>kind of word-order variation as ENHG [Early New High German], there have also</p><p>been some important historical developments”. With bipartite clusters, the Early</p><p>New High German state of affairs is best preserved in Swiss German, which still</p><p>What changed where? </p><p>allows the V1 > V2 and the V2 > V1 order, while in Swabian and Austrian and most</p><p>other dialects the former order is disprefered. In Early New High German, the</p><p>V1 > V2 order is better with the modal–infinitive syntagm than with the perfect tense.</p><p>Interestingly, however, other dialects, namely Swabian and Eastern Austrian, have</p><p>developed the reverse preference. With tripartite clusters, most dialects have come to</p><p>agree with Standard German in allowing only V3 > V2 > V1, however, as in Early New</p><p>High German, in the IPP (= infintivus pro participio) and werden–modal–infinitive</p><p>constructions (cf. Schmid & Vogel 2004; Schmid 2005) there is more variation than</p><p>in Standard German. In both bi- and tripartite clusters, focus has some effect on verb</p><p>order in Early New High German. More precisely, Sapp (2006: 168) has found that</p><p>focus on the object has a favouring effect on the V1 > V2 order and probably on the V1</p><p>> V3 > V2 order. Interestingly, the same effect shows up in two contemporary dialects</p><p>which he studied experimentally (i.e. Swabian and Austrian German) and in Modern</p><p>Standard German. To sum up, Sapp’s comparison of the contemporary dialects with</p><p>the Early New High German dialects has revealed that the diachrony of verbal clus-</p><p>ters is characterized by both syntactic continuity and discontinuity. Compared to the</p><p>developments in the standard languages, the dialects seem to be more conservative</p><p>and reluctant to change at first. However, Sapp’s study suggests that the microvariation</p><p>we still find in the contemporary dialects is no direct reflex of the situation in the Early</p><p>New High German dialects, but it must be the product of some small-scale changes</p><p>(‘micro-changes’).</p><p>. Conclusion</p><p>All these case studies show that taking into account dialectal evidence in historical</p><p>syntax can lead to different and more appropriate results. These results constitute a</p><p>more solid basis for judgements about what is stable and what is more open to change</p><p>in the history of a language.</p><p>There are especially three aspects speaking in favour of dialectal data in historical</p><p>syntax:20</p><p>First: if there were different historical developments in dialects and the standard, the</p><p>development in the dialects should be more relevant, because L1 acquisition can be</p><p>. There is another aspect speaking in favour of dialects in historical linguistics: the written</p><p>(variety of a) language is not always based on the same variety/dialect in the historical develop-</p><p>ment. English exemplifies this lack of continuity: whereas the corpus of Old English is written</p><p>in the Wessex dialect, modern Standard English developed from the Mercian dialect (Crystal</p><p>1995: 29). Thanks to one of the reviewers for bringing this aspect to our attention.</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>made responsible for them, whereas standard languages were shaped by extra-linguistic</p><p>factors as well; see, for example, the loss of negative concord.</p><p>Second: some of the innovations occurring in dialects have never reached the stan-</p><p>dard and these are mostly the interesting cases for linguistics. We mentioned one such</p><p>case: complementizer agreement (cf. Corbett 2006 for the typological uniqueness of</p><p>this feature). Other cases from German dialects, among many others, would be verb</p><p>doubling in Swiss German (Schönenberger & Penner 1995) or matrix verb stranding</p><p>in Swabian (Hiller 1999).21</p><p>Third: Just as dialects exhibit syntactic variation at the synchronic level, they do so</p><p>at the diachronic level as well. The German verbal clusters show considerable word-</p><p>order variation both in the contemporary and in the Early New High German dialects,</p><p>but there is no direct correspondence between the situation in the modern dialects</p><p>and their respective Early New High German precursors. Though syntax is surely the</p><p>most inert linguistic level with respect to change (Longobardi 2001), the syntactic sys-</p><p>tems of the dialects must be the product of many ‘micro-changes’ that have shaped the</p><p>microvariation that we see today.</p><p>Primary sources</p><p>[I] Der althochdeutsche Isidor. Nach der Pariser Handschrift und den Monseer Fragmenten.</p><p>Hans Eggers (ed.). Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1964.</p><p>[Lanc] Lancelot. Nach der Heidelberger Pergamenthandschrift Pal. Germ. 147, Reinhold Kluge</p><p>(ed.). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Vol. I 1948.</p><p>[MF] The Monsee Fragments. Newly collated text with introduction, notes, grammatical treatise</p><p>and exhaustive glossary and a photo-lithographic fac-simile. George Allison Hench (ed.).</p><p>Straßburg: Karl J. Trübner. 1890.</p><p>[T] Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen Cod. 56. Achim Masser</p><p>(ed.) (in cooperation with Elisabeth De Felip-Jaud). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1994.</p><p>References</p><p>Axel,</p><p>Katrin. 2005. Null subjects and verb placement in Old High German. In Linguistic Evidence.</p><p>Empirical, Theoretical and Computational Perspectives, Stephan Kepser & Marga Reis (eds),</p><p>27–48. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</p><p>1. Verbs like to help/let/start and a few others behave curiously in Swabian in that it is the</p><p>embedded verb they select that is inflected, whereas they themselves appear as infinitives,</p><p>cf. (i). This is called Matrix Verb Stranding by Hiller (1999).</p><p>(i) Se šreibt des ets ãafangә uf</p><p>she write-3.sg this-acc now begin-inf down</p><p>‘She is now starting writing this down’</p><p>What changed where? 1</p><p>Axel, Katrin. 2007. Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement</p><p>and Verb-Second [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 112]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</p><p>Axel, Katrin & Weiß, Helmut. To appear. Pro-drop in the history of German: From Old High</p><p>German to the modern dialects. In Empty Pronouns, Peter Gallmann & Melanie Wratil (eds).</p><p>Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</p><p>Bayer, Josef. 1984. COMP in Bavarian Syntax. The Linguistic Review 3: 209–274.</p><p>Bayer, Josef. 1993. ‘Zum’ in Bavarian and scrambling. In Dialektsyntax, Werner Abraham &</p><p>Josef Bayer (eds), 50–70. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. (Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft</p><p>5/1993).</p><p>Bies, Ann. 1996. 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Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings</p><p>The Final-over-Final Constraint*</p><p>Theresa Biberauer1,3, Michelle Sheehan2 & Glenda Newton1</p><p>1University of Cambridge/2University of Newcastle/3Stellenbosch University</p><p>This chapter examines the predictions of Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts’s</p><p>(2007, 2008) Final-over-Final Constraint/FOFC for grammatical change and</p><p>borrowing. As a putatively invariant syntactic principle, FOFC excludes the</p><p>synchronic possibility of head-final phrases dominating categorially alike</p><p>head-initial phrases. For diachrony, FOFC predicts certain word-order changes</p><p>to be impossible, whether contact is involved or not: specifically, head-final to</p><p>head-initial change is predicted to proceed top-down, whereas the reverse</p><p>change should proceed bottom-up. Case studies from the history of English,</p><p>Afrikaans and French seem to support the first of these predictions. Furthermore,</p><p>we show on the basis of data from South Asian languages, that the presence of a</p><p>phrase-initial head blocks the borrowing of a higher phrase-final head, thereby</p><p>avoiding a FOFC-violation.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>In word-order terms, the languages of the world can be classified as being either</p><p>harmonic or disharmonic. The term “harmonic”, originating with Greenberg (1963)</p><p>(cf. also Hawkins 1983), refers to a language that is either consistently head-initial</p><p>or consistently head-final. Within a generative framework, patterns of this type have</p><p>*Our thanks to the audiences at the Continuity and Change Conference (Cambridge – March</p><p>2008), the “Past Meets the Present: A Dialogue Between Historical Linguistics and Theoretical</p><p>Linguistics” Conference (Taipei – July 2008) and DiGS X (Cornell – August 2008), and to the</p><p>members of the FOFC seminar (October-December 2007). Particular thanks to Edith Aldridge,</p><p>Alastair Appleton, Özgür Aydın, Silvio Cruschina, Matthew Dryer, Jim Huang, Tony Kroch,</p><p>Elliott Lash, Adam Ledgeway, Pino Longobardi, Iain Mobbs, Waltraud Paul, Chris Reintges,</p><p>Sarah Thomason, Nigel Vincent, John Whitman and two very helpful anonymous reviewers.</p><p>This work is supported by AHRC Grant No. AH/E009239/1 (“Structure and Linearization in</p><p>Disharmonic Word Orders”).</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>traditionally been related to the Head Parameter, which may be informally stated as</p><p>in (1):</p><p>(1) The Head Parameter: X > YP (head-initial languages)</p><p>YP > X (head-final languages)</p><p>However, a significant number of languages are not fully harmonic; instead they con-</p><p>tain a mixture of head-initial and head-final phrases. A well-known example of a</p><p>disharmonic language is German, which has a head-final VP and AuxP,1 but a head-</p><p>initial CP, DP and, for the most part, PP, as in (2):</p><p>(2) … dass das Mädchen in München gewohnt hat</p><p>[CP that [AuxP[VP[DP the girl] [PP in Munich] lived] has]]</p><p>‘… that the girl lived in Munich.’</p><p>The existence of disharmonic word orders indicates that the Head Parameter must be</p><p>formulated in such a way that it can be set not just in an across-the-board fashion, but</p><p>also, where necessary, in a category-specific way (cf. Hawkins 1983 for discussion).</p><p>This leads us to expect that disharmonic orders will be “equal” in the sense that all</p><p>combinations of mixed headedness should, in principle, be equally available. In reality,</p><p>however, the empirical record exhibits a striking skewing regarding the attestation of</p><p>disharmonic word orders. The following section introduces a generalization capturing</p><p>this skewing and then presents data supporting it, along with some apparent counter-</p><p>examples. Section 3 considers the diachronic predictions made by the generalization</p><p>in terms of word-order change, Section 4 focuses on the implications for borrowing</p><p>and Section 5 concludes.</p><p>2. The Final-over-Final Constraint</p><p>Holmberg (2000: 124) observes that the following configuration seems to be banned</p><p>in many languages:2</p><p>1. We employ the label AuxP here despite the fact that it has often been argued that German</p><p>auxiliaries are in fact Vs (cf. Haider 1993, 2000; Müller & Reis 2001). This labeling should</p><p>not be interpreted as signifying a commitment to an opposing analysis; here and elsewhere,</p><p>we simply</p><p>employ AuxP as a convenient, theory-neutral descriptive label designating the</p><p>position(s) above the lexical VP that may be occupied by auxiliaries, not only in German, but</p><p>in languages more generally.</p><p>2. The tree in (3) shows head-final orders as base-generated by a head parameter. Under a</p><p>Kaynean view, head-final orders are derived via roll-up movement of a head’s complement to</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>(3) * β′</p><p>αP β</p><p>α γP</p><p>where αP is the complement of β and γP is the complement of α</p><p>He accounts for this gap by postulating the following constraint:</p><p>(4) The Final-over-Final Constraint (FOFC) [First Version]:</p><p>If α is a head-initial phrase and β is a phrase immediately dominating α, then β</p><p>must be head-initial. If α is a head-final phrase, and β is a phrase immediately</p><p>dominating α, then β can be head-initial or head-final.</p><p>Evidence of the existence of a constraint of the type in (4) comes from a range of</p><p>clausal and non-clausal contexts in unrelated languages. Thus, for example, Holmberg</p><p>observes that in Finnish all permutations of the verb, object and auxiliary occur, except</p><p>for FOFC-violating V-O-AUX (V underlined; O in smallcaps; AUX in bold):</p><p>(5) a. Milloin Jussi olisi kirjoittanut romaanin? [Aux-V-O]</p><p>when Jussi would-have written novel-def</p><p>b. Milloin Jussi olisi romaanin kirjoittanut? [Aux-O-V]</p><p>when Jussi would-have novel-def written</p><p>c. Milloin Jussi romaanin kirjoittanut olisi? [O-V-Aux]</p><p>when Jussi novel-def written would-have</p><p>‘When would Jussi have written a novel?’</p><p>d. *Milloin Jussi kirjoittanut romaanin olisi? *[V-O-Aux]</p><p>when Jussi written novel-def would-have</p><p>The same pattern emerges if we consider both present-day and historical variet-</p><p>ies of Germanic. We illustrate for Old English (formatting as above; cf. Biberauer,</p><p>its specifier position (cf. Kayne 1994). In this chapter, we abstract away from such theoretical</p><p>details. These are, however, addressed in Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan (2009), where it is</p><p>also made clear that a head parameter-based approach is untenable. For the purposes of this</p><p>chapter, however, it should be assumed that FOFC violations surface under two structural</p><p>conditions: (i) wherever a head-initial phrase is dominated by a head-final one that has been</p><p>merged on top of it, and (ii) wherever a head-initial phrase is dominated by a head-final one as</p><p>the result of a linearization-driven movement operation (see also Note 3). In Kaynean terms,</p><p>all FOFC violations will, of course, have the structure in (ii).</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>Holmberg & Roberts 2007 for more detailed discussion and illustration; and cf. Pintzuk</p><p>1991/1999 on the absence of SVOAux throughout the history of English):</p><p>(6) O V AUX (“head-final” order in VP and AuxP):</p><p>Đa se Wisdom þa is fitte asungen hæfde …</p><p>when the Wisdom then this poem sung had</p><p>‘When Wisdom had sung this poem …’</p><p>(Boethius 30.68.6; cf. Fischer et al. 2000: 143)</p><p>(7) O AUX V (“verb-raising”; cf. Evers 1975 and subsequent work):</p><p>… þe æfre on gefeohte his handa wolde afylan</p><p>who ever in battle his hands would defile-inf</p><p>‘… whoever would defile his hands in battle’</p><p>(Ælfric’s Lives of Saints 25.858; cf. Pintzuk 1991: 102)</p><p>(8) AUX O V (“verb projection raising”; cf. Haegeman & van Riemsdijk 1986):</p><p>… þæt hie mihton swa bealdlice Godes geleafan bodian</p><p>that they could so boldly God’s faith preach-inf</p><p>‘…that they could preach God’s faith so boldly’</p><p>(The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church I 232; cf. van Kemenade 1987: 179)</p><p>(9) V AUX O (“object extraposition”):</p><p>… þæt ænig mon atellan mæge ealne one demm</p><p>that any man relate can all the misery</p><p>‘… that any man can relate all the misery’</p><p>(Orosius 52.6–7; cf. Pintzuk 2002: 283)</p><p>(10) AUX V O (“verb raising” combined with “object extraposition”):</p><p>… þæt he mot ehtan godra manna</p><p>that he might persecute good men</p><p>‘… that he might persecute good men’</p><p>(Wulfstan’s Homilies 130.37–38; cf. Pintzuk 2002: 282)</p><p>Crucially, every permutation of Aux, V and O is attested, except for the FOFC-violating</p><p>V-O-AUX order (see i.a. den Besten 1986; Travis 1984: 157–8; Kiparsky 1996: 168–171;</p><p>Pintzuk 1991/1999; Hróarsdóttir 2000; Fuß & Trips 2002 for discussion).</p><p>Haddican (2004) observes that the same gap occurs in Basque:</p><p>(11) a. Jon-ek ez dio Miren-i egia esan [Aux-O-V]</p><p>Jon-erg not aux Miren-dat truth say-perf</p><p>‘Jon has not told Miren the truth.’</p><p>b. Jon-ek ez dio esan Miren-i egia [Aux-V-O]</p><p>Jon-erg not aux say-perf Miren-dat truth</p><p>‘Jon has not told Miren the truth.’</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>(12) a. Jon-ek Miren-i egia esan dio [O-V-Aux]</p><p>Jon-erg Miren-dat truth say-perf aux</p><p>‘Jon has told Miren the truth.’</p><p>b. *Jon-ek esan Miren-i egia dio [*V-O-Aux]</p><p>Jon-erg say-perf Miren-dat truth aux</p><p>Furthermore, it is not only in this domain that we find such word-order gaps. It</p><p>has been observed that VO languages cross-linguistically do not have clause-final</p><p>complementizers (cf. Hawkins 1990: 256–7; Dryer 1992: 102). Although at first sight</p><p>this does not seem to be ruled out by FOFC as stated above, because C does not</p><p>directly dominate VP, on closer inspection it emerges that a final C in a VO language</p><p>necessarily violates FOFC at some point in structures in which it occurs. Consider</p><p>the following:</p><p>(13) a. *[CP [AuxP [VP V O ] Aux ] C ] – violates FOFC (α = V, β = Aux)</p><p>*[CP [AuxP Aux [VP V O ]] C ] – violates FOFC (α = Aux, β = C)</p><p>* C′</p><p>AuxP C</p><p>b.</p><p>* C′</p><p>V O</p><p>In (13a), a structure with a head-final CP and a head-final AuxP, the head-final AuxP</p><p>dominates a head-initial VP, leading to a FOFC violation of the type already discussed</p><p>above. In (13b) a structure with a head-final CP dominates a head-initial AuxP, leading</p><p>to a FOFC violation at the CP/AuxP level. Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts/BHR (2007,</p><p>2008) discuss a range of further structures excluded by FOFC, not only in the clausal</p><p>domain, but also in the context of nominals, underlining the general nature of the gap</p><p>characterized by (4). Furthermore, Cecchetto (to appear) shows that FOFC also holds</p><p>in the domain of sign languages, thereby confirming the non-modality-specific nature</p><p>of this grammatical constraint.</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>Although there is thus significant empirical support for FOFC, it is important to</p><p>note that there are also apparent exceptions. For example in German, a head-final VP</p><p>can dominate a head-initial DP (14a) or head-initial PP (14b):</p><p>(14) a. Er hat [VP[DP ein Buch] gelesen]3</p><p>he has a book read</p><p>‘He read the book.’</p><p>b. Sie ist [VP[PP nach Berlin] gefahren]</p><p>she is to Berlin driven</p><p>‘She went to Berlin.’</p><p>BHR argue that such exceptions can be accounted for if FOFC is modified, such that it</p><p>only holds over XPs that are categorially non-distinct. Although the notion of ‘categorial</p><p>distinctness’ is by no means straightforward, in the German case it is clear that the</p><p>VP is a verbal category, whereas the DP, and perhaps the PP, should be considered</p><p>nominal.4 By contrast, both (inflected) auxiliaries and verbs are verbal, while Cs are</p><p>thought to encode typically verbal features like [finiteness] and are thus at least in part</p><p>verbal too (cf. Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan 2008, 2009 for further discussion); con-</p><p>sequently, we would expect FOFC to hold between V and C, but not V and D.</p><p>A further class of exceptions comes from clause-final particles. Many VO languages</p><p>have clause-final force particles (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Sre, Mon, Copala Trique)</p><p>(15) a. Hufei chi-le sheme ma? (Mandarin Chinese)</p><p>Hufei eat-asp thing QYES/NO</p><p>‘Did Hufei eat anything?’</p><p>. An anonymous reviewer points out that DPs in German may not all be VP-internal, as it</p><p>is clear that some DPs surface to the left of middle-field elements like VP-adverbs. This does</p><p>not affect our central point since both base- and movement-generated FOFC-violating struc-</p><p>tures are predicted to</p><p>be out (cf. Note 2). It is, however, worth noting that BHR do distinguish</p><p>between linearization-driven movements and A- and A¢-driven movements, with the latter not</p><p>being subject to FOFC. The core idea here is that movement that takes place as a result of its</p><p>being part of an item’s selection information must be FOFC-conforming: it is not possible for</p><p>a given head to select a head-initial phrase and require this selected phrase to move to its spec-</p><p>ifier (cf. BHR, Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan 2009 for more detail on this). By contrast, it is</p><p>possible for an initial functional head to bear an A- or A′-movement trigger – i.e. a movement</p><p>trigger that is not associated with its selection profile – which might then trigger a FOFC-</p><p>violating structure. This is arguably the case wherever VP-fronting occurs in head-initial lan-</p><p>guages (cf. English and, more strikingly, the Slavic example discussed in BHR). In connection</p><p>with DP-placement, it should, however, be remembered that both A- and A′-movement of DPs</p><p>cannot trigger FOFC violations since FOFC only holds between categorially alike phrases.</p><p>. There are many predecessors to this idea in the literature, from Kayne’s (1984) Connected-</p><p>ness proposals to Grimshaw’s (1991) ‘extended projection’ to van Riemsdijk’s (1998) ‘Law of</p><p>Categorial Feature Magnetism’ and Brody’s (1995, 1998) ideas on projection.</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings 1</p><p>b. drùsĭ mâ zâ \aa rá (Lugbara, Nilo-Saharan)</p><p>tomorrow I meat eat affirmative</p><p>‘Tomorrow I will eat meat.’ (cf. Heine & Nurse 2000: 208)</p><p>Systematic positional differences between “full” and particle forms of a given type</p><p>of element (e.g. auxiliary, complementizer, etc.) in some of the languages with</p><p>clause-final particles suggest that the Greenbergian approach to particles, in terms</p><p>of which these are systematically excluded from word-order placement gener-</p><p>alizations on account of their peculiar properties (cf. Greenberg 1963), may be</p><p>well-founded. Consider (16), which shows that inflected auxiliaries are barred</p><p>from the clause-final position in which (uninflected) auxiliary particles obligato-</p><p>rily appear:</p><p>(16) a. yә- ca dεyo lf (Bwe, Karen)</p><p>1sg-see picture asp</p><p>‘I am looking at a picture.’</p><p>b. ce-1f mι jә-khf́ phι má nf́ (*jә-khf́)</p><p>3- say comp 3-fut take what</p><p>‘What did he say that he would take?’</p><p>We leave aside here (apparently) FOFC-violating structures containing particles,</p><p>whose properties are still poorly understood.</p><p>To summarize, then, empirical evidence from a wide range of languages suggests</p><p>that FOFC, as stated in (17), is an absolute principle which acts as a universal con-</p><p>straint on synchronic grammars (modulo particles).</p><p>(17) The Final-over-Final Constraint (FOFC) [Final Version]:</p><p>If α is a head-initial phrase and β is a categorially non-distinct phrase immediately</p><p>dominating α, then β must be head-initial. If α is a head-final phrase, and β is a</p><p>phrase immediately dominating α, then β can be head-initial or head-final.</p><p>It presently remains unresolved whether FOFC follows from a principle of UG (i.e.</p><p>Chomsky (2005)’s “first factor”), a processing preference, or extra-linguistic, economy-</p><p>oriented “third factor” pressures (cf. once again, Chomsky 2005). Biberauer, Holmberg</p><p>& Roberts initially (2007, 2008) take it to be an effect of ‘phase harmony’ within a</p><p>Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA)-based system, and, later (Biberauer, Holmberg &</p><p>Roberts 2010), of Relativized Minimality, once again within an LCA-based system,</p><p>while Sheehan (2009a, b) proposes that it stems directly from Kayne’s (1994) LCA</p><p>and a copy theory of labeling. These accounts, then, take FOFC to be at least in part</p><p>due to first factor properties of the faculty of language, notably the LCA. Alterna-</p><p>tively, it might be that FOFC is an effect of a very strong parsing/processing prefer-</p><p>ence (cf. Hawkins 1994, 2004 and Cecchetto 2007, to appear), though see Sheehan (to</p><p>appear) for a critical appraisal of Hawkins’ Performance Grammar Correspondence</p><p>2 Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>Hypothesis and its relation to FOFC.5 Given the uncertain nature of this question, we</p><p>leave it aside here, focusing instead on the central claim that FOFC, whatever its pre-</p><p>cise origins, is a universal constraint on synchronic grammars.</p><p>As a universal constraint, we expect FOFC not only to constrain synchronic gram-</p><p>mars, but also to play a role in acquisition, restricting the types of grammars that can</p><p>be acquired and, thereby, also the types of diachronic change which are possible. The</p><p>remainder of this chapter will consider FOFC’s role in diachronic change, both where</p><p>contact is and where it is not involved.</p><p>. FOFC and diachronic change</p><p>If, as proposed in the previous section, FOFC is a universal constraint on synchronic</p><p>grammars, it has important implications for syntactic change. In terms of an influential</p><p>view in the field of diachronic syntax (see in particular Lightfoot 1999 and also Roberts</p><p>2007 for discussion), syntactic change should be seen as a random walk through para-</p><p>metric space. On this view, any syntactic change is possible if the primary linguistic</p><p>data (PLD) to which the language learner is exposed provides the appropriate evidence</p><p>or trigger for it. It therefore follows from this view that it is impossible to make predic-</p><p>tions regarding the pathways that word-order change will follow (see also Newmeyer</p><p>1998). However, we propose that this is not the case. Universal constraints on gram-</p><p>mar, such as FOFC, which categorically rule out certain structures, suggest that there</p><p>may in fact be UG-imposed structural constraints that determine specific possible and</p><p>impossible pathways of syntactic change.6</p><p>If FOFC is a universal constraint, then it is operative not only in today’s languages,</p><p>but also in all languages of the past. In other words, FOFC must apply at every stage of</p><p>a language’s history. This predicts that a FOFC-violating order should never be able to</p><p>develop, even transitionally as part of a larger series of changes. Bearing this in mind,</p><p>FOFC allows us to make predictions about pathways of syntactic change. For example,</p><p>when a language changes from being predominantly head-final (“OV”) to predomi-</p><p>nantly head-initial (“VO”), this change must proceed top-down, as illustrated in (18):</p><p>(18) [[[O V] Aux] C] → [C [[O V] Aux]] → [C [Aux [O V]]] → [C [Aux [V O]]]</p><p>As shown above, FOFC requires that CP must change first, giving C-AuxP order in</p><p>place of AuxP-C order. The AuxP can then follow, giving Aux-VP in place of VP-Aux</p><p>. Taken a certain way, Hawkins’ principles might actually be considered ‘third factor’ general</p><p>economy principles. This idea is explicitly developed in Mobbs (2008).</p><p>. As noted in the main text, we are not committed to the view that FOFC is the exclusive</p><p>consequence of a hard-wired invariant principle of UG. Our use of UG here should thus be</p><p>interpreted as leaving open the various possibilities raised in the main text.</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>order. Only once these two changes are at the very least underway (see below) can the</p><p>VP start to exhibit variation, possibly ultimately leading to change from OV to VO. If</p><p>the change proceeded in the opposite direction, with the VP undergoing the change</p><p>first, this would give rise to V-O-Aux and V-O-C, orders that are ruled out by FOFC,</p><p>as discussed above.</p><p>Similarly, if we consider the opposite change, that is, from head-initial (VO) to</p><p>head-final (OV), FOFC predicts that this must proceed bottom-up. The VP must</p><p>change first, followed by the AuxP, then the CP:</p><p>(19) [C [Aux [V O]]] → [C [ Aux [O V]]] → [C [[O V] Aux]] → [[[O V] Aux] C]</p><p>A change in the opposite direction, beginning with the CP or the AuxP would result in</p><p>the FOFC-violating V-O-C or V-O-Aux orders from the outset.7</p><p>The first of these predictions is borne out within the history of Indo-European. The</p><p>change from OV to VO is well attested in</p><p>both the Germanic and Romance branches</p><p>and in both cases the change seems to follow the FOFC-determined pathway.8</p><p>.1 OV to VO in the history of English</p><p>Although Modern English is predominantly a head-initial language, this was not</p><p>always the case. Like Modern German, Old English was head-final in the VP and the</p><p>AuxP; therefore, English has clearly undergone a change from head-final to head-initial</p><p>within its recorded history. FOFC predicts that the first stage of this change should</p><p>affect the CP. From the earliest attested evidence of Germanic, we only find head-initial</p><p>CPs.9 Crucially, however, initial complementizers may appear with both head-initial</p><p>. Crucially it should be noted that the pathways we propose are in no sense deterministic. If</p><p>a consistently head-final language becomes head-initial in the CP, there is no necessity for it to</p><p>undergo further change in the AuxP and the VP. Further syntactic change will only take place</p><p>as a result of a change in the PLD available to children acquiring the language. See Section 3.3</p><p>below for further discussion with reference to synchronic word-order variation in Afrikaans.</p><p>. Evidence of the second pathway (VO to OV) can be found in the Ethiopian Semitic lan-</p><p>guages, which have seemingly changed from head-initial to head-final due to contact with</p><p>Cushitic. Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan (2008) discuss this case in some detail.</p><p>. It is not clear that Germanic or, indeed, Proto-Indo-European ever had clause-final</p><p>complementisers. Complementisers in the attested Indo-European languages seem to have</p><p>developed independently, and, as such, we cannot reconstruct complementisers for Proto-</p><p>Indo-European (see Kiparsky 1995). Just as there is no need for a system to progress all the</p><p>way down a given FOFC-determined pathway once it has “started” at one of the extremes, so</p><p>there is no need for a system which undergoes FOFC-sanctioned changes to have started at</p><p>one of these extremes: our proposal is simply that changes will follow the available pathways,</p><p>independently of their precise starting point.</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>and head-final AuxPs and VPs (although, as we saw above, not in the FOFC violating</p><p>V-O-Aux order). This is shown in the examples below (formatting as above).</p><p>(20) a. O-V-AUX:</p><p>… þæt Darius hie mid gefeohte secan wolde</p><p>that Darius them for battle seek wanted</p><p>‘… that Darius wanted to seek them out for a battle.’</p><p>(Orosius 45.31; cf. van Kemenade 1987: 16)</p><p>b. V-O-AUX unattested (cf. Pintzuk 1991, 1999)</p><p>c. AUX-O-V:</p><p>… þæt hie mihton swa bealdlice Godes geleafan bodian</p><p>that they could so boldly God’s faith preach</p><p>‘…that they could preach God’s faith so boldly.’</p><p>(The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church I 232; cf. van Kemenade 1987: 179)</p><p>d. AUX-V-O:</p><p>… þæt he mot ehtan godra manna</p><p>that he might persecute good men</p><p>‘… that he might persecute good men.’</p><p>(Wulfstan’s Homilies 130.37–38; Pintzuk 2002: 282)</p><p>Here we see that a final AuxP may only combine with a head-final VP (cf. (20a)),</p><p>whereas an initial AuxP has two combination possibilities, being able to combine both</p><p>with a head-final VP as in (20c) and with a head-initial VP as in (20d). The availability</p><p>of (20d) at a stage at which (20c)-type structures are still attested indicates that varia-</p><p>tion in VP order becomes possible as soon as initial AuxP becomes available. Crucially,</p><p>however, head-initial VPs are strictly limited to initial AuxP structures: despite the</p><p>independent availability of both head-final AuxP and head-initial VP, structures of</p><p>this type are completely unattested.</p><p>Turning next to the AuxP, Pintzuk (1991/1999) proposes that the transition from</p><p>head-final AuxP to head-initial AuxP was a gradual process, progressing throughout</p><p>the Old English period until early Middle English, when it reached completion. Varia-</p><p>tion within the VP, between OV and VO order, however, continues until the Late</p><p>Middle English period (formatting as before):</p><p>(21) AUX-O-V:</p><p>a. Þat ne haue noht here sinnes forleten</p><p>who neg have not their sins forsaken</p><p>‘…who have not forsaken their sins.’</p><p>(Trinity Homilies 67.934; cited in Kroch & Taylor 2000: 154)</p><p>b. AUX-V-O</p><p>oðet he habbe iŠetted ou al et Še wulle</p><p>until he has granted you all that you desire</p><p>‘Until he has granted you all that you desire.’</p><p>(Ancrene Riwle; cited in Kroch & Taylor 2000: 145)</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>It seems then, that the shift from OV to VO order in the history of English proceeded</p><p>top-down, exactly as FOFC predicts. Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan (2008) show how</p><p>the same is true of word-order change in Yiddish and Icelandic.</p><p>.2 OV to VO in the history of French</p><p>The development of VO order in French seems to have followed a similar pattern. Like</p><p>the early Germanic languages, Latin exhibits only head-initial CPs:</p><p>(22) accidit perincommode quod eum nusquam vidisti</p><p>happened-3sg unfortunately that him nowhere saw-2sg</p><p>‘It is unfortunate that you didn’t see him anywhere.’</p><p>(Cicero, Ad Attticum 1, 17, 2; cited in Roberts 2007: 169)</p><p>The development of the AuxP in Romance languages is somewhat more complicated</p><p>than in Germanic, as most “auxiliary” meanings in Latin were expressed morphologi-</p><p>cally rather than by means of auxiliaries (cf. Benveniste 1968 and Ledgeway to appear</p><p>for overview discussion). Classical Latin does, however, feature one compound tense,</p><p>namely the perfect passive. As (23) illustrates, the auxiliary element in this structure,</p><p>esse (‘to be’), could either precede or follow the participle:</p><p>(23) a. illa quae cum rege est pugnata</p><p>that-nom which-nom with king-abl is fought</p><p>‘that (battle) which was fought with the king.’</p><p>(Cicero, Pro Murena; cited in Ledgeway to appear: 8)</p><p>b. diu et acriter pugnatum est</p><p>long-time and fierce fought is</p><p>‘There was a long and hard battle.’</p><p>(Caesar, De Bello Gallico; cf. Ledgeway to appear: 8)</p><p>The auxiliary habere develops in later Latin, and, like esse, its position is variable but</p><p>the unmarked option seems to be for it to appear clause-finally (Bauer 1995: 104–107).</p><p>This is to be expected as the preferred position of the lexical verb, from which the</p><p>auxiliary habere grammaticalized, is clause-final (cf. i.a. Bauer 1995: 89–92):10</p><p>(24) a. haec omnia probatum habemus</p><p>these all.nom.pl tried.nom.sg have.1pl</p><p>‘We have tried all these things.’</p><p>(Oribasius – 6th century C.E.; cited in Ledgeway to appear: 62)</p><p>1. The grammaticalization of the Romance future tense (see Roberts & Roussou 2003:</p><p>48–57), formed from infinitive+habere, also suggests that, in this construction at least, the</p><p>auxiliary habere appeared clause-finally.</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>b. sicut parabolatum habuistis</p><p>thus spoken had.2pl</p><p>‘Thus you had spoken.’</p><p>(Formulae Salicae Merkelianae; cited in Ledgeway to appear: 62)</p><p>As part of the transition from Vulgar Latin to French, both the AuxP and the VP</p><p>became fixed as head-initial. Bauer (1995: 106) suggests that this change progressed</p><p>in exactly the order predicted by FOFC, with the AuxP becoming head-initial before</p><p>the VP:</p><p>(25) “Whereas the ordering habeo/sum + participle prevailed in twelfth century</p><p>Old French, the development towards the modern structure, where the direct</p><p>object follows the compound verb [[habeo/j’ai [participle] [direct object]] is</p><p>a development of Middle French. Accordingly, the structure (a) epistulam</p><p>scriptam habeo/je possède une lettre écrite ‘I possess a written letter’ changed</p><p>first into (b) habeo epistulam scriptam/j’ai une lettre écrite and then into (c) j’ai</p><p>écrit une lettre ‘I wrote a letter’, where the direct object follows the auxiliary</p><p>and the participle”</p><p>Although there is clearly a great deal more work to be done in determining the exact</p><p>details of the change from OV to VO in French, with the relevant data possibly being</p><p>absent from the attested record (Adam Ledgeway, p.c.), the basic evidence</p><p>presented</p><p>above is suggestive of a change following the pathway predicted by FOFC.</p><p>. Word-order variation in Afrikaans</p><p>FOFC pathways are not only demonstrated by diachronic change, but also by syn-</p><p>chronic variation. In Modern Spoken Afrikaans (MSA), we find both verb-final (26a)</p><p>and “verb-early” (26b) embedded clauses, in which a finite verb surfaces in a position</p><p>clearly higher than VP:</p><p>(26) a. Ek weet dat sy [VP dikwels Chopin gespeel] het (verb-final)</p><p>I know that she often Chopin played have</p><p>‘I know that she has often played Chopin.’</p><p>b. Ek weet dat sy het [VP dikwels Chopin gespeel] (verb early)</p><p>I know that she have often Chopin played</p><p>‘I know that she has often played Chopin.’</p><p>(26a) represents the older pattern, that is, the “correct” one prescribed by grammars;</p><p>the “verb-early” construction is an innovation (the equivalent structure is barred in</p><p>all varieties of Dutch). However, both structures are common in MSA and they are</p><p>interpretively identical. In contrast, “verb-early” constructions with main verbs are far</p><p>less common and necessarily have a “main-clause” interpretation (cf. i.a. Holmberg &</p><p>Platzack 1995 on so-called embedded root phenomena in V2 languages).</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>(27) Hy dink dat sy [VP speel altyd Chopin]</p><p>he think that she play always Chopin</p><p>‘He thinks that she always plays Chopin’</p><p>Since (27)-type structures systematically behave differently to the “verb-early” ones</p><p>in (26), Biberauer (2003) proposes that only the (27)-type structures involve V2; the</p><p>alternations in (26)-type structures, by contrast, feature auxiliaries located in Aux. As</p><p>such, they constitute evidence that MSA permits both final ((26a)) and initial ((26b))</p><p>AuxP structures.</p><p>Crucially, however, MSA does not permit head-initial VPs, as earlier English, for</p><p>example, did (cf. (20c, d) above). This seems to be directly attributable to the salience</p><p>of particle verbs in MSA (cf. Ponelis 1993). As argued by Lightfoot (1979 and follow-</p><p>ing), particles serve as “signposts” signalling the location of the verb with respect to</p><p>the object: where a particle precedes the object, as in VO languages, the acquirer can</p><p>conclude that VP is initial; where it follows, as in OV languages, VP must be final.</p><p>Against this background, robust attestation of particle verbs in the MSA input would</p><p>be expected to contribute a clear signal to the acquirer that the system being acquired</p><p>involves a final VP.</p><p>That this reasoning is correct is strongly suggested by the fact that Kaaps, a variety</p><p>of Afrikaans spoken in the Cape in which English borrowings/substitutions have dras-</p><p>tically reduced the number of particle verbs, permits initial VPs in the presence of an</p><p>initial TP. As in the earlier English case, initial VP is not compatible with final TP. The</p><p>relevant facts are illustrated in (28):</p><p>(28) a. Ek het [VP gekry R1400 van die Revenue] [AUX-V-O]</p><p>I have received R1400 from the Revenue</p><p>‘I have received R1400 from the Receiver of Revenue.’</p><p>[Standard Afrikaans: Ek het R1400 van die Department van Inkomste gekry,</p><p>i.e. [O-V-AUX]]</p><p>b. *dat ek [VP gekry R1400 van die Revenue] het [*V-O-AUX]</p><p>that I received R1400 from the Revenue have</p><p>‘I have received R1400 from the Receiver of the Revenue.’</p><p>Kaaps, then, appears to be one step further along the FOFC-predicted pathway than</p><p>MSA. Crucially, this state of affairs reflects the fact that FOFC is not itself a driver of</p><p>syntactic change, but merely a constraint which defines possible and impossible dia-</p><p>chronic pathways. For change to occur, it needs, as Longobardi (2001: 278) points out,</p><p>to be the “well-motivated consequence of other types of change (phonological changes</p><p>and semantic changes, including the appearance/disappearance of whole lexical items)</p><p>or, recursively, of other syntactic changes” (cf. also Keenan 2002 on this so-called Inertia</p><p>Principle). Syntax therefore does not change unless there is specific input (which we</p><p>might think of as a ‘cue’ – cf. i.a. Lightfoot 1991, 1999; Dresher 1999) signaling to the</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>acquirer that a grammar different to that initially acquired by the previous generation</p><p>should be postulated (cf. Roberts 2007 for recent overview discussion of this general</p><p>approach to syntactic change).</p><p>In the following section we will consider a further example of word-order-</p><p>related change that clearly involved a prior change, this time from typologically very</p><p>different languages.</p><p>. FOFC and borrowing</p><p>Contact-induced change is of particular interest in the present context as it has some-</p><p>times been suggested that this type of change, in contrast to the non-contact-induced</p><p>variety, may result in typologically unusual linguistic systems. Harris & Campbell</p><p>(1995: 239), for example, claim that typologically rare word orders are often the result</p><p>of contact-induced change, implying that the latter might fall beyond the remit of</p><p>typological universals. Nonetheless, while it might be the case that ‘exotic’ word orders</p><p>often arise as a result of borrowing, there is no reason to believe that borrowings will</p><p>be immune to grammatical constraints (cf. also Bowern 2008 for a discussion). As far</p><p>as FOFC is concerned, initial empirical research suggests that borrowing with word-</p><p>order implications is constrained in exactly the same way as change which may be less</p><p>directly contact-induced (cf. the discussion in the previous section). We will consider</p><p>just one case study here.</p><p>The South Asian linguistic area provides an excellent testing ground for FOFC’s</p><p>effect on borrowing as the more rigidly head-final Dravidian languages have a long</p><p>history of contact with the more disharmonic Indo-Aryan languages. As noted by</p><p>Hock & Joseph (1996: 61), there is controversy over when Indo-Aryan and Dravidian</p><p>first came into contact, but it is uncontroversial that they came to “structurally converge</p><p>after multilingual contact extending over several millennia”. According to Thomason &</p><p>Kaufman (1988: 43), there is evidence of an early, shift-induced, Dravidian influence</p><p>on Indic from the spread of retroflex consonants, despite the virtual lack of lexical</p><p>borrowing (cf. also Kuiper 1974). Moreover, there is little dispute that many Indo-Aryan</p><p>languages have borrowed many lexical and grammatical features from Dravidian in</p><p>the more recent past, through continued contact. Interestingly, there are clear patterns</p><p>across the area with respect to certain grammatical features, which, we argue, cannot</p><p>be satisfactorily explained by sociolinguistic or genetic factors alone. In at least one</p><p>such case, patterns of borrowing/development can be explained by grammatical factors,</p><p>more specifically FOFC.</p><p>It is well known that Indo-Aryan languages show variation in the placement of</p><p>complementizers and polarity question particles (cf. Masica 1991; Marlow 1997; Bayer</p><p>1999, 2001; Davison 2007). It is generally assumed that Indo-Aryan borrowed final</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>quotative complementizers from Dravidian, either very early on (Kuiper 1974) or at</p><p>a late stage of contact (Meenakshi 1986), or perhaps both (but cf. Hock 1982 for an</p><p>alternative account).11 In fact, while Sanskrit did have the (largely) final complemen-</p><p>tizer iti (ti/tti in Middle Indo-Aryan), this was later lost and no cognate remains in</p><p>any of the modern mainland Indo-Aryan languages (Meenakshi 1986; Marlow 1997;</p><p>Southworth 2005).11Instead, Modern Indo-Aryan languages either lack a final comple-</p><p>mentizer altogether or display final complementizers of the quotative type, typically</p><p>derived from the verb of saying (cf. Bengali/Bangla bole ‘saying’), or from the demon-</p><p>strative root (cf. Marathi asa ‘such’) or both in the case of Marathi (Bayer 1999, 2001;</p><p>Masica 1991; Davison 2007). Figure 1 shows the distribution of these complementizers</p><p>(Cs),12 based on appendix A of Davison (2007).13</p><p>No final C Final C from ‘saying’</p><p>Final C from demonstrative</p><p>Hindi/Urdu, Panjabi, Sindhi,</p><p>Kashmiri, Maithili, Kurmali</p><p>Sinhala, Dhivehi, Marathi,</p><p>Nepali, Dakkhini Hindi</p><p>Assamese, Bengali/Bangla,</p><p>Oriya</p><p>Marathi, Gujarati</p><p>Figure 1. Distribution of final complementizers in Indo-Aryan</p><p>Interestingly, all modern Indic languages (with the exception of Sinhala, spoken in</p><p>Sri Lanka) also have an initial C, the origins of which vary, and are not to be discussed at</p><p>11. Southworth (2005) also notes that the Munda languages, which constitute a branch of</p><p>the Austro-Asiatic language family, exhibit a similar pattern, so the borrowing might not</p><p>necessarily have been from Dravidian. This is not crucial for our purposes as the Munda</p><p>languages would also represent a typologically distinct borrowing source.</p><p>12. Although we will abbreviate complementizer as C, as is commonly done in Chomskyan</p><p>work, it should be noted that we do not intend this abbreviation to be read as an indication of</p><p>our interpreting the C-elements in the languages under discussion as Cs equivalent to English-</p><p>style complementizers. As seems fairly clear from the examples that follow, the elements in</p><p>question would seem to lexicalize a rather different sub-portion of Rizzi’s (1997) articulated</p><p>CP to the finite Cs familiar from Germanic and Romance. For example, while English that</p><p>seems to encode both Force and Finiteness, with the result that we might think of it as a syn-</p><p>cretised Force-Finiteness element (cf. Giorgi & Pianesi 1997), the Marathi and Hindi-Urdu</p><p>Cs illustrated in (32–33) only seem to encode subordination, which may be a (sub-)species of</p><p>Force (cf. Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan 2009 for further discussion).</p><p>1. We call these final ‘quotatives’ complementizers as they are not limited to contexts of</p><p>direct/indirect speech, but rather occur with epistemic and perception verbs such as know,</p><p>think and hear (cf. Bayer 2001).</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>length here (cf. Meenakshi 1986; Marlow 1997 for discussion).14 For our purposes, the</p><p>interest lies in the varying availability of a final C in the languages under consideration.</p><p>All Indic languages exhibit a degree of typological similarity with Dravidian. Typo-</p><p>logical similarity is known to aid borrowing (cf. Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 97–98),</p><p>and in this case, it did so by making available the potential structure [[O V] say] in the</p><p>native language. While it is true that many of the languages with a final C have been</p><p>in heavy contact with Dravidian (e.g. Marathi, Gujarati), others have not (e.g. Nepali).</p><p>This means that in at least this language, the structure must either have developed</p><p>internally (cf. Klamer 2001) or been borrowed from another source (perhaps a neigh-</p><p>bouring Tibeto-Burman language). See Marlow (1997) for a full discussion of these</p><p>facts and the conclusion that the distribution of final quotatives in the area cannot be</p><p>explained in purely historical/geographical terms.</p><p>The question arises, then, as to whether this borrowing also follows the path of</p><p>diachronic change predicted by FOFC. In fact, there is good evidence that it does.</p><p>Davison’s (2007) observation is that those Indo-Aryan languages which lack a final</p><p>complementizer are exactly those which have an initial Polarity question head (Pol) of</p><p>the type illustrated here for Hindi-Urdu and Panjabi:</p><p>(29) kyaa aap wahaaN aaeeNgii?</p><p>pol you there come.fut.2pl</p><p>‘Are you coming?’ (Hindi-Urdu, Davison 2007: 180)</p><p>(30) (kii) tuslïï ajj káánii suNaavoge?</p><p>pol you today story tell.fut.2mp</p><p>‘Will you tell a story today?’ (Panjabi, Davison 2007: 180, citing Bhatia 1993: 5)</p><p>Other languages in the area have non-initial Pol heads, which occur in final position</p><p>or in final/medial position, but crucially never initially:</p><p>(31) a. to kaal parat aalaa kaa(y)?</p><p>he yesterday back come.pst.3s pol</p><p>‘Did he come back yesterday?’</p><p>1. The two main types of initial complementizers are the (Sanskrit-like) j-series, derived</p><p>from the relative pronoun, and the k-series. Although it is commonly assumed that ki-</p><p>complementizers in Hindi-Urdu and other Indo-Aryan languages (minus the Eastern branch)</p><p>are a borrowing from Persian (Kellogg 1893), the initial complementizer kimti/kiti is also attested</p><p>in the Inscriptional Prakrits, and might be the actual source of the modern form (Meenakshi</p><p>1986: 212). Moreover, as Bayer (2001) points out, ki is similar in form to the wh-paradigm,</p><p>which has served as a source for complementizers in Romance, Slavic and Greek branches of</p><p>Indo-European. Interestingly, Persian ke has been passed on to one Indo-European language</p><p>as well as at least three other language families through contact: Indo-European (Asia Minor</p><p>Greek), Altaic (several Turkic languages, Kartvelian (Laz), Nakho-Daghestanian (Lezgian)),</p><p>and (Northern) Dravidian (Brahui) (cf. Haig 2001 for discussion).</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings 1</p><p>b. *kaa(y) to kaal parat aalaa</p><p>pol he yesterday back come.pst.3ms</p><p>(Marathi, based on Davison 2007: 181, citing Pandharipande 1997: 8)</p><p>(32) a. modhu aS-be ki (na)?</p><p>Madhu come-fut pol not</p><p>‘Will/Won’t Madhu come?’</p><p>b. modhu ki aS -be?</p><p>Madhu pol come-fut</p><p>‘Will Madhu come?’15</p><p>c. *ki modhu aS-be?</p><p>pol Madhu come-fut</p><p>(Bengali/Bangla, Davison 2007: 189, attributed to P. Dasgupta)</p><p>Previous research suggests that C is uniformly higher than the Pol head involved in</p><p>yes/no questions (Laka 1994; Rizzi 2001; Holmberg 2003, but cf. Biberauer 2008 for</p><p>the positing of a higher polarity head involved in negation). In fact, there is good evi-</p><p>dence from Indic that C dominates Pol. As Davison shows, in many, but not quite all of</p><p>the modern languages (the exceptions being Bengali/Bangla and other Eastern Indic</p><p>languages), Pol can co-occur with C in embedded clauses.16 Where this happens, final</p><p>Pol precedes final C, whereas initial Pol follows initial C. Moreover, the reverse orders</p><p>are ungrammatical, as shown for Hindi-Urdu:</p><p>(33) [[to kal parat aalaa kaa(y)] mhaaNun/asa]</p><p>he yesterday back come.pst.3ms pol quot/such</p><p>raam malaa witSaarat hotaa</p><p>Ram I.dat ask.prog be.pst.3ms</p><p>‘Ram was asking me whether/if he came back yesterday.’</p><p>(Marathi, Davison 2007: 182, attributed to R. Pandharipande)</p><p>(34) a. us-nee puuc-aa [ki [kyaa tum aa-oogee]]</p><p>3s-erg ask-perf that pol you come-fut</p><p>‘He asked whether you will come.’</p><p>b. *us-nee puuc-aa [kyaa ki tum aa-oogee]</p><p>3s-erg ask-perf pol that you come-fut</p><p>‘He asked whether you will come.’ (Hindi-Urdu, Davison 2007: 181)</p><p>1. The positioning of the polarity head appears to be connected to focus, according to</p><p>Davison (2007). See Nayudu (2008) for a similar effect in the domain of negation in Marathi.</p><p>1. The pattern in Bangla is reminiscent of that seen in Sanskrit and is probably connected</p><p>to the fact that initial complementizers in Bangla and the other Eastern languages are derived</p><p>from relative pronouns, whereas Western languages have borrowed Persian ki (cf. Bayer 1999,</p><p>2001; Davison 2005)</p><p>2 Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>Where C is initial and Pol is final, the two can still co-occur:</p><p>(35) raam maalaa witSaarat hotaa [ki to kal parat</p><p>Ram I.dat ask.prog be.pst.3ms that he yesterday back</p><p>aalaa kaa(y)]</p><p>come.pst.3ms pol</p><p>‘Ram was asking me whether/if he came back yesterday.’</p><p>(Marathi, Davison 2007: 182, attributed to R. Pandharipande)</p><p>This is not problematic from the perspective of FOFC as, assuming that C is higher</p><p>than Pol, this represents an inverse FOFC order, which is permitted by UG:</p><p>(36) [CPC [PolP [AuxP] Pol ]]</p><p>CP</p><p>C PolP</p><p>AuxP Pol</p><p>Under our assumptions, though, an initial Pol should block the borrowing/develop-</p><p>ment of a final C as this would lead to the FOFC-violating structure in (37):</p><p>(37) * [CP [PolP Pol [AuxP]] C ]</p><p>* CP</p><p>PolP C</p><p>Pol AuxP</p><p>This prediction appears to hold quite robustly in the area. As Davison shows at length,</p><p>no language in the South Asian linguistic area has both initial Pol and final C, although</p><p>all three of the other possible combinations readily occur. Hindi-Urdu, for example</p><p>has not developed a final C of any kind, from either a verbal or demonstrative source.</p><p>Thus both potential types of final C lead to ungrammaticality as shown in (38):17</p><p>1. Bhatt & Takahashi (to appear) note that Hindi-Urdu postpositions are also unable to</p><p>take clausal complements and this is potentially another instance of the same effect: the Pol</p><p>head, whether overt or not, blocks the possibility of a final selecting (i.e. higher) head, regard-</p><p>less of whether this selector is verbal or adpositional. On the assumption that selectors share</p><p>the property of being [-N] (cf. Chomsky 1981), this can be related to the categorial non-</p><p>distinctness desideratum entailed by the FOFC constraint (cf. (17)). It is also worth noting</p><p>that if a null Pol head can indeed “count” for FOFC purposes – in barring the postulation of</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>(38) *usee [[ vee aa rahee haiN] yah/ kah-kar ] maaluum hai</p><p>3s.dat 3pl come prog are this/ say-prt known is</p><p>‘He/she knows that they are coming.’ (Hindi-Urdu, Davison 2007: 177)</p><p>Figure 2, adapted from Appendix B of Davison (2007), shows the pattern in the relevant</p><p>area. In type A languages, the direct borrowing of a final C has been blocked by the</p><p>presence of an initial Pol, with the result that type D languages, which would be the</p><p>FOFC-violating type, are unattested.</p><p>Type Position of Pol Position of C Languages</p><p>A Initial Initial Only Hindi-Urdu, Panjabi, Kashmiri, Sindhi,</p><p>Maithili, Kurmali (plus some North</p><p>Dravidian languages, i.e. Brahui)</p><p>B Final/Medial Initial and Final Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali/</p><p>Bangla, Dakhini Hindi, Oriya, Nepali</p><p>C Final/Medial Final Only Sinhala (plus some Dravidian languages)</p><p>D Initial Final Unattested in the area</p><p>(adapted from Davison 2007 Appendix B)</p><p>Figure 2. Polarity heads and complementizers in South Asia</p><p>One apparent problem with this proposal is that Sanskrit had both an initial ques-</p><p>tion particle kim and an optional final quotative iti (cf. Davison 2005). It appears,</p><p>though, that the syntax of kim was very different from that of modern Indo-Aryan</p><p>Polarity heads, as kim failed to occur in embedded clauses and so would not have given</p><p>rise to FOFC-violating structures (cf. Davison 2005 for a discussion of the syntax of</p><p>iti). Assuming that the polarity heads in Modern Indo-Aryan are derived from initial</p><p>kim, the prediction is that iti/tti must have been lost before kim was reanalysed as a</p><p>Polarity head so that it could appear in embedded clauses. Further work is required</p><p>to verify this claim. Of course, it remains true that most of the type A languages in</p><p>Figure 2 have had little contact with Dravidian, and this in turn might explain why</p><p>they have failed to develop either a final Polarity head or a final C. To verify that</p><p>Figure 2 is really evidence for the FOFC-predicted pathway, it would have to be shown</p><p>that development/borrowing of final Pol preceded borrowing/development of final C.</p><p>Once again, further diachronic work is needed to confirm this.</p><p>Further support for the FOFC-based prediction regarding the distribution of ini-</p><p>tial question particles and final complementizers comes from evidence from WALS</p><p>a FOFC-violating structure – this constraint cannot be ascribed to processing considerations</p><p>(cf. Cecchetto 2007, to appear for one proposal along these lines).</p><p> Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan & Glenda Newton</p><p>indicating that this pattern is not limited to South Asia, but is replicated throughout</p><p>the languages of the world (cf. Dryer 2005a, 2005b). From a sample of 195 languages,</p><p>the numbers of languages roughly equivalent to type A-D languages are as follows:18</p><p>Type Position of Pol Position of C Number of Languages</p><p>(genera: families)</p><p>A</p><p>B</p><p>C</p><p>D</p><p>Initial</p><p>Final</p><p>Final</p><p>Initial</p><p>Initial Only</p><p>Initial</p><p>Final Only</p><p>Final</p><p>72:35:13</p><p>74:40:16</p><p>45:33:20</p><p>4:3:3</p><p>Figure 3. Typological positioning of Polarity heads and complementizers</p><p>Clearly there is a skewing in the data here, with large numbers of genetically</p><p>diverse languages of types A-C. FOFC-violating type D is not, however, completely</p><p>unattested. Four languages from three language families, all found in South America,</p><p>are of this type: Tacana and Ese Ejja (Tacanan), Gavião (Tupi) and Resígaro (Arawakan).</p><p>In fact, all of these languages appear to nominalize their embedded clauses (cf. Moore</p><p>1989 on Gavião, Allin 1976 on Resígaro and Ottaviano 1980 on Tacana) and so this</p><p>might be the reason why FOFC does not appear to hold. Further research is required</p><p>to establish exactly what the relationship between clausal nominalization and FOFC</p><p>really is (cf. Biberauer & Sheehan to appear for some discussion).</p><p>For the moment, it would, however, seem that there is good evidence that FOFC</p><p>has constrained the borrowing of final complementizers in Indo-Aryan. Only those</p><p>languages which lack an initial Polarity head have developed/borrowed a final C. Further</p><p>evidence that this is what is at stake in Indic comes from typological trends, which</p><p>mirror the skewing in Indo-Aryan.</p><p>. Conclusion</p><p>The aim of this chapter was to argue that FOFC, a universally valid syntactic prin-</p><p>ciple in the domain of word order, constrains synchronic grammars and therefore</p><p>1. The data presented here is actually for “position of polar question particles” and “order</p><p>of adverbial subordinator and clause”. These have, however, been cleansed to make them</p><p>more comparable with the Indic facts, with other values such as second-position question</p><p>particles removed. Dryer uses the term adverbial subordinators to refer to “because, although,</p><p>when, while, and if”. While these subordinators often pattern with the positioning of more</p><p>unequivocal C-elements such as that, this is not always the case. For this reason, these data</p><p>are taken to be suggestive only (cf. also the discussion in Note 12).</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>also diachronic change, regardless of whether this is triggered by contact or not.</p><p>Evidence suggests that FOFC-based predictions hold in the history of English,</p><p>Afrikaans and, insofar as relevant data are available, French. 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In Studies in Comparative</p><p>Germanic</p><p>in order to enhance our understanding of what makes</p><p>languages change and what in turn prevents them from changing. This volume is par-</p><p>ticularly timely, as there has been much interest recently in the topic of continuity,</p><p>beginning with the publication of Longobardi’s (2001) and Keenan’s (2002) articles on</p><p>‘inertia’ as a principle of, or rather, a constraint on language change.</p><p>1. Approaches to continuity and change</p><p>In addressing change and continuity, different views can be taken as to what constitutes</p><p>a ‘change’. From the point of view of the ‘Inertia Principle’, syntactic change should, in</p><p>principle, always be reducible to the categorial or structural reanalysis of lexical items</p><p>following changes in phonology or lexical semantics (plus, presumably, language-ex-</p><p>ternal factors, such as contact):</p><p>Syntactic change should not arise, unless it can be shown to be caused – that</p><p>is, to be a well-motivated consequence of other types of change (phonological</p><p>changes and semantic changes, including the appearance/disappearance of</p><p>whole lexical items) or, recursively, of other syntactic changes, given a plausible</p><p>theory of Universal Grammar (UG) and language acquisition.</p><p>(Longobardi 2001: 278)</p><p>This kind of perspective sees the very existence of syntactic change as conflicting with</p><p>an ideal model of a ‘perfect’ syntactic component which is replicated identically by</p><p>each successive generation. Thus, in applications of Longobardi’s theory, it is not the</p><p>functional structure of the clause that changes, but the filling of the terminal nodes –</p><p>by reanalyses of material subject to phonological and semantic change.</p><p>2 Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>Other approaches highlight the ways in which such reanalyses occur and therefore</p><p>where the lexical material filling terminal nodes comes from historically; for instance,</p><p>an element that used to realize a lower functional head (or its specifier) and move to a</p><p>higher position may later come to realize the higher position by loss of movement as</p><p>part of reanalysis (Roberts & Roussou 2003).</p><p>Then there are approaches which seek to model the properties of linguistic change</p><p>mathematically. Typical changes (not merely syntactic ones) follow an S-shaped curve,</p><p>as the replacement of an old form by a new one proceeds slowly at first, then gathers</p><p>speed, and slows down again as it nears completion (Bailey 1973; Kroch 1989). Since</p><p>the work of Kroch, it has become standard to model this property of (linguistic) change</p><p>by using the logistic function. In the present volume, Postma proposes refinements to</p><p>this that allow him to capture the fact that the peak of a failed change coincides with</p><p>the turning point of a related S-curve.</p><p>Also relevant to this volume are approaches which see grammaticalization as an</p><p>important driving force for change, and which see unidirectionality as a definitional</p><p>property of grammaticalization (e.g. Haspelmath 1999). While it is clear that changes</p><p>that involve more lexical items becoming more functional are extremely common,</p><p>there is growing evidence to suggest that changes from more functional to more lexical</p><p>are not as rare as has been thought. Two further instances of this latter type of change</p><p>are discussed in the contributions by Marten and Rosenkvist.</p><p>Many of these different approaches have in common that they see language</p><p>acquirers as the agents of syntactic change, whether these are infants acquiring their</p><p>first language or older children and adults acquiring a second language.</p><p>Children acquiring their first language have to abduce the grammar of that lan-</p><p>guage on the basis of indeterminate evidence from their linguistic environment, and</p><p>may therefore arrive at a different analysis to previous generations of a given underlying</p><p>structure. This can be explained as coming about due to surface ambiguity in the real-</p><p>ization of that structure, arising for instance through morphological levelling (Ander-</p><p>sen 1973; Timberlake 1977; Kroch 1989; Lightfoot 1991, 1999). However, reanalyses of</p><p>this type can be hard to identify until their effects become evident by spreading beyond</p><p>the original context of the reanalysis itself (cf. Timberlake 1977; Harris & Campbell</p><p>1995, among others). Aldridge’s chapter in the present volume describes such a case,</p><p>where surface ambiguity leads to structural reanalysis, as a former topic in SpecCP is</p><p>reanalysed as a subject in SpecTP. The ‘spreading’, or actualization, of this change is</p><p>witnessed by an increase in the A-properties and a decrease in the A′-properties of the</p><p>elements involved.</p><p>On the other hand, the trigger experience of first language acquirers may also be</p><p>altered by previous ‘imperfect’ language acquisition on the part of adult second lan-</p><p>guage learners. The articles collected in this volume that address contact as a source of</p><p>Introduction 3</p><p>linguistic change make it clear that the degree of bilingualism in a given contact situa-</p><p>tion plays an important role in determining the type and quality of the change.</p><p>First of all, it is clear that contact tends not to lead to significant structural change</p><p>unless it is intensive and long-term, whereas lexical borrowing seems to be possible</p><p>even in cases of minimal contact; cf. Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988: 50) ‘scale of</p><p>interference’. Illustrating this point, Sundquist (this volume) argues that Middle Low</p><p>German had no influence on the syntax of Middle Norwegian during the time of the</p><p>Hansa, where the contacts were restricted to the domain of business and trade, and</p><p>where the languages were similar enough for speakers to accommodate to each oth-</p><p>er’s word order by using variants available within their own language if necessary.</p><p>However, it seems that situations of intensive and extensive contact, where many</p><p>children simultaneously acquire two first languages, can also be environments for (syn-</p><p>tactic) continuity. Paradoxical as this may seem, this follows from the fact that children</p><p>have little difficulty differentiating and acquiring multiple languages in their environ-</p><p>ment, and can arrive at grammars of those languages which do not differ systemati-</p><p>cally from those of their monolingual peers (cf. Meisel 1995, 2001). This is illustrated</p><p>by Davies and Deuchar’s contribution, which shows that there is very little evidence</p><p>that the extensive Welsh–English bilingualism found in much of Wales has led the</p><p>syntax of Welsh to converge with that of English.</p><p>Vulchanov & Vulchanova suggest that Old Bulgarian (spoken in the ninth and</p><p>tenth centuries) was influenced by contact with New Testament Greek. Although they</p><p>do not discuss this within the confines of their chapter, this raises the intriguing ques-</p><p>tion of whether transfer of basic syntactic properties can proceed entirely through</p><p>the written medium or whether vernacular (rather than elite) bilingualism is required</p><p>for transfer of syntactic features. In this case, they prefer to suggest contact via the</p><p>New Testament Greek Gospel translations, rather than making primary reference</p><p>to the extensive bilingualism between Slavonic varieties and Byzantine Greek in the</p><p>Balkans. Such a view implicitly rejects child language acquisition as the locus of syn-</p><p>tactic change.</p><p>The absence of or delay in syntactic change in cases where it would be expected,</p><p>for example on the basis of other languages having undergone a parallel development</p><p>under otherwise similar conditions, is perhaps expected under an ideal model of first</p><p>language acquisition, in which the language system of the parent generation is per-</p><p>fectly replicated in the acquiring generation. But ideal models are empirically inad-</p><p>equate. For instance, most languages are in reality exposed to some form of language</p><p>contact. Already the existence of dialects is enough to create minimal but potentially</p><p>significant changes in the trigger experience for language acquirers. Given the ubiq-</p><p>uity of syntactic change, it is rather surprising to find the absence</p><p>Syntax II, Höskuldur Thráinsson, Samuel Epstein & Steve Peter (eds), 140–179.</p><p>Dordrecht: Kluwer.</p><p>Klamer, Marian. 2001. Expressives and iconicity in the lexicon. In Ideophones [Typological</p><p>Studies in Language 44], Erhard Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds), 165–181. Amsterdam:</p><p>John Benjamins.</p><p>Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann. 2000. Verb-object order in Middle English. In Diachronic</p><p>Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas & Anthony Warner (eds),</p><p>132–163. Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Kuiper, Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus. 1974. The genesis of a linguistic area. International Journal</p><p>of Dravidian Languages 3(1): 135–153.</p><p>Laka, Itziar. 1994. On the Syntax of Negation. New York NY: Garland.</p><p>Ledgeway, Adam. To appear. Syntactic and morphosyntactic typology and change in Latin</p><p>and Romance. 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Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. (Also published as: Pintzuk,</p><p>Susan. 1999. Phrase Structures in Competition. Variation and Change in Old English Word</p><p>Order. New York NY: Garland).</p><p>Pintzuk, Susan. 2002. Verb order in Old English: Variation as grammatical competition. In</p><p>Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, David Lightfoot (ed.), 132–163. Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Ponelis, Frederick. 1993. The Development of Afrikaans. Duisburg: Peter Lang.</p><p>Impossible changes and impossible borrowings </p><p>Riemsdijk, Henk van. 1998. Categorial feature magnetism: The endocentricity and distribution</p><p>of projections. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 2: 1–48.</p><p>Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. On the fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar, Liliane</p><p>Haegeman (ed.), 281–338. Dordrecht: Kluwer.</p><p>Rizzi, Luigi. 2001. On the position ‘Int(errogative)’ in the left periphery of the clause. In Current</p><p>Studies in Italian Syntax. Essays Offered to Lorenzo Renzi, Guglielmo Cinque & Giampaolo</p><p>Salvi (eds), 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier.</p><p>Roberts, Ian. 2007. Diachronic Syntax. Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Roberts, Ian & Roussou, Anna. 2003. Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticaliza-</p><p>tion. Cambridge: CUP.</p><p>Sheehan, Michelle. 2009a. The Final-over-Final Constraint as an effect of Complement Stranding.</p><p>Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 15: 104–125.</p><p>Sheehan, Michelle. 2009b. Labelling, multiple Spell-Out and the Final-over-Final Constraint. In</p><p>Proceedings of XXXV Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Vincezo Moscati & Emilio Servidio</p><p>(eds), 231–243. Siena: CISCL.</p><p>Sheehan, Michelle. To appear. Formal and functional approaches to disharmonic word orders. To</p><p>appear in Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 16.</p><p>Southworth, Franklin C. 2005. Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia. London: Routledge-Curzon.</p><p>Thomason, Sarah. G. & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic</p><p>Linguistics. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.</p><p>Travis, Lisa. 1984. Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.</p><p>Continuity is change</p><p>The long tail of Jespersen’s cycle in Flemish*</p><p>Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>Ghent University</p><p>All West Germanic languages have completed Jespersen’s Cycle, replacing a</p><p>preverbal negation marker (stage I) with a post-verbal one (stage III) after a</p><p>period of transition during which the two could co-occur (stage II). Only the</p><p>Flemish dialects have maintained the old preverbal marker to some extent. The</p><p>present chapter addresses this apparent historical continuity, establishing that</p><p>Flemish en was in fact saved from the fate of its West Germanic cognates by a</p><p>morphosyntactic change. Based on an analysis of the contexts in which preverbal</p><p>en is found in present-day Flemish dialects, it is argued that en has evolved into</p><p>a marker of emphasis of polarity, and that contrary to appearances, the Flemish</p><p>dialects have in fact reached stage III.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>All West Germanic languages have undergone a development in the expression of nega-</p><p>tion known as Jespersen’s Cycle (term by Dahl 1979, after observations by Jespersen</p><p>1917), by which an original preverbal negator is first joined by a newly grammatical-</p><p>ized adverbial marker and eventually supplanted by it. The rough stages of the cycle are</p><p>demonstrated for English in (1).1</p><p>*We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, award</p><p>no. AR119272 (Anne Breitbarth) and the Vlaamse Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek,</p><p>2009-Odysseus grant no. G091409 (Liliane Haegeman).</p><p>1. More fine-grained subdivisions are possible and have been proposed in great numbers</p><p>and variety, cf. e.g. Posner (1985), Schwegler (1988), Ladusaw (1993), Rowlett (1998), Van</p><p>Kemenade (2000), Zeijlstra (2004), Schwenter (2006), Barbiers et al. (2008) and Willis (to</p><p>appear). The rough division into three stages given in (1) is, however, sufficient for the pur-</p><p>poses of this chapter.</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>(1)</p><p>Jespersen (1917: 9–11)</p><p>All West Germanic languages have, furthermore, like English, completed this develop-</p><p>ment, that is, they have all reached at least stage III. As is well known, the only exception</p><p>to this is the Flemish dialects, which, as widely discussed in the literature (Haegeman</p><p>1995 and much subsequent work; Haegeman & Zanuttini 1991, 1996; Barbiers et al. 2008),</p><p>have preserved, apparently optionally, the use of the preverbal marker. They therefore</p><p>appear to be still in transition from stage II to stage III.</p><p>(2) Valère (en) klaapt nie.</p><p>Valère ‘neg’ talks ‘neg’</p><p>‘Valère doesn’t talk.’ (West Flemish (Lapscheure); Haegeman 1995)</p><p>The question the present chapter wishes to address is why these Flemish dialects show</p><p>this apparent historical continuity. By looking in detail at the contexts in which pre-</p><p>verbal en is found in present-day Flemish dialects we will establish that it is in fact a</p><p>morphosyntactic change that saved Flemish en from the fate of its other West Germanic</p><p>cognates, and we will argue that, contrary to appearances, the Flemish dialects are not in</p><p>transition between stage II and stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle, but have reached stage III.</p><p>. Present-day Flemish en</p><p>As just indicated, the Flemish dialects are known for having preserved the old prever-</p><p>bal marker en in the expression of negation, at least optionally.</p><p>We will show in the</p><p>following that this optionality is only apparent and that an argument can be made for</p><p>en having acquired properties that suggest it is no longer a negation marker. This has</p><p>already been observed for West Flemish by Haegeman (2000, 2001, 2002), but is, as we</p><p>will see, a wider Flemish phenomenon.</p><p>.1 En is a polarity marker in Flemish</p><p>In both East and West Flemish, purely formal, that is, non-negative, uses of en in non-</p><p>negative affective contexts can be found. The examples below from East Flemish Ghent</p><p>demonstrate the availability of non-negative en in conditional clauses (3), comparative</p><p>clauses (4) and the context of maar ‘only’ (5).</p><p>Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage I’</p><p>ic ne secge I seye not I say not I do not say ></p><p>I don’t say</p><p>Old English Middle</p><p>English</p><p>Early Modern</p><p>English</p><p>Modern</p><p>English</p><p>Continuity is change </p><p>(3) en aa’t slecht weer en is</p><p>and if it bad weather en is</p><p>‘and if the weather is bad’ (Ghent; Leemans 1966: 191)</p><p>(4) Ge moet ‘tzegge gelijk of ‘t en is.</p><p>you must it say like if it en is</p><p>‘You must tell it the way it is.’ (Ghent; Leemans 1966: 191)</p><p>(5) ten is maar een kleintsje</p><p>it.en is only a little-one</p><p>‘it’s only a little one’ (Ghent; Tavernier 1959: 246)</p><p>In West Flemish, non-negative en can be used in before-clauses (6), as well as the con-</p><p>text of maar ‘only’ (7), as in East Flemish.</p><p>(6) Je moet niet komen voordat ik geschreven en heb.</p><p>you should not come before I written en have</p><p>‘You should not come before I have written.’</p><p>(Kortrijk, Barbiers et al. 2008: 60)</p><p>(7) K’en een mo drie marbels.</p><p>I en have but three marbles</p><p>‘I only have three marbles.’ (Lapscheure; LH’s intuitions)</p><p>Besides such non-negative uses of en, there is of course the well-known preservation</p><p>of en in negative clauses. But here as well we will see that en is no longer simply a</p><p>negation marker.</p><p>. En marks emphasis on polarity</p><p>In the literature it has occasionally been observed (cf. e.g. Overdiep 1937: 457), that</p><p>en in the Flemish dialects lays a certain additional emphasis on the polarity of the</p><p>clause it occurs in, in particular where it occurs with sentential negation. There are</p><p>two types of context which show that Flemish en has somehow moved on to become</p><p>a marker of emphasis. First, it is used in elliptical replies with doen ‘do’ functioning</p><p>as emphatic contradictions. Second, it is used in negative clauses where its function</p><p>is to emphatically negate or contradict an expectation either explicit or implicit in</p><p>the context. We will provide empirical evidence for this proposal in the following</p><p>two subsections.</p><p>..1 Emphatic contradictions</p><p>Emphatic contradictions with en are found in most Flemish dialects. These are ellipti-</p><p>cal replies emphatically contradicting a preceding statement (8a, b) or question (8c).</p><p>They have a rather fossilized structure, consisting of a finite form of vicarious doen ‘do’</p><p>in the present tense and a weak pronominal subject. For many speakers this can also</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>be impersonal ‘t ‘it’, which then does not agree with the subject given in the preceding</p><p>context.2</p><p>(8) a. A: Hij slaapt.</p><p>he sleeps</p><p>‘He is asleep.’</p><p>B: Hij/’t en doet.</p><p>he en does</p><p>‘No, he isn’t.’</p><p>b. A: Hij zal niet komen.</p><p>he will not come</p><p>‘He won’t come.’</p><p>B: Hij/’t en doet.</p><p>he en does</p><p>‘No, he WILL.’</p><p>c. A: Slaapt hij?</p><p>sleeps he</p><p>‘Is he asleep?’</p><p>B: Hij/’t en doet.</p><p>he en does</p><p>‘No he isn’t.’ (after Barbiers et al. 2008: 60)</p><p>Although (8a) and (8c) may give the impression that this is a fossilized use of archaic</p><p>stage I negation, (8b) shows that this cannot be true: when a negative statement is contra-</p><p>dicted by means of the ‘t en doet construction, this amounts to an emphatic affirmation.</p><p>The same is found in the following West Flemish example from Haegeman (1995):</p><p>(9) A: Valère verkuopt da nie</p><p>Valère sells that not</p><p>‘Valère doesn’t sell that.’</p><p>B: J’en doet. Je verkoopt da wel</p><p>he en does He sells that indeed</p><p>K’een der gisteren gekocht.</p><p>I-have some yesterday bought</p><p>‘He does. He does sell that. I bought some yesterday.’</p><p>(Lapscheure; Haegeman 1995: 160)</p><p>Clearly, en in the ‘t en doet construction is not equivalent to the old stage I negation;</p><p>rather, it expresses an emphatic contradiction, whether the contradicted statement or</p><p>question is positive or negative.</p><p>. Cf. Ryckeboer (1986), Haegeman (2001, 2002), Barbiers et al. (2008).</p><p>Continuity is change </p><p>.. Contradicting an expectation in negative sentences</p><p>Besides these emphatic contradictions with doen, where en occurs on its own, en is</p><p>also used together with the sentential negator nie(t) or n-words,3 which is the basis of</p><p>the commonly held view that the Flemish dialects are still in transition between stage</p><p>II and stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle. The reason why this use of en is not likely to be</p><p>‘just’ an illustration of stage II negation, that is, negation expressed by a discontinuous</p><p>marker, is that en has a low, though stable, frequency in the Flemish dialects, ranging</p><p>around 10% of all negative sentences with nie(t) or n-words, as the data in studies such</p><p>as Leemans (1966) or De Pauw (1973) show.4</p><p>Comparing the cases with and without en, it appears that en is used in contradic-</p><p>tions of an (implicit) expectation. This is confirmed for both West and East Flemish. In</p><p>(10), from West Flemish, the request uttered by speaker A presupposes that speaker B</p><p>is able to comply with the request. B, in order to deny this ability emphatically by deny-</p><p>ing the presupposition, can use en. Examples (10a) and (10b) show that this is possible</p><p>in both main and embedded clauses.</p><p>(10) A: Geef me nen.keer Valère zenen telefoon.</p><p>give me once Valère his phone</p><p>‘Can you give me Valère’s phone number?’</p><p>a. B: K’(en) een-k ik Valère zenen telefon nie.</p><p>I (en) have-I I Valère his phone neg</p><p>‘I don’t have Valère’s number.’</p><p>b. B: K-zeggen jen toch dan-k em nie (en)-een.</p><p>I say you prt that-I him neg (en) have</p><p>‘I am telling you I don’t have it.’ (Lapscheure, Haegeman 2002: 11)</p><p>The same holds in East Flemish. As already observed by Overdiep (1937: 457), nega-</p><p>tion with en…niet instead of niet alone, as found for example in the dialect of East</p><p>Flemish Ghent, is more emphatic. In (11a), the common knowledge that Ghent is</p><p>famous for its university is given in the background. By using en, the speaker expresses</p><p>his/her surprise at the interlocutor not knowing this university despite having lived in</p><p>the city for fifteen years. In (11b), the context (not given) seems to be an implication or</p><p>direct accusation of the speaker’s having made a mistake, which is emphatically denied</p><p>in the example.</p><p>. An n-word (Laka 1990) is an indefinite pronoun, determiner or adverb, such as, for</p><p>instance, nadie ‘no one’, ningún ‘no’ or nunca ‘never’ in Spanish, which potentially partici-</p><p>pates in negative concord and is able to express negation on its own in a fragment answer</p><p>(Giannakidou 2006).</p><p>. Unfortunately, there are no more recent corpus studies of the use of en in Flemish dialects.</p><p>We are aiming to address this desideratum in future work.</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>(11) a. Ge weunt al vijftien jaor in Gent, in g’en ken nog</p><p>you live already fifteen years in Ghent and you-en know still</p><p>d’Universiteit nie?</p><p>the university not</p><p>‘What? You have lived in Ghent for fifteen years, and you are telling me you</p><p>still don’t know the university?!’</p><p>b. Dat en is toch mijn schuld nie!</p><p>that en is prt my fault not</p><p>‘You can’t say that this is MY fault!’ (Ghent, Overdiep 1937: 456–457)</p><p>Summarizing, what en in combination with sentential negation expresses is an empha-</p><p>sis on this negation, contradicting a presupposition or assumption that the contrary</p><p>state of affairs holds present in the context.</p><p>. The historical development of Flemish en</p><p>Both purely formal uses as well as the emphatic use of en are already found in the his-</p><p>tory</p><p>of Dutch. Purely formal, or expletive, uses are rare in the complement of adversa-</p><p>tive predicates (like doubt, deny, forbid etc.) in Middle Dutch (Burridge 1993: 184 –185),</p><p>but regular for example in the standard of comparison (Beheydt 1998):</p><p>(12) Ghien moget niet vorder rechten dan u manne en wijsen.</p><p>you-ne can neg more judge than your men ne tell</p><p>‘You cannot judge more than your men tell you.’ (from Beheydt 1998: 16)</p><p>Such non-negative uses spread further in the seventeenth century to clauses with maer</p><p>‘only’ and nauw ‘nearly, hardly’, besides the standard of comparison:</p><p>(13) hoe wel ter nauwer noodt verhaalens waart en is</p><p>how well to near need telling worth ne is</p><p>‘although it is hardly worth telling’ (Weijnen 1956: 73)</p><p>Furthermore, elliptical replies with vicarious doen ‘do’ are already attested in Middle</p><p>Dutch, the (still only negative) predecessor of the emphatic contradictions in (8):</p><p>(14) Ghi hout u spot. In (=ic+en) doe</p><p>you hold your mockery. I=ne do</p><p>‘You are mocking. I do not!’ (from Beheydt 1998: 15)</p><p>As discussed by Burridge (1993), the preverbal marker en in combination with niet</p><p>was lost during the seventeenth century in the northern Dutch provinces. It has been</p><p>argued that this is the consequence of a ban by prescriptive grammarians and influen-</p><p>tial writers. Burridge shows how it disappears from the letters of P.C. Hooft (1581–1647)</p><p>during his lifetime; similarly, Van der Wouden (1995: 23) shows how playwright Joost</p><p>Continuity is change </p><p>van den Vondel “after the model of […] writers such as P. C. Hooft” deliberately reduces</p><p>the use of en in his plays over the years.</p><p>However, the reduction of the use of en took place to a much lesser extent in the</p><p>southern provinces. The reasons for this have hardly been addressed in the literature,</p><p>which for the period since the Gouden Eeuw (‘Golden Age’, roughly, the seventeenth</p><p>century) has almost exclusively focused on the north. Interestingly, Beheydt (1998)</p><p>hints at a possible meaning difference arising in the early modern period between the</p><p>older bipartite and the newer single postverbal expression of negation:</p><p>(…) in vraagzinnen (…) blijkt de negatie steeds postverbaal te zijn als de</p><p>betekenis positief is. Het lijkt heel aannemelijk dat de taalgebruikers vonden dat</p><p>de tweeledige ontkenning de negatieve betekenis te zeer benadrukte, wat minder het</p><p>geval was met de postverbale.5 (Beheydt 1998: 93)</p><p>We conclude that the emphatic use of en in conjunction with niet or n-words may thus</p><p>have developed in the southern dialects already during the seventeenth century.</p><p>. An asymmetric view of stage II</p><p>The standard approach to stage II of Jespersen’s cycle, that is, the stage at which the</p><p>original and the new negation marker coexist, is that both elements are negation mark-</p><p>ers. We can call this the symmetric approach to stage II of Jespersen’s cycle. Approaches</p><p>differ with respect to the direction of the change, that is, whether it is the weakening of</p><p>the preverbal marker that drives the development, or whether the grammaticalization</p><p>of a new phrasal negator causes the weakening of the old preverbal marker and ulti-</p><p>mately makes it superfluous. Both types of approach agree that it is the redundancy or</p><p>lack of iconicity in the presence of two negation markers that causes the loss of the pre-</p><p>verbal marker and the transition to stage III. Abraham (2003: 360), a proponent of the</p><p>former approach writes, “Under criteria of economy, the attrition and total erosion of</p><p>the weak verbal neg-prefix is entirely expectable”,6 and according to Detges & Waltereit</p><p>. “In questions, the negation seems to be invariably postverbal in case the meaning is posi-</p><p>tive. It is very likely that language users thought that the bipartite negation put too much</p><p>emphasis on the negative meaning, which was less the case with the postverbal negator” (our</p><p>emphasis).</p><p>. However, it is not the case that systematically a ‘weakened’ clitic marker of negation</p><p>is replaced by a ‘stronger’ phrasal one. Lindstad (2007) shows that in the development of</p><p>Old Norse a preverbal clitic marker of negation is replaced by a postverbal clitic. Thus the</p><p>“replacing marker is not an adverb, perceived as ‘stronger’ or ‘heavier’ than the replaced one,</p><p>but a suffix on the verb” (Lindstad 2007: 35).</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>(2002), a functional principle of ‘constructional iconicity’ is behind the demise of the</p><p>original negator, since a “formally discontinuous functional unit” (Detges & Waltereit</p><p>2002: 186) is less iconic than the expression of a single function by a single element,</p><p>and therefore dispreferred and prone to simplification.</p><p>Generative accounts of stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle operate with different varia-</p><p>tions on the theme of feature valuation or agreement, whereby one of the two ele-</p><p>ments in a bipartite negation licenses the other. Rowlett (1998), and following him,</p><p>Wallage (2005, 2008), for example, propose that the preverbal marker loses the value</p><p>[neg] of its polarity feature [pol: ] and therefore requires a licenser that is able to pro-</p><p>vide this value.</p><p>We have seen that the old preverbal marker en in Flemish bipartite negation has</p><p>developed a function separate from expressing negation, and that this development</p><p>goes back to Middle Dutch. We therefore propose that the prolonged period of coex-</p><p>istence of the two elements, the old and the new negation marker, entails their func-</p><p>tional differentiation. That is, we assume an asymmetric view on stage II of Jespersen’s</p><p>Cycle in (historical) Flemish, under which the two elements present are not both at</p><p>the same time related to the expression of negation. This provides us with an elegant</p><p>account of the actual distribution of en in the Flemish dialects.</p><p>Breitbarth (2009) proposes analysing the preverbal marker at stage II of Jespers-</p><p>en’s cycle in the West Germanic languages as a polarity marker rather than a negator.</p><p>This leads to an “asymmetric” interpretation of stage II ‘bipartite’ ‘negation’, as the two</p><p>markers do not conspire in the expression of negation. Rather, the two elements come</p><p>to be associated with different functional heads. We will use this analysis here, fine-</p><p>tuning it to the development of Flemish en.7</p><p>Like Moscati (2006), we propose that polarity is a clause-typing feature located on</p><p>a functional head in the left periphery. Although a more fine-grained representation</p><p>of the CP-system may be necessary, let us for simplicity assume that this head is C and</p><p>that the polarity clause typing feature is [±affective], building on Klima’s (1964) char-</p><p>acterization of weak NPI contexts as affective. Now, in Middle English, Middle Dutch,</p><p>Middle High German and Middle Low German, the polarity element ne/en is a bound</p><p>morpheme. It therefore needs a host, which in the West Germanic languages is the</p><p>finite verb. As the finite verb is not always in a position in the left periphery, Breitbarth</p><p>(2009) proposes that ne/en is spelt out on the finite verb by the mechanism of Alterna-</p><p>tive Realization (Emonds 1987, 2000):</p><p>. A similar analysis has been developed by Haegeman (2000, 2001, 2002) for West Flemish</p><p>from a synchronic point of view. Haegeman proposes to analyse the preverbal marker en as a</p><p>marker of polarity, rather than negation. Her analysis differs from the one presented here in</p><p>that she places PolP between TP and a projection called FP situated between TP and AgrOP.</p><p>Continuity is change </p><p>(15) Alternative Realization</p><p>A syntactic feature F canonically associated in UG with category B can be alter-</p><p>natively realized in a closed class grammatical morpheme under X0, provided</p><p>X0 is the lexical head of a sister of B. (Emonds 2000: definition (4.20))</p><p>That is, the feature [+affective] is realized on the lexical head of a sister of C[+affective].</p><p>Intervening functional heads not lexicalized in a structure are ignored because of the</p><p>definition of Extended Sisterhood, e.g. heads in the TP and CP-domains in our case,</p><p>if</p><p>the verb stays low as in embedded clauses in (continental) West Germanic.</p><p>(16) Extended Sisterhood</p><p>If Z0 and XP are sisters and if Z1 is the smallest phrase (besides structural</p><p>projections of Y) whose lexical head is Y0, then Y0 and XP are extended sisters.</p><p>(Emonds 2000: definition (4.28))</p><p>The reanalysis of the former negative clitic on the finite verb as an exponent of affective</p><p>polarity was possible exactly because of the Extended Sisterhood relation between T</p><p>and Pol. This mechanism is similar to Roberts & Roussou’s (2003) ‘upward reanalysis’</p><p>by which the expression of a lower functional head becomes associated with the fea-</p><p>tures of a higher functional head due to a derivational link between the two heads.8</p><p>This reanalysis became possible once sentential negation had found a new exponent,</p><p>namely when an erstwhile adverbial emphasizer is reanalysed as the expression of</p><p>sentential negation. After its reanalysis as the Alternative Realization of the feature</p><p>[+affective] of C in negative clauses, ne/en could be generalized to non-veridical con-</p><p>texts beyond negation.</p><p>An argument for the initial reanalysis of en as the Alternative Realization of C’s</p><p>[+affective] on the finite verb in Flemish comes from comparative historical evidence.</p><p>In early Middle Dutch as well as in Middle High German (Jäger 2008: 289–294) and</p><p>Middle Low German, n-marked indefinites, where they do not mark sentential nega-</p><p>tion on their own, only seem to co-occur with the old preverbal marker, but not with</p><p>the new adverbial one. Table 1 illustrates this for early Middle Dutch, and Table 2 for</p><p>Middle Low German.9</p><p>. Roberts & Roussou originally assume that the result of such a reanalysis is the loss of</p><p>movement, which previously connected the two heads. We see no reason why agreement</p><p>alone cannot already be a sufficient connection between two positions.</p><p>. These figures are based on corpora of chancery documents (oorkonden/Urkunden). In</p><p>the case of early Middle Dutch these are the first 300 documents from the Gysseling corpus</p><p>(Gysseling 1977); the Middle Low German corpus is the one discussed in Breitbarth (2008).</p><p>It should be noted that co-occurrence of the adverbial negator and n-words does become</p><p>available in later Middle Dutch, late Middle Low German and Early New High German, but</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>Table 1. Preverbal and adverbial markers with n-words in early Middle Dutch</p><p>1200–1280</p><p>en..n-word n-word alone n-word…niet Total</p><p>49 (75.4%) 16 (24.6%) 0 (0.0%) 65</p><p>Table 2. Preverbal and adverbial markers with n-words in Middle Low German</p><p>1325–1575</p><p>en..n-word n-word alone n-word…nicht total</p><p>487 (37.4%) 812 (62.4%) 2 (0.2%) 1301</p><p>This evidence shows that already early on, n-words are able to mark sentential</p><p>negation on their own. The fact that they do not or prefer not to co-occur with the</p><p>new adverbial negator, which is taking over the expression of negation,10 suggests that</p><p>the preverbal marker is no longer a marker of sentential negation, at least not when</p><p>accompanied by an n-word. Instead, the expression of negation elsewhere in the clause</p><p>must have made the reanalysis of the preverbal marker as the alternative realization of</p><p>[+affective] on C seem likely to language acquirers.</p><p>We have seen above already (Section 3) how preverbal en came to be used in</p><p>non-negative contexts in Middle Dutch, and spread to further such contexts in the</p><p>present-day Flemish dialects. We can understand this as the actualization (Timberlake</p><p>1977, Harris & Campbell 1995) of the reanalysis of en, making the reanalysis visible</p><p>in the language.</p><p>Summing up, there are developments that suggest to the language acquirer that</p><p>the old preverbal marker may be a polarity marker, namely other negative markers</p><p>such as n-words becoming able to express negation without it, and this reanalysis is</p><p>actualized when non-negative affective uses appear.</p><p>. Flemish preverbal en: Continuity is change</p><p>We have seen that, instead of being lost like its cognates in the other West Germanic</p><p>dialects, Flemish en has (a) spread to more non-negative affective contexts than are</p><p>not initially when the assumed reanalysis of the preverbal element occurred. The later devel-</p><p>opments are therefore likely to have a different explanation which goes beyond the scope of</p><p>this chapter.</p><p>1. Niet in Middle Dutch, nicht in Middle Low German and Middle High German and not</p><p>Middle English are clearly no longer emphatic and are increasingly used on their own (without</p><p>ne/en) as sentential negators. They are furthermore used for negating non-finite verbs and for</p><p>constituent negation, which the inherited preverbal markers are not capable of.</p><p>Continuity is change 1</p><p>found in Middle Dutch, thereby stabilizing the position of en in the language, and (b)</p><p>that it has acquired the ability to realize an additional feature, namely emphasis on</p><p>polarity. We propose that en developed historically as follows.</p><p>In a first step that all West Germanic languages underwent, the negation particle</p><p>ne/en on the finite verb is reanalysed as the Alternative Realization of C’s [+affective]</p><p>feature. This, as argued in Section 4, qualifies as a grammaticalization by ‘upward</p><p>reanalysis’ in the sense of Roberts & Roussou (2003) as a lower head becomes associ-</p><p>ated with the features of a higher head:11</p><p>(17) stage I → stage II in Middle Dutch</p><p>[CP C[+aff] [ … [VP … ] [T en/ne[+neg]-Vfin]] →</p><p>[CP C[+aff] [ … niet[+neg] [VP …] [T en/ne[+aff]-Vfin]]</p><p>The first line in (17) represents the structure of a negative clause in Old Dutch. By</p><p>default, C in negative clauses carries the feature [+affective], representing the polarity</p><p>of the clause at its interface. Sentential negation is expressed by the clitic ne, which</p><p>invariably attaches to the finite verb. When n-words become able to express senten-</p><p>tial negation on their own (that is, when they become n-indefinites), without overt</p><p>realization of ne, ne becomes ambiguous between being a sentential negator in nega-</p><p>tive clauses without n-words, and a potential spell-out of [+affective] in clauses with</p><p>n-words. With the grammaticalization of the new phrasal negator niet, ne comes to</p><p>be associated with the realization of [+affective] – as the Alternative Realization of C’s</p><p>feature on the finite verb in T, as seen in the second line in (17).</p><p>The spread of en to further non-negative affective contexts in the Flemish dialects</p><p>beyond those found already in Middle Dutch can be taken to have prevented en from</p><p>suffering the fate of its West Germanic cognates: it has survived to this day. As we have</p><p>seen, however, en is still used only very infrequently today, in only around 10% of</p><p>negative sentences. Its continued survival, we have argued, is due to the fact that it has</p><p>acquired the ability to realize emphasis on polarity. Emphasis (on polarity) is recog-</p><p>nized to be a feature of the left periphery as well, related to assertion and focus.12 This</p><p>is of course not relevant or available in all negative clauses, hence its low, but stable</p><p>frequency. We can visualize this second change as follows:</p><p>(18) Middle Dutch stage II → Present-day Flemish emphatic ‘stage II’</p><p>[CP C[+aff] [ … niet[+neg] [VP …] [T en[+aff]-Vfin]] →</p><p>[CP C[+aff+emph] [ … niet[+neg] [VP …] [T en[+aff+emph]-Vfin]]</p><p>11. For simplicity, we represent the clause structure with a head-final TP in (15) and (16). As</p><p>shown by Haegeman (2001), it is possible to give an analysis of Continental West Germanic</p><p>OV orders that conforms with Kayne’s (1994) universal base hypothesis.</p><p>1. On polarity emphasis/polarity focus in various languages (mainly on emphatic affirma-</p><p>tion, however), cf. e.g. Lipták (2003), Hernanz (2007), Holmberg (2007) and Martins (2007).</p><p> Anne Breitbarth & Liliane Haegeman</p><p>Just as the [+affective] feature on C came to be Alternatively Realized by the particle</p><p>en on the finite verb in T in Middle Dutch, C’s (optional) polarity emphasis feature</p><p>comes to be associated with the same particle on the</p><p>finite verb in the development</p><p>from Middle Dutch to the present-day Flemish dialects as another instance of Alterna-</p><p>tive Realization.</p><p>. Conclusion</p><p>In this chapter, we have argued that the continued availability of the old preverbal</p><p>‘negation’ particle en in the Flemish dialects is not a case of the language having</p><p>stopped in the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle. Rather, we have</p><p>provided evidence showing that the present-day situation is the result of further mor-</p><p>phosyntactic change. We have argued that after an initial reanalysis of the preverbal</p><p>marker as a polarity marker, which affects other West Germanic languages as well and</p><p>leads to an asymmetric analysis of stage II in these languages, en in the Flemish dia-</p><p>lects has undergone a further change by acquiring the ability to realize an additional</p><p>feature, emphasis on polarity. That is, it is now used to emphatically contradict states</p><p>of affairs, explicitly or implicitly given in the context.</p><p>We have argued that it is (a) the extension of the use of en to further non-negative</p><p>affective contexts, and (b) en’s acquisition of the ability to express emphasis on polar-</p><p>ity that saves it from suffering the fate of its West Germanic cognates and allows it</p><p>to survive in its functional niche until today. This development is very similar to the</p><p>one seen in (dialectal) French. It has long been acknowledged that old preverbal ne</p><p>in French has ceased to be a negation marker proper but, as it were, ‘switches off ’ the</p><p>affirmative concept (Tesnière 1959: 224–225), sentential negation being expressed by a</p><p>forclusif (pas or n-words), and thus ne acts as a polarity marker. It can also used in vari-</p><p>ous non-negative contexts in Standard French. However, ne is rapidly being lost from</p><p>the spoken language in most dialects.13 As Fonseca-Greber (2007) shows, however,</p><p>its use has stabilized at a low percentage in spoken Swiss French, because it has been</p><p>reanalysed as emphatic in this variety.</p><p>Our conclusion is that, in spite of the availability of en, Flemish dialects have actu-</p><p>ally reached stage III of Jespersen’s cycle and that what appears to be continuity is really</p><p>a case of change.</p><p>1. 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Lingua 118 (5): 643–674.</p><p>Weijnen, Antonius Angelus. 1956. Zeventiende-eeuwse taal. 2nd edn. Zutphen: Thieme.</p><p>Willis, David. To appear. A minimalist approach to Jespersen’s Cycle in Welsh. In Grammatical</p><p>Change: Origins, Nature, Outcomes, Dianne Jonas, John Whitman and Andrew Garrett (eds).</p><p>Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Wouden, Ton van der. 1995. On the development of marked negation systems. Paper presented</p><p>at the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Manchester,</p><p>August 1995.</p><p>Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2004. Sentential Negation and Negative Concord. Ph.D. dissertation, Univer-</p><p>sity of Amsterdam.</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model</p><p>to measure the extent of word-order</p><p>convergence in Welsh-English bilingual speech</p><p>Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>Bangor University</p><p>Word-order convergence is argued to be a processual mechanism in which</p><p>bilinguals use morphemes from language A in an order which is more prominent</p><p>in language B than in language A. In this chapter we examine whether there is</p><p>word-order convergence in the speech of Welsh–English bilinguals using</p><p>Myers-Scotton’s (2002) Matrix Language Frame model. We use the term dichotomous</p><p>matrix language to capture the phenomenon found where structural material</p><p>within a clause does not point to either language as being the matrix language (ML),</p><p>and suggest that this reflects convergence in such clauses. Applying this model to</p><p>recorded spoken data from six Welsh–English bilinguals, we find that dichotomous</p><p>ML clauses in the data are very rare, suggesting that word-order convergence in</p><p>Welsh–English bilinguals is not commonly found when measured in this way.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>In this chapter we address the question of whether word-order convergence is found</p><p>in the speech of Welsh–English bilinguals. After outlining our view of convergence,</p><p>we discuss a method of identifying convergence using Myers-Scotton’s (2002) Matrix</p><p>Language Frame (MLF) model. Our method involves identifying clauses in bilingual</p><p>speech which have structure from both participating languages as potentially showing</p><p>convergence in progress. We then apply this method to spoken data from six Welsh–</p><p>English bilinguals to identify the extent of the convergence found therein.</p><p>2. Defining convergence</p><p>We define convergence, following Backus (2004: 179), as a contact-induced proces-</p><p>sual mechanism of language change which “results in greater similarity [than before]</p><p>between two languages that are in contact with each other”. We interpret his definition</p><p>to refer to convergence in individual constructions, rather than in all constructions</p><p>in the language. Bullock & Toribio (2004) point out that convergence has traditionally</p><p> Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>been seen mainly as an outcome rather than as a process, but we follow them in defin-</p><p>ing convergence as a process. Bullock & Toribio further state that the result of the</p><p>diachronic process of convergence can be observed synchronically in the output of</p><p>bilinguals (2004: 91), an approach also taken by, for instance, Myers-Scotton (2002)</p><p>and Schmitt (2000). Convergence can occur in most parts of a language’s grammar, but</p><p>in this chapter we will focus on word-order convergence.</p><p>Myers-Scotton (2002: 164) writes that a clause in which word-order convergence</p><p>has occurred will be one where the morphemes come from one language but the</p><p>grammar includes structure from both participating languages. Schmitt’s (2000: 15)</p><p>description of covert code-switching (see Section 3) is interpretable as a description</p><p>of convergence at the utterance level. These definitions allow for the results of con-</p><p>vergence to be observable in both monolingual and bilingual utterances. We define</p><p>monolingual clauses as clauses containing morphemes from only one language and</p><p>bilingual clauses as clauses containing morphemes from more than one language.</p><p>Backus (2004) suggests that the processual mechanism which results in a change</p><p>in frequency of a construction is the “use of one of two or more L1 patterns, congruent</p><p>with [an] unmarked L2 pattern” (2004: 180); we take ‘congruent’ here to mean ‘similar’.</p><p>Therefore a bilingual will choose a construction from one language (LA) which has a</p><p>similar counterpart in the other language (LB) in preference to an LA construction</p><p>which does not. This point is made by Thomason (2001: 93) when she suggests that</p><p>constructions which are similar in two languages, but not actually identically distrib-</p><p>uted (e.g. constructions that are marked in one language but unmarked in the other),</p><p>are most prone to convergence. A similar approach leads Bullock & Toribio (2004: 91)</p><p>to view convergence as “the enhancement of inherent structural similarities found</p><p>between two linguistic systems”. They distinguish convergence from the notions of</p><p>interference and transfer on the grounds that each of these latter notions implies uni-</p><p>directionality whereas convergence may be either unidirectional or bidirectional.</p><p>The focus of our investigation into convergence is constructions which have one</p><p>or more morphemes from Welsh but word order from English, where that word order</p><p>is available in Welsh but only in restricted contexts. Such constructions will reflect</p><p>convergence as a process. Diachronic changes which might result from frequent occur-</p><p>rences of this convergence are not the focus of this chapter.</p><p>Having outlined our definition of convergence, in the next section we will briefly</p><p>review some of the more recent studies of this phenomenon, interpreting the research</p><p>in terms of convergence as being a processual mechanism.</p><p>3. Previous work on convergence</p><p>We focus here on previous work supporting the notion of convergence (whether in</p><p>word order or elsewhere) as a process rather than a result, on the assumption that the</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence </p><p>mechanism of convergence is reflected in individual instances which may or may not</p><p>lead to change, depending of the frequency of those instances.1</p><p>Toribio’s (2004) analysis of Spanish–English bilinguals in the USA demonstrates</p><p>that contact with English affects these speakers’ use of null pronouns, a typical feature</p><p>of Spanish. Her study involved two tasks: first, participants were required to narrate a</p><p>story “in Spanish” in monolingual mode based on a series of pictures representing Lit-</p><p>tle Red Riding Hood. Then the participants were required to reproduce orally another</p><p>story, The Beggar Prince, which they had previously read aloud in a mixed-language</p><p>version; this was expected to lead to the production of both Spanish and English in</p><p>bilingual mode. In the first task, where they were in monolingual mode, speakers used</p><p>overt pronouns more often than was expected in monolingual Spanish</p><p>discourse. Fur-</p><p>thermore, in the second task, when in bilingual mode, the use of overt pronouns by</p><p>these speakers was even more frequent than expected. So, in any given context where</p><p>there was a choice whether or not to use an overt pronoun, speakers frequently con-</p><p>verged to English usage in their Spanish.</p><p>In a study with a similar focus, Montrul (2004) compared the speech of Spanish–</p><p>English heritage bilinguals2 living in the USA with the speech of monolingually-raised</p><p>Spanish speakers from different Spanish-speaking countries, examining, among other</p><p>features, their use of null subjects. The heritage speakers in Montrul’s data used overt</p><p>subjects (68.6%) more than null subjects (31.4%), compared to the reverse pattern in</p><p>monolinguals’ use (42.8% overt and 57.2% null). As Spanish allows such subjects to</p><p>be null whereas English does not, Montrul argues that convergence is occurring in the</p><p>Spanish morphosyntax of these speakers and that the dominance of English has led the</p><p>speakers to select overt subjects instead of null subjects.</p><p>Schmitt (2000), analysing data from Russian–English bilingual immigrant chil-</p><p>dren in the USA within the MLF framework, proposes the notion of covert code-</p><p>switching, which is what “takes place when abstract lexical structure from one language</p><p>is influenced by abstract structure from another language, resulting in a composite</p><p>ML [matrix language]” (2000: 19). A composite ML is found in a construction in</p><p>which morphemes from one language have (some) structure from another language</p><p>(2000: 15). Examples Schmitt gives of covert code-switching are bare forms, which are</p><p>inserted LB morphemes (in a clause where the structure is otherwise from LA) appear-</p><p>ing without the appropriate LA morphology (2000: 23). Children in her data produce</p><p>1. That is, what some authors would call ‘convergence’, but which we call ‘the result of</p><p>convergence’.</p><p>2. Montrul uses the term ‘heritage speakers’ to describe second- or third-generation bilin-</p><p>guals who come from a home where a non-English language (Spanish here) was spoken, and</p><p>who have some level of bilingualism in both English and the heritage language.</p><p> Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>such forms, e.g. (1) below (2000: 23), where inserted English morphemes in what is</p><p>otherwise a Russian ML clause lack the expected Russian morphological endings.</p><p>(1) nu yest’ baseball v heaven?</p><p>well is baseball in heaven</p><p>‘Well, is there baseball in heaven?’</p><p>[expected: nu yest’ baseball v heaven-e?</p><p>well is baseball in heaven-prep.masc.sg]</p><p>In (1) the switched noun heaven does not have the expected Russian prepositional case</p><p>marker -e. In inserting the switched item (heaven) from English, the speaker has incor-</p><p>porated with it the grammar of English (which does not have an inflectional affix of</p><p>this kind on nouns). Schmitt views this as convergence, with the ML as a composite of</p><p>Russian structure (e.g. verbal morphology) and English structure (e.g. no noun inflec-</p><p>tion on heaven), occurring because of an increase in the level of activation of the EL so</p><p>that it competes with the ML in the providing the clause’s structure (2000: 24).3</p><p>These studies therefore show convergence as a contact phenomenon that is best</p><p>viewed as a process rather than a result.</p><p>4. Convergence and code-switching</p><p>Backus (2004: 179) suggests that evidence of convergence may be found particularly</p><p>in the speech of bilinguals who code-switch extensively, and Toribio (2004) provides</p><p>evidence that the same speakers may show more evidence of convergence when using</p><p>both languages than just one. Bilingual clauses are therefore more likely loci for con-</p><p>vergence than monolingual clauses in the speech of bilinguals.</p><p>Nevertheless, Myers-Scotton (2002) indicates that convergence can occur with</p><p>or without code-switching. Code-switching showing convergence is labelled “com-</p><p>posite code-switching” (2002: 165), whereas evidence of convergence without code-</p><p>switching is a structure where “all surface morphemes come from one language” and</p><p>“the abstract lexical structure projecting these morphemes no longer comes from one</p><p>language, but includes some abstract structure from another language” (2002: 164), as</p><p>noted above. Whether or not code-switching is involved, clauses showing evidence of</p><p>convergence will have a composite morphosyntactic frame, which we shall label here</p><p>3. We are grateful to a reviewer for noting that apparently the choice of the preposition v ‘in’</p><p>here is an unusual one; na ‘on’ is more expected. We suggest that this is another example of the</p><p>influence of English on the clause.</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence 1</p><p>a dichotomous matrix language (see below). Since Myers-Scotton’s MLF model applies</p><p>to individual clauses in the speech of individual bilinguals rather than to a language as</p><p>a whole, and as we define convergence as a synchronic process that can occur within</p><p>a single construction, we argue below that the MLF model can be used to identify evi-</p><p>dence of convergence in specific, quantitative terms.</p><p>5. Convergence in Welsh</p><p>We now review studies that have been conducted on convergence in the Welsh language.</p><p>While our data is from Welsh–English bilingual speech, our focus is on the influence of</p><p>the majority language, English, on the minority language, Welsh.4 Deuchar (2005) exam-</p><p>ines whether paradigmatic and syntagmatic congruence between the grammars of Welsh</p><p>and English facilitates code-switching. She concludes that where the grammatical catego-</p><p>ries of the two languages are similar, code-switching is facilitated. The results suggest that</p><p>phenomena such as code-switching are more likely to occur in aspects of the grammar</p><p>where the participating languages are similar than where they differ. Deuchar suggests</p><p>that code-switching is enhanced or restricted depending on the extent of this similarity.</p><p>Deuchar (2006) goes on to examine Welsh–English bilingual utterances which show</p><p>possible convergence. An example is given in (2), taken from Deuchar (2006: 1996).</p><p>(2) fi ‘di bod i ‘r bus lle</p><p>1s prt.past be.nonfin to det bus place5</p><p>‘I have been to the bus place.’</p><p>4. The UK census for 2001 shows that 20.8% of the population of Wales can speak Welsh;</p><p>this was an increase from the 1991 census, which indicated that 18.7% of the people of Wales</p><p>spoke Welsh. Figures taken from the Welsh Language Board website (http://www.byig-wlb.</p><p>org.uk/English/faq/Pages/Howdothe2001resultscomparewiththe1991results.aspx) or (http://</p><p>tinyurl.com/2001cf1991).</p><p>5. We use the following abbreviations in glossing examples:</p><p>1S 1st person singular pronoun NEG negative particle or prefix</p><p>1PL 1st person plural pronoun NONFIN non-finite verb</p><p>2S 2nd person singular pronoun PAST past (perfect) tense</p><p>2PL 2nd person plural pronoun PRES present tense</p><p>3SM 3rd person singular masculine pronoun PRT a pre-verbal particle</p><p>3SF 3rd person singular feminine pronoun PRT.PAST perfect particle</p><p>DET determiner VBZ verbalizer suffix</p><p>IMP imperfect tense</p><p>2 Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>This is a bilingual clause where all but one morpheme is Welsh, but the order found in</p><p>the noun–noun NP bus lle is English. The expected Welsh order here would be lle bus,</p><p>where the modifier bus follows the head noun lle, but instead the modifier is found</p><p>preceding the head. Deuchar notes that the morphemes in this clause appear to have</p><p>a one-to-one morpheme correspondence with English surface word order, where fi ‘di</p><p>bod i is equivalent to I have been to. She therefore suggests that this clause might show</p><p>word-order convergence from Welsh towards English.</p><p>Deuchar & Davies (2009) evaluate two similar models of language change pro-</p><p>posed by Thomas (1982) and Myers-Scotton (1998). Both these models postulate pro-</p><p>cesses of contact-induced change which can ultimately lead to speakers in a community</p><p>abandoning their original language for another. At a stage prior to this, composite</p><p>code-switching occurs,</p><p>which can lead to what Myers-Scotton calls matrix-language</p><p>turnover. Deuchar & Davies use Myers-Scotton’s MLF model to analyse a dataset of</p><p>speech from Welsh–English bilinguals (which is also among the data examined in this</p><p>study) for evidence of English structure in bilingual clauses. The findings show that</p><p>Welsh was the matrix language (ML) in the great majority (93.94%) of finite clauses</p><p>overall, and that all bilingual clauses had Welsh as their ML. Clauses which do not</p><p>demonstrate a clear ML were considered to show possible convergence, but only one</p><p>such clause was identified (examined again as example (34) in the present study; see</p><p>Section 12 below). The results point to the absence of ML turnover from Welsh to</p><p>English, with little evidence of convergence.</p><p>For further information regarding the influence of English on Welsh, see Parry-</p><p>Williams (1923), Fynes-Clinton (1995 [1913]) and Lindsay (1993).</p><p>6. The differences and similarities in Welsh and English word order</p><p>Convergence may occur in parts of the grammar which are similar in both languages</p><p>in contact. Following Thomason’s (2001: 93) suggestion that an essential step in identi-</p><p>fying contact-induced structural change in a language is to identify structural features</p><p>shared by both languages, in this section we describe the similarities found in Welsh</p><p>and English word order, specifically the relative positions of the subject and the finite</p><p>verb in a finite clause and the head and the modifier within a NP.</p><p>English is an SV-order language, with the finite verb occupying post-subject</p><p>position in declarative clauses (The cat caught the mouse); see Quirk et al. (1989: 724).</p><p>VS order is available only in yes-no interrogative constructions (Did the cat catch the</p><p>mouse?), questions involving modal verbs (Can the mouse run?), questions involv-</p><p>ing to be or to have as the main verb (Is that a mouse?), WH-questions (Where is the</p><p>cat?), and various other inversion contexts, in all of which the finite verb is raised</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence 3</p><p>to pre-subject position.6 English is therefore primarily SV order with VS in some</p><p>constructions.7</p><p>Welsh, conversely, uses VS order (the inflected verb occupying the first main posi-</p><p>tion, before the subject) in main clauses, as in (3), or periphrastic constructions using</p><p>an auxiliary and a nonfinite verbal noun, as in (4); see King (1996: 21).</p><p>(3) Daliodd y gath y llygoden.</p><p>Caught the cat the mouse</p><p>V S O</p><p>‘The cat caught the mouse.’</p><p>(4) Wnaeth y gath ddal y llygoden.</p><p>Did the cat catch the mouse</p><p>AuxV S V O</p><p>‘The cat caught the mouse.’</p><p>Question clauses have rising intonation and/or the pre-verbal particle a (usually omit-</p><p>ted). The position of the subject and verb is not changed, so Welsh interrogatives, like</p><p>Welsh declaratives, have VS order (Ddaliodd y gath y llygoden? Wnaeth y gath ddal y</p><p>llygoden?). SV order, however, is found in subject WH-question constructions, as in</p><p>(5), and also where the subject constituent is fronted for emphasis, as in (6).</p><p>(5) Pwy ddaliodd y llygoden?</p><p>Who caught the mouse</p><p>WH V O</p><p>‘Who caught the mouse?’8</p><p>(6) Y gath ddaliodd y llygoden.</p><p>The cat caught the mouse</p><p>S V O</p><p>‘It was the cat which caught the mouse.’9</p><p>Therefore Welsh has primarily VS order, but SV order in certain constructions.</p><p>6. An exception to this is a construction where the WH-word is the subject of the sentence,</p><p>e.g. Who caught the mouse?, which has SV order.</p><p>. There are other, rarer constructions in English that are VS order, such as those with fronted</p><p>negatives, e.g. Never has the cat caught anything.</p><p>. This could also mean ‘Whom did the mouse catch?’.</p><p>. This could also mean ‘It was the cat that the mouse caught’ (i.e. OVS order), demon-</p><p>strating object-fronting.</p><p>4 Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>We now turn to English and Welsh head/modifier constructions in NPs. We use</p><p>the following abbreviations: HM denotes the modifier following the head; MH denotes</p><p>the modifier preceding the head. Note that when we use the term ‘head/modifier order’,</p><p>we mean the relative order of head and modifier (without specifying what this is).</p><p>In English head/modifier constructions (e.g. noun/adjective or noun/noun NPs),</p><p>the order is MH in the great majority of cases, e.g. red wine, where red modifies wine.</p><p>There are some English collocations where the order is HM, for instance, court mar-</p><p>tial, queen consort, Attorney General, and sergeant-major, but these are very rare.10</p><p>Welsh head/modifier NPs usually have HM order, for instance, gwin coch ‘red</p><p>wine’, where the adjective coch precedes the head noun gwin, or gyrrwr bws ‘bus driver’,</p><p>where the modifying noun bws follows the head noun gyrrwr. Some adjectives, how-</p><p>ever, precede the head noun they modify, such as hen ‘old’ and prif ‘main, prime’; for</p><p>instance, hen ddyn ‘old man’, prif weinidog ‘prime minister’.11 Furthermore, any Welsh</p><p>modifier can generally precede its head, causing soft mutation of the initial consonant</p><p>of the head, e.g. cryno-ddisg ‘compact disc’, where the adjective cryno precedes the noun</p><p>disg (the first consonant of which is mutated [d] > [ð]), and heddwas ( [ø]. Whilst this is primarily a literary</p><p>style, it also occurs less frequently in colloquial use, and often results in the construc-</p><p>tion being interpreted as a compound; in fact, compounds in Welsh are usually MH</p><p>order constructions where the initial consonant of the head is mutated. Therefore,</p><p>Welsh has more than one option for NP word order, primarily HM but also MH.</p><p>In this section we have demonstrated the overlap between possible word orders</p><p>in English and Welsh. In main clauses, English has SV whilst Welsh has VS, but Eng-</p><p>lish also has VS and Welsh SV in limited contexts. In head/modifier NPs, English has</p><p>MH word order whilst Welsh has both MH and (more frequently) HM. Where there</p><p>are similarities such as these, it is possible that convergence will be found. We now</p><p>proceed to discussing the Matrix Language Frame model, which we suggest may be</p><p>adapted to become a framework for identifying sites of convergence.</p><p>1. Moreover, some of these are borrowings from Romance languages (e.g. sergeant-major</p><p>between ML and EL. It also follows that the model could</p><p>also be used to identify those clauses where there is no asymmetry between the two</p><p>participating languages. If structure in a clause is supplied by both languages, then the</p><p>ML may not be uniquely sourced from either of the two participating languages. This</p><p>latter case is what Myers-Scotton (2002: 105), referring to bilingual utterances, terms</p><p>“composite code-switching”, where the clause’s morphosyntactic frame is derived</p><p>from more than one language, and which she considers to demonstrate convergence.</p><p>Clauses exhibiting composite code-switching have what we call a dichotomous matrix</p><p>language, as explained above. We expect that clauses with a dichotomous matrix lan-</p><p>guage will exhibit convergence.</p><p>In the following section we outline the manner in which we apply the MLF model to</p><p>our data to identify clauses, whether monolingual or bilingual, that show convergence.</p><p>. Applying the MLF model to the data</p><p>The MLF model specifies that a clause will adhere to two principles, which Myers-</p><p>Scotton (2002: 59) terms the Morpheme Order Principle (MOP) and the System Mor-</p><p>pheme Principle (SMP). The analytical process of applying the MLF model to data,</p><p>therefore, takes the form of verifying whether or not both MOP and SMP point to the</p><p>same language as being the ML for a given clause. If they indicate the same language,</p><p>then the language indicated is identified as the ML of that clause. The principles are</p><p>outlined below.</p><p>The Morpheme Order Principle (MOP) states that the ML supplies the word order</p><p>for a clause, with the exception of well-formed EL islands, which follow the word order</p><p>of the EL. The primary word-order distinction between Welsh and English that we</p><p>have selected is the position of the verb in relation to the subject, and this is the first</p><p>6 Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>word-order criterion tested on a clause. The secondary word-order distinction we have</p><p>selected is the position of the modifier in relation to the head in an NP. If a head/modi-</p><p>fier NP in a clause was either (1) a bilingual NP or (2) a monolingual NP with mor-</p><p>pheme order that was not expected for morphemes in that language; then the head/</p><p>modifier word order in that NP was used to identify the ML. Therefore, in a clause</p><p>where the subject/verb positions and/or the head/modifier positions are what would</p><p>be expected in Welsh, we identify ‘Welsh’ as the ML for that clause; where the order is</p><p>what would be expected of English, we identify ‘English’ as the ML. Some clauses have</p><p>the same basic word order in Welsh and English, as noted in Section 6, and in such</p><p>instances the MOP alone was not sufficient to indicate the clause’s ML.</p><p>The System Morpheme Principle (SMP) dictates that the ML supplies outside late</p><p>system morphemes; following Myers-Scotton (2006: 244), we take verbal agreement</p><p>markers to be outside late system morphemes.12 Welsh verbal morphology indicates a</p><p>Welsh ML and English verbal morphology indicates an English ML. The SMP was only</p><p>applied here to finite clauses: we considered clauses lacking a finite verb not to contain</p><p>enough information to satisfy the SMP, except, as in (7), where we assume there is a</p><p>null auxiliary.</p><p>(7) ti ‘di siarad ybyty fo</p><p>2s prt.past talk.nonfin about 3sm</p><p>‘You’ve talked about it.’ [FUS27-LIS328]</p><p>[Alternative form:</p><p>wyt ti di siarad ybyty fo</p><p>be.2s.pres 2s prt.past talk.nonfin about 3sm]</p><p>In such cases as this the clause was assumed to be finite, with the null element consist-</p><p>ing of outside late system morphemes from Welsh. However, the relative position of</p><p>this null verb in relation to the subject was not ascertainable, and therefore these types</p><p>of clauses could have the SMP successfully applied to them but not the subject/verb</p><p>order criterion of the MOP.</p><p>We will now demonstrate the application of the MLF to an example clause from</p><p>the data, (8). English morphemes are underlined in examples.</p><p>(8) dw i ‘n love-o ‘r gwlad though</p><p>be.1s.pres 1s prt love-VBZ det countryside though</p><p>‘I love the countryside, though.’ [FUS27-LIS38]</p><p>First the MOP is tested. As the finite verb dw precedes the subject i, it appears that</p><p>Welsh provides the word order. If there was a head/modifier construction available, it</p><p>12. Outside late system morphemes are described by Myers-Scotton as morphemes that are</p><p>“coindexed with forms outside the head of their maximal projections” (2002: 75–6).</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence </p><p>would be expected to follow the same order (Welsh), unless it was an EL island. Sec-</p><p>ond, the SMP is tested. The inflected verb dw is in the first person singular, and this</p><p>inflection matches the first person singular pronoun i. There is therefore agreement.</p><p>The inflection on dw is Welsh. Therefore the SMP identifies Welsh as ML.</p><p>Finally, the two languages indicated by the SMP and the MOP are compared.</p><p>According to the MLF model, both principles must indicate either Welsh or English</p><p>as supplying structure.13 Returning to Example (8), the SMP and MOP both indicate</p><p>Welsh as ML, so Welsh can be positively identified as the clause’s ML, providing out-</p><p>side late system morphemes, word order and some content morphemes. English is the</p><p>EL, providing some content morphemes (love and though).</p><p>Assuming an ML could be positively identified, therefore, each clause in the data</p><p>is marked as ‘Welsh’ or ‘English’ ML.14 Clauses with sufficient material to test the prin-</p><p>ciples, but which cannot show one language as ML, are discussed in the next section.</p><p>. Cases where the source of the ML is not positively identifiable</p><p>Whilst it is expected that, in most clauses the testing of the MOP and SMP will result</p><p>in the same language being indicated as ML, it is possible that the two principles will</p><p>not agree; for instance, if the verb agreement morphology is from one language but</p><p>the word order is from the other, or if one principle provides conflicting information</p><p>about which language is ML. An example of the latter type of clause is (9), taken from</p><p>Deuchar (2006: 1994).</p><p>(9) Ddaru ni gyfweld […] am ddeg awr</p><p>happen.past 1pl interview.nonfin for ten hour</p><p>assistant i D.S.</p><p>assistant for D.S.</p><p>‘We interviewed […] for a ten-hour assistant for D.S.’</p><p>It is not possible to test the SMP on this clause, as subject–verb agreement does not</p><p>apply: the verb ddaru is not inflected for person or number. When the MOP is tested,</p><p>the position of verb (ddaru) before subject (ni) indicates the word order as being</p><p>Welsh. However, the NP ddeg awr assistant ‘ten-hour assistant’ appears to have English</p><p>word order, as the modifier ddeg awr precedes the head assistant. This order is not</p><p>13. If the word order construction in a clause is available in either Welsh or English, the</p><p>SMP has the ‘casting vote’, taken to specify which language is the source of the ML. That is, the</p><p>subject-verb agreement positively identifies the ML which the MOP could only ambiguously</p><p>identify.</p><p>14. Some clauses in the data contained insufficient material to test the principles, such as</p><p>verbless clauses or non-finite clauses. These are not examined in this chapter.</p><p> Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>usual for Welsh. As the material within the NP is not all English, it cannot be labelled</p><p>an EL island. The English word assistant would therefore be expected to be positioned</p><p>in a locus appropriate to the subject/verb order (Welsh), preceding the modifier, to</p><p>produce assistant deg awr. As we find that English seems to provide the word order</p><p>in this NP, however, the result is that the verb/subject order and head/modifier order</p><p>indicate different languages as being the ML.</p><p>Thus the asymmetry specified by the MLF model is not found in such clauses as</p><p>(9) above. Here, both languages are supplying structural information. As the evidence</p><p>for the ML points in different directions, we shall refer to any clauses where this occurs</p><p>as having a dichotomous matrix</p><p>language.15 Such clauses may show convergence. A</p><p>benefit of adding this nuance to the MLF model, and to methods of identifying conver-</p><p>gence in general, is that it provides a means to identify where a given structure (e.g. an</p><p>NP) has word order which is not usual for the morphemes projected by that structure.</p><p>We therefore posit that the MLF model can be used to identify loci of convergence in</p><p>clauses which yield a dichotomous ML result.</p><p>The reasons for using the MLF model as a means of identifying word-order con-</p><p>vergence are twofold. First, where the MOP and the SMP both clearly indicate one</p><p>language as being the source of the ML, we assume there is no word-order convergence.</p><p>However, clauses where the two principles do not clearly indicate one language as being</p><p>the source of the ML, as in the case of dichotomous ML clauses, seemed to us to be</p><p>likely sites for convergence and therefore worth investigation. Second, the MLF model</p><p>can be applied quantitatively to data on a clause-by-clause basis (see below), and there-</p><p>fore this method can generate quantitative information indicating the extent of word-</p><p>order convergence taking place in a given dataset. We believe that this is one of the first</p><p>implementations of a model that identifies convergence quantitatively in this way.</p><p>It will be recalled that convergence may be found in structures which contain</p><p>morphemes from just one language (cf. the definitions given by Schmitt (2000) and</p><p>Myers-Scotton (2002) cited in Section 3). We suggest that the MLF model may also</p><p>be applied to monolingual clauses, following Jake, Myers-Scotton & Gross (2002: 88),</p><p>who imply that monolingual speech will also have an ML providing the grammatical</p><p>frame. Even if a clause’s morphemes are all from one language, the other language</p><p>may be providing structure. Therefore monolingual constructions from bilinguals may</p><p>show convergence, and the principles of the MLF model can be tested on such clauses.</p><p>15. Example (9) could also be described as an example of composite code-switching, but</p><p>note that this differs to a dichotomous ML clause in that the latter label can be applied to</p><p>either monolingual or bilingual clauses, whereas we interpret composite code-switching only</p><p>to be applicable to bilingual clauses.</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence </p><p>In this study we have included all clauses from the data, whether monolingual or bilin-</p><p>gual, in our analysis, though this chapter concentrates on results from finite clauses.</p><p>1. The data</p><p>The data analysed in this study were collected as part of an AHRC-funded project</p><p>located at Bangor University, for which 40 hours of recorded spoken data were col-</p><p>lected, transcribed according to the CHAT system (MacWhinney 2000), and sub-</p><p>mitted to Talkbank (http://talkbank.org/data/bilingbank/Bangor). Participants were</p><p>found via social networks and advertising, and were selected on the basis of being</p><p>bilingual in Welsh and English. The recordings were made in informal conditions, in</p><p>a location chosen by the participants, who knew one another well either as friends,</p><p>colleagues or family members. The participants had an informal conversation with no</p><p>researcher nearby. In the majority of cases, conversations were between two people.</p><p>For the purposes of the current study, a subset of six speakers in three recordings</p><p>was chosen for analysis. The transcriptions are coded Davies6, Fusser6 and Fusser27.</p><p>We will describe the six participants briefly next.16</p><p>Davies6 is a conversation between two male friends, Hector (23, a teacher) and</p><p>Daniel (25, a student). Both had lived in the same part of north-west Wales since birth.</p><p>For both, Welsh was the language spoken to them by their parents whilst growing</p><p>up and the medium of their schooling, and both reported learning English at or just</p><p>before primary school age.</p><p>Fusser6 is a conversation between two female work colleagues, Antonia (52, a lec-</p><p>turer) and Amranwen (36, a secretary). Antonia was born in south Wales but moved</p><p>to live permanently in the north-west at 21. Her father spoke Welsh and English to her</p><p>but her mother was a monolingual speaker of English. She was educated through the</p><p>medium of Welsh and English. Amranwen had always lived in north Wales apart from</p><p>a period at an English university. Her parents and school teachers spoke Welsh to her.</p><p>Both women reported having acquired both Welsh and English simultaneously.</p><p>Fusser27 is a conversation between two female student friends, Mabli (19) and</p><p>Lisa (20). Mabli had lived in north-west Wales since birth. Though she had received all</p><p>her schooling through the medium of Welsh, she came from a home where her father</p><p>spoke only English and her mother Welsh and English. Lisa had lived in south-west</p><p>Wales from birth until she moved to north-west Wales to attend university. Her father</p><p>spoke English to her, whilst her mother used Welsh, which was also the language</p><p>16. Pseudonyms have been provided for the participants in order to hide their identity.</p><p> Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>through which she received her schooling. Mabli and Lisa both reported that they</p><p>acquired Welsh and English simultaneously.</p><p>11. Results</p><p>The MLF model was applied to all transcribed clauses, monolingual and bilingual,</p><p>totalling 3275 clauses. Of these, 1816 or 55.45% were finite. There was enough evi-</p><p>dence to assign an ML to all finite clauses17 and the results are displayed in Figure 1. Of</p><p>the finite clauses, 1733 (95.43%) had a Welsh ML; English was the ML for 82 (4.52%)</p><p>clauses. Clearly Welsh is the predominant ML in these speakers’ finite clauses.</p><p>2000</p><p>1800</p><p>1600</p><p>1400</p><p>1200</p><p>N</p><p>um</p><p>be</p><p>r o</p><p>f c</p><p>la</p><p>us</p><p>es</p><p>1000</p><p>800</p><p>600</p><p>400</p><p>200</p><p>0</p><p>Welsh English</p><p>Matrix Language</p><p>Dichotomous</p><p>182</p><p>Bilingual</p><p>335</p><p>Mono-</p><p>lingual</p><p>1398</p><p>Figure 1. Distribution of finite clauses according to matrix language</p><p>18.50% of finite clauses (336 out of 1816) were bilingual. Of those bilingual clauses,</p><p>99.70% (335 out of 336) had a Welsh ML. English was never the ML in bilingual finite</p><p>clauses. The one remaining bilingual finite clause (0.30%) had a dichotomous ML (see Sec-</p><p>tion 12 below). Thus Welsh is clearly the most usual ML in bilingual clauses in these data.</p><p>Example (10) is a bilingual clause with Welsh ML, whilst (11) is a monolingual</p><p>clause with English ML. As above, English morphemes are underlined in examples.</p><p>1. All clauses analysed were labelled as having either a Welsh, English or dichotomous ML.</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence 1</p><p>(10) ches i ‘m chance i ddarllen o</p><p>get-imp.1s 1s neg chance to read.nonfin 3sm</p><p>‘I didn’t get a chance to read it.’ [DAV6-DAN40]</p><p>(11) oh there’s nothing wrong with you! [FUS6-ANT283]</p><p>Example (10) has Welsh as ML since the finite verb and subject (ches and i) have Welsh</p><p>outside late system morphemes, and the subject/verb order is VS, also Welsh. Example</p><p>(11) has English as ML since is has English outside late system morphemes and the</p><p>subject/verb order is SV, also English.</p><p>100%</p><p>90%</p><p>80%</p><p>70%</p><p>60%</p><p>50%</p><p>40%</p><p>30%</p><p>20%</p><p>10%</p><p>0%</p><p>MAB LIS AMR</p><p>Speaker</p><p>Pr</p><p>op</p><p>or</p><p>tio</p><p>n</p><p>of</p><p>�</p><p>ni</p><p>te</p><p>c</p><p>la</p><p>us</p><p>es</p><p>ANT DAN HEC</p><p>Dichotomous English Welsh</p><p>Figure 2. Matrix language distribution of clauses according to speaker.</p><p>There is little variation in the data between speakers, as shown in Figure 2. Hector</p><p>produced the highest proportion of clauses with Welsh ML (291 out of 297 or 97.98%),</p><p>whilst Daniel produced the lowest (232 out of 262 or 88.55%). The younger speakers</p><p>(Mabli, Lisa, Daniel and Hector) used Welsh ML on average in 94.99% of their finite</p><p>clauses; the older speakers (Amranwen and Antonia) did so in 96.82% of their finite</p><p>clauses on average, therefore only slightly more frequently. Regarding where speak-</p><p>ers grew up, northern speakers (Daniel, Hector and Amranwen) used Welsh ML in</p><p>95.66% of their finite clauses on average, similar to the 95.07% for southern speak-</p><p>ers (Mabli, Lisa and</p><p>or at least delay of a</p><p>change. One of the questions behind the present collection was therefore which factors</p><p>4 Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>might prevent or impede a change that might be expected on the basis of otherwise</p><p>similar input conditions. Biberauer, Newton and Sheehan in their contribution, for</p><p>instance, argue for a universal constraint on certain types of structures, which implies</p><p>restrictions on possible changes. Sundquist and Enrique-Arias in turn explore the pos-</p><p>sibility of language contact as a factor in delaying syntactic change.</p><p>In keeping with the two major themes of the volume, the contributions are divided</p><p>into two broad sections, the first addressing continuity, and the second addressing</p><p>change.</p><p>2. Continuity</p><p>The contributions to this part of the volume address problems of (apparent) syntactic</p><p>continuity.</p><p>In What changed where? A plea for the re-evaluation of dialectal evidence, Katrin</p><p>Axel and Helmut Weiß make a case for studying linguistic change in dialects rather</p><p>than standard languages. They present a number of case studies, focussing mainly</p><p>on the development of pro-drop in the history of German (dialects). They show that</p><p>the alleged loss of pro-drop during the Old High German period has only affected</p><p>the standard language; many dialects show (partial) pro-drop to this day, licensed by</p><p>c-commanding Agr in C. The only change is the innovation of the present-day restric-</p><p>tion to pronominal Agr. Similar continuity at the dialectal level, Axel & Weiß argue, is</p><p>found in the domain of negation (negative concord is preserved in several dialects)</p><p>or (with qualifications) in the order of verbs within the verb cluster. Continuity at the</p><p>level of the standard language, on the other hand, is found in possessive constructions,</p><p>where the standard language preserves post-nominal genitive possessors.</p><p>In Impossible changes and impossible borrowings: the Final-over-Final Constraint,</p><p>Theresa Biberauer, Michelle Sheehan and Glenda Newton address the implications</p><p>for syntactic change of a principle argued to restrict word–order possibilities across</p><p>languages, the Final-Over-Final-Constraint (FOFC) (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts</p><p>2007). As the FOFC predicts certain word orders to be impossible, ruling out in partic-</p><p>ular head-final higher functional projections when lower projections are head-initial,</p><p>change and borrowing are predicted to be constrained. The authors demonstrate in</p><p>a number of case studies that changes from head-final to head-initial do respect the</p><p>FOFC in that higher heads change first and that the presence of initial heads blocks</p><p>the borrowing of final heads.</p><p>Anne Breitbarth and Liliane Haegeman’s contribution, Continuity is change: The</p><p>long tail of Jespersen’s cycle in Flemish, discusses an apparent case of syntactic continu-</p><p>ity, the (at least optional) maintenance of the old preverbal negation marker e(n) in</p><p>the Flemish dialects of Dutch. They argue that its survival is not due to these dialects</p><p>Introduction 5</p><p>going through Jespersen’s Cycle at a much slower pace than the other West Germanic</p><p>languages, which have long lost the cognates of e(n), but rather to its reanalysis as a</p><p>marker of (affective) polarity which has left the surface word order unchanged. Evi-</p><p>dence for this comes from the pragmatic restrictions on the use of e(n) in the Flemish</p><p>dialects and its availability in non-negative affective contexts.</p><p>In their chapter, Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent</p><p>of word-order convergence in Welsh–English bilingual speech, Peredur Davies and</p><p>Margaret Deuchar aim to test the hypothesis that ongoing ‘convergence’ (contact-</p><p>induced transfer) can be identified in bilingual code-switching speech, in this case</p><p>the speech of Welsh–English bilinguals. In a corpus of Welsh with extensive code-</p><p>switching with English, they look for instances where the matrix language is Welsh,</p><p>but the grammatical system used is unambiguously English. Any such instances are</p><p>viewed as evidence of ongoing convergence of Welsh towards English. They investi-</p><p>gate this with respect to word order within the nominal domain. Using their meth-</p><p>odology, they identify only one possible instance of convergence (modifier–head</p><p>order within noun phrases in this case), and conclude that Welsh noun phrases man-</p><p>ifest continuity rather than change in the face of extensive bilingualism and contact</p><p>with English.</p><p>Andrés Enrique-Arias’ contribution, Contact-induced conservativism in the</p><p>Spanish of Catalan bilinguals in Majorca, addresses the topic of grammatical conti-</p><p>nuity from the perspective of contact between Spanish and Catalan in Majorca. The</p><p>principal claim is that, while contact is predominantly seen as a force for grammati-</p><p>cal change, under the right circumstances it can, in fact, serve to prevent otherwise</p><p>expected innovations in a given language. Enrique-Arias argues that the presence</p><p>of parallels in Catalan for a number of structures which are obsolescent in gen-</p><p>eral Spanish results in their retention in the Spanish spoken and written by Catalan</p><p>native speakers in Majorca.</p><p>In his chapter Comparative continuity, Remus Gergel investigates comparative</p><p>clauses in English and French with primary focus on subject–verb inversion. He</p><p>explores the derivation and diachronic evolution of these clauses and argues that</p><p>they instantiate syntactic continuity in that they feature a ‘low subject’, that is, one</p><p>that is not raised out of the verb phrase – an option that used to be much more wide-</p><p>spread in both languages. On this analysis surface subject-verb inversion is achieved</p><p>merely by the expected raising of the verb to the inflectional domain and not on</p><p>to the complementizer domain, as in the standard generative analysis of compara-</p><p>tive inversion.</p><p>John Sundquist looks at Variation, continuity, and contact in Middle Norwegian</p><p>and Middle Low German and concludes that the patterns of OV/VO variation in Mid-</p><p>dle Norwegian were not influenced by contact with Middle Low German. He attributes</p><p>6 Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>this to the particular sociolinguistic character of this contact – restricted to business</p><p>contacts in the context of Hanseatic trade.</p><p>3. Change</p><p>Edith Aldridge’s chapter Directionality in word-order change in Austronesian languages</p><p>reconstructs how SVO order in Austronesian languages has evolved from the older VOS</p><p>order via topicalization of the subject. Absolutive arguments in Austronesian VOS lan-</p><p>guages are argued to end up in final position by moving the absolutive to a topic position</p><p>and then fronting the remnant TP around it. Diachronically, SVO develops when only the</p><p>first step of deriving VOS in that fashion is taken and the fronted topic is reanalysed as</p><p>a subject in SpecTP. By comparing several Austronesian SVO languages, Aldridge shows</p><p>that this is a gradual process as subjects across these languages show combinations of A-</p><p>and A′-properties.</p><p>In his contribution, Negative co-ordination in the history of English, Richard Ingham</p><p>looks at the syntax of nor in the history of English, arguing that changes can be derived</p><p>from more general changes in the syntax of negation. While the pattern affirmative</p><p>clause + nor + negative clause is widely attested in Middle English, English today allows</p><p>nor only where both conjoined clauses are negative. Conversely, the clause introduced</p><p>by nor once required additional negative elements (negative concord), while, today, nor</p><p>may act as the sole negator. Ingham accounts for this by proposing two changes in the</p><p>grammar of English: the replacement of a null negative operator (NegOP) in SpecNegP</p><p>by not and subsequently the loss of NegP in Early Modern English as n-words such</p><p>as no become inherently negative. Initially nor has an uninterpretable [uNeg] feature</p><p>checked by NegOP (giving rise to negative concord); with the loss of NegOP, it checks</p><p>its [uNeg] feature from a c-commanding</p><p>Antonia). Females used Welsh ML slightly more frequently than</p><p>males (96.26% to 93.56%). These differences, however, are very small.</p><p>To summarize, the Welsh–English bilinguals that were recorded almost</p><p>always produce clause structure reflecting Welsh as ML and therefore do not display</p><p>convergence.</p><p>2 Peredur Davies & Margaret Deuchar</p><p>12. Clauses with a dichotomous Matrix Language</p><p>Dichotomous ML clauses were defined in Section 9 as clauses where the evidence for</p><p>the ML points in different directions. There was only one dichotomous ML clause in</p><p>the data. It is shown in (12) below.</p><p>(12) roedd drws-nesa # pobl yn wneud #</p><p>be.3s.imp next-door people prt make.nonfin</p><p>sloe gin</p><p>sloe gin</p><p>‘[The] next-door people made sloe gin.’ [FUS6-AMR371]</p><p>The SMP identifies Welsh as ML (roedd has Welsh outside late system morphemes).</p><p>The verb/subject order of this clause is Welsh VS (roedd precedes the subject NP</p><p>drws nesa pobl). However, the word order in the NP drws nesa pobl, where the head</p><p>noun pobl ‘people’ follows the modifying lexical unit drws nesa ‘next door’, is English-</p><p>predominant MH, rather than the expected Welsh order, HM (i.e. pobl drws nesa). The</p><p>material in the rest of the clause points to Welsh as providing structure, but the infor-</p><p>mation in the NP drws nesa pobl points to English as providing structure. Since there is</p><p>disagreement between these two indicators of ML, the clause has a dichotomous ML.</p><p>We view (12) as showing signs of word-order convergence in the NP drws nesa pobl,</p><p>where the structure found is more prominent in one language, English, but where the</p><p>morphemes are from the other language, Welsh.</p><p>Other interpretations of (12) are possible, however. First, the speaker inserts a</p><p>brief pause (</p><p>of</p><p>morphosyntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7: 125–142.</p><p>Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1993. Duelling Languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.</p><p>Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1998. A way to dusty death: the Matrix Language turnover hypothesis.</p><p>In Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response, Lenore A. Grenoble &</p><p>Lindsay J. Whaley (eds.), 289–316. Cambridge: CUP.</p><p>Myers-Scotton, Carol. 2002. Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Out-</p><p>comes. Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Myers-Scotton, Carol. 2006. Multiple Voices: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Malden MA:</p><p>Blackwell.</p><p>Parry-Williams, Thomas H. 1923. The English Element in Welsh: A Study of English Loan-words</p><p>in Welsh. London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion.</p><p>Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1989. A Comprehensive</p><p>Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.</p><p>Schmitt, Elena. 2000. Overt and covert codeswitching in immigrant children from Russia. Inter-</p><p>national Journal of Bilingualism 4: 9–28.</p><p>Using the Matrix Language Frame model to measure the extent of word-order convergence 5</p><p>Thomas, Alan. 1982. Change and decay in language. In Linguistic Controversies: Essays in Lin-</p><p>guistic Theory and Practice in Honour of F. R. Palmer, David Crystal (ed.), 209–219. London:</p><p>Edward Arnold.</p><p>Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language Contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh: EUP.</p><p>Toribio, Almeida J. 2004. Convergence as an optimization strategy in bilingual speech: Evidence</p><p>from code-switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7: 165–173.</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor</p><p>of language change</p><p>The Spanish of Catalan bilinguals in Majorca*</p><p>Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>Universitat de les Illes Balears</p><p>This study explores the role of language contact as an inhibitor of language</p><p>change through the historical analysis of several features that are characteristic</p><p>of the Spanish in contact with Catalan in the island of Majorca. The analysis</p><p>reveals that (i) these features are attested in Majorcan Spanish at least since the</p><p>1700s and (ii) they had some sort of existence in monolingual varieties of Spanish</p><p>at the time when the language was introduced to the island. The historical data</p><p>suggest that these features of Majorcan Spanish are not, as traditionally believed,</p><p>contact-driven innovations, but the result of the preservation of structures that</p><p>are recessive in monolingual Spanish but in Majorca have been reinforced by the</p><p>existence of a parallel Catalan structure.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>A widespread assumption in the linguistic literature is that language change is an</p><p>expected, or even unavoidable, result of language contact.1 In fact, numerous studies</p><p>of language variation and change in contact languages claim that contact accelerates</p><p>change. In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the opposite scenario, that is,</p><p>the possibility that the presence of two languages in the same speech community may</p><p>constitute a factor promoting the retention of variants that are losing ground in non-</p><p>contact varieties. In particular, a preliminary historical analysis of the Spanish spoken</p><p>in Majorca, an island off the eastern coast of Spain where Spanish has been spoken</p><p>*I wish to thank Miriam Bouzouita, David Heap, Carmen Silva-Corvalán, and two anony-</p><p>mous reviewers for their comments on this paper. Any errors that remain are of course my</p><p>responsibility.</p><p>1. As Thomason (2001: 10) puts it “The most common result of language contact is change</p><p>in some or all of the languages: typically, though not always, at least one of the languages will</p><p>exert at least some influence on at least one of the other languages”.</p><p> Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>alongside Catalan for centuries, has shown a remarkable historical continuity for some</p><p>morphosyntactic and lexical features that are receding in other Spanish-speaking areas</p><p>(Enrique-Arias 2006, 2008). In the same vein, research carried out using the variation-</p><p>ist sociolinguistic methodology (Blas Arroyo 2007) has called attention to the consid-</p><p>erable vitality in Castellón, another Spanish–Catalan bilingual area, of traits that are</p><p>receding in non contact areas.</p><p>The main objective of this study is to explore further the role of language con-</p><p>tact as an inhibitor of language change through an analysis of a range of phonetic,</p><p>morphosyntactic and semantic phenomena in the varieties of Spanish in contact with</p><p>Catalan, mainly in Majorca but also in other Catalan speaking territories. The specific</p><p>aims are:</p><p>a. to evaluate the possible influence of language contact on the retention of variants</p><p>that are subject to change in other dialect areas;</p><p>b. to determine what linguistic and extralinguistic factors favor the retention of lin-</p><p>guistic variables in language contact situations;</p><p>c. to contribute new data from a historical corpus of Spanish in contact with Catalan</p><p>in Majorca to shed new light on these issues.</p><p>In order to achieve these objectives, in the present study I analyse the historical devel-</p><p>opment of a number of structures that are characteristic of the variety of Spanish spo-</p><p>ken in Majorca. For each phenomenon I look at the current description according to</p><p>the available linguistic monographs, as well as its distribution in historical corpora that</p><p>represent, on the one hand, Spanish produced by Majorcan bilinguals in the late 1700s</p><p>and early 1800s and, on the other, comparable data from general Spanish. The historical</p><p>analysis reveals that many of the features that characterize the variety of Spanish spoken</p><p>in Majorca today were already present in the Spanish texts produced by Majorcans in the</p><p>1700s. The phenomena in question had in turn some sort of existence in monolingual</p><p>varieties of Spanish at the time when the language was introduced to the island. This</p><p>distribution of forms suggests that, for a number of linguistic structures, Catalan contact</p><p>has resulted not so much in the introduction of innovative structures into Majorcan</p><p>Spanish, but in the preservation of language usages that are recessive or have disappeared</p><p>in general Spanish, reinforced by the existence of a parallel structure in Catalan.</p><p>2. Language contact as a promoter of linguistic change</p><p>The effect of language contact as a promoter of language change is closely related</p><p>to the fact that bilingualism sets the stage for a variety of linguistic phenomena that</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change </p><p>result in change of one kind or another: code-switching, borrowing, simplification</p><p>of grammatical and lexical categories, development of periphrastic constructions or</p><p>overgeneralization of forms following a regularizing pattern, among other kinds of</p><p>structural interference.</p><p>Contact-induced change appears to be particularly intense in situations of social</p><p>bilingualism which are unbalanced in favour of one language. In these situations</p><p>members of the subordinate group are more likely to become bilingual and adopt fea-</p><p>tures from the socially dominant group’s language (Thomason 2001: 66). This scenario</p><p>makes extensive interference possible, often resulting in the development of innova-</p><p>tive language uses and accelerating changes that are less developed in monolingual</p><p>varieties. By acceleration it is understood that the innovative variant occurs in more</p><p>linguistic environments and at a higher frequency than it does in non-contact varieties</p><p>of the same language.</p><p>In the Spanish-speaking world, acceleration of language change is well illustrated</p><p>by a number of phenomena from Spanish in contact with English in the United States.</p><p>In the three examples presented below, Spanish–English bilinguals living in the South-</p><p>west United States exhibit a more advanced stage of linguistic change than their Spanish</p><p>monolingual counterparts in other areas of the Spanish-speaking world.</p><p>a. Advance of the periphrastic future at the expense of morphological future</p><p>Spanish exhibits variable use of two future forms: a periphrastic future (voy a</p><p>cantar</p><p>‘I am going to sing’) and a morphological future (cantaré ‘I will sing’). The</p><p>advance of the former at the expense of the latter is a historical development doc-</p><p>umented in several studies (see, for instance, Aaron 2007). In regards to Spanish</p><p>in contact with English in the US, Gutiérrez (1995, 2002) has shown that this</p><p>change has been accelerated among the communities of Mexican origin of the</p><p>United States when compared to monolingual speakers from Mexico.</p><p>b. Increase in the use of preverbal clitics in verbal periphrases</p><p>In a number of Spanish verbal periphrases composed of a finite semi-auxiliary</p><p>plus an infinitive or a present participle, object clitics referring to an argument of</p><p>the non-finite form may variably occur before the finite verb as shown in (1):</p><p>(1) Vino a verme/me vino a ver.</p><p>he.came to see.me/me he.came to see</p><p>‘He came to see me.’</p><p>The trend of placing clitics in preverbal position in periphrases, to a large extent</p><p>as a consequence of a process of grammaticalization of a number of matrix verbs,</p><p>reflects an ongoing change that is more advanced in language contact than it is in</p><p>monolingual varieties, as demonstrated in Silva-Corvalán (1994: 130).</p><p>1 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>c. The extension of estar at the expense of ser in the context of predicate adjectives</p><p>Spanish has two copular verbs, ser and estar, both translated as ‘to be’. The exten-</p><p>sion of the copula estar to contexts traditionally limited to ser is another phenomenon</p><p>that appears to be more advanced amongst bilingual speakers (Silva-Corvalán 1994:</p><p>119). Innovative uses such as mi marido está alto ‘my husband is tall’, mi casa está</p><p>chiquita ‘my house is small’ (as opposed to traditional use of ser in these structures: mi</p><p>marido es alto, mi casa es chiquita) among Los Angeles bilingual speakers (including</p><p>Mexico-born speakers living in the U.S.) are higher, an overall 34% compared to 16%</p><p>in a group of monolingual speakers in Morelia, Mexico (Gutiérrez 1992).</p><p>A number of reasons have been adduced to explain the acceleration of change affect-</p><p>ing subordinate varieties in contact situations. In regards to Spanish in Los Angeles,</p><p>Silva-Corvalán (1994: 7) points out that the contact-induced changes that she studies</p><p>are further “favored and accelerated” by three factors: low normative pressure in the</p><p>subordinate language, restriction in the range of communicative uses of the subordi-</p><p>nate language, and speakers’ positive attitudes toward the superordinate language. This</p><p>is indeed the case in the US, where Spanish does not enjoy official status, most speak-</p><p>ers have incomplete schooling, if any, in Spanish, and there is no academic and literary</p><p>class serving as a normative model. As a result, speakers are to a great extent isolated</p><p>from the Spanish-speaking norm (Enrique-Arias 2010).</p><p>In summary, acceleration of language change in contact situations would work</p><p>in the following manner: bilingualism promotes innovative linguistic uses, and the</p><p>sociolinguistic situations that typically characterize subordinate varieties, such as lack</p><p>of normative pressure, or the restriction in contexts of use, contribute to intensifying</p><p>and spreading these innovations even further.</p><p>3. Language contact as an inhibitor of linguistic change</p><p>In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the opposite scenario, that is, the</p><p>possibility that the presence of two languages in the same speech community may</p><p>constitute a factor promoting the retention of variants that are receding in non-contact</p><p>varieties. Processes of language change are often characterized by the emergence of</p><p>a new form or construction that becomes interchangeable in at least one linguistic</p><p>environment with a pre-existing one. Once this new form increases its frequency to</p><p>the point of replacing entirely the older one, the change is complete. However, in a</p><p>language-contact situation use of the traditional variant may be reinforced by (a) the</p><p>existence of a parallel structure in the contact language and/or (b) the absence of a</p><p>structural equivalent for the innovative variant in the contact language. In such cases</p><p>change could be delayed, and thus the spread of the innovative variant would progress</p><p>more slowly than in non-contact varieties of the same language. Moreover, when the</p><p>language in question is the socially dominant variety, that is, it is typically acquired and</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 11</p><p>used in formal contexts, the sociolinguistic situation may further encourage the pres-</p><p>ervation of the traditional variant. This is especially true when the innovative form is</p><p>characteristic of informal registers. As such, speakers that acquire and use the socially</p><p>dominant language in formal settings have limited exposure to the innovative variant</p><p>and are thus less likely to use it in their speech.</p><p>It will be argued in the following pages that this is in fact the situation that can be</p><p>found in the variety of Spanish spoken in the island of Majorca where there is intensive</p><p>societal Spanish–Catalan bilingualism.2</p><p>The evolution of a number of phonetic phenomena illustrates how language con-</p><p>tact has been a factor in the retention of traditional variants in the Spanish spoken in</p><p>Majorca.</p><p>1. The phenomenon known as yeísmo (the loss of the phoneme /ˆ/ and its merger into</p><p>the phoneme /N/) is a trend that originated in Western Andalusia, possibly as early</p><p>as the sixteenth century and has spread considerably ever since (Guitarte 1983).</p><p>In European Spanish yeísmo “has become part of the dominant urban speech pat-</p><p>tern throughout the Peninsula” (Penny 2000: 121). Although some Catalan speak-</p><p>ers are showing loss of the palatal lateral approximant, the distinction of the two</p><p>phonemes is far more robust in Catalan than it is in standard urban varieties of</p><p>Spanish (Julià i Muné 2002: 79); as a result bilingual speakers tend to retain it more.</p><p>In Romera’s study (2003: 371–72) in Palma, Majorca’s main city and administra-</p><p>tive capital, speakers with Catalan as L1 exhibited 52.3% of conservation of the</p><p>distinction compared to 12.9% in the speech of those classified as Spanish L1.</p><p>Romera’s findings seem to be supported by the historical data collected by Enrique-</p><p>Arias (2006, 2008), in which eighteenth-century Spanish documents produced by</p><p>Majorcan writers show no traces of yeísmo (i.e. the graphemes and exhibit</p><p>a distribution consistent with a phonemic distinction of the sounds they represent)</p><p>during a period when other comparable texts written by Spanish monolinguals</p><p>already showed signs of the phonemic opposition being lost.</p><p>2. Weakening and loss of [d] in words ending in the sequence [ado] is another wide-</p><p>spread phenomenon in the Spanish-speaking world that has been attested pro-</p><p>fusely since the 1500s (Moreno Fernández 2004: 999). In Romera’s (2003: 373)</p><p>study it was found that amongst Palma speakers its loss is more likely to happen</p><p>in the speech of older individuals, with low education levels and Spanish as L1.</p><p>2. Currently, competence in Spanish in the Balearic Islands is almost universal while com-</p><p>petence in Catalan depends on the speaker’s place of origin. Of those residents born in the</p><p>Balearic Islands, 95.9% declare they speak Catalan “well” or “not too badly”. This percentage</p><p>goes down to 47.2% among the immigrants born outside the Islands. Overall, 76.7% of the</p><p>population in the Balearic Islands declared that they spoke Catalan in 2002 (Melià 2002: 61).</p><p>12 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>These findings are consonant with the general trend, registered in several stud-</p><p>ies, that retention of [d] in words ending in [ado] is higher overall in areas where</p><p>Spanish is in contact with Catalan.3 In Blas Arroyo’s (2007) study of the realiza-</p><p>tions of -ado participles in Castellón the influence of Catalan on this outcome</p><p>is evident. His informants with Catalan as L1 exhibited 74% of retention of [d]</p><p>as opposed to 32% in those with Spanish as L1 (cf. Blas Arroyo 2007: 269–270).</p><p>This may be explained, first, because, as opposed to Spanish, in which /d/ in -ado</p><p>participles is often fricativized or even deleted, the equivalent Catalan consonant</p><p>in the participle ending is produced with greater articulatory tension, that is, as a</p><p>voiceless occlusive. Another factor to take into account is that loss of intervocalic</p><p>[d] is more common in casual speech (Moreno Fernández 2004: 1002). As most</p><p>Catalan-dominant bilinguals learn Spanish in formal contexts, their exposure to</p><p>weakening and loss of [d] is necessarily limited.</p><p>3. Weakening of /s/ in syllable-final position is another widespread expanding phe-</p><p>nomenon in the Spanish-speaking world (Moreno Fernández 2004: 993–99).</p><p>According to Romera’s (2003: 374) data from Palma, speakers classified as L1</p><p>Spanish show 24.6% maintenance of -/s/ while bilingual speakers that are Cata-</p><p>lan-dominant exhibit a higher level of maintenance (92.7%). Again, the reason is</p><p>that syllable-final /s/ in Catalan is rather robust, which explains its higher levels</p><p>of maintenance amongst Catalan-dominant bilinguals; in addition, this is the for-</p><p>mal, prestigious variant taught in school and used in the mass media.</p><p>From the previous data and analyses it follows that a possible effect of language contact</p><p>is the retention of conservative variants. All three examples are variable phenomena</p><p>that, in monolingual Spanish varieties, exhibit a historical trend of increase in fre-</p><p>quency and territorial expansion. However, we find that (a) in Spanish in contact with</p><p>Catalan the innovative variant occurs in fewer linguistic environments and/or with</p><p>lower frequency when compared to non-contact varieties of the same language; and</p><p>(b) of those Catalan–Spanish bilinguals surveyed in the different studies, those classi-</p><p>fied as Catalan L1 exhibit lower frequency of the innovative variants than those clas-</p><p>sified as Spanish L1.</p><p>There are two conditions that seem to favor this outcome: first, the conserva-</p><p>tive variant has a parallel equivalent in the contact language; second, the traditional</p><p>variant is either closer to standard, prestigious uses ([ado] pronunciation, preser-</p><p>vation of final [s]) or is neutral in this respect (maintenance of the palatal lateral</p><p>3. As can be seen in Blas Arroyo’s (2007) comparative study of [ado] pronunciations in ten</p><p>Spanish cities, the two localities where Spanish happens to exist side by side with Catalan</p><p>(Castellón and Barcelona) are the ones that exhibit higher percentages of preservations of</p><p>final [ado].</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 13</p><p>approximant); as Catalan L1 speakers typically learn and use Spanish in formal con-); as Catalan L1 speakers typically learn and use Spanish in formal con-</p><p>texts, they have limited exposure to innovative variants that are characteristic of less</p><p>formal registers.</p><p>4. Historical clues for contact-induced continuity in grammar</p><p>The data and analyses of phonetic and phonological phenomena discussed so far</p><p>illustrate how language contact can be an effective inhibitor of language change. In</p><p>order to explore further this kind of effect in a contact situation, I shall now turn to</p><p>analyse a number of morphosyntactic phenomena that are characteristic of the Span-</p><p>ish spoken by Catalan bilinguals. The main question to be addressed is whether these</p><p>morphosyntactic features are contact-induced innovations or, on the contrary, they</p><p>result from the preservation of language uses that were already present in general</p><p>Spanish at the time when it came into contact with Catalan. In order to answer this</p><p>question it is pertinent to incorporate an analysis of historical data of the Spanish</p><p>produced by Catalan bilinguals. In the case at hand, a diachronic analysis will show</p><p>whether there has been a historical continuity in the features that characterize Major-</p><p>can Spanish, and, if that is the case, provide critical evidence in support of the view</p><p>that a substantial number of the morphosyntactic traits that are characteristic of the</p><p>Spanish spoken in Majorca are the result of the preservation of linguistic structures</p><p>that were already present in general Spanish at the time when the language was intro-</p><p>duced to the island.</p><p>Majorca, along with the rest of the Balearic Islands, was incorporated into the King-</p><p>dom of Aragon and populated with Catalan speakers in the thirteenth century in the</p><p>context of the Christian Reconquest of Spain from the Muslims. Following the dynastic</p><p>union of Castile and Aragon in the fifteenth century, and the political, economic and</p><p>cultural hegemony of Castile among the Peninsular kingdoms that characterized the</p><p>ensuing centuries, Catalan-speaking territories fell under increasing cultural pressure</p><p>and underwent a gradual process of linguistic castilianization. By the sixteenth cen-</p><p>tury, educated, urban Majorcans had at the very least passive competence in Spanish as</p><p>evinced by abundant records of books printed in Spanish, and sermons, poetry compe-</p><p>titions, celebrations and theatre performances in Spanish. The gradual castilianization</p><p>of Majorca intensified in the eighteenth century as the Bourbon monarchs implemented</p><p>a number of measures intended to spread the use of Spanish in the administrative and</p><p>educational domains (Martínez i Taberner 2000: 355–359.). As a result, from the late</p><p>eighteenth century on, the languages of Majorca entered a period of diglossia, with</p><p>Spanish being the only language used in formal domains. In the early 1980s, with the</p><p>advent of democracy things took a drastic turn with Catalan finally achieving official</p><p>status and use in domains such as education, administration and mass media.</p><p>14 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>The historical corpus used in the study is composed of a collection of letters written</p><p>in Majorca in the late eighteenth century representing a variety of writer demographics</p><p>and registers (Enrique-Arias 2006, 2008, in press).4 These data are complemented by</p><p>judicial statements from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that repro-</p><p>duce direct discourse taken from the excerpts published in Vibot (2004, 2005). The</p><p>corpus thus represents the early stages in the formation of the variety of Spanish spo-</p><p>ken by Catalan speakers in Majorca.</p><p>4.1 Morphological and periphrastic future</p><p>Since the seventeenth century, future temporal reference in Spanish has undergone a</p><p>significant change, whereby the territory of the morphological future has been pro-</p><p>gressively taken over by the periphrastic future (Aaron 2007). In the areas where Span-</p><p>ish coexists with Catalan, however, the substitution of the morphological future by the</p><p>periphrastic one is less advanced (Blas Arroyo 2004: 1068). The effect of Catalan lan-</p><p>guage contact on the retention of the morphological future has been illustrated by Blas</p><p>Arroyo’s (2007) detailed study of the distribution of future forms in the Spanish of the</p><p>Catalan-speaking region of Castellón: speakers that are Catalan-dominant exhibit sys-</p><p>tematically higher percentages of use of the morphological future (cf. Table 1, adapted</p><p>from Blas Arroyo 2007).</p><p>Table 1. Percentage of retention of morphological future in Castellón</p><p>Uses of future L1 Catalan L1 Spanish</p><p>Immediate distance</p><p>e.g. ‘We’ll go to the movies at five.’</p><p>41 30</p><p>Intermediate distance</p><p>e.g. ‘We’ll do it this week.’</p><p>58 42</p><p>Indefinite distance</p><p>e.g. ‘I don’t know when we’ll do it.’</p><p>45 39</p><p>Maximal distance</p><p>e.g. ‘When I graduate I’ll do a Ph.D.’</p><p>74 73</p><p>Both languages share the widespread Romance morphological future derived</p><p>from the Latin periphrasis infinitive + habere ‘to have’ (amare habeo > amar-é</p><p>‘I will love’). Nevertheless, unlike Spanish, which has developed a new periphrastic</p><p>future with ir ‘go’, the literal Catalan equivalent, that is, the periphrasis with anar ‘go’,</p><p>4. The letters belong to file 6 of the epistolary archive of the Zaforteza family (henceforth</p><p>ZA) which contains nearly 250 letters (roughly half of them in Spanish and the other half</p><p>in Catalan) dated between</p><p>1739 and 1788. The examples are identified by letter number, line</p><p>number and year of composition.</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 1</p><p>is used for the expression of preterit actions and states. The result of this asymmetry</p><p>is that, while all varieties of Spanish have shown a historical tendency to replace the</p><p>morphological future with the periphrasis with ir, Catalan bilingual speakers tend to</p><p>retain it more.</p><p>In addition, the socially dominant status of Spanish in Majorca may have con-</p><p>tributed to the retention of morphological future. Idealized models of grammar tend</p><p>to ignore the existence of the periphrastic future, even though it has become by far</p><p>the most common structure to express future in all Spanish varieties; most textbooks</p><p>and Spanish grammars only include the inflectional forms, that is, the so-called future</p><p>simple (amaré ‘I will love’) and the future perfect (habré amado ‘I will have loved’)</p><p>as examples of the future tenses. This may have reinforced the morphological future</p><p>amongst those speakers that have acquired Spanish in formal contexts.5</p><p>The data from the historical corpus suggest that this distribution of forms is a</p><p>long-established trend in Majorcan Spanish. In the Spanish letters in the ZA we find</p><p>146 examples of morphological future as opposed to only two examples of periphras-</p><p>tic future with ir. In other words, the innovative use accounts for little over 1%. This</p><p>figure seems to be rather low if we consider the available data for mainland Castilian</p><p>texts: Aaron (2007) registers 4% of periphrastic future for the seventeenth and eigh-</p><p>teenth centuries combined, and 12% for the nineteenth century. It should be noted</p><p>that Aaron’s study is based on literary works, which typically reflect more formal lan-</p><p>guage. Personal letters, on the other hand, tend to be closer to oral registers (Biber</p><p>1995: 283–300). Taking this into account, the actual difference in use between the</p><p>Majorcan and Castilian varieties is likely to be even greater.</p><p>4.2 Obligation periphrases</p><p>In Spanish there are three obligation periphrases involving the semi-auxiliaries tener</p><p>and haber – both translated as ‘have’– plus infinitive: tener de, haber de and tener que.</p><p>The first one, tener de, is the least common; haber de sounds somewhat more formal</p><p>and archaic in general monolingual Spanish while tener que is by far the most common</p><p>one. The spread of tener que in general Spanish is a relatively recent phenomenon, as</p><p>can be seen in Figure 1 (data collected from Corpus del español).</p><p>. Lipski (1990: 53) gives a similar explanation for the quantitative preponderance of mor-</p><p>phological future in Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), another place where Spanish is a socially</p><p>dominant variety that, for many speakers, is learned as a second language in formal contexts.</p><p>1 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>0</p><p>10</p><p>20</p><p>30</p><p>40</p><p>50</p><p>60</p><p>70</p><p>80</p><p>90</p><p>100</p><p>16C 17C 18C 19C 20C</p><p>tener que</p><p>tener de</p><p>haber de</p><p>Figure 1. Obligation periphrases in general Spanish (sixteenth–twentieth centuries)</p><p>The chart shows that, in the last three centuries, tener que has experienced a spec-</p><p>tacular progression, from 7.4% in the eighteenth century, to 23.7% in the nineteenth</p><p>century, to 81.3% in the last century.</p><p>However, in areas of Spanish in contact with Catalan, including Majorca, several</p><p>studies point out how the traditional forms tener de and haber de maintain their vital-</p><p>ity (Blas Arroyo 2004: 1071). Once again this seems to result from the maintenance</p><p>of structures that have receded in general Spanish but are maintained in Majorca due</p><p>to the existence of a parallel structure in Catalan, whose most common obligation</p><p>periphrases are tenir de and haver de.6 The data from the historical corpus suggest</p><p>that this feature of the Spanish spoken in Majorca is a long-established trend. Out of</p><p>twenty-two occurrences of obligation periphrases (sixteen haber de, six tener de) none</p><p>corresponds to the innovative form tener que.</p><p>4.3 Preverbal negative concord</p><p>General standard Spanish allows negative concord in postverbal position but not pre-</p><p>verbally, as exemplified in (2). In contrast, Catalan allows negative concord pre- and</p><p>post-verbally, while single preverbal negation is ungrammatical (3):</p><p>(2) nadie ha venido / *nadie no ha venido / no ha venido nadie</p><p>nobody has come / nobody not has come / not has come nobody</p><p>(3) *ningú ha vingut / ningú no ha vingut / no ha vingut ningú</p><p>nobody has come / nobody not has come / not has come nobody</p><p>In contrast to the standard variety, in Majorcan Spanish preverbal negative concord</p><p>occurs quite frequently, as in the following example taken from a local newspaper:</p><p>. In Majorca some speakers use tenir que, a Spanish calque condemned by the norm.</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 1</p><p>(4) La ex-alcaldesa afirmó que en ningún momento no se ha</p><p>the ex-mayor stated that in no moment not self has</p><p>planteado dimitir.</p><p>considered resign (DM March 14 2008: 19).</p><p>‘The former mayor said that she has at no point considered resigning.’</p><p>It is possible that the presence of this structure in the Spanish spoken in Majorca is the</p><p>result of the retention of a structure that was common in earlier stages of the language.</p><p>In Old Spanish negative concord was rather common both in preverbal and postverbal</p><p>position, as illustrated in the following early thirteenth-century examples extracted</p><p>from Camus (2006: 1175):</p><p>(5) a. Ascondense de mio Cid, ca no-l osan dezir nada.</p><p>they.hide of my Cid because not-him dare say nothing</p><p>‘They hide from my Cid for they dare not say anything to him.’</p><p>b. que a mio Cid Ruy Díaz, que nadi no-l diessen posada</p><p>that to my Cid Ruy Diaz, that nobody not-him give lodging</p><p>‘That no one give lodging to my Cid.’</p><p>Although this structure declined by the end of the Middle Ages, examples are still</p><p>found in the ensuing centuries (Vanrell (2008) records 37.5% of preverbal negative</p><p>concord with ninguno in a corpus of sixteenth-century notary documents). In fact, pre-</p><p>verbal negative concord has not disappeared completely as it is still common in rural</p><p>western Spanish dialects (Borrego Nieto 1996: 157, Aguado Candanedo 1984: 221).</p><p>Considering all this, we can conclude that preverbal negative concord was likely to</p><p>have been a valid option in the Spanish introduced in Majorca in the 1600s and 1700s.</p><p>Quite possibly, the existence of a parallel Catalan structure encouraged the retention</p><p>of this structure. The historical corpus provides evidence of these uses in the Spanish</p><p>produced by Majorcans in the 1700s as in the following example:7</p><p>(6) Nunca no he dejado de rogar a Nuestro Señor.</p><p>never not I.have stopped of begging to our lord</p><p>‘I have never stopped praying to Our Lord.’ (ZA 116, 24, 1772)</p><p>. As Silva-Corvalán (1998: 237) points out, a similar situation and explanation can be found</p><p>in studies of Spanish–Guaraní contact. Preverbal negative concord in Paraguayan Spanish (nada</p><p>no dije, literally “nothing not said”–‘I said nothing’) has also been explained (Granda 1991)</p><p>as the result of the retention of the structure which, as has been already indicated, existed in</p><p>general Spanish at least until the sixteenth century. The retention has been favored by contact</p><p>with Guaraní, where it exists as a standard construction (cf. Silva-Corvalán 1998: 237):</p><p>(i) mba’eve nda-’ei</p><p>nothing not-said</p><p>‘I said nothing.’</p><p>1 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>4.4 Lexical-semantic transfer with syntactic consequences</p><p>A common outcome of language contact is lexical borrowing with syntactic con-</p><p>sequences as in the following case. General standard Spanish has two distinct</p><p>verbs to convey the idea of ‘ask’: pedir ‘to ask someone to do or give something’</p><p>and preguntar ‘to ask a question’. Besides this lexical contrast, the two verbs have</p><p>different argument structure, which in the case of pedir entails a syntactic con-</p><p>straint. In general standard Spanish, only preguntar but not pedir can subcatego-</p><p>rize an interrogative</p><p>clause (7a). In contrast, Catalan has one verb, demanar, which</p><p>can be used in either sense, and which can therefore subcategorize interrogative</p><p>clauses (7b).</p><p>(7) a. Le *pidió/preguntó cómo estaba.</p><p>him asked how was</p><p>b. Li va.demanar com estava.</p><p>him asked how was</p><p>‘He asked him how he was doing.’</p><p>Apparently as a result of contact with Catalan, pedir in the Spanish spoken in Majorca</p><p>has the semantic and syntactic properties of Catalan demanar. Therefore structures</p><p>like (7a) are grammatical with either verb.</p><p>The studies carried out from a purely synchronic perspective (cf. Moll 1961: 471;</p><p>Serrano Vázquez 1996: 384–85) attribute these uses of pedir to direct transfer from</p><p>Catalan. However, they miss the fact that the use of pedir in the sense of ‘to ask a ques-</p><p>tion’ was not a rarity in eighteenth century general standard Spanish; in fact, in the</p><p>Royal Academy’s 1737 dictionary, and all its subsequent editions through 1852, pedir</p><p>is defined in its second meaning as “to ask or obtain information from someone on</p><p>something”. Furthermore, the very example provided by the Royal Academy to illus-</p><p>trate the correct use of the word features pedir subcategorizing an interrogative clause</p><p>(Real Academia: s.v. pedir):8</p><p>(8) Pedían cuál era el camino.</p><p>they.asked which was the road</p><p>‘They asked which road it was.’</p><p>. The example, though, is taken from Criticón, a literary work written one century earlier</p><p>by Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658). With the aim of justifying the inclusion of words in their</p><p>Dictionary and to illustrate their “correct use” the academics picked excerpts from prestigious</p><p>literary works. The fact that this example was included in the dictionary suggests that this use</p><p>of pedir was approved of and endorsed by the educated classes.</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 1</p><p>Again, the historical corpus shows that this structure is not new to Majorcan Spanish.</p><p>The eighteenth-century letters and court testimonies contain examples in which pedir</p><p>subcategorizes an interrogative clause:</p><p>(9) Pidióle si contava la verdad.</p><p>he.asked.him whether he.told the truth</p><p>‘He asked him whether he was telling the truth.’ (Vibot 2005: 66, 1833)</p><p>Although lexical borrowing may be a mechanism leading to eventual syntactic change,</p><p>the uses of pedir in the Spanish spoken in Majorca do not seem to be the outcome of</p><p>direct borrowing of syntactic structures or rules from Catalan into Spanish. Catalan</p><p>contact has resulted not so much in the introduction of an innovative structure, but in</p><p>the preservation of a language usage that existed in general Spanish, reinforced by the</p><p>existence of a parallel structure in Catalan.</p><p>4. Deixis in demonstratives</p><p>Another common phenomenon in the Spanish of Catalan bilinguals is the tendency to</p><p>adopt a two-member deixis in the demonstratives, in contrast with monolingual Span-</p><p>ish, which has a tripartite distinction (see Table 2, adapted from Vann 1998).</p><p>Table 2. Catalan and Spanish deictic systems</p><p>Catalan Spanish</p><p>aquest ‘this’ ‘that’</p><p>object near S or A</p><p>este ‘this’</p><p>object near S</p><p>ese ‘that’</p><p>object not too far from S</p><p>aquell ‘yonder’</p><p>object not near S or A</p><p>aquel ‘yonder’</p><p>object very far from S</p><p>aquí ‘here’ ‘there’</p><p>object near S or A</p><p>aquí/acá ‘here’</p><p>object near S</p><p>ahí ‘there’</p><p>object not too far from S</p><p>allà ‘yonder’</p><p>object not near S or A</p><p>allí/allá ‘yonder’</p><p>object very far from S</p><p>S = speaker, A = addressee.</p><p>In the Spanish spoken in Catalan-speaking territories there is a tendency to</p><p>adopt the deictic and pragmatic properties of Catalan deictic terms, using este ‘this’</p><p>and aquí ‘here’ where monolingual Spanish speakers generally use ese ‘that’ and ahí</p><p>‘there’ respectively. For instance, in Vann’s (1998) data from 58 interviews of Barcelona</p><p>speakers, all the informants demonstrated some kind of influence from Catalan deictic</p><p>systems, in a number of individuals 80% of the time. The same phenomenon is widely</p><p>found in Majorca, as pointed out by Moll (1961: 471).</p><p>Vann (1998) repeatedly characterizes these uses as contact-driven innovations. But</p><p>again a historical perspective suggests that the tendency towards a bipartite distinction</p><p>11 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>in the deixis of the demonstratives may have its roots in Spanish itself. Classical Latin</p><p>had a three-place system (hic, iste and ille). As hic was eliminated from speech</p><p>in Late Latin, the three-member system became reduced to the two-member system</p><p>that prevails in French and Italian among other Romance varieties. In Spanish (and</p><p>Portuguese), however, the three-place system was subsequently restored by transfer of</p><p>ipse from its emphatic role to second person demonstrative role. The restoration of the</p><p>three-member system was a slow process only consummated in early modern times.</p><p>Badia Margarit (1952: 5) explains that in The Song of el Cid (ca. 1200) esse and aquel</p><p>do not have their respective uses clearly delimited. Likewise, in a study of demonstra-</p><p>tives in fifteenth century Spanish, Eberenz (2000: 263) points out that confusion of</p><p>este and esse was rather common. This loss of distinction occurs in spatial deixis and is</p><p>even more common in anaphoric co-reference, where the opposition between the two</p><p>forms is completely neutralized: for example, it is impossible to distinguish differences</p><p>in use between expressions like por esto and por esso ‘that’s why’ (Eberenz 2000: 264).</p><p>In a similar fashion, the series of Castilian adverbs of place related to the demonstra-</p><p>tives maintained a two-member system throughout the Middle Ages (aquí/acá ‘here’</p><p>allí/allá ‘there’). The emergence of the third member ahí occurs rather late: the form is</p><p>first documented ca. 1490 (Badía Margarit 1952: 6).</p><p>According to Eberenz the persistence of the tendency to maintain a two-member</p><p>system in Castilian is due to a combination of different historical factors: (a) in ori-</p><p>gin, Latin iste (> este) had the referential properties of Modern Spanish ese, that is,</p><p>historically este referred to the hearer before esse assumed that function; (b) in many</p><p>communicative situations speaker and hearer share common space and topics, which</p><p>makes it unnecessary to establish clear-cut differences between este and esse; (c) in the</p><p>anaphoric co-reference there has been a process of convergence of the deictic value of</p><p>este and the identifying one of esse (</p><p>un cafè hacer un café tomar un café</p><p>‘make a face’ fer mala cara hacer mala cara poner mala cara</p><p>‘be disgusting’ fer fàstic hacer asco dar asco</p><p>‘smell’ fer olor hacer olor dar olor</p><p>‘scare’ fer por hacer miedo dar miedo</p><p>Again this feature of the Spanish from Majorca represents the continuation of uses</p><p>that were normal in general Spanish in earlier stages of the language. In Old Spanish</p><p>fazer ‘make’ and dar ‘give’ competed in numerous collocations: tristura ‘grief ’, enojo</p><p>‘anger’, gozo ‘joy’, plazer ‘pleasure’ (Dubský 1962). In some cases (asco ‘disgust’, lástima</p><p>‘pity’ and rabia ‘rage’) occurrences with hacer outnumbered those with dar well into</p><p>the 1600s (Alba-Salas 2007). Moreover, the overuse of hacer in collocations is also</p><p>present in general Spanish in colloquial registers (Briz 2004: 126).</p><p>There is evidence that the use of collocations with hacer in Spanish in contact with</p><p>Catalan is not a recent innovation; the structure is condemned vigorously in gram-</p><p>mars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries addressed to teach Catalans how to</p><p>speak proper Spanish (see Solà 1980 for a detailed study of such grammars).</p><p>4. Prepositional uses</p><p>In the Spanish spoken by Catalan–Spanish bilinguals in Majorca, the preposition en is</p><p>often used to express direction, something already observed by Moll (1961: 472), who</p><p>provides examples like the following:</p><p>(12) Se fue en Barcelona.</p><p>ref he.left in Barcelona</p><p>‘He left for Barcelona.’</p><p>(13) A las nueve llegamos en la ciudad.</p><p>at the nine we.arrived in the city</p><p>‘At nine we arrived in the city.’</p><p>112 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>I have collected similar examples from the local press in the Balearic Islands:</p><p>(14) La pareja se trasladó en esta urbanización.</p><p>the couple ref moved in this housing-complex</p><p>‘The couple moved to this housing complex.’ (DM June 9, 2006: 28)</p><p>The structure in examples (12–14) is ungrammatical in standard Spanish, which uses</p><p>en for location and a for direction as shown in the examples under (15):</p><p>(15) a. Estoy *a/en Palma.</p><p>‘I am in Palma.’</p><p>b. Voy *en/a Palma.</p><p>‘I go to Palma.’</p><p>In contrast, the Catalan spoken in Majorca uses a to express both location and direc-</p><p>tion as exemplified in (16):9</p><p>(16) a. Som *en/a Palma.</p><p>‘I am in Palma.’</p><p>b. Vaig *en/a Palma.</p><p>‘I go to Palma.’</p><p>Moll (1961: 472) attributes the non-standard preposition use in (12–13) to the different</p><p>distribution of a and en in Catalan and Spanish, which purportedly causes confusion</p><p>for bilingual speakers. But this explanation is at best incomplete: if Majorcan Catalan</p><p>uses a for situation and direction, one would expect that in their Spanish utterances</p><p>Majorcans would overuse the preposition a, not en, to express spatial relations; that</p><p>is, from a comparison of the related Spanish and Catalan structures it follows that the</p><p>directional uses of en in the Spanish from Majorca are not the result of simple direct</p><p>transfer from present-day Catalan.</p><p>. In the Catalan of Majorca the preposition a develops an epenthetic -[n] segment when it</p><p>occurs in front of articles and demonstratives that begin with a vowel.</p><p>(i) Vaig an es poble.</p><p>‘I go to the town.’</p><p>This phonetically conditioned variant of the preposition a is homophonous with the preposition</p><p>en (they are both pronounced [6n]) and in fact is usually spelled en, which gives the impression</p><p>that there is a generalized confusion of the prepositions a and en in Balearic Catalan.</p><p>However, if we look at those cases in which there is no epenthetic -[n] it is clear that there is</p><p>not such confusion:</p><p>(ii) Vaig *en/a sa plaça.</p><p>‘I go to the square.’</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 113</p><p>As I have explained in greater detail in Enrique-Arias (2005), there are a number</p><p>of synchronic and diachronic factors that help explain the existence of this structure</p><p>in the grammar of bilingual Majorcans. A relevant piece of data is that the directional</p><p>uses of en are common in the varieties of Spanish that come into contact with other</p><p>languages, such as Galician in Galicia (Rojo 2004: 1097), Guaraní in Paraguay (Choi</p><p>2001), English in Texas (García 1982) or Fang in Equatorial Guinea (Granda 1988;</p><p>Lipski 1990). This suggests that we are dealing with a phenomenon motivated by the</p><p>tendency toward simplification and restructuring of grammatical rules that is com-</p><p>mon in language contact situations. It should also be noted that this area of grammar is</p><p>particularly vulnerable to change, since the uses of a and en, or their equivalents, have</p><p>fuzzy limits within monolingual varieties of all the Romance languages (cf. examples</p><p>in Choi 2001: 188–193). For instance, in standard Spanish en may be used to express</p><p>direction (entrar en la casa ‘enter the house’) while a in certain cases may express static</p><p>location (esperar a la puerta ‘wait by the door’). Thus, the contact situation has the</p><p>effect of extending a structure that already existed in general Spanish to more con-</p><p>texts. Finally, one must take into account the inherent difficulty in learning and using</p><p>prepositions: in a study of the acquisition of ten Spanish morphemes by monolingual</p><p>Spanish children ages 2:0 to 4:8 Kvaal et al. (1988) found that the preposition en was</p><p>one of the latest features to be acquired, only second to the irregular preterit indicative.</p><p>The difficulty of acquiring the standard use of prepositions may be even greater for</p><p>unbalanced bilinguals especially when, as in the case of Catalan-dominant bilinguals,</p><p>there is no clear frame of reference in the speaker’s first language.</p><p>A diachronic perspective complements the synchronic factors outlined above,</p><p>unveiling other circumstances that may have contributed to the introduction of the</p><p>directional uses of en in Majorcan Spanish. Unlike present-day Catalan, in the language</p><p>of the eighteenth century en was frequently used to express direction, as documented</p><p>in the Catalan letters in the ZA corpus:</p><p>(17) Aurà de passar en Vic. (ZA 20, 21, 1743)</p><p>will.have of pass in Vic</p><p>‘He will have to get to Vic.’</p><p>(18) Arribà lo dia de Pasqua en Madrit. (ZA 52, 6, 1756)</p><p>he.arrived the day of Easter in Madrid</p><p>‘He arrived in Madrid at Easter.’</p><p>Spanish letters written by Majorcans in the corpus also use en to express direction:</p><p>(19) Llegamos en esse puerto. (ZA 70, 11, 1759)</p><p>we.arrived in that port</p><p>‘We arrived in that port.’</p><p>(20) En el viernes pasado pasamos en Palma. (ZA 121, 24, 1773)</p><p>in the Friday past we.passed in Palma</p><p>‘Last Friday we went to Palma.’</p><p>114 Andrés Enrique-Arias</p><p>The historical data suggest that the current directional uses of en in Majorcan</p><p>Spanish are the continuation of a structure that was already firmly established in the</p><p>Spanish used in Majorca in the eighteenth century. In turn, this feature of Majorcan</p><p>Spanish would have been encouraged by the existence of a parallel construction in</p><p>the Catalan of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.</p><p>. Summary and conclusions</p><p>In this chapter I have analysed the historical development of a number of structures</p><p>found in the variety of Spanish spoken in Majorca in order to argue that language</p><p>contact can be an effective inhibitor of language change. The phenomena studied</p><p>involve linguistic variants that have decreased in frequency or even disappeared in</p><p>general Spanish but exhibit considerable vitality in the Majorcan variety. While pre-</p><p>vious studies simply attribute these features of Majorcan Spanish to direct transfer</p><p>from Catalan, the explanation offered here is that the Spanish spoken in Majorca has</p><p>not so much borrowed or adopted Catalan morphosyntactic structures, but rather has</p><p>retained existing variants that paralleled Catalan structures. Some of these, like the</p><p>morphological future or the expression of obligation with haber de are, while receding</p><p>in most varieties, valid options in standard Spanish. However, some other structures,</p><p>like preverbal negative concord, have disappeared in general Spanish and survive only</p><p>in marginal rural dialects.</p><p>Their maintenance in the Spanish of Majorca can be seen as</p><p>evidence of how parallel structures favour retention of archaic features.</p><p>The historical analysis yields two findings that support the view that Catalan</p><p>language contact has favored the retention of archaic features in Majorcan Spanish.</p><p>To begin with, all the phenomena examined had some sort of existence in monolin-</p><p>gual Spanish varieties at the time when the language was introduced to the island</p><p>of Majorca. This poses a challenge to the view that these structures are due to direct</p><p>transfer from Catalan, as one of the necessary conditions to establish the existence of</p><p>contact-induced change is to prove that the proposed interference features were not</p><p>present in the pre-contact variety (see for instance Thomason 2001: 93–94). Further-</p><p>more, the data from the historical corpus of Majorcan Spanish reveal that there has</p><p>been a historical continuity for some of the features that characterize the variety of</p><p>Spanish spoken in Majorca today. Additionally, it has been shown how for some phe-</p><p>nomena the retention of traditional features may have been further encouraged by the</p><p>socially dominant status of Spanish in the last three centuries. As Catalan-dominant</p><p>bilinguals tended to acquire and use Spanish in formal settings, they used less those</p><p>innovative variants that were characteristic of casual speech.</p><p>Evidently, the whole topic of mechanisms of cross-linguistic interference in the</p><p>history of Spanish–Catalan contact is far from being completely understood. In any</p><p>On language contact as an inhibitor of language change 11</p><p>case, I hope to have demonstrated the relevance of a diachronic perspective in obtain-</p><p>ing a more complete understanding of the different factors involved in the formation</p><p>of contact varieties.</p><p>Primary sources</p><p>Davies, Mark. 2008. Corpus del español. [Consulted on line at http://www.corpusdelespanol.org].</p><p>Diario de Mallorca (1955-) [=DM]. Palma de Mallorca: Editorial Balear</p><p>Real Academia Española. Nuevo tesoro lexicográfico de la lengua española [Consulted on line at</p><p>http://www.rae.es].</p><p>Vibot, Tomàs. 2004. 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Tractats de catalanismes. In Miscellània Aramon i Serra: estudis de llengua i lit-</p><p>eratura catalanes oferts a Ramon Aramon i Serra en el seu setantè aniversari, Emilio Alarcos</p><p>Llorach et al. (eds), Vol. 2, 559–582. Barcelona: Curial.</p><p>Thomason, Sarah. 2001. Language Contact. An Introduction. Edinburgh: EUP.</p><p>Vann, Robert E. 1998. Pragmatic transfer from less developed to more developed systems: Spanish</p><p>deictic terms in Barcelona. In Romance Linguistics: Theoretical Perspectives [Current Issues</p><p>in Linguistic Theory 160], Armin Schwegler, Bernard Tranel & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria</p><p>(eds), 307–318. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</p><p>Vanrell, Bruno. 2008. La evolución de la doble negación preverbal en el castellano de la Edad</p><p>Media. Ms, Universitat de les Illes Balears.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity</p><p>in English and French*</p><p>Remus Gergel</p><p>Universität Tübingen</p><p>The present chapter investigates comparative clauses in English and French</p><p>with a special focus on subject–verb inversion. It explores the derivation and</p><p>diachronic evolution of such clauses and makes a case for continuity by defending</p><p>a simple derivation that requires a so-called low subject, that is one that is not</p><p>forced to the edge of the clause. Based on well-known options from the diachrony</p><p>of English and French, I argue that the non-movement syntax proposed is the</p><p>key continuous aspect against the background of several changes given in the</p><p>histories of the two languages.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>The present chapter investigates comparative clauses in English and French with a</p><p>special focus on subject–verb inversion. Initial cases of comparative inversion (CI) are</p><p>illustrated in (1) below.1</p><p>*The present enterprise owes special thanks to John Vanderelst for discussions on French.</p><p>I am very grateful to the organizers of the Cambridge workshop for the opportunity to</p><p>explore comparative clauses in a continuous way, to Chris Lucas also for numerous helpful</p><p>comments concerning both form and content, to Jacqueline Guéron for a very instructive</p><p>discussion on inversion, to Polina Berezovskaya for hints on materials and proofreading, and</p><p>to two reviewers for their exceptionally constructive comments. Only I am responsible for</p><p>any remaining errors.</p><p>1. CI is register-based and optional. This chapter focuses on the continuity of the inverted</p><p>clauses. Potentially interesting aspects in the relationship between inverted and non-inverted</p><p>derivations from the point of view of grammatical theory are thus not within present scope</p><p>(cf. Culicover & Winkler 2008; Gergel 2008; Gergel, Gengel & Winkler 2007; Merchant 2003;</p><p>Winkler 2005, among others, for some suggestions). At the same time, nothing special is</p><p>assumed for non-inverted comparatives here.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>(1) a. [T]he Scots have spent less on their system [than has the prison service of</p><p>England and Wales].</p><p>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3932653.stm)</p><p>b. And they were no more persuaded by democracy [than was the Pharaoh].</p><p>(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11Cohen.html)</p><p>c. Optogenetic stimulation can potentially target problem cells much more</p><p>precisely [than can the electrodes used in DBS].</p><p>(Scientific American 08/2008, p. 59)</p><p>We will argue that the key continuous element in the diachronic trajectory is a low</p><p>subject. Standardly, the initial line-up of the subject is within the VP (and below the</p><p>auxiliary position). But the subject is then usually assumed to move to the edge of the</p><p>clause. A low subject on the derivation proposed here means in particular that the</p><p>subject is not moved to the edge of the clause (technically, the inflectional domain),</p><p>as would be required on standard generative approaches. Two observations worth</p><p>making from the start are: (i) from a diachronic point of view, this type of syntactic</p><p>behavior is well-known independently of comparatives from early Old French/Eng-</p><p>lish (OF/OE) onwards; (cf. Adams 1987; Haeberli 2002; Kroch 2008); (ii) several syn-</p><p>tactic properties which could potentially affect comparatives have changed in both</p><p>languages, though without always impacting on the derivation of CI (we will restrict</p><p>attention to the most direct interferers). We will argue that the now relic possibility of a</p><p>lack of subject not moved to the Spec,TP position is the factor that remained constant</p><p>in comparatives in both languages and which derives the core similarities.</p><p>The chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 gives some details on how the syntax</p><p>of comparatives in English shows various signs of an archaism, which consists in the</p><p>possibility of not filling the Spec,TP position overtly. This seems to go against the grain</p><p>of the requirement that every finite clause have an overt subject in that very position</p><p>(the so-called EPP feature). But we show that such structures have been possible in</p><p>comparatives at all major stages of the language (via null expletives; see Haeberli 2002;</p><p>Hulk & van Kemenade 1995; Williams 2000, among others). Section 3 discusses a</p><p>similar phenomenon in French, for which we present evidence that it has also been</p><p>persistent from early Old to Modern French and for which we develop a similar analy-</p><p>sis. In Section 4, additional aspects relating to (lack of) change in comparatives as well</p><p>as potential interferences with the simplest continuity hypothesis are discussed. We</p><p>thus investigate the potential contact of English with French and other features that</p><p>have been claimed in the literature to have an influence on V2 (e.g. Northern features).</p><p>Section 5 concludes the chapter and formulates certain open questions including the</p><p>(non)interaction with verb movement and the possibility of also having semantic con-</p><p>tinuity in comparatives.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 11</p><p>. Comparative inversion in English</p><p>In this section, we propose that CI is simpler than on the standard generative view and</p><p>that the analysis proposed is historically consistent. It represents an archaic possibility</p><p>of the language. Earlier English could produce apparent V2 (and with subject pronouns</p><p>clearly V3) structures by moving the finite element to T (and not exclusively higher up</p><p>to C); see Fischer et al. (2000); Haeberli (2002); Pintzuk (1991); Speyer (2008), among</p><p>others. It is crucial that the subject is not displaced to the edge of TP in</p><p>such structures.</p><p>(Or if it were, there would be no inversion). We will argue that CI patterns with this</p><p>type of simple inversion and show how its derivation fits the current grammars first</p><p>(Section 2.1), before addressing its diachronic evolution (in Section 2.2).</p><p>.1 English CI involves no movement to C</p><p>At first sight, inversion in clausal comparatives, as in (1) above, seems amenable to a</p><p>raising of the finite element to C. This corresponds to the analysis of matrix questions</p><p>in English or run-of-the mill V2 structures in Germanic. (See Merchant 2003; Gergel,</p><p>Gengel & Winkler 2007, among others.) But there is an alternative and diachronically</p><p>more cogent analysis of CI. To illustrate the difference: on a standard analysis, the sub-</p><p>ject is moved to the edge of the clause (Spec,TP) and the finite element is moved to C;</p><p>(2a). Under the alternative to be defended, however, the subject is in a sub-T position</p><p>(Spec,VP here) and the finite element is in T; (2b).2</p><p>(2) a. Structure for the C-based analysis</p><p>CP</p><p>C</p><p>Finite</p><p>(Comp Op) TP</p><p>C′</p><p>DP</p><p>Subject T VP</p><p>T′</p><p>V′DP</p><p>tsubject …</p><p>wh</p><p>. This proposal in and of itself is independent of how a finite element can (or cannot)</p><p>get to T. Unlike modals, do and have/be (cf. (1)), lexical verbs cannot appear in T in current</p><p>English, as a reviewer notes. Clearly, French and earlier English have the additional possibility</p><p>of V-to-T; see Section 5.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>b. T-based analysis</p><p>CP</p><p>C</p><p>than/as</p><p>(Comp Op) TP</p><p>C′</p><p>-</p><p>T VP</p><p>T′</p><p>V′DP</p><p>Subject …</p><p>wh</p><p>Finite</p><p>Thus, following Culicover & Winkler (2008) and Gergel (2008), we argue that neither</p><p>T nor the subject undergoes movement to C and Spec,TP, respectively.</p><p>An argument for the alternative that does without the two movement steps is that,</p><p>in sequences of auxiliaries, the subject is not forced to follow the first auxiliary, (3); see</p><p>Huddleston & Pullum (2002), Potts (2002), among others. This contrasts with ques-</p><p>tions, which do not allow auxiliaries to invert together around the subject, as shown</p><p>in (4).3</p><p>. The formulation “do not allow” for questions becomes crucial to capture the appropriate</p><p>contrast. Comparatives do allow auxiliary clusters to appear inverted around the subject, as in</p><p>(3). They do not force the sequences across all contexts, however, cf. (i). The interaction of the</p><p>conditions in CI may thus be even more complex than has been thought (e.g. in Culicover &</p><p>Winkler 2008; Gergel 2008; Huddleston & Pullum 2002). An important independent factor is</p><p>that in limited cases under the scope of negation, English allows intercalated subjects in one</p><p>type of CI after all, as in (i).</p><p>(i) a. Abouten it is gras spryngyng,/For moiste so thikke and wel liking/That it ne</p><p>may in wynter dye/No more than may the see be drye.</p><p>(Romaunt of the Rose, Frag.A:1563)</p><p>b. Of what he spoke I could tell you no more than could the children of Hamelin</p><p>have told the tune the Pied Piper played.</p><p>(J. Jerome, Paul Kelver, p. 34. London: Hutchinson)</p><p>Given the well-known inversion-triggering potential of negation in English over various</p><p>environments including different types of degree constructions (cf. Borroff 2006; Green 1976,</p><p>among many others) this is not entirely surprising. What is crucial for immediate purposes</p><p>is that in particular in base examples such as (3) subject intervention is impossible, while in</p><p>interrogatives as in (4) it is obligatory.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>(3) The notes […] are therefore more helpful [than could be the opinions of many</p><p>other critics, including myself].</p><p>(http://www.amazon.com/review/RSKNPKI3HDRUB, 06/2007)</p><p>(4) a. Could that grumpy man be the next prime minister?</p><p>b. *Could be that grumpy man the next minister?</p><p>Another possible argument for the proposal obtains under the assumption that the</p><p>introducer of clausal comparatives than is inserted under C (Hankamer 1973; cf. (2b)).</p><p>C-based V2 is, then, implausible since such movements targeting C do not take place</p><p>in conjunction with overt complementizers (e.g. den Besten 1983). This derives the sim-</p><p>ple analysis of CI. But there is a valid objection, as pointed out by a reviewer.4 Current</p><p>English grammar has the (restricted) capacity to generate certain inversion structures</p><p>under a complementizer such as that with the follow-up possibility of CP-recursion</p><p>(cf. Davison 1979; Green 1976; Iatridou & Kroch 1992, among others). The variety</p><p>of such inversion structures would certainly deserve more space by itself. We discuss</p><p>two types that are often invoked and then their immediate relationship to CI: negative</p><p>preposing and locative inversion. While traditionally called main clause phenomena,</p><p>such structures can surface within embedded contexts. We illustrate this in (5), for</p><p>locative inversion, and (6), for negative inversion (cf. Green 1976: 384, 385).</p><p>(5) I realized that in would come the milkman, with me there, and my hair in curlers.</p><p>(6) I knew that never before had prices been so high.</p><p>. As the reviewer also points out, a further issue is colloquial English “than what” construc-</p><p>tions. An illustration is (i), on a variation of (1a) in Section 1.</p><p>(i) The Scots have spent less on their system than what the prison service of England has.</p><p>Such constructions have been invoked in particular since Chomsky (1977) as an argument</p><p>for wh-movement. However, in a series of more thorough studies the observation has been</p><p>refuted in its quality as an argument for genuine clausal comparatives (cf. especially den</p><p>Besten 1978). What den Besten shows is that such structures are best treated as free relatives.</p><p>That is, as an equivalent to Hankamer’s non-clausal “than XP”. Notice at the same time that if</p><p>Chomsky’s remark hadn’t turned out to need refinement, the impossibility of inversion could</p><p>be explained on the account we argue against. For instance, as follows, capitalizing on the</p><p>reviewer in question’s remarks: assume a featural difference between C in comparatives and</p><p>interrogatives, from which the inviolability of the Doubly-filled Comp filter in comparatives</p><p>follows. Finally, there is one more caveat to the issue (independently of the analysis of CI one</p><p>favors). The impossibility of inversion in “than what” structures does perhaps not have to be</p><p>enforced within narrow syntax (Lasnik & Sobin 2000; Merchant 2003). Instead, the colloquialism</p><p>of such structures and the high-register status of CI place them in disjoint grammars.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>The structures contain a complementizer. Hence the possibility of recursion. (Simply</p><p>put: to accommodate that in one CP, and the preposed constituent in the specifier</p><p>position of the recursively subordinated one). However, a first incongruity obtains</p><p>between locative inversion and than (see Aissen 1975: 8; Hartmann 2005: 95):</p><p>(7) *On the ground lie more apples than on the tree grow.</p><p>The recursion possibilities in comparative contexts with negative preposing can also</p><p>be shown (empirically) to be more restricted than they appear with the standard com-</p><p>plementizer that. Thus, even though negative preposing can surface under that, as we</p><p>saw in (6), it is ungrammatical under the comparative complementizer than in (8).5</p><p>(8) *Prices got higher than never before had wages been.</p><p>Finally, from a general point of view, the literature on CP-recursion contains a fair</p><p>amount of diverging suggestions as to the exact restrictions responsible for its licensing.</p><p>However, one common feature is that the complementizers in question are explicitly</p><p>selected by verbs (cf. Iatridou & Kroch 1992). This criterion is not fulfilled in the case</p><p>of than either (selected by -er/more). We hence preliminarily conclude that recursion</p><p>is unavailable in comparatives. Next, we turn to the diachronic aspects of CI.</p><p>. Diachronic continuity in the syntax of CI</p><p>In order to show that CI was T-based at earlier stages, we can draw on independent</p><p>facts about the syntax of OE. First, OE had the canonical V2 order</p><p>negative clause (hence the preceding clause</p><p>must be negative); finally, nor itself becomes iNeg and cannot co-occur with other nega-</p><p>tive elements (loss of negative concord).</p><p>Masataka Ishikawa’s chapter, A feature-driven analysis of syntactic change: A case</p><p>study in the history of articles in Spanish, offers a minimalist analysis of the rise of the</p><p>definite article from Old to Modern Spanish, arguing for a two-stage development of</p><p>the structure and phasehood of the Spanish DP through a combination of grammar-</p><p>internal and grammar-external factors. The first stage consists of the creation of a</p><p>‘double d-shell’ structure, which, while computationally more complex, is motivated by</p><p>the (diachronic) pressure for a one-to-one assignment of formal features to functional</p><p>heads. By contrast, in the second stage, in which the inner dP acquires phasehood,</p><p>Ishikawa suggests ease of processing in acquisition as a possible motivation.</p><p>Elliott Lash, looking at The rise of OV word order in Irish verbal-noun clauses,</p><p>proposes a diachronic account of the emergence of the exceptional object–verb (OV)</p><p>Introduction 7</p><p>word order found in Irish nonfinite clauses, an otherwise regularly VSO language.</p><p>He posits a series of reanalyses involving the preposition do ‘to, for’ plus a nonfinite</p><p>verb, with noun phrases originally in a main clause being reanalysed as subjects or</p><p>objects of an embedded clause. He associates the final emergence of OV clauses with</p><p>a change in information stucture: the preverbal noun phrase in the order O do V was</p><p>once fronted for reasons of focus, but that motivation was lost with reanalysis and the</p><p>fronting became purely syntactic, as it is today. The preposition do in these structures</p><p>became first a focus-marking particle, and then a nonfinite marker, with various dia-</p><p>lectal variations.</p><p>In his chapter The great siSwati locative shift, Lutz Marten presents a historical-</p><p>comparative analysis of the locative morphosyntax of the southern Bantu language</p><p>siSwati. He argues that the Proto-Bantu locative noun class prefix ku- has degrammati-</p><p>calized to become a preposition in siSwati. This position is supported with a range of</p><p>syntactic evidence, such as the fact that noun-class agreement with a ku-marked noun</p><p>is with the class of the noun itself, and demonstratives can intervene between ku- and a</p><p>noun, both of which are unexpected if ku- is a noun class marker rather than a preposi-</p><p>tion. Thus we have a rather robust case of degrammaticalization, and the fact that this</p><p>change is shown to be natural within the context of an overall reanalysis of the siSwati</p><p>locative system arguably reinforces its status as a counterexample to the claimed unidi-</p><p>rectionality of grammaticalization.</p><p>In The impact of failed changes, Gertjan Postma establishes a mathematical relation</p><p>between successful and failing linguistic changes. Based on two case studies, he argues</p><p>that the latter can be understood as extra-grammatical variants introduced by L2 learn-</p><p>ers of a language which are not retained in subsequent generations, but which trigger</p><p>successful changes that are. He argues that, under the logistic model commonly used to</p><p>model successful changes which describe an S-curve, such unsuccessful changes can be</p><p>shown to be mathematically correlated, as they can be modelled as the first derivative of</p><p>the logistic function.</p><p>Henrik Rosenkvist considers A case of degrammaticalization in northern Swed-</p><p>ish dialects. These dialects have a modal verb bö ‘need, must, ought to’ which Rosen-</p><p>kvist argues has developed from the prefix of the verb behöva ‘need’. It is linked to</p><p>the fact that these dialects also allow the prefix be- (bö- in these dialects) of the verb</p><p>behöva ‘need’ to detach itself from the verbal root to give discontinuous word orders</p><p>be X höva. He regards this as a case of the reanalysis of a prefix as an auxiliary which</p><p>involves several changes in status (prefix > full word and prefix > auxiliary) that run</p><p>counter to the developments expected in grammaticalization. As such it would fit into</p><p>an existing known category of degrammaticalizations of affixes as independent words</p><p>(cf. Irish agreement suffix -muid > pronoun ‘we’, Doyle 2002).</p><p>Renata Szczepaniak looks at Jespersen’s Cycle in German from the phonologi-</p><p>cal perspective of syllable and word languages. She argues that the replacement of the</p><p>8 Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>old preverbal negator ne/en by a new postverbal one (niht) during the Middle High</p><p>German period was triggered, or at least encouraged, by the simultaneous prosodic</p><p>restructuring of the language from a syllable language to a word language, resulting in</p><p>the loss of unstressed pretonic syllables such as the old preverbal negator ne/en.</p><p>In An article on the rise: Contact-induced change and the rise and fall of N-to-D</p><p>movement, Mila Vulchanova and Valentin Vulchanov examine the evolution of the</p><p>postposed definite article in Bulgarian, a well-known feature of the Balkan linguis-</p><p>tic area. They argue that, at one time, definiteness was marked either by head move-</p><p>ment of N to D or by insertion of a determiner clitic in D. Historically, the determiner</p><p>changed from a phrase (a specifier of DP) to a head merged directly in D, a shift in</p><p>the expression of a functional category from Move > Merge in the sense of Roberts &</p><p>Roussou (2003). They suggest that, while the article evolves syntactically using pre-</p><p>existing material, the development is assisted by contact with Greek, which had a long-</p><p>established article.</p><p>4. Conclusion</p><p>One of the central tasks of historical linguistics has generally been seen as solving the</p><p>actuation problem: ‘Why do changes in a structural feature take place in a particular</p><p>language at a given time, but not in other languages with the same feature, or in the</p><p>same language at other times?’ (Weinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968: 102). We hope that</p><p>the individual contributions to this volume will help to elucidate both parts of this</p><p>problem. They address the first part by investigating various aspects of why grammars</p><p>change: such familiar issues as what processes need to be identified as the drivers of</p><p>change, the role of children in change, and the role of syntax-external factors in trig-</p><p>gering syntactic change (both phonological or lexical, and in the form of language con-</p><p>tact). We also hope that they offer in part some new perspectives on the second, often</p><p>neglected aspect of the actuation problem: why changes do not occur in other parallel</p><p>languages. Progress here necessarily focuses more on the constraints on change, on</p><p>factors which limit change, and on the role of contact in supporting conservative lin-</p><p>guistic features.</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>Our thanks go the various reviewers of the volume chapters, as well as to the series</p><p>editor Werner Abraham and to Kees Vaes at Benjamins. We are indebted to various</p><p>people and organizations for help with the Conference on Continuity and Change</p><p>Introduction 9</p><p>in Grammar: the scientific committee, Ian Roberts, Wim van der Wurff and Hedde</p><p>Zeijlstra; the various other people who helped with the day-to-day organization of the</p><p>conference: Deborah Anderson, Alastair Appleton, Yi-An Lin and George Walkden;</p><p>to Andrew Winnard at Cambridge University Press, and to the Faculty of English</p><p>and Selwyn College for providing a venue. The conference formed an integral part of</p><p>the research project The Development of Negation in the Languages of Europe, which</p><p>was possible due to the generosity of the Arts and Humanities Research Council</p><p>(Research grant award no. AR119272), who provided funding to bring the invited</p><p>speakers to Cambridge.</p><p>References</p><p>Andersen, Henning. 1973. Abductive and deductive change. Language 49: 765–93.</p><p>Bailey, Charles-James. 1973. Variation and Linguistic Theory. Washington DC: Center for Applied</p><p>Linguistics.</p><p>Biberauer, Theresa, Holmberg, Anders & Roberts, Ian. 2007. Disharmonic word-order systems</p><p>and the Final-over-Final-Constraint</p><p>of Germanic (pro-</p><p>duced through movement to C, e.g. in matrix questions). Second, however, it had a</p><p>mechanism that only displaced the finite verb to T (e.g. with topicalization; cf. Fischer</p><p>et al. 2000; Kroch, Taylor & Ringe 2000; Pintzuk 1991).6 Importantly, the latter strategy</p><p>would produce V3 orders, namely with subject pronouns between topicalized phrases</p><p>. It is possible to rule out such structures by using the semantics of comparison (von Stechow</p><p>1984). Playing devil’s advocate it could be counter-argued that recursion is still possible, then,</p><p>but that it is ruled out for independent reasons. But a grammar in which such limited options</p><p>of recursion are additionally restricted by important factors including semantic ones only has</p><p>vanishingly small possibilities of keeping the hypothetical option as viable in comparatives.</p><p>Chris Lucas (p.c.) notes that a non-inverted version of (8) is less ungrammatical, but it is</p><p>extremely hard to parse or to assign meaning to. This observation is important since it is con-</p><p>sistent both with the semantic background and the simple present argument. Modern nega-</p><p>tive inversion gains ground in the seventeenth century (Nevalainen 2006) and it is unlikely a</p><p>factor of historical continuity.</p><p>. Both the VP and the TP in OE could be head-final (as well as head-initial; cf. Pintzuk</p><p>1991). We discuss the significance of TP headedness in some detail from the perspective of</p><p>CI in Section 4 below.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>and verbs. The asymmetry is sketched in (9) vs. (10) with a wh-question and topicaliza-</p><p>tion, respectively (cf. Fischer et al. 2000; Kroch et al. 2000; the OE material in (9) and</p><p>(10) is taken here from Fischer et al. 2000: 118).</p><p>(9) For hwam noldest þu ðe sylfe me gecyðan þæt…</p><p>for what not.wanted you you self me make.known that</p><p>‘Wherefore would you not want to make known to me yourself that…’</p><p>(10) Forðon we sceolan mid eally mod & mægene to Gode gecyrran</p><p>therefore we must with all mind and power to God turn</p><p>‘Therefore we must turn to God with all our mind and power.’</p><p>The test gives the possibility of a clear prediction for OE, which could use both mecha-</p><p>nisms in general, depending on the context (e.g. questions vs. topicalization as above).</p><p>The main diagnostic to test the two types of apparent V2 effects are pronouns, which</p><p>are taken to reside in the specifier of the highest functional head in the Infl-domain,</p><p>here for concreteness: Spec,TP. If the finite verb surfaces to the left of pronouns, then</p><p>it will be under C. (In which case the canonical type of Germanic V2 analysis would</p><p>be confirmed). If the finite element is invariably on the right of the subject pronoun in</p><p>OE, it must be under T. Applying the test to comparatives in OE shows that they show</p><p>no inversion with pronouns, but appear only as shown in (11).</p><p>(11) for.ðan.þe se Fæder is mare [þonne ic sy].</p><p>because the father is greater than I am</p><p>‘For the Father is greater than I.’ (YCOE, coaelhom, ÆHom 10:19.1417)</p><p>This means that the finite verb in OE comparatives does not go beyond the TP (or the</p><p>Infl-domain, more generally).7</p><p>Another diachronically rooted argument is that if a representation that does not</p><p>require an overt subject in Spec, TP is on the right track, then we expect null expletives</p><p>in comparative clauses. An (EModE) example of this sort is given in (12).</p><p>(12) [H]e left soch a companie of fellowes and scholers in S. Iohnes Colledge,</p><p>[as _ can scarse be found now in some whole vniuersitie].</p><p>(PPCEME-ASCH-E1-H,55R.164)</p><p>There are some contexts in current English that naturally have null (and, as Chris</p><p>Lucas, p.c., points out, in standard British English only null) subjects in comparatives;</p><p>see the passives in (13a,b) and the impersonal in (13c).</p><p>. A point of change is that the diagnostic does not have the same force in Middle English</p><p>(ME), where pronoun subjects start inverting (even though even here examples in compara-</p><p>tives are rare; cf. also the ModE situation, where contrast is needed for the speakers who</p><p>accept CI with pronouns.)</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>(13) a. [T]he tropics play a more active role [than _ was thought] in controlling the</p><p>Earth’s climate.</p><p>(www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051012084249.htm)</p><p>b. Davis Cup exit poses more questions [than _ could be answered in a year].</p><p>(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article4800983.ece)</p><p>c. [P]ast experiences need to be reviewed in a rather more circumspect manner</p><p>[than _ has been the tendency to date].</p><p>(www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=11194)</p><p>The motivation for this move lies in the historical links between null expletives and</p><p>V2. For correlations between the loss of the English type of V2 and null expletives,</p><p>we draw on Haeberli (2002) and transfer the basic logic to comparative clauses. (See</p><p>also van Kemenade 1997 and especially Hulk & van Kemenade 1995: 246 with partly</p><p>equivalent implementations, formulated in terms of expletive pro-drop.) We can thus</p><p>suggest the following. The overt subject in CI can stay low because, structurally speak-</p><p>ing, the higher subject position does not need to be overtly filled (or equivalently: it is</p><p>filled by a null-expletive; this technicality avoids conflicts with the EPP, i.e. the prin-</p><p>ciple that the clause must have a subject in Spec,TP)</p><p>A further argument can be culled from the continuous presence of CI in the records.</p><p>While CI has never seemed to be a high-frequency phenomenon, it has been attested</p><p>throughout the history of English; (14) comes from the early OE text of Beowulf.</p><p>(14) Næfre ic maran geseah eorla ofer eorþan ðonne is eower sum…</p><p>never I greater seen of warriors on earth than is of.you one</p><p>‘I have never seen a greater warrior on earth than is one of you.’</p><p>(Beowulf, III.247)</p><p>To summarize, we have so far argued that CI involves a non-standard derivation with</p><p>low subjects and that the phenomenon has been historically persistent in the history of</p><p>English. In the next section, we will explore a similar phenomenon in French in which</p><p>comparatives are the locus of conservativism. We will thus extend both the observa-</p><p>tion about continuity and the analysis proposed.</p><p>. On the syntax of comparative inversion in French</p><p>In this section we first clarify that French has inversion in comparatives too. We subse-</p><p>quently argue that French CI also involves low subjects and show that the phenomenon</p><p>is also historically persistent from some of the earliest records onwards.</p><p>.1 CI in Modern French</p><p>Modern French allows subject–auxiliary inversion in comparative clauses:</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>(15) a. Pierre est plus grand que n’ était son père.</p><p>Pierre is more tall than en-was his father</p><p>‘Pierre is taller than his father was.’</p><p>b. [L]es délibérations […] sont ouvertes au public dans un degré</p><p>the deliberations are open to.the public to a degree</p><p>plus large que ne le sont les activités d’autres institutions…</p><p>more large than en it are the activities of-other institutions.</p><p>‘The deliberations are more open to the public than the activities</p><p>of other institutions.’</p><p>(http://www.infocom.gc.ca/reports/section_display-f.asp?intSectionId=301)</p><p>The French examples additionally feature an expletive negative (EN) element, the</p><p>larger consensus on which is that it does not have negative meaning (cf. Price 1990;</p><p>von Stechow 1984). EN is not a characteristic of inversion but of comparatives; more</p><p>specifically, of clausal comparatives (of inequality). Non-inverted clauses display it too</p><p>and equatives need not contain the EN, whether inverted or not; see (16) and (17).8</p><p>(16) [L]a télévision est plus différente du cinéma</p><p>the television is more different from.the cinema</p><p>que le cinéma ne l’est de la photographie.</p><p>than the cinema en it.is from the photography</p><p>‘The difference between television and cinema is greater than the difference</p><p>between cinema and photography.’</p><p>(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001437/143768fb.pdf)</p><p>(17) a. Marie est aussi grande que l’ était sa mère.</p><p>M. is as tall as it-was her mother</p><p>‘Marie is as tall as her mother (is).’</p><p>b. … que sa mère l’ était.</p><p>c. … que sa mère ne l’ était.</p><p>d. … que ne l’ était sa mère.</p><p>By testing sequences of verbal heads in French, we can observe that the subject also</p><p>follows the entire sequence rather than just the structurally highest finite member</p><p>. The negative expletive intruding into the equative is a later development of modern</p><p>French. OF had the negative morpheme in comparatives of inequality but not in equatives</p><p>(cf. also Section 5 below).</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>of the sequence. Crucially, then, this option is possible (and virtually obligatory) in</p><p>inverted comparatives in French; see (18).9</p><p>(18) a. Elle est plus jolie [que n’a été sa mère].</p><p>she is more beautiful than en-has been her mother</p><p>‘She’s more beautiful than her mother was.’ (FM, p. 191)</p><p>b. Ceux-ci ne seront pas touchés par la nouvelle carte militaire,</p><p>those not will.be not touched by the new law military</p><p>pas plus que ne devrait l’être la base aéronavale de L.-B.].</p><p>not more than en should it-be the base aero-naval of L.-B.</p><p>‘They will not be more affected by the new military law, not more than the</p><p>aero-naval base Lann-Bihoué should be.’</p><p>(www.ouest-france.fr/actu/actu_BN_-Carte-militaire-le-couperet-tombe-</p><p>aujourd-hui_8619-674581_actu.htm)</p><p>c. [U]ne langue qui change plus vite que ne sont rédigés les</p><p>a language that changes more fast than en are redirected the</p><p>articles du future dictionnaire.</p><p>articles of.the future dictionary</p><p>‘A language that changes faster than the articles of the future dictionary are</p><p>updated.’</p><p>(www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wulfric/siehlda/actesmen/ilt1_2.htm)</p><p>d. [U]ne famille est pauvre si l’ essentiel, comme la nourriture,</p><p>a family is poor if the-essential like the nourishment</p><p>le logement et l’habillement, absorbe un pourcentage</p><p>the lodging and the-clothing absorbs a percentage</p><p>plus élevé de son revenu</p><p>more high of its income</p><p>. The participial and the perfect auxiliary appear separated on the surface in the single</p><p>(verse-based) example I was able to find in (i). John Vanderlest (p.c.) points out that any</p><p>examples of this sort (i.e. separated) are marked at the very least in current French and I have</p><p>no quantitative figures for early French. Thus while such examples merit further investigation,</p><p>notice, again, that it is the existence of the clusters that argues against a standard raising to C.</p><p>(Conversely, it is technically possible to have the subject still lower than the specifier of the</p><p>highest inflectional projection in such examples.)</p><p>(i) Et plus vermeille que n’est rose arousee.</p><p>and more red than en.is rose made.rosy</p><p>‘And (she was) redder than a rose.’</p><p>(CLM corpus: Adenet le Roi, 8153, Enfances Ogier – Œuvres d’Adenet le Roi, (1269–1285))</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>[que ne devrait dépenser la famille canadienne moyenne].</p><p>than en should spend the family Canadian average</p><p>‘A family is poor if the essentials such as food, lodging and clothing</p><p>absorb a higher percentage of its income than the average Canadian family</p><p>should spend.’</p><p>(www.unicef.org/french/sowc06/pdfs/repcard6f.pdf)</p><p>The existence of CI is then reminiscent to some degree of the situation in English. But</p><p>the question arises whether more appropriate tests for the syntax of French can be</p><p>applied. Let me therefore next introduce some background to the additional intrica-</p><p>cies of subject–verb inversion in French. I capitalize here on ideas pertaining to inver-</p><p>sion that have been suggested in Lahousse (2006) and Rowlett (2007), independently</p><p>of comparatives, who consider a range of inversion possibilities in the language and</p><p>classify them syntactically. We will test French CI on the basis of such tests and argue</p><p>that it offers evidence that the subject is in a structurally low position. More specifi-</p><p>cally, French CI parallels to a large extent one particular type of stylistic inversion</p><p>of French.10</p><p>A first distinction needs to be drawn between the so-called ‘pronominal’ inversion</p><p>of the standard variety, as well as the related ‘complex’ inversion, which are illustrated</p><p>in the two examples in (19), on the one hand, and so-called ‘stylistic’ inversion on the</p><p>other (stylistic inversion will be further subdivided momentarily).</p><p>(19) a. Quand est-elle partie? b. Quand Claire est-elle partie?</p><p>when is-she left When Claire is-she left</p><p>‘When did she leave?’ ‘When did Claire leave?’</p><p>By definition, pronominal inversion, such as the type witnessed in (19a), involves a</p><p>pronoun subject, as does in fact the type of complex inversion seen in (19b) in addi-</p><p>tion to the full-DP subject it displays. Stylistic inversion, which will be of interest for</p><p>current purposes, does not share the restriction to subject pronoun clitics of complex</p><p>inversions in general (whether with or without accompanying full DPs) and shows</p><p>distinct properties throughout.11 Since both types in (19) are clearly distinct from (the</p><p>1. The terms Rowlett uses are ‘genuine SI’ for the low-subject inversion and ‘focus SI’ for the</p><p>remnant-movement inversion, where focus is taken as wide-focus. I avoid these terms, as CI,</p><p>though syntactically more on a par with genuine SI may not be independent of information-</p><p>structure (cf., e.g. Culicover & Winkler 2008; Gergel et al. 2007; Winkler 2005).</p><p>11. The CI of French is unacceptable with pronouns in current French and I could not</p><p>find appropriate examples from earlier stages. The restriction cannot be blamed entirely on</p><p>the clitic status of the subject pronouns as the tonic versions of the pronoun paradigm are</p><p>degraded too.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>various types of) inversion that include CI, we next focus on stylistic inversion. (See</p><p>e.g. Kayne & Pollock 2008, Rizzi & Roberts 1989; Rowlett 2007 for discussions of</p><p>complex inversion.) More specifically, we will next inspect a two-fold subdivision</p><p>within the syntactic mechanisms in the class of stylistic inversion.</p><p>According to Rowlett (2007: 217–223) (cf. also especially Lahousse 2006), there</p><p>are two major types of stylistic inversion in French. The terms used in my two main</p><p>sources are not fully identical (much less in the rest of the literature), but importantly</p><p>the mechanisms are, and they can be summarized as follows. Crucially, one type of</p><p>inversion is, simply put, a low-subject type of inversion. (The other type of inversion</p><p>finds a remnant-movement-type implementation in Rowlett’s analysis. Since CI will</p><p>turn out to be closely related to the first type, I leave the more technical details in the</p><p>implementation of the type based on remnant evacuation aside.)</p><p>A first characteristic of the low-subject inversion observed is that adverbs can be</p><p>found intercalated between the finite verb and the subject:</p><p>(20) Ici se cachent souvent des lapins.</p><p>here self hide often some rabbits</p><p>‘Rabbits often hide here.’</p><p>Second, verbal dependants can follow a low subject (cf. (21)). But, third, the subject</p><p>must be final, if the mechanism that brings about inversion is remnant movement (the</p><p>latter case is illustrated with a stage topic in (22) below; cf. Rowlett 2007).</p><p>(21) Quand passeront Jean et Pierre sous la fenêtre?</p><p>when will.walk J. and P. under the window</p><p>‘When will Jean and Pierre walk under the window?’</p><p>(22) a. Seuls passeront sous la fenêtre Jean et Pierre.</p><p>alone will.walk under the window J. and P.</p><p>‘Jean and Pierre alone will walk under the window.’</p><p>b. *Seuls passeront Jean et Pierre sous la fenêtre.</p><p>Fourth, quantifier float is impossible in stylistic inversion, as the contrast below (follow-</p><p>ing Rowlett) between low-subject and remnant-movement inversion shows:</p><p>(23) *Quand ont tous fini les enfants?</p><p>when have all finished the children</p><p>‘When did all the children finish?’</p><p>(24) Ont tous</p><p>réussi ceux qui ont assez travaillé.</p><p>have all succeeded those who have enough worked</p><p>‘Those who did enough work were all successful.’</p><p>The reason invoked by Lahousse (2006) for effects such as (23–24) is that the floating</p><p>quantifier needs to be in a binding relationship with the trace of a raised subject. (This</p><p>argument in turn is based on Doetjes’ 1992 analysis of quantifier float.)</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 11</p><p>The immediate question is whether, within the class of stylistic inversions, CI pat-</p><p>terns with low-subject inversion or with remnant-movement inversion in the grammar</p><p>of French. We will argue that the former analysis is more appropriate for CI.</p><p>First, we find that adverbs such as souvent, ‘often’, can be intercalated between the</p><p>finite verb and the subject, as in (25).</p><p>(25) La vraie vie est plus théâtrale [que ne l’est souvent le théâtre].</p><p>the true life is more theatrical than en it-is often the theatre</p><p>‘Real life is more theatrical than theatre often is.’</p><p>The standard logic of the argument is as follows: since the adverb delimits the edge of</p><p>the VP (assume simply via adjunction), the subject can be observed to be within the</p><p>VP. This offers, then, some indication for the low subject position.12</p><p>Second, various dependants can be found in linearly post-subject positions on the</p><p>surface of CI structures. This confirms in particular the second test discussed above for</p><p>stylistic inversion more generally. (In simplified terms: a remnant movement analysis,</p><p>as opposed to the low-subject inversion, would require subjects to be final.)</p><p>(26) a. Je me défonce plus pour mon chef que ne le fait Martine</p><p>I self hit more for my boss than en it does Martine</p><p>pour le sien. (John Vanderelst, p.c.)</p><p>for the hers</p><p>‘I get more involved for my boss than does Martine for hers.’</p><p>b. [O]n fait plus que ne légitime la déduction jusqu’ici.</p><p>one does more than en justifies the deduction up.to.here</p><p>‘One does more than deduction justifies up to here.’</p><p>(D. Lories in Kant’s Ästhetik/L’ esthétique de Kant,</p><p>Berlin: de Gruyter 1997, p. 575)</p><p>1. The adverb test is one standard heuristic (Pollock 1989). Rowlett goes further for the</p><p>inversion types he analyses and assumes that the EPP feature of T is never satisfied. We may</p><p>disagree with this for CI. CI derivations have non-inverted counterparts. A second note is also</p><p>in order regarding adverbs. Other adverbs are also quite possible, as illustrated in (i) below.</p><p>But, at least on certain syntactic accounts in the wake of Cinque (1999), they may be situated</p><p>higher up and thus do not necessarily delimit the low boundary. Such adverbs would, then, be</p><p>less clear as evidence for low subjects. Finally, their precise syntax is at the same time anything</p><p>but clear (the invoked high position may, e.g. be a matter of LF).</p><p>(i) [L]e même Jacques Peyrat avait fait 2% de plus</p><p>the same Jacques Peyrat had made 2% of more</p><p>[que ne fait aujourd’hui Christian Estrosi].</p><p>than en makes today Christian Estrosi</p><p>‘The same Jacques Peyrat has made 2% more than C.E. makes today.’</p><p>(http://boymottard.wordpress.com/page/19/)</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>Third, quantifier float of the type discussed becomes entirely incomprehensible in CI</p><p>(as expected if CI patterns with low-subject inversion):</p><p>(27) *Pierre a fait ses devoirs plus vite [que tous ont fini</p><p>Pierre has done his homeworks more fast than all have finished</p><p>les enfants].</p><p>the children</p><p>Intended: ‘P. did his homework faster than all the children have finished theirs.’</p><p>Fourth, we can note that subject-less impersonals are in some cases (we assume</p><p>restrictedly) possible (i.e., e.g., without the pronoun il):</p><p>(28) un système qui a progressé vers un état d’ équilibre</p><p>a system that has progressed toward a state of.balance</p><p>durant une période de temps beaucoup plus longue</p><p>during a period of time much more long</p><p>que ne serait possible en système synthétique.</p><p>than en would.be possible in system synthetic</p><p>‘a system that equilibrated for a much longer period of time than would be</p><p>possible in synthetic systems.’</p><p>(http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/mineral/tcm-88939-3.html)</p><p>(29) Il sera plus difficile d’ accroître ce pourcentage</p><p>it will.be more difficult to.increase this percentage</p><p>que n’ est le cas pour Genève…</p><p>than en.is the case for Geneva</p><p>‘It will be more difficult to increase this percentage than is the case for Geneva.’</p><p>(http://www.litra.ch/Trains_trams_et_bus_offrent-ils_une_capacite_suffisante.html)</p><p>Overall then, these tests show that CI patterns with what Rowlett calls genuine stylistic</p><p>inversion, that is, the type specifically based on low subjects. In the next section, we</p><p>will focus on the main characteristics of CI in earlier French.</p><p>. CI in earlier French</p><p>From a diachronic vantage point, we can make two crucial supporting observations</p><p>for the current analysis of CI right away. First, earlier stages of French had the possibil-</p><p>ity of a subject appearing in a low position (see especially Vance 1997 and Kroch 2008</p><p>for recent discussions and the references cited there). Second, we can empirically add</p><p>that OF French had CI as well. This is shown in (30), with a more comparative, and in</p><p>(31) with a comparative introduced by the adverb isnels, ‘nimbly, agilely’.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>(30) Plus curt a piet que ne fait un cheval.</p><p>more runs by foot than en does a horse</p><p>‘He runs more than a horse does.’ (CdR, 71.890)</p><p>(31) Plus est isnels que nen est uns falcuns.</p><p>more is agile than en is a falcon</p><p>‘He is more agile than a falcon is.’ (CdR, 118, 1572)</p><p>Third, examples from Middle and Classical French support the idea of a continuous</p><p>phenomenon; compare the inversions in the comparatives in (32) and (33), respectively.</p><p>(32) … plus rouge que n’est feu gregois.</p><p>more red than en-is fire Greek</p><p>‘…redder than is Greek fire.’ (CLM corpus; Mystère de la Passion (ca. 1450))</p><p>(33) J’ay plus failly que ne peut un mortel.</p><p>I-have more erred than en can a mortal</p><p>‘I erred more than a mortal can.’</p><p>(Frantext: Q757/VIAU Th. de/OEuvres poétiques: 1/1621, p. 113)</p><p>A fourth supporting argument is that subjectless impersonals are a time-honoured</p><p>presence in the language, including some comparatives, as the OF (34) illustrates.</p><p>(34) Il le dublat plus que ne solt.</p><p>he it doubled more than en uses</p><p>‘He doubled it more than is usual.’ (BR, 1. 765)</p><p>Fifth, verb sequences containing more than just the finite verb can occasionally be</p><p>observed in the records of earlier French as well. We note that they can display the</p><p>same basic surface word order as do the modern examples. I assume that the subject is</p><p>in the specifier position of the lowest (and theta-assigning) predicate phrase.</p><p>(35) Guillaumes fu joianz et liez,[…]</p><p>Guillaumes was happy and content</p><p>Plus que ne puet dire nus hom.</p><p>more than en can tell us man</p><p>‘Guillaumes was happier and more content than anyone could tell.’</p><p>(CLM corpus; De Guillaume au faucon)</p><p>Finally, the test based on verbal dependents after the subject (cf. 3.1 above) can also be</p><p>applied to some extent to the diachronic record, see (36). The result of the test suggests</p><p>once more continuity, namely in the availability of the low-subject position.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>(36) Li palefrois sor quoi ele est montee</p><p>the palfrey on which she is climbed</p><p>Estoit plus blans que n’ est nois sor gelee;</p><p>is more white than en-is snow on ice</p><p>‘The palfrey on which she climbed is whiter than snow on ice.’</p><p>(CLM corpus; 8145, Enfances Ogier – Œuvres d’Adenet le Roi)</p><p>Overall there are reasonable grounds for a low-subject derivation of CI. While I have no</p><p>quantitative results on the developments in French, it is possible that with the advent</p><p>of annotated corpora such as the upcoming Les voies du français (see Kroch 2008 for</p><p>discussion), more will be learnt about the trajectory of the construction including</p><p>numerical developments</p><p>and what they may reveal about grammar.</p><p>. Continuity in the syntax of CI</p><p>We have so far illustrated the continuous presence of CI in the historical record. This</p><p>section is concerned with a selection of facts which potentially complicate the picture.</p><p>We concentrate on English, due to the data situation at present (in particular the wider</p><p>availability of parsed historical corpora), but also raise certain questions in connection</p><p>with French.</p><p>On the basis of the Penn-Helsinki-York corpora of historical English, estimates as</p><p>in (37) can be given for the ratio of inverted tokens within structures that qualified as</p><p>clausal comparatives from the corpus annotation (cf. Gergel 2008).</p><p>(37) OE: 223/5114 = 4.36%; ME: 135/1639 = 8.23%; EModE: 31/2497 = 1.24%</p><p>The estimates almost double in ME (compared to OE) and then drop dramatically</p><p>towards EModE. The fall in EModE is straightforwardly explained by the erosion of</p><p>the low subject position (which remains an archaic possibility in comparatives, as we</p><p>have seen). However, the surge in ME needs an explanation. There is more than one</p><p>potential source why the incidence of CI might have increased in ME regarding poten-</p><p>tial intervening factors. The main possibilities to be discussed are listed in (38).</p><p>(38) a. contact with Northern syntactic features in ME</p><p>b. the influence of French</p><p>c. independent factors relating to change/continuity in the diachrony of CI</p><p>We first investigate whether the incidence of CI in the records was influenced by</p><p>factors that have been claimed to have a major influence on the loss of V2 in English.</p><p>One such factor is given by Northern features possibly stemming from contact with</p><p>Germanic languages that had a more regular C-based V2 than OE (see Fischer</p><p>et al. 2000; van Kemenade 1997; Kroch et al. 2000; Roberts 2007, among others for</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>discussions). But importantly, for our immediate purposes there are several points</p><p>on which the development of CI does not go together with that of the progress of</p><p>such Northern dialectal features and, as we will argue, cannot be explained on the</p><p>basis of this type of contact. To begin, subject pronouns do start to invert during ME</p><p>in contexts in which they did not invert in OE. But this increase cannot be plausibly</p><p>explained by a putative increase in inverting pronouns; that is, neither in terms of its</p><p>timing nor the quantity of change. For one, other major changes in the patterns of</p><p>inversion between finite verb and subject become visible in the estimates from the</p><p>period M2 onwards. But the current increase is from M1, the first Helsinki subdivision</p><p>of ME. In addition, even if we abstract away from timing, the number of actual inverting</p><p>pronouns in ME still remains particularly limited and cannot explain the surge in the</p><p>CI estimates.</p><p>Furthermore, we have another related negative result from an independent diag-</p><p>nostic, namely from a consideration of the incidence of CI in texts of Northern prove-</p><p>nience in the PPCME2 corpus in particular. Out of the 6 Northern texts in the corpus</p><p>just one contains CI. The thoroughly Northern-based Rule of St. Benet, for example,</p><p>does not contain inversions in comparatives. The Northern version of the Mirror of St.</p><p>Edmund is the sole text from this sample to contain (two) tokens of CI. The Northern-</p><p>based ratio of texts thus stands in a stark contrast with the overall ratio of texts con-</p><p>taining CI constructions in ME in general and in particular with the texts that are not</p><p>classified as being from the North. For example, the average within the remaining 50</p><p>texts in the PPCME2 is as follows: 35 texts have CI, that is, as much as 70% (compared</p><p>to the 16.6% above). Moreover, the overall total rate of CI per relevant tokens in the</p><p>Northern texts is, at 1.35%, far below the overall average of 8.23 % for ME. The situa-</p><p>tion, then, does not yield support for a rise of CI due to Northern features. (If anything,</p><p>a slowing down factor might be given). Clearly, this does not mean that interesting</p><p>comparisons cannot be drawn between features of, say, Old Norse (which arguably</p><p>influenced the Northern V2) and of ME including comparatives13 (or much less that</p><p>more intricate scenarios than the ones presented are not possible). It only means that</p><p>1. The Example (i) from the Laxdœla Saga illustrates a structure resembling CI with a dual</p><p>pronoun in Old Norse (from Faarlund 2004: 267; (54c)):</p><p>(i) allt er mér sl’kt it sama nú í hug,</p><p>all.neu.n is me.d such.neu.n the same.def.neu.n now in mind.d</p><p>sem þá rœddum vit</p><p>as then talked.1p we.du</p><p>‘My thoughts are still the same regarding everything as we talked about then.’</p><p>[(Laxd 203.21)]</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>the Northern features cannot be blamed directly for the increase in CI that we witness</p><p>in ME. We next turn to the influence of French.</p><p>Parallels between the syntactic histories of English and French can be, and cer-</p><p>tainly have been, drawn (Adams 1987; Hulk & van Kemenade 1995; Kroch 2008;</p><p>Roberts 1993, among others). An additional possibility arises, however, when we con-</p><p>sider the potential of an indirect grammatical influence on the grammar reflected in</p><p>the ME texts. Considering such texts in respect to CI, there is an observable contrast to</p><p>the influence of Northern texts that we addressed above. The influence of French can-</p><p>not be refuted the way that of Scandinavian has been. First, we have already said that</p><p>this language had a productive process of CI at all times. Second, and perhaps more</p><p>importantly, the corpus texts that are translations from French show the construction</p><p>as well. We next focus on the texts of the PPCME2 that are translations from French</p><p>to check their incidence of CI. The summary in (39) below indicates the ratios of CI</p><p>per relevant clausal comparative tokens for the six texts that were French translations</p><p>(using the standard corpus tags for the texts):</p><p>(39) Aelr4 2/19; Ayenbi 10/85; Meli 2/64; Pars 6/67; Mandev 7/71; Vices 1/16.</p><p>The average frequency of CI in the six texts thus lies at 28/322 or 8.69%. This is notably</p><p>more than six times the average in the Northern texts.</p><p>A third asymmetry between the French-based and the Northern-based texts is</p><p>that each individual text that is a French translation has occurrences of CI structures.</p><p>(Compare the only 16.6%, or one in six of the texts, in the group of Northern texts).</p><p>But, alas, all of this does not show that there was a French influence on the develop-</p><p>ment of CI in English. All it does is show that it is not possible to dismiss (indirect)</p><p>influence on the language. There are in fact some arguments that make a positive argu-</p><p>ment for a French import implausible. First, the construction was already available in</p><p>the OE of Beowulf (cf. (14)), thus preceding French influence. Second, even though</p><p>the frequency of CI in the French-based texts is much higher compared to the Northern</p><p>texts, it is still around the ME average calculated over all texts given above. That means</p><p>that a possible reinforcement through French might have taken place at most. Third,</p><p>as was the case with the potential Northern influence, the surge in the estimates occurs</p><p>too early, namely right from the very first period of ME. Fourth, even in a text such</p><p>as the Ayenbite of Inwyt dated from 1340, which is a fairly literal translation from the</p><p>French La somme le roi, we do not get a one-to-one mapping import of French in the</p><p>translation. To illustrate this point, (40) preserves the structure from the French origi-</p><p>nal, as expected, but (41) does not. In (41), the English (close) translation has inversion</p><p>without inversion in the French original.</p><p>(40) a. Middle French:</p><p>Il i a son droit et sa soustenance, et tout comme il en</p><p>he there has his right and his sustainment and all as he it of.it</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>veut avoir, plus soufisemment [que n’a li rois].</p><p>wants have more sufficiently</p><p>than en.has the king</p><p>‘He has his right and support and everything as he wants it, in more</p><p>abundance than the king does.’ (LsR, p. 189, Ch. 47, §123)</p><p>b. Middle English:</p><p>Þer is his wone and his sustinonce and al þet he wyle</p><p>there is his habit and his sustainment and all that he wants</p><p>habbe more ynogh</p><p>have more sufficiently</p><p>[þanne habbe þe kyng]. (CMAYENBI, 85.1650)</p><p>than has the king</p><p>(41) a. Middle French:</p><p>Vertu fet l’omme plus a.droit seigneur du monde</p><p>virtue makes the man more rightfully lord of.the world</p><p>[que li rois n’est de son roiaume].</p><p>than the king en-is of his kingdom</p><p>‘Virtue makes man more legitimately lord of the world than the king is of</p><p>his kingdom.’ (LsR, p. 189, Ch. 47-§120)</p><p>b. Middle English:</p><p>Virtue makeþ þane man more aright lhord of þe wordle:</p><p>virtue makes the man more rightly lord of the world</p><p>þanne by þe kyng of his regne. (CMAYENBI, 85.1648)</p><p>than is the king of his kingdom</p><p>The fact that even in a literal translation we can detect home-grown instances of English</p><p>inversion makes French, even as a source of re-import, then, unlikely. A more likely</p><p>possibility (consistent with our proposal) is that the construction was due to a struc-</p><p>tural possibility given in the grammar of both languages, and which found propitious</p><p>ground in the ME period due to a variety of factors in the output. But the question,</p><p>then, of course remains what might have chiefly caused the surge in ME.</p><p>An issue that has had a direct impact on the appearance of CI on the surface strings</p><p>of the texts is an independent syntactic development, namely the headedness of TP.</p><p>Since a head-final TP obscures CI under the low-subject proposal defended here, the</p><p>doubling of the estimates in ME as compared to OE can be explained as follows. First,</p><p>notice that at the descriptive level OE had both T-final and T-initial word orders. (Cf.</p><p>Fischer et al. 2000; van Kemenade 1997; Kroch et al. 2000, among others. For an inter-</p><p>esting theoretical account of the transition in headedness, see Biberauer, Sheehan &</p><p>Newton this volume). Second, we use the independent assumption that roughly half</p><p>of the relevant clauses of OE are head-final (cf. Pintzuk 1991 for comprehensive</p><p>discussion of such findings). Next, we can note that for a T-based inversion to be</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>noticeable in the first place, the TP must have been T-initial. (In a head-final TP, the</p><p>finite element may move to T, but still stays to the right of the subject. Hence no inver-</p><p>sion is detectable.) That means that half of the structures that had the mechanics for</p><p>CI in place in OE were obscured in the output. But by early ME T-final structures are</p><p>already dead or only archaic (Kroch et al. 2000). This, then, yields a possible explana-</p><p>tion for the doubling of the estimates in the CI output seen in the corpora.</p><p>To summarize, we have observed that a major point of change was the directionality</p><p>of the TP by the end of OE; pace, for example, possible textual influence from French.</p><p>A syntactic suggestion has been made as to why this change may have affected, as a</p><p>key factor, the ratio of CI in the output. Notably for the case in point, the low subject</p><p>became more prominent at the stage at which English had only head-initial TPs. This</p><p>strengthens the main proposal that the main effect is best explained by continuity in</p><p>the sense that the low subject position was heavily used in conjunction with T, both</p><p>before and after the change in directionality of headedness.</p><p>. Open issues and conclusions</p><p>We next discuss remaining questions, grouped around two main issues, before con-</p><p>cluding. First, we address V-to-T. We then re-address continuity in comparatives.</p><p>As noted by a reviewer, a non-trivial factor in the evolution of any process that</p><p>makes reference to the inflectional domain is the trajectory of V-to-T. While it is</p><p>beyond the scope of this chapter to elucidate the notorious controversies surrounding</p><p>this issue in its general aspects (Kroch 1989; Pollock 1989; Roberts 1993; Warner 1997,</p><p>among others), we offer a note from the perspective of comparative structures. In this</p><p>connection, it is crucial to distinguish between two layers of potential interference.</p><p>First, notice that whether French or English has V-to-T does not affect the underlying</p><p>skeleton of the proposal. But putting the classical parametric difference (both between</p><p>English and French and between the developmental stages of English; cf. Kroch 1989;</p><p>Pollock 1989; Roberts 1993, among others) together with the current proposal makes</p><p>a valid prediction. Namely (just) that CI involves a finite element under T. Relating to</p><p>it, however, the proposal itself, as stated, does not (need to) make any reference as to</p><p>which elements are under T. The important second point is that the parametric differ-</p><p>ence entirely takes care of this aspect. The parametric difference, then, does not change</p><p>the phrase-structure of CI as such but it interacts with it in the output produced. There</p><p>is a clear generative difference dependent upon whether CI interacts with a grammar</p><p>with or without V-to-T. The predicted output difference is that, all things being equal,</p><p>the former grammar will have the means to feed lexical verbs to be (re-)merged under</p><p>the node T. (Simply put: lexical verbs will be able to participate in CI in conjunction</p><p>with the low subject). The latter grammar, however, will in general lack the means</p><p>to do so. This seems to be the case for Present Day English (PDE), which is forced</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>to apply do-support with lexical verbs. CI in PDE thus only occurs with specialized</p><p>T-elements (modals/do) and have/be, as a reviewer observes. French, expectedly, also</p><p>allows lexical verbs in CI.14</p><p>We now turn to our second open question, namely why a construction such as CI</p><p>might have remained in place so persistently while (almost) everything else around it</p><p>changed. We tentatively suggest two types of reasons as main necessary conditions. The</p><p>first major reason we suggest (and hope to have convinced the reader of through the</p><p>evidence presented) is that CI has been naturally riding on a syntactic option (namely</p><p>low subjects) that was historically widely available in both English and French. Today,</p><p>this earlier phrase-structural option remains available in areas of the grammar in the</p><p>two languages which are typically stylistically marked. While the specific syntactic</p><p>reasons why such representations should be plausible have been explained in some</p><p>detail, there is a second type of motivation with the potential to affect comparative</p><p>clauses: the interface with the component of meaning. We just mention three points</p><p>in this connection.</p><p>First, one additional heuristic reason for stability may be the parallelism relation-</p><p>ship given through the very nature of comparative constructions generally (cf. Gergel</p><p>et al. 2007). A second, perhaps more crucial reason is that the core semantic represen-</p><p>tation of comparatives may not have changed significantly in either English or French.</p><p>Following tests discussed in synchronic terms in Beck et al. (to appear) for a series of</p><p>largely unrelated languages, it becomes possible to test for parameters at the syntax–</p><p>semantics interface in the history of English, too. In this connection, OE and PDE seem</p><p>to have the same semantics of the comparative in place.15 The final point that becomes</p><p>1. As pointed out by the reviewer, there are several other (important) syntactic changes in</p><p>both languages. But they did not seem to affect comparatives. One reason why the changes in</p><p>the status of pronoun subjects in French might have not affected the output is that pronouns</p><p>are particularly hard to find even with non-clitic forms (both in the records and with the new</p><p>full forms in current French). E.g., *Pierre est plus grand que n’était lui (on a pronominalized</p><p>(15a)) is not acceptable. A possible connection is</p><p>that information structure interacts with</p><p>syntax (cf., e.g., van Kemenade 2008 for OE).</p><p>1. The question of whether the same semantic parameters are operative over time is cer-</p><p>tainly not trivial. Since motivating a theoretical framework for this falls beyond present scope,</p><p>I refer the interested reader to Beck et al. (to appear) for the background on possible syn-</p><p>tactic and semantic options. Empirically, parametric (in)variation can then be tested through</p><p>various degree constructions. To mention but one, let us take measure phrases. OE had</p><p>measure phrases (e.g. Gergel 2008), largely like PDE. The case of French is more intricate and</p><p>deserves special attention in future research. But we can illustrate the essentials. While the</p><p>ancestor language Latin had measure phrases (ducentos pedes altus, ‘two hundred feet high’),</p><p>such constructions were lost after the Old French period. However, what French seems to</p><p>have exploited is a rescue strategy. Measure phrases are thus still available, introduced by the</p><p>functional word de as in haut de 2m, ‘2m tall’.</p><p>1 Remus Gergel</p><p>conspicuous in the same connection of semantic variation in French is the need to</p><p>study the role of expletive negation even more closely than a rich tradition has already</p><p>done. While the negation morpheme ne does not have negative meaning in current</p><p>French comparatives (cf. Price 1990; von Stechow 1984), it is a relic from a time when</p><p>ne alone could potentially be the negative marker by itself. One major task for future</p><p>research, then, remains to explain how the negative form came to essentially mark the</p><p>clausal status of comparatives. (Phrasal comparatives lack ne). This fact may perhaps</p><p>be interpreted as one option that effectively helps keep the semantic settings constant.</p><p>As is well known, it is not a universal for a language to have clausal comparatives.</p><p>To conclude, the chapter has raised several questions and purports to have pro-</p><p>vided a few answers relating to comparative clauses. It has primarily illustrated a case</p><p>of simple, but thus far not systematically addressed, continuity in English and French</p><p>by discussing comparative inversion. We have drawn on the history of English and</p><p>largely extended the analysis to French, a language that in its diachronic evolution is</p><p>independently also well known for having low subjects. By using knowledge from dia-</p><p>chronic research on English and French, current syntactic diagnostics, and by having</p><p>partly investigated additional factors such as language contact, we have reasoned that</p><p>there is a case for a simple (and as described, identical) phrase-structural continuity</p><p>based on low subjects. This may have been co-supported, though from the current</p><p>evidence not caused, by language contact. Several questions have been left open here,</p><p>in particular so with regard to the interface with the component of meaning.</p><p>Major corpora and primary textual sources used in this study</p><p>Beowulf: A student edition. Jack, George (ed.). 1994. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</p><p>BR: Le voyage de Saint Brendan. Short, Ian & Merrilees, Brian (eds.). 2006. Paris: Ed. Honoré</p><p>Champion.</p><p>CdR: Chanson de Roland. Steinsieck, Wolfgang (ed.). 1999. Das altfranzösische Rolandslied.</p><p>Stuttgart: Reclam.</p><p>CLM: Corpus de la littérature médiévale. Éditions Champion Électronique. Available online at:</p><p>http://www.champion-electronique.net/bases.</p><p>FM: G. de Maupassant. 1923. Fort comme la mort, Éditions du Boucher.</p><p>FRANTEXT: Base textuelle Frantext. Nancy: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.</p><p>Available online at: http://www. frantext.fr.</p><p>LsR: La somme le roi. Édith Brayer and Anne-Françoise Labie-Leurquin (eds.). 2008. Paris –</p><p>Abbeville, Société des anciens textes français – Paillart.</p><p>PPCEME: Kroch, A., Santorini, B. & Delfs, L. 2004. The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early</p><p>Modern English.</p><p>PPCME2: Kroch, A. and Taylor, A. 2000. The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English.</p><p>YCOE Taylor, A., Warner, A., Pintzuk, S. and Beths, F. 2003. 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Dordrecht: Kluwer.</p><p>Towards notions of comparative continuity in English and French 1</p><p>Warner, Anthony. 1997. The structure of parametric change, and V-movement in the history of</p><p>English. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, Ans van Kemenade & Nigel Vincent</p><p>(eds), 380–393. Cambridge: CUP.</p><p>Williams, Alexander. 2000. Null subjects in Middle English existentials. In Diachronic Syntax:</p><p>Models and Mechanisms, Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas & Anthony Warner (eds), 164–190.</p><p>Oxford: OUP.</p><p>Winkler, Susanne. 2005. Ellipsis and Focus in Generative Grammar. Berlin: de Gruyter.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle</p><p>Norwegian and Middle Low German</p><p>John D. Sundquist</p><p>Purdue University</p><p>This study focuses on the period of language contact between Middle Norwegian</p><p>(MNw) and Middle Low German (MLG) in Norway between 1300 and 1525.</p><p>Using corpora of MLG and MNw diplomatic letters written during this time,</p><p>we examine the possibility that syntactic continuity in the form of retention of</p><p>archaic forms may take place when two typologically similar languages are in</p><p>prolonged contact with each other. Data on the variation between Object–Verb</p><p>(OV) and Verb–Object (VO) order in both MNw and MLG indicate that the</p><p>frequency of OV word order in MNw is not affected by the influx of variational</p><p>patterns from MLG. We explore possible reasons for this lack of change and</p><p>focus on the role of syntactic variation in both continuity and change. Drawing</p><p>our conclusions from evidence on OV/VO variation, we argue that the syntactic</p><p>variation in the MNw data disrupts continuity rather than helping to maintain it.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>1.1 Domain of inquiry</p><p>In recent research on diachronic syntax, there has been increasing interest in examin-</p><p>ing the apparent absence of syntactic change – or continuity – in certain contexts in</p><p>order to come closer to understanding the cause of change in other contexts. Interesting</p><p>data emerge when we compare instances of change in one language, such as contact-</p><p>induced borrowings or cyclical grammatical changes like Jespersen’s cycle, with stages</p><p>of continuity in a typologically similar language. Since Keenan’s (2002) description of</p><p>inertia in language change and Longobardi’s (2001) modifications of an earlier version</p><p>of this concept, the notion of continuity in historical syntax has been cast in a new light.</p><p>According to Keenan, “things stay the way they are unless acted on by an outside force</p><p>or decay” (2002: 327). Following this line of argumentation, Longobardi focuses more</p><p>specifically on syntactic change and proposes a reformulation of Keenan’s more gen-</p><p>eral point: “syntactic change should not arise, unless it can be shown to be caused”</p><p>(2001: 278). In other words, syntactic change is the exception to the rule: syntax</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>remains stable unless such forces as language contact or morphological or phonologi-</p><p>cal decay exert significant pressure and cause it to change.</p><p>To examine this other side of the coin, we might ask what conditions are appro-</p><p>priate for continuity to be maintained. Following the logic of Longobardi’s principle</p><p>of inertia, we can assume that syntactic continuity exists in the absence of an out-</p><p>side force. However, as this chapter will discuss, the equation is not so simple when</p><p>we factor in syntactic variation. In the following case study on word order in Middle</p><p>Norwegian in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we ask whether variation acts</p><p>to bring about change in a period of language contact with Middle Low German or</p><p>whether it helps to maintain continuity. The latter possibility has been discussed in</p><p>terms of ‘retention’, or as Braunmüller (1998: 329) calls it, ‘Driftumkehrung’ – a type of</p><p>gradual reversion, in which an outgoing, archaic variant is retained or reactivated dur-</p><p>ing periods of language contact with a typologically similar language. Contact in such</p><p>situations would have the opposite effect to what Longobardi (2001) predicts: it might</p><p>introduce more variation and strengthen certain outgoing patterns of usage.1</p><p>The main focus of this study is on the possibility of syntactic retention during a</p><p>period of language contact between Middle Low German (MLG) and Middle Norwegian</p><p>(MNw) in Norway. After assembling a sampling of texts from the fourteenth and</p><p>fifteenth centuries, I first ask to what extent Norwegian word order remained unchanged</p><p>when these two typologically similar languages were in contact with each other over</p><p>several hundred years. Secondly, I ask what role variation plays in bringing about</p><p>change or contributing to continuity in Norwegian. I focus on the word order pat-</p><p>terns [Object–Verbmain] (OV) and [Verbmain–Object] (VO) in Norwegian and German</p><p>corpora of diplomatic letters written between 1300 and 1500.2 The crucial question</p><p>in the study is the extent to which the influx of variational patterns of OV word order</p><p>from Middle Low German speakers affects the OV order that already existed but was</p><p>dying out in Norwegian. The empirical portion of the chapter will present the general</p><p>frequencies and patterns of variation in OV and VO orders in both languages, as rep-</p><p>resented in the two corpora. The discussion section will examine views on the role of</p><p>syntactic variation in periods of contact and provide support for the argument that</p><p>variation appears to disrupt continuity rather than help to maintain it.</p><p>1. Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 58) also describe this phenomenon, referring to it as</p><p>retention: “…interference through shift in particular may even be responsible sometimes for</p><p>lack of change. This means that, since retention as well as innovation may be externally moti-</p><p>vated, the presence of inherited features is not always adequately</p><p>explained once one determines</p><p>their genetic origin”.</p><p>. For simplicity, I follow the conventional term “OV” to refer to various kinds of PP- and NP-</p><p>complements to the non-finite main verb.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 1</p><p>1. Corpus</p><p>The Middle Norwegian (MNw) and Middle Low German (MLG) corpora that I used in</p><p>this study are both collections of diplomatic letters. Although this type of text exhibits writ-</p><p>ten language that is less representative of the spoken vernacular, I found it important to</p><p>have a homogenous text type throughout each corpus as well as across the two collections.3</p><p>Moreover, the letters are useful when examining issues of language contact and syntactic</p><p>change over time, since the provenance and date of composition are usually identifiable.</p><p>For the Middle Norwegian corpus, I selected 300 charters (approximately 90,000</p><p>total words) from Diplomatarium Norvegicum written between 1300 and 1525. Because</p><p>of the conservative, formulaic nature of these letters, I follow precautions suggested</p><p>by Mørck (1980) and exclude archaisms or copied phrases that might skew the data.4</p><p>I selected 1300 as the starting point for the corpus, since many of the diplomatic letters</p><p>prior to that date are in Latin, and I chose 1525 as the end point, since many of the let-</p><p>ters written at that time are almost exclusively in Danish. Although Bergen is the city</p><p>with the highest number of charters included in the corpus, letters from other major</p><p>scribal centers like Trondheim and Stavanger were also included.5</p><p>The Middle Low German corpus consists of 200 diplomatic letters (c. 75,000</p><p>words) from Codex Diplomaticus Lubecensis (or Lübeckisches Urkundenbuch) writ-</p><p>ten between 1325 and 1500. Because there are fewer letters written before 1325 in</p><p>Lübeck in the vernacular and most of the significant contact between Germans and</p><p>Norwegians began after this point, I used 1325 as the starting point for the Middle Low</p><p>German corpus.6 I did not include texts after 1500 because of the influence of High</p><p>. Naturally, when analysing linguistic elements in these texts with a more conservative</p><p>style, we must assume that there is a larger gap between the spoken and written language than</p><p>would be the case in more informal texts with a colloquial style. However, it is the aim of this</p><p>study to focus on general patterns in the data that would indicate larger trends of linguistic</p><p>variation and change. In addition, the diplomatic letters constitute a less-than-ideal corpus</p><p>for the study of unmarked word order, since their conservative style and structure exhibit</p><p>strong influence from Latin. However, as will be discussed in this section, the consistency of</p><p>text type both throughout and between the two corpora was important for this study.</p><p>. See Sundquist (2002, 2006) for further discussion of the MNw corpus and the precautions</p><p>that are necessary when analysing these texts.</p><p>. Unlike other studies on MNw–MLG contact like Brattegard (1963), Jahr (1999) or Nesse</p><p>(2002), which focus solely on the Bergen dialect, the current study is concerned more with MLG</p><p>influence on Norwegian in general. Although it would be preferable to limit the study to letters</p><p>written in Bergen, where the number of German merchants during this time was highest, there</p><p>would be too few examples in this more limited corpus for a detailed quantitative analysis.</p><p>. For a helpful overview of the most important dates and general historical information</p><p>on Hanseatic merchants in Norway with particular emphasis on Bergen, see Gade (1951),</p><p>Brattegard (1963), Helle (1994) and Nesse (2002).</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>German that took hold in early part of the sixteenth century in Northern Germany and</p><p>Scandinavia (Braunmüller 2004). I limited the MLG corpus to texts written in Lübeck</p><p>by authors of that city in order to maintain consistency with respect to geographical</p><p>region and to focus on the most dominant Low German variety that would have been</p><p>used in Scandinavia in the period of the most intense contact in the fourteenth and</p><p>fifteenth centuries.7</p><p>. Quantitative analysis: OV and VO word order in Middle Norwegian</p><p>and Middle Low German</p><p>In the analysis of variation between OV and VO word order in Middle Norwegian and</p><p>Middle Low German, I included any main or embedded clause in the corpora that</p><p>contains both a finite and a non-finite verb followed by two or more non-verbal con-</p><p>stituents. I also limited examples to those that contain a verbal complement – either an</p><p>NP- or a PP-complement to the non-finite verb. In Norwegian, the unmarked order in</p><p>such examples is VO, as in (1) and (2):8</p><p>(1) at hann hafðe suaret þænna sama vithnisburð aðr</p><p>that he had sworn that same testimony before</p><p>‘that he had sworn that same testimony before.’ (DN 1:122; 1309 Bergen)</p><p>(2) stod sa Haluard vp och vildæ gangæ at dørnen</p><p>stood so Haluard up and wanted go to door-the</p><p>‘Haluard stood up and wanted to go to the door.’ (DN 1:947; 1486 Skien)</p><p>However, as we will see in the discussion of the results below, Middle Norwegian exhib-</p><p>its variation between the pattern in (1) and (2) and the archaic OV order in examples</p><p>like (3) and (4):</p><p>(3) skall hon þetta goz hafua</p><p>shall he those wares have</p><p>‘He shall have those wares.’ (DN 2:120; 1314 Bergen)</p><p>. Note that I included letters written by a wide variety of authors from Lübeck, but I did</p><p>not limit myself to those written by merchants or secretaries who had been to Norway. The</p><p>purpose of using this larger, less exclusive corpus for this study is to obtain an approximate</p><p>sampling of the language of this time and observe general norms, trends, and patterns of</p><p>variation. Future research on contact might focus on only those MLG letters written by indi-</p><p>viduals who spent time in Norway and came into contact with Norwegians, as in Simensen’s</p><p>(1989) study of some of the MLG letters in Diplomatarium Norvegicum.</p><p>. MNw examples from Diplomatarium Norvegicum (DN) are cited with the volume number,</p><p>letter number, year of composition, and provenance.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 1</p><p>(4) at han vildhe siælfuer til erkibiskupenn koma</p><p>that he wanted himself to archbishopric-the come</p><p>‘that he himself wanted to come to the archbishopric.’ (DN 1:713; 1426 Bergen)</p><p>Following Sundquist (2002, 2006), we can assume that OV word order in MNw is</p><p>inherited from Old Norse, as evidenced in earlier Norwegian manuscripts from the</p><p>thirteenth century.9</p><p>I follow the same general procedures in selecting examples for analysis from the</p><p>MLG corpus. MLG exhibits the opposite trend of MNw: OV order, as in (5) and (6), is</p><p>the norm, while the VO order in examples like (7) and (8) is marked.10</p><p>(5) dar schal he sin teken vp setten</p><p>there shall he his sign up set</p><p>‘There he shall set up his sign.’ (LU 1.8:DCCXXX; 1450 Lübeck)</p><p>(6) dat sodane vorscreuene schip vnd gudere in vnse hauene</p><p>that that aforementioned ship and goods into our harbours</p><p>komen mogen</p><p>come can</p><p>‘so that the aforementioned ship and goods can come into our harbours.’</p><p>(LU 1.7:XLV; 1427 Lübeck)</p><p>(7) de rat schal beboden alle de schuldemere</p><p>the council shall summon all the guilty</p><p>‘The council shall summon all the guilty ones.’ (LU 1.2:CDII; 1320 Lübeck)</p><p>(8) dat wi willen scriuen an den copman van Bergen</p><p>that we want write to the merchants from Bergen</p><p>‘that we want to write to the merchants from Bergen.’</p><p>(LU 1.5:CCCXVIII; 1410 Lübeck)</p><p>This state of affairs in MLG and MNw is not unexpected: MNw exhibits primarily</p><p>VO word order with some instances of the older OV order, while MLG exhibits the</p><p>opposite pattern.</p><p>. Sundquist (2002, 2006) provides evidence that Norwegian texts such as the Konungs</p><p>skuggsjá (‘The King’s Mirror’) and Den eldre Gulatingslova (‘The Older Gulathing Law’),</p><p>whose manuscripts are from the middle of the 13th century, exhibit a higher rate of OV order</p><p>than the diplomatic letters from the 14th</p><p>century.</p><p>1. Examples from Lübeckisches Urkundenbuch are listed according to section, volume, letter</p><p>number, date and the location of composition.</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>.1 Variables that affect OV/VO variation</p><p>In order to track the variation between OV and VO word order in both the German</p><p>and Norwegian corpora, I analysed a number of variables. First of all, I examined the</p><p>role of syntactic weight, or the ‘heaviness’ of the NP- or PP-complement. According</p><p>to the extensive literature on post-posing of PPs and NPs outside the sentence frame</p><p>in earlier stages of German, the frequency of VO order is common in coordinated or</p><p>modified complements.11 Consider the following examples:</p><p>(9) dat de heren van Holzsten vnde wy scholden vnse</p><p>that the men from Holstein and we should our</p><p>boden zenden</p><p>messenger send</p><p>‘that we and the men from Holstein should send our messenger.’</p><p>(LU 1.4:CDXXXIII; 1387: Lübeck)</p><p>(10) dat sie ere brieue …senden scholen deme rade vnde der stat</p><p>that they their letter …send should the council and the city</p><p>tho Lubeke</p><p>of Lübeck</p><p>‘that they should send their letter to the council and city and Lübeck.’</p><p>(LU 1.4:XCIII; 1364: Lübeck)</p><p>In order to observe the effects of syntactic length, I differentiated between those sen-</p><p>tences with ‘simple’ PP/NP complements like (9) from ‘complex’ PPs and NPs that are</p><p>modified or coordinated, as in (10).12</p><p>Other variables that were tracked in the quantitative analysis included the type of</p><p>clause (main or embedded), type of non-finite verb (infinitive or past participle), type</p><p>of complement (PP, non-pronominal NP, pronominal NP), syntactic length (simple vs.</p><p>modified/coordinated PP/NP) and date of composition (see Pintzuk 1999 or Sunquist</p><p>2006 for information on the variables “type of clause” and “type of complement”).</p><p>Using the statistical program Goldvarb to analyse the patterns of interaction and</p><p>11. For an overview of research on the sentence frame and Ausklammerung in early stages of</p><p>German, see Schildt (1977), who includes analysis of Low German. Ebert (1980, 1986), Betten</p><p>(1980), Ebert et. al. (1993) and Bies (1996) also discuss OV order in Early New High German.</p><p>For a more specific analysis that focuses on differences and similarities between MLG and</p><p>early Scandinavian with respect to the sentence frame, see Braunmüller (1993b, 1998).</p><p>1. I follow Bies (1996) in making this distinction between simple vs. complex complements</p><p>as a measure of syntactic length. In her study of Early New High German word order, she</p><p>found that neither the number of syllables nor the number of words was a significant factor</p><p>in determining the position of heavy elements outside the sentence frame. Instead, she found</p><p>modified NPs and PPs or coordinated elements to be much more likely to occur in post-</p><p>position than simple complements of the verb.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 11</p><p>variation, I used these variables as independent variables and OV word order as the</p><p>dependent variable.</p><p>In both the Norwegian and German corpora, the period under investigation was</p><p>divided into 25-year periods. I analysed enough letters to yield a minimum of 100 tokens</p><p>of OV/VO word order for each short period. I included as many examples as the chosen</p><p>letters yielded. Thus, for some of the 25-year periods, I analysed fewer letters because of</p><p>the large number of examples available in those letters, while for other 25-year periods, I</p><p>had to include more letters in order to collect the minimum number of tokens.</p><p>. Results</p><p>..1 OV word order in Middle Norwegian</p><p>The general results of the MNw data analysis are listed in Table 1.13</p><p>Table 1. Goldvarb results for frequency of pre-verbal complements in Middle Norwegian</p><p>Variables Variants N (OV) %OV Probabilistic Weight</p><p>Type of</p><p>Complement</p><p>pronominals 148/315 46% .63</p><p>PPs 33/184 17% .55</p><p>non-pronominals 106/639 16% .24</p><p>Type of Clause main 126/489 25% .52</p><p>embedded 161/649 24% .49</p><p>Type of</p><p>Non-finite Verb</p><p>past participle 132/519 25% .49</p><p>infinitive 155/619 25% .52</p><p>Syntactic Length simple NPs/PPs 341/853 40% .61</p><p>coordinated/</p><p>modified NPs/PPs 50/285 18% .38</p><p>Date of</p><p>Composition</p><p>1300–1324 56/146 38% .69</p><p>1325–1349 33/104 31% .66</p><p>1350–1374 55/140 39% .68</p><p>1375–1399 33/120 28% .59</p><p>1400–1424 35/123 28% .56</p><p>1425–1449 33/123 26% .57</p><p>1450–1474 22/129 17% .42</p><p>1475–1499 10/119 8% .23</p><p>1500–1525 10/134 7% .17</p><p>There are some important trends in the Norwegian data that are worth noting.</p><p>Goldvarb selected type of complement, syntactic length and date of composition as</p><p>1. The data in Table 1 include a measurement called probabilistic weight. This figure is Gold-</p><p>varb’s measurement of the effect of a variable on a scale of 0.00 to 1.00. A factor weight above</p><p>.50 has a favouring effect on the occurrence of the dependent variable, while a weight below</p><p>this threshold has a disfavouring effect.</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>variables with a significant effect on the occurrence of OV word order. Pronominal</p><p>NP objects favour OV word order, PPs as a general group favour this order less, and</p><p>NPs significantly disfavour OV word order. As is to be expected, coordinated and modi-</p><p>fied verb complements occur less often in OV position than the simple NPs. In terms of</p><p>the general trend in OV-frequency over time, there is a period of fluctuation between</p><p>1300 and 1450 before a steady decline in frequency among all three types of comple-</p><p>ments between 1450 and 1525. Goldvarb selected type of clause and type of non-finite</p><p>verb as insignificant variables that have no effect on the frequency of OV word order.</p><p>.. OV word order in Middle Low German</p><p>The results for the MLG data are presented in Table 2.</p><p>Table 2. Goldvarb results for frequency of pre-verbal complements in Middle Low German</p><p>Variables Variants N (OV) %OV Probabilistic Weight</p><p>Type of</p><p>Complement</p><p>pronominals 191/196 97% .89</p><p>non-pronominals 361/457 78% .41</p><p>PPs 140/222 63% .25</p><p>Type of Clause Embedded 366/434 84% .57</p><p>main 326/441 73% .42</p><p>Type of</p><p>Non-finite Verb</p><p>past participle 303/368 82% .53</p><p>infinitive 389/507 76% .48</p><p>Syntactic Length simple NPs/PPs 595/707 84% .71</p><p>coordinated/</p><p>modified NPs/PPs 98/168 58% .45</p><p>Date of</p><p>Composition</p><p>1325–1349 100/154 64% .32</p><p>1350–1374 100/125 80% .48</p><p>1375–1399 94/132 71% .39</p><p>1400–1424 102/128 79% .49</p><p>1425–1449 92/105 87% .60</p><p>1450–1474 109/127 85% .62</p><p>1475–1499 95/104 91% .71</p><p>Much like in the analysis of the Norwegian data, Goldvarb selected type of com-</p><p>plement, syntactic length and date of composition as variables that significantly affect</p><p>the occurrence of OV word order in MLG, but it also found an additional factor group,</p><p>type of clause, to be significant. Pronominal NP-complements highly favour OV word</p><p>order, and according to the measurement of probabilistic weight, non-pronominal NPs</p><p>and PPs disfavour OV word order at a rate of .41 and .25 respectively. We see here that</p><p>there is a statistically significant difference between coordinated and modified NPs</p><p>and PPs in comparison to simple NPs and PPs: the coordinated or modified NPs/PPs,</p><p>as expected, occur more frequently in post-position (.45) while simple complements</p><p>significantly favour OV word order (.71). Unlike the Norwegian dataset, the German</p><p>examples indicate that OV word order is significantly higher in embedded clauses than</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 1</p><p>in main clauses, with probabilistic weights of .57 vs. .41. In terms of the general trends</p><p>in frequency data, the percentage of OV word order is very high throughout the period</p><p>under investigation: the rate is 64% in the first stage and increases steadily throughout</p><p>the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries before it reaches 91% by 1500. Goldvarb found</p><p>there to be no significant difference between sentences with a past participle and an</p><p>infinitive with respect to OV word order, disregarding type of non-finite verb as a</p><p>significant factor group.</p><p>. Discussion</p><p>.1 Retention</p><p>as a result of contact</p><p>The data from the two corpora in Section 2 indicate that there was no increase in</p><p>the frequency of OV word order in MNw during the period under investigation. The</p><p>figures in Table 1 show that the percentage frequency of OV order between 1300 and</p><p>1525 does not increase for any extended period of time – in fact, it decreases from 38%</p><p>to 7% over the MNw period. During the same period, the frequency of OV order in</p><p>MLG increases steadily from 64% to 91%.</p><p>These findings pose problems for any proposal that suggests that contact between</p><p>MLG and MNw in Norway may have contributed to continuity and the retention of</p><p>archaic syntactic forms in Norwegian. In Christoffersen’s (2000: 166) discussion of the</p><p>effects of MLG contact on embedded clause word order in the history of Norwegian,</p><p>she argues that Low German had a type of “strengthening effect” on native Scandinavian</p><p>word-order patterns that MNw inherited from Old Norse. She cites her (1993) study</p><p>of the law code of Magnus Lagabøter from c. 1350 and points out the high level of OV</p><p>word order in embedded clauses.14 During the time of contact with MLG in Norway,</p><p>Christoffersen maintains, the similar structures in the two languages made it pos-</p><p>sible that certain word order patterns did not diminish in frequency in subsequent</p><p>stages of Norwegian. In other words, MLG contact helped preserve an older, native</p><p>Scandinavian tendency like OV word order that was otherwise a marked syntactic</p><p>variant on its way out of use (Christoffersen 2000: 165). Braunmüller (1998: 329) also</p><p>addresses this issue when he discusses the lack of syntactic borrowings from MLG</p><p>into Scandinavian. He warns that what may appear to be a borrowing may actually</p><p>1. Christoffersen notes that 43% of embedded clauses in her (1993) study exhibit what she</p><p>calls “OV” word order (Christoffersen 2000: 161). She uses this term to describe the relative</p><p>order of non-finite verbs and their NP- or PP-complements, as I do in this study. However, she</p><p>also includes examples of “OV” order in which an NP- or PP-complement precedes the finite</p><p>verb as well. Thus, my data on OV order in this study and her data are not directly comparable.</p><p>For this reason, I am suggesting merely a general comparison of her findings and conclusions</p><p>with mine in this study.</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>be the result of ‘Driftumkehrung’, or a gradual reversion, whereby the frequency of</p><p>a remnant, archaic word order pattern might remain the same rather than decrease</p><p>during contact between two similar linguistic varieties (1998: 331). He adds that such</p><p>reactivation, or strengthening, of older word order patterns, may only be temporary</p><p>during a period of dialect contact (1998: 332). As marked patterns become less tolerated</p><p>in spoken language, syntactic norms begin to be established in the written and spoken</p><p>language and the marginal patterns gradually drop out of use.</p><p>The MNw data here provide no evidence of retention. If we were to assume that</p><p>contact with Low German had even a slightly strengthening effect on the use of OV word</p><p>order in MNw, the percentage frequency of this pattern would flatten out over much of</p><p>the period under investigation or increase temporarily over the course of the fourteenth</p><p>and fifteenth centuries. The figures in Table 1 provide no evidence of such a trend.</p><p>Secondly, this decrease in OV frequency in MNw takes place at the same time as</p><p>OV word order becomes very common in MLG. Recall that the OV-rate in MLG texts</p><p>rises steadily from 64% to 91% between 1325 and 1500 with only slight decreases in</p><p>some 25-year periods of the fourteenth century. We must assume that, although the</p><p>written language of the German letters differs from the spoken language in many ways,</p><p>it is still a reflection of the spoken language to a certain extent. Thus, there is a problem</p><p>with a hypothesis which assumes that this pattern was becoming commoner in MLG</p><p>and that exposure to MLG might have aided the reactivation of OV word order in</p><p>Norwegian. In fact, the statistical trends for the two languages run in the opposite</p><p>direction of each other: the frequency of OV word order in Norwegian is at its lowest</p><p>in the fifteenth century, just when it reaches its highest level in MLG.</p><p>The data on syntactic length provide further counter-evidence. Recall from</p><p>Tables 1 and 2 that syntactic length was a significant variable in both the Norwegian</p><p>and German data. It is clear that coordinated or modified NPs/PPs occur more fre-</p><p>quently in post-position (VO order) than simple NPs/PPs in both languages. This</p><p>result is to be expected if we consider the interaction of word order and pragmatic</p><p>constraints: heavier constituents are often post-posed near the end of the sentence as</p><p>a type of afterthought when such syntactic options are available. However, the data on</p><p>syntactic length raise the question why Norwegian does not behave even more like</p><p>MLG with respect to the placement of simple NPs. As Table 2 indicates, 84% (proba-</p><p>bilistic weight .71) of the simple NPs/PPs in German occur in OV position. As Table 1</p><p>demonstrates, however, only 40% (.61) of the same category of verbal complements</p><p>occurs in OV word order in MNw. If there were a natural, universal tendency for</p><p>simple complements to occur in pre-verbal position when such options are available,</p><p>and if contact with MLG had any significant effects on Norwegian word order, we</p><p>would expect a much higher OV-rate among simple NPs. In other words, with all else</p><p>being equal, there are relatively few departures from the unmarked VO word order in</p><p>MNw – even in situations where the language naturally allows this option and where</p><p>the tendency is so robust in MLG.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 1</p><p>. Continuity as a result of syntactic variation</p><p>The previous section demonstrated that there is little evidence to support the hypothesis</p><p>that contact with MLG had an effect on the retention of OV word order structures</p><p>in Norwegian. In the corpora for this study, the frequency of OV structures in MNw</p><p>declines during the same period in which contact with MLG was at its strongest in</p><p>Bergen and in other parts of the country.15</p><p>The commonest explanation for the lack of MLG influence on Norwegian syntax</p><p>during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is that the sociolinguistic conditions</p><p>were not appropriate for syntactic borrowing to take place. It is beyond the scope of the</p><p>current study to discuss the sociolinguistic factors that may have played a role in lexi-</p><p>cal or syntactic borrowing in Norwegian. Suffice it to say that, in terms of Thomason</p><p>and Kaufman’s (1988: 74) description of social and linguistic factors that lead to borrow-</p><p>ing, the Norwegian–MLG contact situation was not ripe for much change outside of</p><p>lexical borrowing.16 Although MLG merchants were in contact with Norwegians for</p><p>several centuries in Norway, especially in Bergen, there was little interaction between</p><p>Norwegians and Germans other than in business transactions. Germans did not inter-</p><p>marry with Norwegians, they lived in isolated communities, and both groups had sep-</p><p>arate laws, churches, social groups, and living quarters. As Ersland (2003: 45) points</p><p>out, there is no evidence to indicate that Germans in Bergen, for instance, mingled</p><p>with the local population or assimilated with locals. Thus, one can assume that the lack</p><p>of syntactic influence from German is attributable, in part, to a lack of intense contact</p><p>between the languages.</p><p>However, another hypothesis that has been suggested is that syntactic varia-</p><p>tion played a decisive role in limiting the amount of syntactic borrowing. Following</p><p>Trudgill (1994), proponents of this view focus on the unique characteristics of con-</p><p>tact between MLG and MNw (or Mainland Scandinavian in general) as typical for</p><p>a type of dialect contact rather than language contact. As Braunmüller (1998) and</p><p>Christoffersen (2000) suggest, the extensive amount of</p><p>(FOFC). In Proceedings of XXXIII Incontro di Gram-</p><p>matica Generativa, Antonietta Bisetto & Francesco Barbieri (eds), 86–105. Bologna: Uni-</p><p>versità di Bologna.</p><p>Doyle, Aidan. 2002. Yesterday’s affixes as today’s clitics. In New Reflections on Grammaticaliza-</p><p>tion [Typological Studies in Language 49], Ilse Wischer & Gabriela Diewald (eds), 67–81.</p><p>Amsterdam: Benjamins.</p><p>Harris, Alice C. & Campbell, Lyle. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistic Perspective. Cam-</p><p>bridge: CUP.</p><p>Haspelmath, Martin. 1999. Why is grammaticalization irreversible? Linguistics 37(6): 1043–68.</p><p>Keenan, Edward L. 2002. Explaining the creation of reflexive pronouns in English. In Studies in</p><p>the History of English: A Millennial Perspective, Donka Minkova & Robert Stockwell (eds),</p><p>325–355. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</p><p>Kroch, Anthony S. 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Varia-</p><p>tion and Change 1: 199–244.</p><p>Lightfoot, David W. 1991. How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change. Cambridge</p><p>MA: The MIT Press.</p><p>Lightfoot, David W. 1999. The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change and Evolution.</p><p>Oxford: Blackwell.</p><p>Longobardi, Giuseppe. 2001. Formal syntax, diachronic minimalism, and etymology: The his-</p><p>tory of French chez. Linguistic Inquiry 32: 275–302.</p><p>Meisel, Jürgen. 1995. Parameters in acquisition. In A Handbook of Child Language, Paul Fletcher</p><p>& Brian MacWhinney (eds), 10–35. Oxford: Blackwell.</p><p>Meisel, Jürgen. 2001. The simultaneous acquisition of two first languages. Early differentiation</p><p>and subsequent development of grammars. In Trends in Bilingual Acquisition [Trends in</p><p>Language Acquisition Research 1], Jasone Cenoz & Fred Genesee (eds), 11–41. Amsterdam:</p><p>John Benjamins.</p><p>10 Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts & David Willis</p><p>Roberts, Ian & Roussou, Anna. 2003. Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammatical-</p><p>ization. Cambridge: CUP.</p><p>Thomason, Sarah & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Lin-</p><p>guisitcs. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.</p><p>Timberlake, Alan. 1977. Reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change. In Mechanisms of Syn-</p><p>tactic Change, Charles N. Li (ed.), 141–177. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.</p><p>Weinreich, Uriel, Labov, William & Herzog, Marvin I. 1968. Empirical foundations for a theory</p><p>of language change. In Directions for Historical Linguistics, Winifred P. Lehman & Yakov</p><p>Malkiel (eds), 95–195. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.</p><p>part i</p><p>Continuity</p><p>What changed where?</p><p>A plea for the re-evaluation of dialectal evidence*</p><p>Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>University of Göttingen/Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main</p><p>In the field of generative diachronic syntax, it has often been disregarded at</p><p>which level of the language (dialect or Standard) syntactic change has occurred.</p><p>However, just as in the case of phonological developments, the syntax often</p><p>(though not always) turns out to be more conservative at the dialectal level.</p><p>In this chapter we will present four cases studies on the syntax of German:</p><p>the diachrony of pro-drop (null subjects), of negative concord, of possessive</p><p>constructions and of word-order changes in the verbal cluster. Our plea for taking</p><p>into account dialect data in historical linguistics converges with the growing</p><p>significance dialects and dialectal data have gained within theoretical linguistics.</p><p>1. Introduction</p><p>It is commonly assumed in generative linguistics that language change – and thus conti-</p><p>nuity (i.e. the non-occurrence of change) as well – is largely due to first language acqui-</p><p>sition (L1 acquisition).1 Therefore, it would be quite natural to investigate language</p><p>change only in languages (or dialects, varieties) which were transmitted from genera-</p><p>tion to generation by L1 acquisition alone.2 Contrary to expectation, this is not really</p><p>the case. Research on language change within the generative framework is still mostly</p><p>restricted to developments in languages which have undergone standardization.</p><p>There are two misconceptions which can presumably be made responsible for this</p><p>curious state of affairs. Firstly, based on the – no doubt – correct assumption that</p><p>I-language is the primary object of investigation of linguistic research, generative lin-</p><p>guists refuse to discuss what kind of objects languages like English or German are</p><p>*We are grateful to the audience at the conference on ‘Continuity and Change in Grammar’ for</p><p>their comments. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers and to the editors for their helpful</p><p>suggestions. Special thanks to Sheila Watts for her assistance and many insightful comments.</p><p>1. Cf. also already Paul (1880).</p><p>. There are other types of language change, e.g. contact-induced language change (Kroch</p><p>2000; Weiß 2005b).</p><p>1 Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>(though they use the terms as convenient abbreviations, for example, speaking of the</p><p>loss of negative concord in English). Secondly, it is often assumed, that “standard lan-</p><p>guages are simply dialects which have gained a different [i.e. higher] social prestige”</p><p>(Cornips & Poletto 2005: 939). Both these assumptions lead to the curious fact just</p><p>mentioned that generative historical research is usually concerned with developments</p><p>in standard languages.3</p><p>Not to deal with the concept of language may be a pardonable neglect (though it</p><p>seems to be a little strange to leave such an essential term undefined, cf. Weiß 2009).</p><p>However, to hold standard languages as nothing more than dialects is simply false.</p><p>Standard languages are not simply codified forms of spoken and L1-acquired dia-</p><p>lects, they almost always evolved as secondarily learned, written languages. Standard</p><p>German may be an extreme case because it evolved out of several dialects and has</p><p>never corresponded to any individual one, but, at least initially, all standard languages</p><p>develop relatively independently of L1-acquisition (Weiß 2001, 2004a, 2004b, 2005b,</p><p>2005c).</p><p>In Weiß (2001) it is therefore proposed that there are two kinds of natural lan-</p><p>guages based on the criterion of language acquisition. According to this theory, first</p><p>order natural languages (N1 languages) are those which are acquired in the course of</p><p>L1 acquisition, whereas second order natural languages (N2 languages) are learned,</p><p>that is acquired mostly by instruction (e.g. in school). Dialects (and languages) as</p><p>defined in Weiß (2001) are N1 languages, and standard languages are N2 languages, or</p><p>at least used to be in the past.4</p><p>Given the fundamental role which L1-acquisition plays in modern historical</p><p>linguistics, it follows naturally that dialects should be the objects of investigation.</p><p>A second consequence for historical linguistics is that whenever there is a different</p><p>development in dialects and standard languages, it is the development in the dialects</p><p>. There are a couple of notable exceptions: Poletto (1995) and Ledgeway (2000) diachronically</p><p>investigate various aspects of Italian dialect syntax. Kroch & Taylor (1997) deal with the verb-</p><p>second property in different historical dialects of English. Sprouse & Vance (1999) discuss the</p><p>null-subject properties of various Romance and Germanic languages from a diachronic per-</p><p>spective. Moreover, the work on creole languages should be mentioned here (cf. deGraff 1999</p><p>for an overview). Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. However, as far as</p><p>German is concerned, there is hardly any generative work on historical syntax so far (but see</p><p>Lenerz 1984; Axel 2007, Jäger 2008). Non-generative diachronic studies have been primarily</p><p>concerned with syntactic developments leading to the standard; this in contrast to work in</p><p>phonology, which has always taken into account the situation in the dialects.</p><p>. Nowadays, standard languages are subject to L1 acquisition to a much greater extent</p><p>than was the case in the past (Weiß 2004a,b, 2005c). These ‘re-naturalized’ languages then can</p><p>develop new dialects as well as colloquial variants (e.g. social registers).</p><p>syntactic variation in these</p><p>1. For more background information on the sociolinguistic conditions for contact in Norway,</p><p>see Jahr (1999). For specific discussion of sociolinguistic and cultural aspects of German–</p><p>Norwegian contact in Bergen, see Nesse (2002) or Ersland (2003).</p><p>1. This conclusion is supported by the findings in Zeevaert’s (1995) corpus-based analysis of</p><p>lexical borrowing in Scandinavian. Although he focuses on Swedish, the findings are relevant</p><p>to any analysis which attempts to determine the level of intensity of contact between MLG</p><p>and Scandinavian in general. Using Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988) classification system for</p><p>intensity, he concludes that MLG–Scandinavian contact was between Levels 1 (light contact)</p><p>and 2 (somewhat intense contact) (1995: 175).</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>similar languages allowed speakers to use accommodation strategies in their speech.17</p><p>Braunmüller (1998) speculates that both spoken Scandinavian and MLG had relatively</p><p>few strict word order norms in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Because of the</p><p>deeply rooted structural similarities between the languages, speakers on both sides of</p><p>business transactions could speak their native language and understand each other.</p><p>One reason for the success of this passive multidialectalism, according to Braunmül-</p><p>ler (1998), is that speakers took advantage of the wide variety of word order patterns</p><p>in their own language and used those patterns more frequently which could be easily</p><p>processed by their interlocutors. As an example, he suggests the possibility that MLG</p><p>speakers could accommodate Scandinavians and ease processing constraints by using</p><p>VO word order when pausing in speech to post-pose elements to positions to the right</p><p>of the non-finite verb (Braunmüller 1998: 325). Similarly, Scandinavians may have</p><p>taken advantage of the grammatical OV option in their language more frequently in</p><p>order to accommodate their MLG trading partners. More marked syntactic patterns</p><p>may have been used more often as part of functionally motivated accommodation</p><p>strategies. As a result of this variation, MLG exerted little influence on the word order</p><p>of MNw: the languages were too similar and they exhibited too much variation for any</p><p>type of long-term or even temporary impact to take place.</p><p>The data in the current study, however, provide little support for this view. Quanti-</p><p>tative analysis of MLG in Section 2 reveals that there is not as much OV/VO variation</p><p>in MLG as has been previously assumed. From the beginning of the period under</p><p>investigation, OV word order occurs in 61% of the examples in the Low German letters</p><p>as early as 1325. This rate increases steadily before it is reaches 91% in the fifteenth</p><p>century. We can assume that the lack of OV/VO variation in the diplomatic letters may</p><p>be, in part, a result of these external factors and the conservative style of the text type.18</p><p>However, the general trend in OV word order in letters from Lübeck is consistent</p><p>throughout the period under investigation, and the steady increase in frequency of OV</p><p>word order in the written language begins before the influence of the High German</p><p>standard in the sixteenth century. Although there are no strict norms in word order</p><p>from this period, there are clear preferences that follow definite trends in the language</p><p>as early as the fourteenth century.19</p><p>1. For a more detailed discussion of this argument, see Braunmüller (1993a, 1996, 1998,</p><p>2005), Christoffersen (2000) or Mæhlum (2005).</p><p>1. As has been noted by Schildt (1977) for Low and High German and by Ebert (1980) for</p><p>Early New High German, various language-external factors, including educational level and</p><p>gender of the author, style, and geographical region, contribute to the frequency with which</p><p>authors have post-posed PPs and NPs in their written language.</p><p>1. As in any quantitative analysis of historical syntax, we are forced to draw conclusions</p><p>about the spoken language of an earlier period from our analysis of the written language.</p><p>Variation, continuity and contact in Middle Norwegian and Middle Low German 1</p><p>Furthermore, the statistical patterns of use of OV and VO word orders reveal a form</p><p>of systematic variation rather than random fluctuation between syntactic variants.</p><p>Recall that both type of complement and syntactic length were variables that had</p><p>a favouring effect on the occurrence of OV word order in MLG. For instance, there is</p><p>a highly significant difference between pronominal objects and prepositional phrases</p><p>with respect to their tendency to occur in OV position (.89 vs. .25 probabilistic weight).</p><p>These findings indicate that there is a clear underlying system in place that regulates</p><p>the positioning of various complement types. Although there are various syntactic</p><p>options available to MLG speakers, the choice between these options is not random</p><p>and fluctuation between OV and VO order is not as free as previously assumed. In the</p><p>same way, the distinction between complex and simple complements also shapes the</p><p>variable use of word order patterns: coordinated and modified NPs/PPs favour OV</p><p>word order at the level of .71 while simple complements disfavour it at a rate of .45.</p><p>Once again, specific language-internal factors shape the patterns of OV/VO usage and</p><p>demonstrate the systematic characteristics of these patterns.</p><p>Thus, the Low German data here cause problems for any analysis that assumes</p><p>that MLG was a language with a high degree of variation with few word-order norms.</p><p>Empirical analysis of texts from this period reveals that there were clear preferences</p><p>in OV/VO usage throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and that there</p><p>were systematic rules that governed this usage. In terms of contact between MLG</p><p>and Norwegian, therefore, it is less easy to assume from analysis of the written lan-</p><p>guage that the MLG spoken language exhibited as much variation as others have</p><p>previously claimed.20</p><p>. Change as a result of syntactic variation</p><p>Previous sections of this chapter focused on the role of syntactic variation in a period</p><p>of contact between MLG and MNw. It was shown that, contrary to previous claims,</p><p>new patterns of variation introduced during contact with MLG had no stabilizing</p><p>effects on OV frequency in MNw. In fact, there is little retention of OV order during</p><p>Furthermore, we can assume that the MLG letters do not reflect the exact type of language to</p><p>which the Norwegians would have been exposed. However, as Pintzuk (1999: 14) concludes,</p><p>the written language is our only source for drawing general conclusions about the spoken</p><p>language. I assume that the precautions taken in text selection discussed in Section 1.2 have</p><p>made the MLG corpus here as reliable as possible for drawing such conclusions.</p><p>. Note that I agree with the conclusion in Braunmüller (1996, 1998, 2004, 2005), Christof-</p><p>fersen (2000) and Mæhlum (2005) that the MLG–Scandinavian contact was a type of dialect</p><p>contact and that speakers of both languages could communicate with each other in their re-</p><p>spective native languages by using accommodation strategies. However, I wish merely to point</p><p>out that the evidence here from the written languages suggests that the extent of variability in</p><p>the two languages is less than previously assumed.</p><p>1 John D. Sundquist</p><p>the period under investigation, as the archaic forms begin to decline more rapidly in</p><p>frequency and VO order becomes dominant.</p><p>These findings support a hypothesis proposed recently by Reintges (2009), who</p><p>suggests that syntactic variation is an important source for change. Reintges states this</p><p>as follows:</p><p>If we are right in claiming that syntactic variation can arise spontaneously and</p><p>that syntactic change follows from syntactic variation whatever the source of the</p><p>variation is, we are in fact making the controversial claim that syntactic change</p><p>can happen without outside factors playing any role. Syntactic variation initiates</p><p>syntactic change,</p><p>This is, for example,</p><p>the case with Standard English which has even developed several national varieties in Great</p><p>Britain, America, Australia and so on (Durrell 1999: 299).</p><p>What changed where? 1</p><p>which should gain our attention as historical linguists,5 because these changes can be</p><p>largely ascribed to language-internal factors alone, whereas standard languages have</p><p>also been formed by extra-linguistic forces.</p><p>In what follows we will present a case study on pro-drop in German and several</p><p>other case studies in which changes in dialects differ from those in the standard. All</p><p>these case studies show that taking into account dialectal evidence in historical syntax</p><p>can lead to different and more appropriate results. These results constitute a more solid</p><p>basis for judgments about what is stable and what is more open to change in the history</p><p>of a language.</p><p>This plea for taking into account dialect data in historical linguistics converges</p><p>with the growing significance dialects and dialectal data have gained within theoretical</p><p>linguistics. Besides their greater naturalness (see above), it is above all the issue of</p><p>microvariation that makes the comparative study of dialects an invaluable source for</p><p>linguistic research. In the line of Kayne’s (1996) concept of microvariation, dialects</p><p>provide a unique data source for investigating what is possible or impossible in natural</p><p>languages (Benincà & Poletto 2007).</p><p>. Case study 1: Pro-drop in German</p><p>Our major case study is on pro-drop in German. It is well-known that in Modern Stan-</p><p>dard German (referential) subject pronouns have to be overtly realized:</p><p>(1) Kaffee magst *(du) nicht.</p><p>coffee like you not</p><p>‘You don’t like coffee.’</p><p>However, modern German dialects do license pro-drop under certain conditions</p><p>and the same is true for all the major dialect groups within the Continental West-</p><p>Germanic group.</p><p>In the previous literature, it has often been claimed that German lost the pro-drop</p><p>property at a very early stage, even though there is a large consensus that Proto-</p><p>Germanic and Proto-Indo-European were pro-drop languages. Paul (1919: 22) states</p><p>that referential null subjects died out before the earliest attested stages of Old High</p><p>German (OHG). Hopper (1975: 31), following Meillet (1908/1909: 89), speculates that</p><p>the use of overt subject pronouns is the rule already in early Germanic. In the Mittelhoch-</p><p>deutsche Grammatik (Paul 2007: 315) it is claimed that in more recent stages of the lan-</p><p>guage inflectional endings are not capable of ‘expressing’ the subject anymore, thereby</p><p>implying that this was possible in older stages. What has been almost totally ignored is</p><p>. To the extent that there is sufficient documentation of the dialects. There is, of course, the</p><p>problem that there are many dialects which have barely received syntactic description.</p><p>1 Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>that there are many dialects that still allow subject omission in certain morphosyntactic</p><p>environments even in contemporary German.</p><p>.1 Pro-drop in the modern dialects</p><p>Though the Continental West Germanic dialects are only partial pro-drop languages in</p><p>the sense defined in Weiß (2001), they nonetheless exhibit some indisputable instances</p><p>of pro-drop (e.g. Bayer 1984; Weiß 1998: 116ff. on Bavarian, Haag-Merz 1996: 153ff.</p><p>on Swabian, Cooper 1995 on Zurich German). In Bavarian, for instance, pro-drop is</p><p>possible in the 2nd sg., (2), and 2nd pl. (cf. also Bayer 1993; Fuß 2005):</p><p>(2) a. moang bisd pro wieda gsund (Bavarian)</p><p>tomorrow are-2.sg again healthy</p><p>‘Tomorrow, you will be well again.’</p><p>b. wennsd pro moang wieda gsund bisd</p><p>if-2.sg tomorrow again healthy are-2.sg</p><p>‘if you will be well again tomorrow.’</p><p>As can be seen in (2b), Bavarian shows so-called complementizer agreement: the</p><p>complementizer wenn carries the inflectional morpheme -sd and thus agrees with the</p><p>finite verb at the end of the clause. In subordinate clauses pro-drop is parasitic on</p><p>complementizer agreement. In the 1st sg. there is no complementizer agreement in</p><p>Bavarian. The subject pronoun has to be realized overtly in this case:</p><p>(3) wenn-*(e) moang wieda gsund bin (Bavarian)</p><p>if-I tomorrow again healthy am</p><p>‘if I will be well again tomorrow.’</p><p>So we can conclude that the presence of overt Agr-in-C is necessary for pro-drop.</p><p>Whether Agr-in-C is the result of verb raising to C or of inflected complementizers</p><p>seems to be irrelevant.</p><p>However, Agr-in-C alone does not suffice to license pro-drop. Consider the follow-</p><p>ing contrast, which, according to Weise (1900: 56), shows up in the Thuringian dialect</p><p>spoken in Altenburg:6</p><p>(4) a. schreib mir einmal den Brief, (Thuringian)</p><p>write-imp-2.sg me once the letter,</p><p>kriegst pro auch einen Groschen</p><p>get-2.sg too a penny</p><p>‘Write me a letter and you will get a penny.’</p><p>. Example (4a) is taken from Weise (1900: 56). Example (4b) is constructed in accordance</p><p>with Weise’s remark that ‘In the plural, this ellipsis of the subject pronoun is not attested’</p><p>(“Im Plural ist diese Ellipse [des Subjektspronomens] nicht nachweisbar” (Weise 1900: 56).</p><p>What changed where? 1</p><p>b. schreibt mir einmal den Brief, dann kriegt</p><p>write-imp-2.pl me once the letter, then get-2.pl</p><p>*pro/ihr auch einen Groschen</p><p>pro/you-2.pl too a penny</p><p>‘Write me a letter and you will get a penny.’</p><p>In this dialect pro-drop is possible with the 2nd sg., and not with the 2nd pl., as the</p><p>contrast between (4a) and (4b) reveals. The difference between the inflectional marker</p><p>-st in the 2nd sg. and the -t in the 2nd pl. is that only the former contains a pronominal</p><p>element, namely /t/.</p><p>As the OHG data show, the ending of the 2nd sg. (= -st), was originally only -s.</p><p>The form with an additional -t originated from cases where the verb was followed</p><p>by the pronoun thu, du in OHG times. In this configuration the word boundary</p><p>was then reanalysed in such a way that the dental plosive became part of the verbal</p><p>ending.</p><p>As Weise (1907: 204) already notes, subject pronouns can be absent in the 2nd sg.</p><p>and pl. in exactly those Bavarian and East Franconian dialects where complementizer</p><p>agreement is pronominal (5).7</p><p>(5) a. wennsd pro mogsd</p><p>if-2.sg like-2.sg</p><p>‘if you like’</p><p>b. wennds8 pro megds</p><p>if-2.pl like-2.pl</p><p>‘if you like’</p><p>(Central Bavarian, likewise North Bavarian and East Franconian)</p><p>In East Franconian, the 1st and 3rd pl exhibit non-pronominal complementizer agree-</p><p>ment (6), and thus the subject pronoun cannot be dropped.</p><p>(6) a. waaln *(mer) graad besamn senn</p><p>because-1.pl we at-the-moment together are-1.pl</p><p>‘since we are together now.’</p><p>b. waaln *(se) graad besamn senn</p><p>because-3.pl they at-the-moment together are-3.pl</p><p>‘since they are together now’ (East Franconian, Weise 1907: 204)</p><p>. When we speak of (non-)pronominal agreement, we do not imply that speakers can dis-</p><p>tinguish between the two because that would require information about the historical develop-</p><p>ment which speakers normally do not have. Speakers are only capable of detecting that the</p><p>one variant of agreement allows for pro-drop and the other one does not.</p><p>. This inflectional suffix developed from the enclitic pronoun es parallel to the 2nd sg.</p><p>suffix -sd.</p><p>1 Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>On the basis of the data discussed here (and comparable ones, cf. Weiß 1998, 2005a) we</p><p>can postulate the following licensing principle for pro-drop in modern German dialects:</p><p>(7) Licensing principle for pro-drop:</p><p>pro must be c-commanded by pronominal agreement.</p><p>It should be noted that pro-drop and inflected complementizers are by no means</p><p>restricted to Upper German dialects like Bavarian and East Franconian. It is attested</p><p>in all major groups of modern German dialects, especially in Eastern Middle German</p><p>dialects, but for the 2nd sg. even in Low German dialects like Low Saxon and Low</p><p>Franconian (cf. Weiß 2005a).</p><p>. Pro-drop in early German</p><p>It is generally assumed that the pro-drop property inherited from Proto-Germanic</p><p>was</p><p>already largely lost in the OHG period, that is, in the oldest attested stage of the German</p><p>language. The introduction of overt subject pronouns in pre-/early OHG has tradition-</p><p>ally been linked to the weakening of verbal endings due a phonological weakening</p><p>process which in turn has been argued to have been a consequence of the introduc-</p><p>tion of word-initial accent (see Kögel 1882: 127; Held 1903: XIII; Behaghel 1928: 442).</p><p>However, as Grimm (1967 [1898]: 235) and later Eggenberger (1961) already objected,</p><p>these phonological and morphological changes did not lead to a substantial leveling of</p><p>inflectional distinctions during the OHG period. It should furthermore be noted that</p><p>from a cross-linguistic perspective even the Standard Present-Day German paradigm</p><p>is usually considered sufficiently strong to license pro-drop (Jaeggli & Safir 1989).9,10</p><p>The absence of pro-drop has thus been attributed to an incompatibility of the pro-drop</p><p>and the verb-second (V2) parameters (Jaeggli & Safir 1989; Rohrbacher 1999). And</p><p>what is even more problematic: we have seen that at a dialectal level the alleged loss</p><p>of pro-drop has not occurred even though here the verbal paradigms have the same</p><p>amount of syncretism or even more than in the standard language.</p><p>. This despite the fact that in the Present-Day German paradigm there is more syncretism</p><p>than in OHG. For example, the OHG verbal paradigm attested in the OHG Tatian (c. 830 AD,</p><p>East Franconian) has six different endings in the present indicative (-u, -is(t), -it, -emēs, (-ēn),</p><p>-et, -ent. There is thus no syncretism at all. By contrast, in the modern Standard German para-</p><p>digm (-e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en) there is some syncretism. In the plural, the first and third person</p><p>have identical endings. Also, both the 3rd sg. and the 2nd pl. end in -t. So indeed the verbal</p><p>paradigm has been weakened.</p><p>1. However, more recently the opposite claim has been propagated (e.g. Müller 2006;</p><p>Koeneman 2007).</p><p>What changed where? 1</p><p>As mentioned above, it is generally assumed that in OHG (referential) pro-drop</p><p>has already been largely lost. However, there are numerous instances of pro-drop in the</p><p>eighth and ninth century texts:</p><p>(8) a. Druhtin ist auh (I 426; OHG)</p><p>Lord is also</p><p>‘He is also the Lord.’</p><p>b. Sume hahet in cruci (MF XVIII,17)</p><p>some-acc hang-2.pl to cross</p><p>‘Some of them you will crucify.’</p><p>et ex illis … crucifigetis,</p><p>c. quidis zi uns thesa parabola (T 529,2)</p><p>say-2.sg to us this parable</p><p>‘Are you telling this parable to us?’</p><p>ad nos dicis hanc parabolam</p><p>In the traditional literature, the standard approach towards the omission of refer-</p><p>ential subject pronouns in earlier OHG is to trace it back to a special type of ‘loan</p><p>syntax’ (see Eggenberger 1961; Hopper 1975). The central idea is that the subject</p><p>omissions have been ‘imposed’ on these OHG translated texts through the process</p><p>of producing narrow – or even ‘slavish’ – translation from the Latin originals and</p><p>should not be considered a native part of the OHG grammar. As is argued in Axel</p><p>(2005, 2007: ch. 6) the loan-syntax hypothesis is not convincing. It cannot account for</p><p>the fact that null-subject distribution in the Old High German is clearly governed by</p><p>(morpho-)syntactic factors that do not play a role in the Latin originals. For example,</p><p>as has already been observed by Eggenberger (1961), there is a clear main/subordinate</p><p>asymmetry. While in main clauses subject pronouns are often omitted parallel to the</p><p>Latin, they are almost always inserted contrary to the Latin in subordinate clauses.</p><p>Axel argues that the main/subordinate asymmetry can be derived without further</p><p>assumptions if we assume that the OHG null subjects were only licensed in post-finite</p><p>position, see (9).11</p><p>(9) a. [CP Druhtini [C istj] pro auh ti tj ]</p><p>b. [CP Sumei [C hahetj] pro ti in cruci tj ]</p><p>c. [CP [C quidisj] pro zi uns thesa parabola tj ]</p><p>11. It should be noted that – like modern German – OHG already largely exhibited the proper-</p><p>ties of an asymmetric V2 language: in subordinate clauses introduced by complementizers or</p><p>interrogative/relative phrases the finite verb stayed in its base position at the end of the clause</p><p>(the basic word order in the VP was OV). However, in (unintroduced) main clauses it moved</p><p>to C0, and in declaratives there was usually also XP movement to SpecC (cf.Axel 2007).</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>Thus, just like in the modern dialects, OHG null subjects were only licensed in a con-</p><p>figuration where they were c-commanded by Agr in C. In OHG the only way to obtain</p><p>the configuration in (10) was via verb movement to C0:</p><p>(10) [CP [C V+AGRi ]k …. proi tk]</p><p>In OHG the phenomenon of complementizer agreement is not attested. Therefore,</p><p>the licensing condition of c-commanding agreement was not fulfilled in subordinate</p><p>clauses. As a consequence, subject pronouns were regularly inserted contrary to the</p><p>Latin originals:12</p><p>(11) Dhar ir auh quhad …, dhar meinida pro (I 274)</p><p>where he also said there meant</p><p>leohtsamo zi archennenne dhen heilegan gheist</p><p>easily to recognize the holy spirit</p><p>‘Where he said …, he clearly meant there the Holy Spirit’.</p><p>Item dicendo … sanctum spiritum euidenter aperuit</p><p>In contrast to the modern dialects, pro-drop is not restricted to sentences with verb</p><p>forms that show pronominal agreement. None of the finite verbs in the sentences in</p><p>(8) above exhibits a suffix of pronominal origin, yet the subject pronoun is dropped</p><p>in each case. Nevertheless, morphological factors do have a quantitative effect on null</p><p>subject usage in OHG: even though referential null subjects are attested in all per-</p><p>sons and numbers, it is only in the 3rd sg. and pl. that the null variant is used more</p><p>1. As is outlined in Axel (2005, 2007: ch. 5), the main/subordinate asymmetry, of course,</p><p>also emerges if one looks at the OHG data from a quantitative perspective (the figures she</p><p>gives are based on Eggenberger’s (1961) quantitative analysis of null-subject usage in the</p><p>major OHG texts). In the OHG Isidor, the subject pronoun is dropped in 44% of a total of</p><p>109 main clauses with pronoun subjects. By contrast only 9% of subordinate clauses (#93)</p><p>do not have overt subject pronouns. In the Monsee Fragments even 64% of the main clauses</p><p>with pronoun subjects (#132) do not exhibit overt subject pronouns, as opposed to only 15%</p><p>of subordinate clauses (#86). In Tatian, 40% of main clauses with pronoun subjects (# 2394)</p><p>show pro-drop, but only 8% of subordinate clauses (#1275). Nevertheless, in all three texts there</p><p>is some amount of subject omission in subordinate clauses. Note, however that Eggenberger’s</p><p>figures for subordinate clauses also include dependent clauses with V2 order and examples</p><p>which are ambiguous between V2 and V-end order. We would like to claim that the remaining</p><p>really problematic cases (i.e. null subjects in the context of verb-end/late order) do not really</p><p>falsify the post-finiteness restriction, as they can still be due to translational errors, over-</p><p>sights etc. Also, we do concede that the Latin may have exerted some minor impact on the</p><p>OHG translation. Nevertheless null-subject usage in general is not an instance of systematic</p><p>‘loan syntax’ since there is a clear overall tendency that overt subject pronouns are inserted in</p><p>verb-end/late environments.</p><p>What changed where? 1</p><p>frequently than the overt one (Axel 2005, 2007: ch. 6). The reason for this person split</p><p>is still unclear.</p><p>In late OHG texts (i.e. in Notker’s works or in Williram von Ebersberg’s paraphrase</p><p>of the Song of Songs), pro-drop is attested only sporadically. Interestingly, null-subject</p><p>usage was quite frequent again in the Early New High German period.13 However, the</p><p>surface distribution of omitted subject pronouns then was somewhat different from</p><p>that of the OHG period. Instead, null-subject usage then already showed a similar</p><p>distribution to that found in the modern dialects. The syntax and morphology of pro-</p><p>drop in the dialects</p><p>is discussed in the following section.</p><p>. From Old High German to the modern dialects</p><p>Now that we have discussed the synchronic distribution of pro in both OHG</p><p>and some modern dialects, the question arises as to what the diachronic develop-</p><p>ment looks like. From a diachronic viewpoint, at the dialectal level, the phenomenon</p><p>of pro-drop seems to be an example for continuity: both OHG and the modern dia-</p><p>lects allow for partial pro-drop.14</p><p>But the grammatical continuity is even more far-reaching. Interestingly, the</p><p>grammatical licensing conditions have remained the same: both in OHG and in some</p><p>modern dialects, pro is licensed by c-commanding Agr-in-C.</p><p>What must have changed is that the licensing conditions have become more</p><p>specific: only pronominal Agr-in-C has come to license pro-drop.</p><p>What has also changed is that there was a grammatical innovation – the develop-</p><p>ment of complementizer inflection – which cancelled the restriction to root sentences</p><p>so that pro-drop can now occur in embedded sentences also in the modern dialects.</p><p>The restriction to pronominal Agr is related to a further phenomenon, namely to</p><p>double agreement.</p><p>..1 The emergence of double agreement</p><p>Double agreement means that there exist two ways of inflecting the verb, and that the</p><p>choice of inflectional marker depends on the position of the verb. In modern Central</p><p>1. Held (1903: 111) argues that the difference between Middle High German and Early New</p><p>High German is partly due to the fact that in the latter case, text genres had developed that</p><p>were closer to oral communication. Middle High German court language, by contrast, was</p><p>very remote from popular speech and strongly shaped by literary conventions.</p><p>1. When speaking of continuity, it would, of course, be necessary to provide data from</p><p>Middle High German and Early Modern High German as well. Unfortunately, there are no</p><p>systematic studies on null subject phenomena at these stages. See, however, Held (1903) for</p><p>examples.</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>Bavarian, for example, the ending in the 1st pl. is -n in verb-final sentences, but in</p><p>verb-second and verb-first sentences the suffix is -ma:</p><p>(12) a. dasma mia aaf Minga fahrn/*ma (Central Bavarian)</p><p>that-1.pl we to Munich go</p><p>‘that we go to Munich’</p><p>b. mia fahrma/*n aaf Minga</p><p>we go-1.pl to Munich</p><p>‘We go to Munich’</p><p>c. fahrma/*n mia aaf Minga?</p><p>go-1.pl we to Munich</p><p>‘Do we go to Munich?’</p><p>As can be seen in (12a), -ma is also the ending that appears on inflected complemen-</p><p>tizers. The suffix -ma is derived from the pronominal subject mia in its clitic form</p><p>ma: fahrn’ma > fahrm’ma > fahrma. In modern Central Bavarian, -ma is obligatory</p><p>even when C0 is filled with a complementizer instead of a verb, and it can combine</p><p>with the full pronoun mia. This shows that -ma is an inflectional suffix rather than a</p><p>subject clitic.</p><p>In German double agreement has a long history. A precursor can already be</p><p>found in OHG. In the Isidor translation, for example, the 1st pl. has two alterna-</p><p>tive endings: a short ending -m, which was later replaced by -n, and the older long</p><p>ending (-mēs):</p><p>(13) a. Endi dhes selben christes … chichundemes auh</p><p>and of-the same Christ demonstrate-1.pl also</p><p>nu dhes ędhili endi odhil (I 520)</p><p>now of-that age and home</p><p>‘we now demonstrate the lineage and homeland of that same Christ.’</p><p>et cuius … demonstretur et genus et patria</p><p>b. Chiuuisso chioffanodom uuir nu hear dhazs … (I 484)</p><p>surely revealed-1.pl we now here that</p><p>‘surely we have now revealed here that …’</p><p>Probauimus …</p><p>In OHG, the occurrence of -mēs correlates with pro-drop in verb-second contexts</p><p>where the subject pronoun would show up postfinitely if it was overtly realized (i.e. in</p><p>‘inversion’ contexts). But, in contrast to the modern dialects, the inflectional markers</p><p>are not dependent on verb position in OHG: both the long and the short ending occur</p><p>in second and in final position. This phenomenon does not yet constitute double</p><p>agreement in the sense defined at the beginning of this section.</p><p>However, soon after the replacement of -mēs, a new type of double agreement for</p><p>the 1st pl. began to arise, which was then characteristic for the Middle High German</p><p>What changed where? </p><p>period (cf. Paul 2007: §E21, 2). In Middle High German the 1st pl. ending was often</p><p>dropped completely. At the time only the -n-marker was used, as the long ending had</p><p>already died out. Interestingly, this -n-drop was now dependent on verb position/sub-</p><p>ject–verb inversion: when the pronominal subject directly followed the finite verb in</p><p>second position, the -n was dropped. A very early example can already be found in the</p><p>OHG Tatian:</p><p>(14) thesan niuuizuuuir uuanan her ist. (T 457,10)</p><p>this-acc neg.know.we whence he is</p><p>‘but as to this man we do not know where he is from.’</p><p>hunc autem nescimus unde sit.</p><p>A further interesting case is the 2nd sg. As mentioned above, this ending arose out</p><p>of a reanalysis of the word boundary. In ‘Christ and the Samaritan Woman’ (late 9th</p><p>century) we find two endings, the short ending -s, and the long ending -st whose addi-</p><p>tional dental plosive -t comes from the pronoun thu. Interestingly, in this text the old</p><p>short form occurs only when the subject pronoun precedes the verb:</p><p>(15) a. kerōst thu ‘chooses you’, gābist du ‘gave you’</p><p>b. thu wissīs ‘you know’, tu bātis ‘you begged’</p><p>(Christ and the Samaritan Woman; cited from Braune 2004: 261)</p><p>To sum up, the development of a second ending/of double agreement seems to have</p><p>depended on two issues: on V-to-C raising and on subject-verb-inversion (i.e. a pro-</p><p>nominal subject cliticizing onto the verb in C0).</p><p>.. Double agreement and the rise of pro-drop</p><p>What does double agreement have to do with pronominal agreement? After all, we</p><p>need an explanation for the innovation of pronominal agreement in order to describe</p><p>the diachrony of pro-drop in the dialects. The above-mentioned Isidor examples may</p><p>provide evidence for a putative diachronic relationship between the two phenomena:</p><p>(16) a. Endi dhes selben christes … chichundemes pro auh nu</p><p>(= 13a)</p><p>b. Chiuuisso chioffanodom uuir nu hear dhazs …</p><p>(= 13b)</p><p>Such minimal pairs, which must have occurred in spoken OHG as well, may have</p><p>conveyed the impression to the child learner that a verbal ending must contain</p><p>something special which enables it to license pro-drop and that this special prop-</p><p>erty is its pronominal origin. Already Paul (1877) analyses -mēs as deriving from a</p><p>personal pronoun. This assumption has turned out to be untenable, as later research</p><p>has shown. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the pronominal nature of -mēs was</p><p>the result of a reanalysis of V-mēs as V-n+uuir in such minimal pairs: -mēs may have</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>been eventually analysed as pronominal exactly in such contexts where it contrasts with</p><p>overt pronouns. Since only the long ending, but not the short one, was able to license pro-</p><p>drop, it may well have been the case that its pronominal nature was made responsible</p><p>for this.15</p><p>Additional evidence for this speculative scenario comes from two further pieces</p><p>of data: first, the hybrid ending -nmes which looks like a combination of the short and</p><p>long form (n + mēs), is also attested in Tatian (Franck 1971):</p><p>(17) uuanne gisahun uuir thih gast uuesentan (T 545,7)</p><p>when saw we you guest being</p><p>Inti gihalotunmes thih.</p><p>and took you</p><p>‘when saw we you a stranger, and took you in’</p><p>te uidimus hospitem & collegimus te.</p><p>Such forms have been analyzed as combinations of a verb regularly carrying the short</p><p>ending -n to which -mēs was added. If this was indeed the case, it would provide strong</p><p>evidence for the pronominal nature of -mēs in the eyes of speakers of OHG. As expected</p><p>(and necessary for our explanation), all seven cases of hybrid forms appear in verb-sec-</p><p>ond position in Tatian and all other texts where they are attested.</p><p>Second, we know from several Upper German dialects that the</p><p>w-onset of the</p><p>pronoun wir ‘we’ has indeed developed into an m in exactly those contexts where</p><p>the subject pronoun follows the verb in second position. This assimiliation may have</p><p>occurred already in spoken OHG (cf. Schatz 1907: 163).</p><p>To conclude: the reanalysis of the inflectional marker -mēs as pronominal may</p><p>have then had the consequence that the ability to license pro-drop became restricted</p><p>to pronominal agreement in C.</p><p>.. Conclusion</p><p>The phenomenon of pro-drop in German is characterized by continuity at the dialec-</p><p>tal level. The alleged loss of (referential) pro-drop has occurred only in the standard</p><p>language. At first sight, the surface distribution of (referential) pro seems to be entirely</p><p>different in OHG as compared to the modern dialects.</p><p>However, the underlying syntactic licensing condition is the same: pro is only</p><p>licensed if c-commanded by verbal Agr. What has changed is that the requirement on</p><p>1. As one of the reviewers rightly objects, this explanation still leaves open the question,</p><p>why -mēs licensed pro-drop before it has been reanalysed as [+pronominal]. However, this</p><p>problem may be only an artifact of the sparse text documentation: it may be the case that the</p><p>reanalysis of -mēs had already begun at the time from which the oldest texts of OHG (like MF</p><p>and I) are attested.</p><p>What changed where? </p><p>Agr has become more specific: in the modern dialects only pronominal agreement has</p><p>come to be able to identify pro. We have argued that this change is probably related to</p><p>a further phenomenon, namely to the rise of double agreement.</p><p>Furthermore, the innovation of inflected complementizers, an independent phe-</p><p>nomenon, led to a drastic change in the surface distribution of pro, as the requirement</p><p>of a c-commanding Agr could then also be fulfilled in subordinate clause. It would,</p><p>however, be beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the history of complementizer</p><p>inflection (but cf. Fuß 2005, 2008; Axel & Weiß to appear).</p><p>. Further case studies</p><p>We have only been able to present one case study in more detail. But there are many</p><p>more cases where the question of dialect vs. standard has not received sufficient attention</p><p>in diachronic studies. We will briefly discuss three further cases where the develop-</p><p>ment at the dialectal level considerably differs from the development of the standard.</p><p>.1 Negation</p><p>A further case of more continuity at the dialectal level is negation. In Old and Middle</p><p>High German there was negative concord (NC); consider (18a) from the Middle High</p><p>German Prose Lancelot. Modern Standard German is not a negative concord language</p><p>any more, (18b), but at the dialectal level negative concord has survived as can be seen</p><p>in (18c) from Modern Bavarian.</p><p>(18) a. Da enwart nymand konig (Middle High German)</p><p>there neg-became nobody king</p><p>‘Nobody became king.’ (Lanc 10,9)</p><p>b. Ich habe kein Bier (*nicht) zuhause (Modern Standard German)</p><p>I have no beer neg at-home</p><p>c. I hon koa Bia ned dahoam (Modern Bavarian)</p><p>I have no beer neg at-home</p><p>‘I don’t have a beer at home.’</p><p>The difference between (18a) and (18c) indicates that there was a change from Middle</p><p>High German to the modern dialects as well: the negative particle ne/en vanished</p><p>and nicht (Bavarian ned), originally a negation strengthener, became the particle</p><p>expressing negation alone (Jäger 2008). But this change is only a superficial one in</p><p>two respects: (i) it has not altered the fundamental property of being a NC language,</p><p>and (ii) there was no accompanying change on the structural level. As Jäger (2008) has</p><p>shown, the syntax of negation in German can be analysed as involving a NegP structure</p><p> Katrin Axel & Helmut Weiß</p><p>throughout its history. The only change that has happened was that the lexeme origi-</p><p>nally occupying the Neg0 position was lost in Middle High German times (19):</p><p>(19) a. Da enwart nymand konig</p><p>b. NegP</p><p>Spec Neg′</p><p>nicht VP Neg0</p><p>ni/ne/ø</p><p>Note that continuity on the structural level also holds for Standard German (Jäger</p><p>2008), but this is somewhat concealed through the apparent loss of the NC property.</p><p>So the development of the dialects gives a much more adequate picture with respect to</p><p>continuity or change.16</p><p>. Possessive constructions</p><p>A different case would be the development of possessive constructions. In this case</p><p>there is more continuity in the standard language: here, the post-nominal genitive has</p><p>survived, (20a). But in the dialects there emerged a new structure, namely a DP-internal</p><p>pre-nominal possessor construction.17</p><p>(20) a. das Haus des Vaters (Modern Standard German)</p><p>the house the-gen father-gen</p><p>‘the house of the father’</p><p>b. am Voda sei Haus (Modern Bavarian)</p><p>the-dat father-dat his house</p><p>‘the house of the father’</p><p>The case system of German developed in such a way that the genitive was lost first as</p><p>verbal case and eventually adnominally as well (Behaghel 1923). This development</p><p>1. The case of negation in German is much more complicated than described in the main</p><p>text, since there is dispute in the literature whether German has lost NC (Jäger 2008) or not</p><p>(Weiß 2004b). A further point of discussion is the question as to whether or not nicht was</p><p>reanalysed as head or NegP (cf. Jäger 2008). However, independently of these issues, it is</p><p>undisputable that all the dialects did not lose the NC property and they thus exhibit obvious</p><p>continuity in a fundamental area of grammar.</p><p>1. Some dialects have, however, retained the adverbial genitive in fossilized expressions</p><p>such as des Mittags ‘at noon’, des Abends ‘in the evening’ etc.</p><p>What changed where? </p><p>took place more than 500 years ago, but only in the dialects, whereas in the written lan-</p><p>guage the adnominal genitive survived (Weiß 2001). The case of the Standard German</p><p>genitive is an impressive example of the conserving ability of written varieties (even in</p><p>the absence of prescriptive grammars) (Weiß 2001, 2004a,b).</p><p>In the dialects there evolved a new possessive construction as in (20b) where the</p><p>possessor appears pre-nominally and is marked as dative instead of genitive (Weiß</p><p>2008). This development conforms with the overall development of the case system in</p><p>German with its loss of the genitive – though the emergence of the structure as such</p><p>was presumably independent of this overall development (cf. Weiß 2008). Therefore,</p><p>the possessive syntax of the standard with its continuity in the use of the genitive con-</p><p>veys a rather inadequate impression.</p><p>. The consolidation of verb-final order</p><p>It is a widely-held assumption that ‘German’ underwent a development towards more</p><p>rigid final order of the finite verb, which amounts to the strengthening of the so-called</p><p>sentence bracket formed by the finite verb or complementizer in C (left sentence</p><p>bracket) and by the verbal cluster at the end of the clause (right sentence bracket). It has</p><p>been argued that there was a diachronic decrease of variation in the verbal cluster with</p><p>the effect that the finite verb became increasingly restricted to absolute final position.18</p><p>Again, if we take into consideration the situation in the modern dialects, a somewhat</p><p>different picture emerges.</p><p>In Modern Standard German, the word order in the verbal complex is very rigid in</p><p>that the subordinate verb has to precede the superordinate verb (e.g. V2 > V1, cf. (21);</p><p>V3 > V2 > V1; V4 > V3 >V2 > V1):19</p><p>(21) a. dass Maria ein Lied gesungen hat</p><p>that Mary a song sung2 has1</p><p>‘…that Mary has sung a song.’</p><p>b. … *dass Maria ein Lied hat gesungen</p><p>that Mary a song has1 sung2</p><p>‘…that Mary has sung a song.’</p><p>1. Besides the change in verbal clusters, the sentence bracket was also consolidated by a</p><p>quantitative and qualitative decrease of extraposition patterns. We will not deal with this</p><p>phenomenon here, but note that there are suggestive findings reported in the secondary</p><p>literature that the contemporary dialects are more liberal towards what types of XPs can be</p><p>extraposed and exhibit</p>
- AT096 - Aço
- Aula_06
- Transmissão com Polias e Correias
- Elementos de Máquinas - Transmissão e Fixação
- ETAPA 1 Diagnóstico e Levantamento de Resíduos Sólidos Para realizar o gerenciamento de resíduos sólidos
- c) Pensando no aproveitamento energético do sistema, se um motor elétrico transmite 1kW de potência a esse sistema, qual é eficiência do sistema para a condição de operação descrit
- 3) O laboratório Virtual da algetec nos permite vivenciar experimentos através da simulação Nesta etapa devemos realizar o experimento do laboratório virtual intitulado Perda de carga distribuída
- b) Com base nos seus conhecimentos adquiridos na disciplina, quais são os fatores que contribuíram para que houvesse diferença na perda de carga distribuída entre as tubulações7
- a) Considerando os dois experimentos realizados, quais são as maiores perdas de carga para cada uma das tubulações
- b) Considerando as eficiências hidráulicas, da turbina e gerador um valor de 0,9 (eficiência total), qual seria a potência elétrica produzida (Considere a
- a) Utilizando um gerador elétrico de 10 polos, e a velocidade de rotação específica, qual seria a opção de turbina para esta situação
- 2) Uma bomba é um equipamento com a função de transferir energia de uma determinada fonte para um líquido, permitindo que ele possa se deslocar de um ponto para outro,
- 1) As máquinas de fluídos, como estamos estudando neste módulo foram fundamentais para a nossa evolução, seja auxiliando no transporte de fluídos ou então utilizando a energia do fluído para trans
- Um dos elementos que a lubrificação é maisimportante são nos mancais, elementos muitoutilizados em motores e máquinas em rotação.Quanto à lubrifica...
- Um dos componentes que mais necessitam delubrificação são os mancais, dos quais existem duasclasses principais: mancais de rolamento e mancaisde de...
- Ex.3 A máquina policorte, representada na figura, é acionada por um motor assíncrono, de indução, trifásico, com potência Pm=2,5 cv (aproximadame...
- Assinale a alternativa que contém os tipos de roscas mais utilizados e suas diferenças Clique na sua resposta abaixo Rosca Whitworth e unificada/ ...
- Questão 9/10 - Projeto de Componentes Mecânicos → Um eixo circular de diâmetro 20 mm é submetido, simultaneamente, a um torque de 200 Nm e a um mo...
- Questão 2/10 - Projeto de Componentes Uma corrente de rolos simples de passo 19,05 mm é utilizada para o acionamento de um determinado sistema de t...
- Vou para a escolha correta de anéis elásticos deve-se levar em conta
- Quais material que se adequam na fabricação dos rebites são
- O arrancamento de material da superfície dos dentes das engrenagens formando cavidades é conhecido como:RupturaPittingScoringEscoamento plá...
- Na técnica de alinhamento, o que é o pé manco do equipamento?Pé manco é quando devemos corrigir o desalinhamento paralelo ou radial.É um desniv...
- Não podemos afirmar como irregularidade que podem ser encontradas nos cabos de aço:Gaiola de passarinhoRedução no diâmetro dos cabosCosturas ...
- na fixacao de dirversos elementos de maquinas , como porcas , pinos e similares , é essencial selecionar o metodo adequado para garantir a seguranç...
- AV Elementos De Máquinas Marcar P ixo de aço (E= 207GPa e Oy = 450MPa) de seção circular com diâmetro de 12, 5cm supo a transversal de 150kN confor...
- Questões
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Perguntas dessa disciplina
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Reported speech, a fundamental aspect of English grammar, involves conveying someone else's words or thoughts indirectly. It requires changes in pr...
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What are the respective shortcuts for the options identified by numbers 1, 3, and 5 on the Standard Toolbar in Word 97? 1 3 5 Quais são, respectiv...
According to the text, what are the two factors that have made the English language an international language? A) Grammar is much more difficult,...
Adjectives describe nouns. In grammar, we say that adjectives modify nouns. The word MODIFY means CHANGE A LITTLE. Partindo da explanação acerca do...