The rightward movement of complements and adjuncts in the Old English of Beowulf

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Pintzuk ◽  
Anthony S. Kroch
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
English Poem ◽  
The Third ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Rightward Movement

ABSTRACTAlthough it has generally been recognized that Old English was a verb-final language with verb-seconding, the existence of clauses with main verb complements and adjuncts appearing after the otherwise clause-final verb seems to contradict the hypothesis that the language was strictly verb-final in underlying structure. There are three possible analyses to explain these clauses: variable word order in the base, leftward verb movement, and rightward movement of NPs and PPs. In this article, we demonstrate that only the third analysis adequately explains the data of the Early Old English poem Beowulf. Moreover, by investigating the mapping between syntactic structures and metrical units, we provide evidence for two types of rightward movement with two distinct structures: heavy NP shift, with a characteristic major intonational boundary between the main verb and the postposed NP, and PP extraposition, where the intonational boundary was much less common.

scholarly journals Hvor ‘each’ Reciprocals and Distributives in Icelandic: e-Raising + Short Main Verb Movement

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson ◽  
Jim Wood ◽  
Einar Freyr Sigurðsson
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Base Position ◽  
Main Verb

We discuss remarkable constructions in Icelandic that have the distributive pronoun hvor ‘each’ in common: the reciprocal construction hvor annar ‘each other’, and the distributive hvor sinn ‘each their’ construction, which also comes in a sinn hvor ‘their each’ version. We provide the first detailed description of these constructions, in particular their case and word order properties, which raise recalcitrant puzzles, and then we discuss what they tell us about the syntax of nonfinite verbs. Specifically, the word order and case properties of these constructions indicate that nonfinite verbs in Icelandic undergo short verb movement within the verb phrase. That is, the evidence indicates that the leftmost element in these constructions, alternatively hvor or sinn, originates inside an object DP and moves, by what we refer to as e-raising, to the base position of an antecedent with which it agrees, before being stranded by that very antecedent. The verb, nevertheless, appears to the left of this element, even when it is a nonfinite verb, showing that it must undergo short movement to the left of Spec,vP. In addition, the interaction of e-raising and case has important consequences for Case theory, as it indicates that case agreement and case marking take place in PF.

OV versus VO in Old High German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Right

This chapter surveys the word order variation in the right periphery of the clause in OHG. The investigation is based on a corpus including all dependent clauses introduced by the complementizer thaz ‘that’ in the minor OHG documents, a collection of up to forty smaller texts of various genres. The analysis shows that the majority of the data can be explained within a standard OV grammar, assuming additional extraposition of heavy XPs to the right. But apart from these cases, there is evidence supporting the assumption of leftward movement of the verb to an intermediate functional projection vP which is optional with basic OV but obligatory with basic VO. In addition, the chapter presents patterns which evidently involve verb movement to a higher functional head, above vP, and discusses the nature of the landing site of the verb in these cases.

Causation, Explanation, and the Metaphysics of Aspect

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradford Skow
Keyword(s):  
Background Condition ◽  
Structural Explanation ◽  
Levels Of Explanation ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Difference ◽  
In Virtue Of

This book aims to answer the following questions: what is the difference between a cause and a background condition? What is it to manifest a disposition? Can dispositions be extrinsic? What is the most basic kind of causation? And, what might a structural explanation be? Each chapter takes up a subset of these questions; the chapters are written to be readable independently. The answers defended rely on three ideas. Two of those ideas use a distinction from the study of lexical aspect, namely the distinction between stative verbs and non-stative verbs. The first idea is that events go with non-stative verbs, in the sense that “If S, then an event occurred in virtue of the fact that S” is true when the main verb in the clause going in for “S” is non-stative. The second is that acting, doing something, goes with non-stative verbs, in the sense that “In Ving X did something” is true iff V is a non-stative verb. The third idea is about levels of explanation: “(A because B) because C” does not entail “A because C.”

scholarly journals The Ælfrician Glossaries in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 35: A New Edition and Commentary

2020 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-233
Author(s):  
Claudio Cataldi
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
The Third ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Comprehensive Discussion

AbstractThe present study provides a full edition and commentary of the three glossaries in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 35, fol. 57r–v. These glossaries, which were first partly edited and discussed by Liebermann (1894), are comprised of excerpts from Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary arranged by subject. The selection of material from the two Ælfrician works witnesses to the interests of the glossator. The first glossary in Barlow 35 collects Latin grammatical terms and verbs followed by their Old English equivalents. The second glossary is drawn from the chapter on plant names of Ælfric’s Glossary, with interpolations from other chapters of the same work. This glossary also features twelfth-century interlinear notations, which seem to have a metatextual function. The third glossary combines excerpts from Ælfric’s Glossary with verbs derived from the Grammar. Liebermann transcribed only part of the glosses and gave a brief commentary on the glossaries as well as parallels with Zupitza’s (1880) edition of Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary; hence the need for a new edition, which is provided in the present study, along with a comprehensive discussion of the glossaries and a reassessment of the correspondences concerning their Ælfrician sources.

Null Subjects in Old English

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elly van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
English I

I review the proposal made by Sigurðsson (2011) that null arguments follow from third-factor principles, as in Chomsky 2005 . A number of issues remain unclear: for instance, the kind of topic that licenses null arguments in Modern Germanic, including Modern English. I argue that Old English is pro drop and add to the discussion Frascarelli (2007) started as to which topic licenses a null subject. I agree with Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007) that the licensing topic in Modern Germanic and Old English is an aboutness-shift topic. I also argue that verb movement to C is necessary to license the empty argument in the modern Germanic languages (including Modern English), but not in Old English, since agreement is still responsible for licensing in that language, as in Italian.

scholarly journals COMMUNICATIVE INTENTION AS A FACTOR OF WORD ORDER IN THE UTTERANCE

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-51
Author(s):  
О.Ю. Дементьева ◽  
Ю. Мао
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
The Russian Language

В статье обсуждаются вопросы о порядке слов в русском языке: что подразумевается под порядком слов, в чем его особенности, какие факторы на него влияют. Рассматривается понятие коммуникативной установки говорящего, а также взаимодействие коммуникативной, семантической и синтаксической структур предложения-высказывания. The article deals with the word order in the Russian language: what is meant by the word order, what are its features. what factors determine the word order. The concept of the communicative intention is considered, as well as the interaction of the communicative, semantic and syntactic structures of the utterance.

scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

scholarly journals Bhadarwahi: A Typological Sketch

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Main Verb

This paper is a summary of some phonological and morphosyntactice features of the Bhadarwahi language of Indo-Aryan family. Bhadarwahi is a lesser known and less documented language spoken in district of Doda of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by the main verb.

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