scholarly journals Subjektsegenskaper i förändring: Indefinita subjekt i fornsvenskt lagspråk

2019 ◽  
Vol NF 28 (2018) ◽  
pp. 112-141
Author(s):  
Minna Sandelin

In Old Swedish, the placement of the subject was tied to its function in the information structure of the clause: rhematic subjects, which are semantically indefinite and introduce a new referent to the text, were most often postverbal. The study analyses such subjects in Old Swedish legal language in relation to the order of constituents in the clause, the position of the clause in the text, and the structure of the subject. Three questions are posed: 1. What order of constituents is found in clauses with semantically indefinite subjects? 2. Do these clauses appear in initial, medial, or final position in paragraphs and subparagraphs? 3. What structure does a semantically indefinite subject have? The corpus consists of all main clauses (n=210) and subordinate clauses (n=28) with indefinite subjects in three sections of the Law of Uppland. An indefinite subject seldom (5.2%) appears in the preverbal position in main clauses, while this is common in subordinate clauses (71.4%). In over 93% of main clauses, the subject appears postverbally as the second or third constituent, but placement as the fourth constituent is rare. The main clauses are often verb-initial conditional clauses in which the preverbal position is not a possibility. The clauses tend to appear in initial or medial position in the text, in the introduction to a paragraph or a subparagraph. The subjects are mainly short, bare nouns, but they can also be combined with numerals, pronouns, or relative clauses.

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli

AbstractI started from the relative clause which occurs in Hittite, and in particular with the enclitic position of the relative pronoun. This is connected with the OV position and this position seems to have been prevailing in Hittite and PIE. The syntactic structure usually employed in Hittite between different clauses is the parataxis. Nevertheless, also the hypotaxis begins to be employed and the best occasion to use it was the diptych as suggested by Haudry, though he didn't consider the most natural and usual diptych: the law, where the crime and the sanction build a natural diptych already in old Hittite. Then I used Justus' and Boley's discussion on the structure of Hittite sentence and found a similarity with Latin, namely the use of an animate subject as central point of a sentence. With verbs of action in ancient languages the subject was normally an animate being, whereas also inanimate subject is employed in modern languages. This seems to be the major difference between ancient and modern structure of a sentence, or, better to say, in Hittite and PIE the subject was an animate being and this persisted a long time, and remained as a tendency in Latin, while in following languages and in classical grammar the subject became a simple nominal “entity” to be predicated and precised with verb and other linguistic instruments. A glance has been cast also to pronouns and particles (sometimes linked together) as instruments of linking nominal variants of coordinate or subordinate clauses and to the development of demonstrative/deictic pronouns. Also in ancient case theory a prevailing position was assured to the nominative case, the case of the subject.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Håkansson

This article is concerned with null referential subjects in Old Swedish (ca. 1225–1526), and addresses the problem of why the scope for such subjects has been reduced during the history of Swedish. Within diachronic syntax it has been a common assumption that syntactic change is caused by changes in morphology. However, this study shows that deflexion only to a limited extent can explain the loss of null referential subjects in Old Swedish, since the most striking change in their use seems to take place during Early Old Swedish (ca. 1225–1375) before the loss of person agreement: whereas referential subjects could be omitted from verb-second main clauses and subordinate clauses in Early Old Swedish, in Late Old Swedish corresponding subjectless clauses are uncommon. Within the framework of generative grammar it is argued that this is an effect of changes in movement strategies to the subject position, [Spec, IP]: whereas movement to the subject position is syntactically determined in Modern Swedish, in Early Old Swedish the corresponding move is pragmatically determined. The study is based on a corpus of approximately 193,400 words, collected from 12 Old Swedish texts.


2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Claude Muller

We examine the evolution of the syntax of the verb phrase in Middle French, in a topological framework. The V2 hypothesis can be maintained for this stage if we admit that V becomes a VP in Middle French, thus explaining that the non topicalised subject will be placed further after the verb, particularly after the past participle, understood as a verbal constituant ; in the same time, a final position of focus appears, leading to place a heavy subject in the last position of the clause. The other major position of the subject, just before the verb, is the most frequent in subordinate clauses. A major fact of the subsequent evolution is the restriction to the adverbials in the possibilities of insertions between verb and participles or infinitives, and also between a relative subject or a complementizer and the verb in subordinate clauses.


Author(s):  
Harm Pinkster

Volume II of the Oxford Latin Syntax deals with the syntax and pragmatics of complex sentences in Latin and other topics that transcend the simple clause (which is the content of Volume I). The volume starts with a chapter on subordination in general, followed by chapters on subordinate clauses that function as argument or as satellite in their sentence. Separate chapters are devoted to subordinate clauses governed by nouns and adjectives and to relative clauses. In addition there are chapters on coordination, comparison, secondary predicates, information structure of clauses and sentences including the use of emphatic particles, word order, and various discourse phenomena such as sentence connection. As in Volume I, the description of the Latin material is based upon texts from roughly 200 BC to AD 450. The Latin texts that are discussed are provided with an English translation. Supplements contain further examples to illustrate the main text. The grammatical framework used is mainly that of Functional Grammar but the description is accessible for readers without a modern linguistic background.


Author(s):  
Ю. М. Оборотов

В современной методологии юриспруденции происходит переход от изучения состо­яний ее объекта, которыми выступают право и государство, к постижению этого объек­та в его изменениях и превращениях. Две подсистемы методологии юриспруденции, подсистема обращенная к состоянию права и государства; и подсистема обращенная к изменениям права и государства, — получают свое отображение в концептуальной форме, методологических подходах, методах, специфических понятиях. Показательны перемены в содержании методологии юриспруденции, где определяю­щее значение имеют методологические подходы, определяющие стратегию исследова­тельских поисков во взаимосвязи юриспруденции с правом и государством. Среди наи­более характерных подходов антропологический, аксиологический, цивилизационный, синергетический и герменевтический — определяют плюралистичность современной методологии и свидетельствуют о становлении новой парадигмы методологии юриспру­денции.   In modern methodology of jurisprudence there is a transition from the study the states of its object to its comprehension in changes and transformations. Hence the two subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence: subsystem facing the states of the law and the state as well as their components and aspects; and subsystem facing the changes of the law and the state in general and their constituents. These subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence receive its reflection in conceptual form, methodological approaches, methods, specific concepts. Methodology of jurisprudence should not be restricted to the methodology of legal theory. In this regard, it is an important methodological question about subject of jurisprudence. It is proposed to consider the subject of jurisprudence as complex, covering both the law and the state in their specificity, interaction and integrity. Indicative changes in the content methodology of jurisprudence are the usage of decisive importance methodological approaches that govern research strategy searches in conjunction with the law and the state. Among the most characteristic of modern development approaches: anthropological, axiological, civilization, synergistic and hermeneutic. Modern methodology of jurisprudence is pluralistic in nature alleging various approaches to the law and the state. Marked approaches allow the formation of a new paradigm methodology of jurisprudence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48
Author(s):  
Warren Swain

Intoxication as a ground to set aside a contract is not something that has proved to be easy for the law to regulate. This is perhaps not very surprising. Intoxication is a temporary condition of varying degrees of magnitude. Its presence does however raise questions of contractual autonomy and individual responsibility. Alcohol consumption is a common social activity and perceptions of intoxication and especially alcoholism have changed over time. Roman law is surprisingly quiet on the subject. In modern times the rules about intoxicated contracting in Scottish and English law is very similar. Rather more interestingly the law in these two jurisdictions has reached the current position in slightly different ways. This history can be traced through English Equity, the works of the Scottish Institutional writers, the rise of the Will Theory, and all leavened with a dose of judicial pragmatism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 88-93
Author(s):  
K.N. Golikov ◽  

The subject of this article is the problems of the nature, essence and purpose of prosecutorial activity. The purpose of the article is to study and justify the role of the human rights function in prosecutorial activities in the concept of a modern legal state. At the heart of prosecutorial activity is the implementation of the main function of the Prosecutor’s office – its rights and freedoms, their protection. This means that any type (branch) of Prosecutor's supervision is permeated with human rights content in relation to a citizen, society, or the state. This is confirmed by the fact that the Federal law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation” establishes an independent type of Prosecutor's supervision-supervision over the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms. It is argued that the legislation enshrines the human rights activities of the Prosecutor's office as its most important function. It is proposed to add this to the Law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation”.


Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash

The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how the scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles. The scribe inserted the statutes into the structure of a royal inscription, skillfully reshaping the genre. This approach allowed the king to use the law code to demonstrate that Hammurabi had fulfilled the mandate to guarantee justice enjoined upon him by the gods, affirming his authority as king. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia, influencing biblical law and the law of the Hittite Empire and perhaps shaping Greek and Roman law. The Laws of Hammurabi is also a witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became a classic text and the subject of formal commentaries, marking a Copernican revolution in intellectual culture.


Author(s):  
Alexander Brown

Section I identifies the weaknesses in existing accounts which locate the legitimacy of expectations in underpinning laws and legal entitlements (the Law-Based Account), in the substantive justice of expectations and/or the justice of the basic structure which forms the background to expectations (the Justice-Based Account), or in the legitimacy of the governing agencies and political authorities whose acts and omissions are both the cause and the subject of expectations (the Legitimate Authority-Based Account). Section II introduces a rival account, the Responsibility-Based Account, according to which the legitimacy of expectations depends on the responsibility of governmental administrative agencies for bringing about agent’s expectations, allied to those agencies already having been given or having assumed a role responsibility for making binding decisions affecting the important interests of agents. Finally, Section III expounds in more detail the complex theory of responsibility that undergirds the Responsibility-Based Account.


Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.


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