scholarly journals In defense of a language error

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Thórhallur Eythórsson
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Form ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Inflected Form

The verb valda ‘cause’ in Icelandic standardly has the past participle/supine valdið, but an alternative form is ollið (ollað). This verb governs dative case with objects, which is preserved in passive in standard Icelandic. However, in a few examples, nominative is found instead, in which case an inflected form of the participle shows up (ollnar), agreeing with the nominative sub-ject of the passive clause. Such instances can be understood on the pre-sumption that the speakers in question not only have the alternative form of the participle, but also substitute nominative for dative in passive (by Nominative Sickness). In this article I look at examples of the intuitively ill-formed form ollnar, and discuss its possible emergence. As it turns out, structures involving this form are completely “grammatical” in light of some morphological and morphosyntactic changes in Icelandic.

German children's productivity with tense morphology: the Perfekt (present perfect)

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANGELIKA WITTEK ◽  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Keyword(s):  
Past Participle ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Semantics ◽  
Inflected Form ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Main Verb

Two nonce-word studies examined German-speaking children's productivity with the Perfekt (present perfect) from 2;6 to 3;6. The German Perfekt consists of the past participle of the main verb and an inflected form of an auxiliary (either haben ‘have’ or sein ‘be’). In Study 1, nonce verbs were either introduced in the infinitival form, and children (seventy-two children, aged 2;6 to 3;6) were tested on their ability to produce the Perfekt, or introduced in the Perfekt, and children were tested on their ability to produce the infinitive. In Study 2 twenty-four children aged 3;6 were given the past participle form of nonce verbs to see if they could supply the appropriate auxiliary (based mainly on verb semantics). The results were that many children as young as 2;6 used past participles productively (more than used infinitival forms productively), but all children had much difficulty in supplying both auxiliaries appropriately. The current findings suggest that mastery of the Perfekt construction as a whole does not take place before the age of four and that frequency of exposure is an important factor in determining the age at which children acquire grammatical constructions.

Why is this happened? Passive morphology and unaccusativity

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Unaccusative Verbs

Zobl discussed inappropriate passive morphology (‘be’ and the past participle) in the English writing of L2 learners, linking its occurrence to the class of unaccusative verbs and proposing that learners subsume unaccusatives under the syntactic rule for passive formation. The research reported here supports and amplifies Zobl' proposal, based on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled production task containing verbs from a variety of subclasses of unaccusatives. The tasks were administered to Chinese L1 learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. Results show that subjects both used and judged as grammatical inappropriate passive morphology with all verbs falling under the rubric of unaccusativity. The article concludes with linguistic representations which maintain Zobl’s insights but are consistent with current theories of argument structure.

Past participles of strong verbs in Jutland Danish: A real-time study of regionalization and standardization

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torben Juel Jensen ◽  
Marie Maegaard
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Time Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Status ◽  
Standardization Process ◽  
Large Corpus ◽  
Strong Verbs

The article presents a real-time study of standardization and regionalization processes with respect to the use of past participles of strong verbs in the western part of Denmark. Analyses of a large corpus of recordings of informants from two localities show that the use of the dialectalenform of the past participle suffix has been in decline during the last 30 years. Theenforms are replaced by three other forms, one of which is (partly) dialectal, one regional and one standard Danish. The study indicates that a regionalization process has taken place prior to the time period studied, but that it has now been overtaken by a Copenhagen-based standardization process. The study also shows interesting differences between the two localities, arguably due to the geographical location and size, and to the status of the different participle forms in the traditional local dialects.

The ge- Prefix of the Past Participle

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Richard K. Seymour
Keyword(s):  
Past Participle ◽  
The Past

The verbal system

2019 ◽  
pp. 176-231
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
System P ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Weak Verbs

Verbs in Gothic are thematic, athematic, or preterite present. Several classes, including modals, are discussed. Strong verbs have seven classes, weak verbs four. Inflectional categories are first, second, and third person, singular, dual (except in the third person), and plural number. Tenses are nonpast and past/preterite. There are two inflected moods, indicative and optative, and two voices (active, passive). The passive is synthetic in the nonpast indicative and optative. The past system features two periphrastic passives, one stative-eventive with wisan (be), the other inchoative and change of state with wairþan (become). Middle functions are mostly represented by simple reflexive structures and -nan verbs. Nonfinite categories include one voice-underspecified infinitive, a nonpast and past participle, and a present active imperative. The third person imperative is normally expressed by an optative.

The Past Participle

1976 ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Domenico Parisi
Keyword(s):  
Past Participle ◽  
The Past

What does āgen mean in the Lindisfarne Gospels?

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-272
Author(s):  
Letizia Vezzosi
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lindisfarne Gospels ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Core Meaning ◽  
Source Of Information

Abstract Aldred’s interlinear glosses added to the Latin text of the Lindisfarne Gospels have undoubtedly an inestimable value as one of the most substantial representatives of late Old Northumbrian. Therefore, they have been an object of study both as a source of information on this Old English variety and on the typological changes affecting Middle English. Starting from the assumption that glosses have an ancillary function with respect to the Latin text they accompany, I have argued in the present paper that they can make a significant contribution to delineating the history and meaning of a word inasmuch as glossators could have chosen vernacular words according to their core meaning. The particular case of the verbs of possession āgan and the forms derived from it, including the past participle āgen, will be used in the following discussion of the role of glosses: the investigation of their meaning in the Lindisfarne Gospels will help us understand the development of āgen into the PDE attributive intensifier own.

Facts, Faction, Anachronism

PMLA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (5) ◽  
pp. 1143-1149
Author(s):  
Russ Castronovo
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Defining Moment ◽  
The Past ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
The Media ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Trump Administration

Temporal concerns are baked into the matter of facts. From an etymological point of view, facts are moments of making and doing that are no longer alive and kicking. Coming into English and other modern Western languages by means of both the past participle of the Latin word facere (“to make or to do”) and the Latin noun factum, whose senses include the “result of doing” and “something done,” fact denotes an action that has happened and is now preserved like a fossil in the accumulated sediments of history (“Fact”). Etymologically speaking, facts are safely removed from the vicissitudes of the present and the whims of our leaders. So it makes sense that there should be some hand-wringing over facts that have become so thoroughly destabilized that they no longer seem to be based on anything. The defining moment in this distressing development occurred when the Trump administration, not content merely to put a spin on facts, dismissed quantifiable facts by summoning “alternative facts” to deny that the low attendance at the 2017 presidential inauguration was real. A dictionary, not the renowned one from Oxford but Urban Dictionary, offers the following definition of alternative facts: “an attempt to gaslight the population in an effort to control the media and create propaganda” (Mozzy-o). If only we could take refuge in etymology and remind ourselves and anyone else who will listen that facts are veritable faits accomplis, over and done with, past participles that stand as linguistic monuments to a bygone event beyond alteration.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document