Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse (Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism)

Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse

Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism (HSM) Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism (HSM) publishes research from colloquia on linguistic aspects of multilingualism organized by the Research Center on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg.

Editors Jürgen M. Meisel Monika Rothweiler Juliane House University of Hamburg Research Center on Mulitlingualism

Volume 5 Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse Edited by Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein and Lukas Pietsch

Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse

Edited by

Jochen Rehbein Christiane Hohenstein Lukas Pietsch Middle East Technical University, Ankara and University of Hamburg

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Connectivity in grammar and discourse / edited by Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein and Lukas Pietsch. p. cm. (Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism, issn -3363 ; v. 5) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Connectives. 2. Discourse analysis. I. Rehbein, Jochen. II. Hohenstein, Christiane. III. Pietsch, Lukas. P302.27.C66   2007 415--dc22

2007060663

isbn 978 90 272 1925 1 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2007 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

The production of this series has been made possible through financial support to the Research Center on Multilingualism (Sonderforschungsbereich 538 "Mehrsprachigkeit") by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Table of contents Connectivity as an object of linguistic research in multilingualism Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

1

Section 1. Aspects of language change and language acquisition Grammaticalization of converb constructions: The case of Japanese –te conjunctive constructions Masayoshi Shibatani Contact, connectivity and language evolution Yaron Matras Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian as donor language Thomas Stolz Some notes on the syntax-pragmatics interface in bilingual children: German in contact with French / Italian Natascha Müller

21

51

75

101

Section 2. Pronouns, topics and subjects Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in popular 16th-18th century Greek narratives: A synchronic and diachronic perspective Chrystalla A. Thoma Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English Lukas Pietsch

139

165

Section 3. Finiteness in text and discourse Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic: Text construction, text subdivision, discourse types and taxis Lars Johanson

187

Connectivity by means of finite elements in monolingual and bilingual Turkish discourse Birsel Karakoç

199

 Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse

Section 4. Subordination – coordination Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish Celia Kerslake

231

Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora: Some exemplary analyses from modern and historical, written and spoken corpora Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

259

Discourse coordination in Turkish monolingual and Turkish-German bilingual children’s talk: işte Annette Herkenrath

291

Section 5. Adverbials, particles and constructions Modal adverbs as discourse markers: A bilingual approach to the study of indeed Karin Aijmer

329

„So, given this common theme ...“: Linking constructions in discourse across languages Kristin Bührig and Juliane House

345

An utterance-transcending connector: Particle to in utterance-final position in Japanese business reporting Yuko Sugita

367

Between connectivity and modality: Reported speech in interpretermediated doctor-patient communication Thomas Johnen and Bernd Meyer

395

Matrix constructions Jochen Rehbein

419

Language index

449

Name index

451

Subject index

457

Connectivity as an object of linguistic research in multilingualism Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and University of Hamburg The contributions in this volume investigate the role played by various linguistic elements in interconnecting units of text and discourse. We discuss this role, the linguistic forms involved and their functions under the term of ‘connectivity’. Connectivity concerns issues of linguistic interaction in its different aspects of grammar, prosody, text and discourse. Since it has repercussions on issues of multilingualism and language contact, as well as language change and language acquisition, the topic of connectivity is of relevance to various research projects working within the Research Center 538 ‘Multilingualism’ in Hamburg, out of which the present collection has developed (cf. House and Rehbein 2004). Of particular interest are the various linguistic means individual languages use to express connectivity. To date, even though connectivity is an area of research that has produced a large number of studies, the field is still rather opaque. Thus, a few structuring and systematic introductory remarks are in order. To begin with, we discuss (1) a general outline of an analytic approach to linguistic connectivity, and (2) different aspects through which it manifests itself in language. In an outline of the book (3), we relate specific fields of linguistic research pertaining to connectivity to the article sections and their main topics. As eminent fields of linguistic research, both language change and language acquisition offer a more general perspective on the role of connectivity and connectives (3.1). The subsequent chapters – ‘Pronouns, topics and subjects’ (3.2), ‘Finiteness in text and discourse’ (3.3), ‘Subordination – coordination ’ (3.4), and ‘Adverbials, particles and constructions’ (3.5) – deal with particular linguistic means which are highly language specific. Accordingly, connectives relating to various grammatical concepts are discussed with regard to their discourse functions and effects.

1. Linguistic connectivity During the 1980s, connectivity was addressed frequently as a connection between “clauses”, and discussed in terms of “subordination” (Mackenzie 1984, König and van der Auwera 1988). Phenomena such as “(hypotactic) clause combining” (Matthiessen



Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

and Thompson 1988), and procedures of “clause chaining” (Slobin 1988) formed a focus of interest. That is, connectivity between linguistic units internal to the sentence or an utterance, mostly between their constituents, ranked high with a discernible research interest in ‘surface’ structures of language. However, under a contrastive perspective, aiming at the discovery of universals in propositional encoding, entities beyond the clause came into view. Forms used to encode a sequence of propositions were discussed e. g. with regard to the notions of “nexus” (of clauses) and of “linkage” (Foley and Van Valin 1984, Van Valin and LaPolla 1997). Characteristically, utterance-internal connections serve to integrate their conjunct elements into a single, complex hierarchical whole and submit them to a common illocutionary force (cf. Foley and Van Valin 1984: 239f.). Since connectivity is organised in ways highly specific to individual languages, perspectives from non-Indo-European languages and contrastive studies have led to insights in effects on text and discourse structure according to the type of connectivity. For instance, gerund constructions in Japanese, especially the converbial “-te” form, have received a steady and growing interest (cf. Myhill & Hibiya 1988, Hasegawa 1996, Grein 1998, Shibatani, this vol.). Equally, Turkish and Turkic converbs (Johanson 1995) continue to offer new vistas on intricate patternings in discourse up to the point of setting up specific discourse types (cf. Karacoç, this vol.; Johanson, this vol., Kerslake, this vol.). Studies on the phenomenon of textual ‘connexity’ (cf. Conte et al. 1989, Heydrich et al. 1989) and, more prominently, the notions of ‘coherence’ and ‘cohesion’ (Halliday and Hasan 1976) helped to develop a body of research on interrelated topics, dealing with linguistic devices overarching the boundaries of single sentences and single utterances (cf. also, in terms of text linguistics, van Dijk 1979, de Beaugrande 1980, contributions in Cambourian 2001, and others). At the same time, research on “connexion” in terms of information-processing within the confines of sentence-based linguistic units, linking “sentence content”, and leading to “textual coherence”, is still growing (cf. Fabricius-Hansen 2000). – In their extensive study of the language development in English, German, Spanish, Hebrew, and Turkish, based on narratives of frog stories, Berman and Slobin (1994) propose connectivity of the informational structure of discourse as an essential concept of analysis: “... we are studying the development of the capacity to describe situations. We are also concerned with the ways in which individual events are related to each other. That is, we are studying the development of linguistic means to connect events and syntactically “package” them into coherent structures – at the level of scene, episode, and overall plot.” (Berman and Slobin 1994: 1–2). We can conclude that ‘connectivity’ as a notion comprises both utterance-internal and utterance-external linguistic devices of various categories (cf. Rehbein 1999). Cross-linguistically, it can be observed that connectivity manifests itself on the ‘linguistic surface’ along a continuum from subordinating connectives through “serialisation” by means of converbs, to coordinative devices which may span not only clauses and phrases, but may link complete utterances, sentences, even parts of text and dis-



Connectivity as an object of linguistics

course to each other (cf. Rudolph 1996, Bisang 1995, 1998b, Johanson 1995, Haspelmath 1995, Kortmann 1996). The phenomenon of connectivity has been receiving increasing attention from linguists, especially from a typological and contrastive perspective (van der Auwera and Bultinck 2001; Behrens and Fabricius-Hansen 2002; Berman 1998; Rehbein 2002; Unger 1996; Verhagen 2001; Grein 1998; Hasegawa 1996; Horie 2000 etc.). Aspects of meaning and formation of discourse particles more and more come into focus (e.g. Mori 1999; Onodera 2004; Park 1998; Fischer 2006). A new domain of connectivity was opened up by the debate about the pragmatics of “small words”, in the English speaking community about ‘discourse markers’ (Schourup 1985, Schiffrin 1985, Fraser 1990 a.o.) and ‘gambits’ (Edmondson 1978, House and Kasper 1981), in the German speaking community about ‘Partikeln’ (cf. e.g. Weydt (ed.) 1979, 1983, 1987). Moreover, connectivity pertains not only to ‘surface’ elements of language such as phrases, clauses, or sentences. It also applies to illocutions, propositions and mental/ cognitive entities, such as particular elements of knowledge, to patterns of (inter-)action and to types of discourse (cf. Hohenstein 2005, 2006 a,b,c, ch. 6.2). This type of mental/cognitive connectivity is established incessantly during the interaction process between speakers and hearers, writers and readers. Thus, “connectivity” is not to be identified with “context” (cf. Rehbein and Kameyama 2003; House 2006). Rather, the development and expansion of linguistic means of connectivity – in diachronic language change and in ontogenetic language development – actually render ‘text’, at least partially, independent of ‘context’. In the following discussion, emphasis will be laid on discursive and textual connections established by the grammatical and interactional potential of more or less complex linguistic devices. While they all serve to connect linguistic actions in their various dimensions, they belong to different formal and functional categories. They are of different internal make-up, and thus constitute different linguistic activities and processes. The guiding hypothesis in this is that connectivity frequently constitutes hinges within the flow of discourse and text (s. Bührig and House, this volume; cf. the German term ‘Scharnier’ as well as Jakobson’s 1957 concept of ‘shifter’).

2. Aspects of connectivity There is no clear-cut division of labour between grammar and discourse in the sense that grammar would exclusively concern the utterance internal connectivity whereas discourse/text concerned that between utterances. Rather, one may say that there is an intertwining of grammar and discourse/text in linguistic connectivity (or: connectives). Therefore, if one looks at the characteristics of connectivity, one should account for both, grammar as well as discourse and text. As for discourse and text, linguistic connectives can generally be described as joining a linguistic action X with a linguistic action Y. Since what is joined are frequently





Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

not full-fledged linguistic actions, but specific dimensions of these, we speak of “dimension X” and “dimension Y” of different linguistic actions being joined. Dimensions of linguistic actions are: a. Constellation: Speech situation, categories of action space (motivations, needs, interactional space, control field etc.) b. Utterance act: Syntax, morphology, phonetics/phonology, prosody etc. c. Illocutionary act: Illocutions, utterance mode, etc. d. Propositional act: Semantics, argument, predicate, predication, symbol fields, etc. e. Knowledge: Presupposition, elements of knowledge, knowledge space, knowledge structure, expectations, knowledge differential, linguistic knowledge, etc. f. Other mental processes: Evaluation, imagination, understanding, planning, etc. g. Cooperation: Back-channel activities, interaction management, speaker-hearersteering devices, reception, etc. All the dimensions mentioned above can become either starting point or target point of a connective: A connective starts out at a dimension X of one linguistic action as a starting point, and joins it to a dimension Y as the target point of another linguistic action. For instance, in the case of a phoric pronoun the starting point is a nominal or another propositional element, while the target point is the phoric expression, which serves to copy the nominal or propositional element into a different syntagm. Connectivity then manifests itself in the process of coreferring, the phoric procedure. In the case of coordination, one propositional element is the starting point, while the target point is a second propositional element of the same grammatical category; in that case, the connective itself implements the process of joining them under a common category of propositionally based knowledge. Thus, the connective acts as a morphosyntactic trigger element of discursive/textual knowledge building. Prosody may be described as a formal domain of its own, since it interacts with the grammatical components, especially in spoken discourse. Quite often we are dealing with a connection between prosodic units joined into a larger schema (cf. Chafe 1988, 1994). Some of the contributions in this volume take into account the connective functions of prosodic and phonetic / phonological resources (e.g. Kerslake, Matras, Thoma, Sugita, cf. this volume). Thus, connectivity between what we may term as the dimensions of a linguistic action X and a linguistic action Y is established by means of different linguistic devices. With regard to their linguistic form, i. e. to grammar, they can be described according to their phonetics/phonology, morphosyntax, constructional make-up and other criteria, depending on the theoretical background of the analyst. As for the functions of linguistic devices realizing connectivity, these may be found – and diagnosed – if one looks at what is done with the forms on the level of discourse and text. Then, functions of connectives can be characterised as the purpose inherent in their forms. Frequently, these inherent purposes are located in the mental-cognitive processes on the part of the hearer/reader which establish connections between different dimensions of linguistic



Connectivity as an object of linguistics

actions as aspects of their own (Givon 1995 pointed out that the connectivity of a text is based on its “structured mental representation... The more connections a node has... the more mentally-accessible it is.” (Givon 1995: 64)). The majority of connectives involves procedures that are operative, in so far as they work on linguistic dimensions, instructing a hearer/reader to process parts of the propositional act in relation to each other (for the ‘field’ characteristics of linguistic procedures cf. Rehbein this vol.). Composite deictic procedures (Rehbein 1995a; for contrasts in English-German translations, cf. Bührig and House 2004, for a comparative analysis in German and English academic articles, cf. Fandrych and Graefen 2002), and connectives of formal cooperation (back channel cues and the like, cf. Ehlich 1986, 1987), can be regarded as typical cases, since, from the point of view of procedural pragmatics, connective devices are rather complex structures, encompassing multi-procedural components as combination, ensemble, integration etc. of linguistic procedures.

3. Outline of the book 3.1

Language change and language acquisition

Several contributions in this volume investigate the relation between connectivity and language change. For instance, Masayoshi Shibatani demonstrates how Japanese converb constructions with motion verbs (-te iku/kuru, conv go/come) undergo several stages of change before they grammaticalize into a new grammatical class of aspectual suffixes. There are, for instance, stages of a solidification of constructions on the phonetic and syntactic level – depending on sucessive changes in the main verb, e.g. a loss of valency – but not on the morphological level. In other cases there is a decreasing degree of congruity of verb and converb. Actually, both grammaticalization types, gradual and instantaneous grammaticalization, are observed with these Japanese converb constructions. That is, the steps leading up to the point where a construction or a part of it finally changes its grammatical category can be revealed only by fine-grained syntactic analysis and if differential linguistic context is taken into account. If, as Bisang 1998a states with regard to serial and relative clause constructions in various African and Asian languages, “constructions and the human equipment are somehow involved in the propagation of linguistic changes” as well as “the factor of sociolinguistics” (Bisang 1998a: 51), in multilingual communities, language change may be induced by contact due to plurilingual people communicating with each other in the contact languages (cf. Stolz and Stolz 1996/97; Stolz, this volume, Matras 2002 and this volume). Many of the connective procedures are sensitive to contact, insofar as they import linguistic devices from a contact language, copy them, integrate them or modify their own forms under conditions of contact (cf. Johanson 1992b, 1999a, Muysken 2000, Clyne 2003, Heine and Kuteva 2005). New connectives are frequently created in mixed languages (cf. Bakker and Mous 1994, Matras 1996, 2000, Matras and





Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

Bakker 2003, Bakker 2003, Stolz 2003, etc.). Apparently it is due to the complexity of their linguistic structure (both synchronically and diachronically speaking) and function that connectives are not only sensitive to contact-induced language change but vulnerable to it (Müller 2003). According to Yaron Matras (this volume), certain languages such as Turoyo, Domari, Romani and others have used various languages from their respective environments as sources of new connectives, which belong to the types of coordination, illocutionary modification, and interaction management. The shift of one expression, structure or construction into a new category or a new paradigm often happens in a complex process involving functional shift, splits in syntax, morphology, word boundaries and semantics, to the point of their fusion. Matras also spells out some sociolinguistic conditions for replication and points towards the mental base of contact-induced change: “Connectivity structures, then, appear particularly vulnerable not just to the actual borrowing for formal material such as conjunctions and other particles, but also to the replication of patterns of constituent ordering, agreement and overall form-function mapping that form the mental blueprint from the respective construction.” (Matras, this volume). Thomas Stolz (this volume) points to the interesting fact that the item allora, borrowed from Italian into (Italo-)Greek, (Italo-)Albanian, Cimbrian, Molise Slavic and Maltese, failed to acquire the full range of functions in the receiving languages that it had in the donor language. His findings point to a dominant role played in contact by the category of temporal deixis, which later develops further into functions of coordination and others. In a similar vein, Herkenrath (this volume) observes that the item işte in German Turkish develops a mixed deictic-coordinative type of use, pointing towards an instance of partial contact-induced grammaticalisation. Stolz explains differences observed between contact results in different languages with language-typological as well as sociolinguistic factors. In this respect, his approach differs from that of Matras, who regards interaction management as the dominant category governing contact-induced effects. Ultimately, linguistic elements may shift into a new formal class and thereby change their functional behaviour with respect to connectivity too. Under a functional-pragmatic perspective, grammaticalization can be characterized as a process whereby complex procedures are transposed within a linguistic field or to a new linguistic field (such as procedural ensembles in the case of matrix constructions or composite deictics; cf. Rehbein, this vol., Johnen and Meyer, this vol.). Restructuring within the utterance may then be the consequence of an increase in context dependence, as in the case of shift towards aspect semantics of the converb constructions in Japanese (Shibatani, this vol.). In bilingual language acquisition, connective elements seem to play an important role, all the more so since connective elements make up a large part of all functional elements (Muysken 2000). Natascha Müller (this volume) notes that in certain grammatical domains – e.g. null-subject properties, object clitics, complementation – there is not an absolute separation of languages in bilingual acquisition (cf. Meisel 1989, Genesee 1989, Genesee, Nicoladis and Paradis 1995 etc.), but some amount of positive



Connectivity as an object of linguistics

cross-linguistic influence, which may result in a partial acceleration of acquisition processes on both sides. She relates these findings to the concept of a common syntaxpragmatics interface, where a shared pragmatic module may help in preparing the ground for syntactic acquisition in both languages. Müller also argues, based on Lopez (2003), that “phases” in the sense of Chomsky’s (2001) theory of syntactic derivation can be interpreted pragmatically. Thus, both in German and in French matrix constructions, pragmatically interpreted subordinated structures can be classified as connectives according to factors of presuppositions and language contrast, independently of their formal-syntactic means of expressing subordination (with or without the complementizer dass/que). A comparable finding is the reinterpretation of Turkish aspecto-temporal finite forms as deictic terms in Turkish–German bilingualism (Rehbein and Karakoç 2004, Karakoç, this vol. cf. below).

3.3

Pronouns, topics and subjects

Topic as a central formative element of thematic organization is a subdomain of linguistic information processing. The manifestation of topic connectivity (see e.g. Aarssen 1998) is strongly sensitive to typological parameters. Languages can be ordered typologically along a continuum between “subject-prominent” and “topic-prominent” (cf. Li and Thompson 1976). Of these, the subject-prominent languages make more heavily use of phoric expressions and can therefore also be characterized as “phoric languages”. On this scale, languages like Japanese and Turkish are more on the topicprominent side, while German, English and French are more on the subject-prominent (phoric) side. This distinction partly correlates with the distinction made in UGbased approaches between “Pro-drop” (or “Null Subject”) and “Non Pro-drop” (or “Non-Null Subject”) languages (Jaeggli and Safir 1989, Haegeman 1997, Rizzi 1997). Phoric expressions (~ PRO-elements) are the “pronouns” of the 3rd person (German er, sie, es; English he, she, it; French il, elle; including their case-inflected forms). In many languages these have no free-word counterparts. The difference between phoric and deictic “pronouns” (“pronoms”) was pointed out first by Benveniste (1956). The purpose of phoric expressions is to encode the continuity of a topic in such a way as to keep it mentally activated for the hearer/reader (Hoffmann 1997: 844f.) PRO-elements are thus linguistic devices of connectivity typical of phoric languages. Their syntactic distribution is often identical with that of free noun phrases; in particular, they can take up subject or object positions, typically depending on the valency of the verb. Grammatically, these phoric elements are pronouns in the narrow sense. On the other hand, phoric elements may be clitics (as in the Romance languages, some Semitic languages, or in spoken German): In Greek (Chrystalla Thoma, this volume), cliticized, weak phoric pronouns have developed. They are employed for topicalization procedures under “clitic object doubling” (cf. Haberland and van der Auwera 1990). Thoma states an interrelationship between the preverbal position of unstressed





Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

third person (weak) pronouns and the deployment of discourse pragmatic functions within the historical language development. “In Early Modern Greek, fronted elements, not necessarily contrastive, attract clitic pronouns to pre-verbal position, until that position becomes the norm and is grammaticalised in Standard Modern Greek. A similar process has taken place in the Romance languages...” (Thoma, this volume; cf. also Janse 2000). It seems to be of high interest that phoric elements of this kind have been developed in an otherwise topic-based language, and despite the fact that other topic based languages were spoken in the environment of the Greek language. An instance where the coding of connectivity is affected by the case-marking on pronouns comes from Irish English (Lukas Pietsch, this volume). In Irish English (Hiberno-English), gerund constructions are found to have changed their syntactic behaviour under contact with Irish. While Standard English in such constructions displays case marking properties that overtly reflect the subordinate character of the construction (either accusative or genitive), Hiberno-English developed a usage of nominative subject pronouns instead. Pietsch argues that this morphological change reflects a change in the underlying syntactic properties of the constructional pattern, obliterating the effect of “subject-to-object raising” (or “exceptional case marking”) that motivates the predominant accusative marking in the Standard English system. Hiberno-English has replicated a pattern from Irish where subject pronouns fail to mark their subordinate status by means of case. Interestingly, Irish itself, while lacking the device of case marking to make this distinction, employs another, syntactic one, marking subordinate clauses by means of different word order. As this syntactic distinction was not replicated in English, the net effect is that the contact variety shows an overall reduction in the overt coding of subordination, having fewer overt formal differences between non-finite subclauses and finite clauses than either of the two source languages have.

3.4

Finiteness in text and discourse

The connectivity created by finite elements (cf. Bisang 2001, Johanson 1994, 1999b) results from the fact that a finite element is characterised by its role as the carrier of predication, the procedure whereby a predicate is assigned to an argument. Lars Johanson (this volume) discusses a type of “chain sentence” characteristic of Turkish literary language, where there is a series of non-finite utterances anchored in the narrative constellation only through the basic finite element at the very end, thus establishing aspectual/temporal, modal and illocutionary features of the earlier utterances only in retrospect. The role of finiteness may also be sensitive to parameters of text and discourse type. For instance, as Johanson remarks, there was an influence of French prose on the structuring of connectivity in late Ottoman literature. (Cf. also Johanson 1971, 1992a). Birsel Karakoç (this volume) finds that bilingual German-Turkish children acquire finite elements in Turkish later than monolingual Turkish children. In monolingual Turkish these finite elements have a function of establishing connectivity on a discourse-type



Connectivity as an object of linguistics

level. In contrast, the bilinguals develop a stronger use of a range of temporal deictic expressions to extend their linguistic capabilities in Turkish. The difference is most marked in the use of the Turkish evidential suffixes. (Cf. also Rehbein and Karakoç 2004).

3.5

Subordination – coordination

Subordination includes phenomena such as attribution, relativization, and complementation. Depending on the language, these phenomena may manifest themselves in grammatical elements such as complementizers, relativizers, wh-elements, case, non-finiteness, or syntactic position (Mackenzie 1984, Haiman and Thompson 1988, Redder 1990, Fabricius-Hansen 1992, Müller 1993, Verhagen 2001 a.o.). An important typological parameter in this respect is that of “deranking” of verb forms, which can be described along a cline from finite through subjunctive to nonfinite (cf. Croft 2001, ch. 9). Celia Kerslake (this volume) presents a classification of subordinate clauses in Turkish. Of special interest is a type of finite subordinate clause with a subordinator in the initial position, because it does not fit the canonical typological classificatory assumptions of Turkish as a left-branching word order language. This phenomenon is contact-related, as the subordinator in question, ki, which introduces subordinate clauses with a postnominal or postpredicative placement, is borrowed from Persian. In Persian its meanings include ‘that’, ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘when’, ‘so that’, etc. Kerslake concludes: that “wherever Turkish (or another Turkic language) is exposed to prolonged contact with a politically and/or demographically dominant Indo-European language (Iranian, Slavic, Germanic, etc), there is a strong tendency for attrition to occur in the indigenous (left-branching, non-finite) type of subordinate clause in favour of finite right-branching clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction [...]” (Kerslake, this vol.; for the grammatical background, s. Göksel and Kerslake 2005). In Turkish, ki-constructions serve the language-internal management of pragmatic and rhetorical purposes, in a way that meets psycholinguistic (universal) requirements of language processing in spoken language. This renders ki a linker of finite clauses to a postpredicative subordination and, in this way, enables speakers to process unplannend propositions in a syntactic-semantic relationship. Coordinating connectivity is often described as symmetric, but it may actually link any kind of element (conjunct) to any kind of preceding element (conjunct) (cf. Haspelmath ed. 2004). Coordination is mostly concerned with the linking of propositional elements (cf. Redder 2006). Through coordination, that conjunct which is set off from the coordinator through a structural cesura is categorially upgraded and turned into the lead category for the other conjunct (cf. Matras 1997, 1998). While coordinating connectivity may join individual words or phrases within an utterance, it can also join entire utterances, illocutionary acts or even whole linguistic actions to each other. Annette Herkenrath (this volume), in a corpus-based study comparing bilingual acquisition of Turkish and German in Germany with monolingual acquisition of Turkish in Turkey, finds differences in the functional diversification of the discourse con-





Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

nective işte. A specific coordinative use abundant in Turkish narrative discourse seems to be lost or play a minor role in German Turkish (cf. Herkenrath, Karakoç and Rehbein 2003). Acquired late even by monolinguals as a linguistic device of sequential and concatenative discourse connectivity (cf. Özbek 2000, Yılmaz 2004), this kind of discourse coordination thus may be undergoing functional change in German Turkish. Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert (this vol.) conduct a corpus-based study of functional characteristics of coordinating elements in diverse languages – Modern English and German, Old Swedish and Turkish. They demonstrate how such an approach can lead to conclusions with regard to more general insights into coordination. Thus, they hypothesize that coordinating connectives may undergo functional innovation or diversification triggered by coordination on macrosyntactic textual and discourse level. They also consider general issues regarding computer­aided quantitative and qualitative methods of corpus analysis.

3.6

Adverbials, particles, and constructions

Adverbial constructions (cf. e.g. van der Auwera 1998) serve to relate a base construction to preestablished knowledge, and to add a new knowledge relation or evaluation to it. Karin Aijmer (this volume) focusses on the range of functions displayed by the item indeed, drawing particular attention to a number of rhetorical functions associated with it (cf. White 2003). Through a process of gradual grammaticalization, this item has developed functions as a discourse marker (cf. Schiffrin 1987, Fraser 1990, Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2006). Observing textual choices made by translators, Aijmer finds that indeed tends to attract special attention when used as an adverbial, as it tends to be explicitly rendered more regularly than other types of connectives, which are often omitted in translation. Complex composite adverbials, like in fact, any time, in addition, often stand extra­ posed at the sentence periphery, joining the base construction to which they are attached, with overarching large-scale textual segments. Thus they act as hinges, joining larger propositional structures (such as argumentations) with the more specific speech actions of which they are part. Kristin Bührig and Juliane House (this volume) call such connectives “linking constructions” (cf. also Bührig 2003, Leuschner 1998 on options of these constructions for grammaticalization). In complex texts, they can also be used as advance organizers which vary cross-linguistically (cf. Gülich 1970, Clyne 1987 a.o.). Particles form another subgroup of connectives to be mentioned here (for literature in a cross-linguistic/contrastive perspective, cf. Fischer 2006, Weydt 1983, 1987, König 1991, Liedke 1994, Nekula 1996, Cardenes Melián 1997, van der Wouden, Foolen and van de Craen 2003, and others). Generally speaking, particles stand in a threefold relation: (1) they establish a relation to a preceding linguistic action, mostly in propositional and illocutionary terms; (2) they modify the propositional content of the utterance of which they are part, by taking a certain part of the propositional content



Connectivity as an object of linguistics

of their utterance into their scope; (3) in addition, they link the content of the utterance with the knowledge of the hearer, especially with respect to the evaluation of the propositional content being received; in doing so they act upon the illocution of the speech action in which they are used. The Japanese language is notorious for its manifold particles, whose functions range from purely grammatical operations, such as ‘case’, to illocutionary tasks, such as ‘interrogative’, and many more. Yuko Sugita (this volume) investigates a functional expansion observed in the Japanese mono-moraic and pitchless ‘quotative’ particle to in oral business reports. She finds that this complementizer is used recurrently in utterance final position, serving as a device for non-linear information processing over larger parts of interrelated concatenative discourse. Matrix constructions, a class of complex formulae which often comprise constructions of reported speech, have connective functions not necessarily limited to the scope of a single utterance. The study of Thomas Johnen and Bernd Meyer (this volume) on interpreted doctor-patient communication shows that different grammatical parts of the reported speech construction may realize different functions in discourse. Especially the lexical (symbol field) component of the matrix reflects the attitude of the interpreter towards what s/he reports in order to qualify the reported information for the hearer-patient: “Whereas Turkish diyor and Portuguese dizer que (to say) are mainly used to trace propositional parts to their source, thus indicating reliability, the German meinen with third person (he/she means) is used mainly to refer to some kind of deficiency in the source language discourse.” (Johnen and Meyer, this vol.). Matrix constructions establish utterance-internal connections between propositional acts and expressions of thinking, believing, speaking, feeling and the like (i.e. the symbol field of knowledge and its verbalization), employing a wide possible range of language-specific means (for a comparative analysis of Japanese and German matrix constructions cf. Hohenstein 2004). Their utterance-external connective function in discourse and text is concerned with joining hearer knowledge unto the speaker knowledge related to the current utterance. Following a proposal by Bührig (2002), this function can be characterized as “interaction coherence” (Jochen Rehbein, this volume). This book assembles a broad range of topics in the domain of connectivity in multilingual constellations and/or in a cross-linguistic perspective. Future research, then, might be directed at establishing a theoretically and empirically based classification of connectives and at elaborating the systematic (and maybe partly universal) architecture of their grammatical forms and communicative functions across languages. Such a classification might also contribute to a better understanding of multilingual language acquisition, of language contact and of the finely granulated stages of grammaticalization, whether instantaneous or gradual. We wish to conclude by deeply thanking our colleagues who agreed to anonymously review the articles in this collection and who by their critical comments and their suggestions helped to achieve a higher degree of clarity and precision. It goes



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Jochen Rehbein, Christiane Hohenstein, Lukas Pietsch

without saying that the responsibility for any mistakes that may have been overlooked lies with the authors and ourselves.

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section 1

Aspects of language change and language acquisition

Grammaticalization of converb constructions The case of Japanese -te conjunctive constructions Masayoshi Shibatani Rice University, Austin

This paper examines the patterns of grammaticalization of motion verbs (verbs of coming and going) in Japanese converb complex predicate constructions. The -te converb form is the most widely used connective device in Japanese, and the forms combining with motion verbs are among the most frequently used converb constructions in the language. Among the -te converb constructions involving motion verbs, those that appear to have grammaticalized are most numerous in the corpus data. Detailed examinations of the decategorialization pattern of the motion verbs involved indicate a clear cline of grammaticalization, which contradicts some earlier studies such as Teramura (1984) and Hasegawa (1996). The paper also addresses a number of important issues in grammaticalization studies and questions some of the current understandings of them, which include the following: (1) What drives grammaticalization – frequency of use and metaphor (Traugott and Heine 1991; Heine, Claudi, and Hünnemeyer 1991)? (2) What are the possible paths of grammaticalization in the development of temporal meanings from motion verbs (Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca 1994)? (3) Are grammaticalization processes always gradual (Bybee, Pagliuca and Perkins 1991; Brinton and Traugott 2005)?

1. Introduction Japanese -te conjunctive constructions, illustrated in (1) below, share functional similarities with both converb constructions of the Altaic family (e.g., Turkic converb constructions) and verb serialization constructions widely observed across languages. Indeed, a legitimate typological question is whether there is any substantial difference between these two types of constructions.1 (1) a. Wareware-wa eki-kara densya-ni not-te Ochanomizu-made it-ta. we-TOP station-from train-on ride-CON Ochanomizu-up to go-PAST ‘We rode on a train and went to Ochanomizu.’

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Masayoshi Shibatani

b. Midori-wa sanzi-sugi-ni kaet-te ki-ta. Midori-TOP three-past-LOC return-CON come-PAST ‘Midori returned (return come) at past three o’clock.’ (Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood) A major reason for our using the label “converb construction” (as opposed to “serial verb construction”) for the Japanese construction involving -te – a conjunctive particle in the parts-of-speech classification of traditional Japanese grammar – is to highlight the presence of this particle, which marks the non-finiteness of the clause, thereby signaling the existence of a following finite verb or (truncated) clause. The presence of the marker with varying names such as conjunction, linker, converb ending, non-finite marker, etc. is relevant to the general discussion of the grammaticalization process of converb and serial verb constructions. In his discussion of the grammaticalization of motion and other types of verbs in Lhasa Tibetan, DeLancey (1991) recognizes a stage where the non-finite marker is lost and a contiguous verb sequence is created. This is an important step in the chain of reanalysis from clause chaining constructions to verb serialization and to auxiliarization of relevant types of verb. A similar verb contiguity requirement is stipulated by Foley and Olsen (1985:45–46) in their reanalysis of core layer junctures to nuclear layer junctures, whereby a verb sequence is created from VP-like conjunctions (see also Lord 1993, Hopper and Traugott 1993). This paper shows that, contrary to these assumptions, both complex predicates and their grammaticalization obtain across a conjunctive or non-finite marker (see Shibatani and Chung 2005). The grammaticalization of certain converb constructions is implied by the term hozyo-doosi ‘helping verbs’ in traditional Japanese grammar in reference to the finite verb involved in these constructions. That is, by calling the verbal form ki-ta ‘comePAST’ in (1b) above a helping verb as opposed to a (main) verb, traditional grammar recognizes some degree of decategorialization of this form in contradistinction to the full verb status accorded to it-ta ‘go-PAST’ in (1a), where no grammaticalization is involved. This paper is concerned with the grammaticalization of converb constructions involving specifically motion verbs of coming (kuru) and going (iku) as in (1) above. The rationale for this focus is manifold, but we first note the fact that converbs are among the most widely used clause linkage devices in Japanese (see Table 1 below). Secondly, according to Grein’s (1998:284) count, 136 out of 203 occurrences of converb forms in her data were instances of the -te form.



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

Table 1.  Distribution of clause-linkage devices in Japanese (adapted from Grein 1998:286) Device

Number

Percentage

203 154

40.1% 30.4%

68 50 31 506

14.2% 9.6% 5.7% 100.0%

Converbs Functional nouns Adverbial subordinators Complementizers Coordinators TOTAL

Thirdly, it is also noteworthy that grammaticalized -te constructions most frequently occur in this construction type, as can be seen from the following table from Schmidt (2004), which describes the distribution of different functions in -te converb constructions. Table 2. ���������������� Function of the -te converb (based on Schmidt 2004) Function

Text A

Text B

Text C

Grammaticalized Narrative Subordinate Symmetric

181 102 27 0

54.4% 32.9% 8.7% 0.0%

335 100 34 0

71.4% 21.3% 7.3% 0.0%

80 31 15 0

65.1% 23.5% 11.4% 0.0%

TOTAL

309

100.0%

468

100.0%

132

100.0%

Finally, constructions involving verbs of coming and going are among the most frequently seen in the grammaticalized usage of the -te converb form (see Table 3). The goal of this paper is to explicate the nature and pattern of grammaticalization in converb constructions involving the two motion verbs of iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’. This, in turn, will help us better understand the process of “auxiliarization” implicit in the term hozyo doosi ‘helping verb’ in traditional Japanese grammatical terminology. Theoretical questions of wider relevance raised in this paper include the form-function correlation of connected events, instantaneous vs. gradual grammaticalization, contexts facilitating grammaticalization, and the paths of grammaticalization.



Masayoshi Shibatani

Table 3.  Token frequency of grammaticalized converb constructions in three texts (according to Christopher Schmidt’s unpublished survey) V-te iru ‘exist’ V-te oru ‘exist’

301 1

(progressive/resultative) (progressive/resultative)

V-te iku ‘go’ V-te kuru ‘come’

48

(deictic)

47

(deictic)

V-te simau ‘finish’

27

(completive)

V-te kureru ‘be given’ V-te yaru ‘give’ V-te sasiageru ‘give’

23

(benefactive)

4 1

(benefactive) (benefactive)

V-te miru ‘look’ V-te goran ‘look’ V-te miseru ‘show’

18

‘try doing V’

V-te morau ‘receive’ V-te ii ‘good’

12

(self-benefactive)

12

‘may V’

V-te oku ‘put’

10

‘V in preparation of X’

V-te aru ‘exist’

9

(resultative)

A-te naranai I ‘won’t

5

‘cannot help but being A’

V-te hosii ‘want�’

1

(desiderative)

1 1

‘try doing V’ ‘show off V-ing’

Topics bearing on the central theme of this paper include the relationship between the grammaticalized constructions and clause chaining constructions of the following type: (2) Sorekara watasitati itumono-yooni syokudoo-de and then we as usual dinning room-in gohan-o tabe-te, ohuro hait-te, sorekara totteokino meal-ACC eat-CON bath enter-CON and then choicest zyootoono wain ake-te hutari-de non-de, superior wine open-CON two-by drink-CON watasi-ga gitaa hii-ta no. I-NOM guitar play-PAST FP ‘And then we ate our meal in the dining room, took a bath, and then opened the choicest super-quality wine (and we) two drank, (and) I played the guitar. ’ (Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood)



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

Prevailing views (DeLancey 1991 and others) in the field hold that grammaticalized converb/serial verb constructions arise from clause-chaining constructions via reanalysis. While it is necessary for us to contrast grammaticalized constructions with clausal conjunctions throughout this paper, we will not directly address this important question here and refer the readers to Shibatani and Chung (2005), which casts doubt on the reanalysis hypothesis.

2. Grammaticalized converb constructions as complex predicates Before discussing the grammaticalization patterns of converb constructions, it is necessary to point out that there are two kinds of possible verb sequence which are rendered similarly in orthographic or transliterated form. (3) a. Taroo-wa ringo-o tabe-te it-ta. Taroo-TOP apple-ACC eat-CON go-PAST ‘Taro ate an apple (and went away).’ b. Taroo-wa gakkoo-e ringo-o tabe-te, it-ta. Taroo-TOP school-to apple-ACC eat-CON go-PAST ‘Taro, having eaten an apple, went to school.’ c. [ Taroo-wa [ ringo-o tabe-te] gakoo-e it-ta] Taroo-TOP apple-ACC eat-CON school-to go-PAST ‘Taro, having eaten an apple, went to school.’ While (3a) and (3b) have the same verbal series of tabe-te it-ta ‘eat-CON go-PAST’, only the former instantiates a grammaticalized construction whose formal property is in constituting a single complex predicate. (3b) is a paraphrase of (3c), obtainable by moving the goal nominal gakoo-e ‘to school’ to position immediately before the subordinate clause. Indeed, the verb sequences in (3a) and (3b) differ both phonologically and grammatically. In the former, the sequence manifests the pitch pattern of a single word, whereas in the latter the two verbs retain their own pitch patterns: (4) a. b.

tabe-te it-ta ‘ate (and went away)’ LHHHH tabe- te it-ta ‘ate and went’ H L L LH

The Tokyo dialect is typical of many Japanese dialects in allowing a phonological word to have at most one stretch of high-pitched morae; accordingly, once a pitch fall occurs within a word, it can never rise in the subsequent morae of the same word. In (4b) for (3b) we see two high-pitched morae divided by a stretch of low-pitched morae indicating two (phonological) words. In (4a) for (3a), on the other hand, there is only one

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Masayoshi Shibatani

stretch of high-pitched morae indicating that the verb sequence here forms a single phonological word. There is further indication that the verb sequence in (3a) forms a single predicate, while the similar sequence in (3b) and (3c) does not. Indirect evidence for this comes from the fact that (3a) is a single clause expression, while (3b) and (3c) involve a biclausal structure. The negative polarity item sika ‘only, save’ requires the presence of the negative morpheme –nai ‘not’ in its own clause at some stage of derivation.2 (5) a. *Taroo-wa [ Hanako-sika kit-a] =koto-o sir-ana-katta. Taro-TOP [ Hanako-only come-PAST] -COMP-ACC know-NEG-PAST ‘Taro didn’t know that only Hanako came.’ b. Taroo-wa [ Hanako-sika ko-na-katta] =koto-o sit-ta. Taro-TOP [ Hanako-only come-NEG-PAST] -COMP-ACC know-PAST ‘Taro found out that only Hanako came/(lit.) Taro knew that everyone save Hanako didn’t come.’ c. Taroo-sika [ Hanako-ga kita] =koto-o sir-ana-katta. Taro-only [ Hanako-NOM come-PAST] -COMP-ACC know-NEG-PAST ‘Only Taro knew that Hanako came/ (lit.) Everyone save Taro didn’t know that Hanako came.’ Now (6a) based on (3a) below is perfectly fine, indicating that sika and the negative ana occur in a single clause. But (6b) and (6c) – based on (3b) and (3c), respectively – are ungrammatical, indicating that sika and the negative morpheme occur in two separate clauses. (6) a. Taroo-wa ringo-sika tabe-te ik-ana-katta. Taro-TOP apple-only eat-CON go-NEG-PAST ‘Taro ate only an apple (and went away)/(lit.) Taro didn’t eat-go anything but an apple.’ b. *Taroo-wa gakkoo-e ringo-sika tabe-te ik-ana-katta. Taro-TOP school-to apple-only eat-CON go-NEG-PAST ‘Taro ate only an apple and didn’t go to school.’ c. *Taroo-wa ringo-sika tabe-te gakkoo-e ik-ana-katta. Taro-TOP apple-only eat-CON school-to go-NEG-PAST ‘Taro ate only an apple and didn’t go to school.’ What is particularly interesting about grammaticalized constructions in Japanese is that while they are words in both phonological and syntactic senses, they do not form morphological words. That is, they do not show the property of lexical integrity characteristic of morphological words. For example, (complex) morphological words involving suffixation and compounding do not permit insertion of a particle or word even at the morphological boundaries, but the converbs under consideration do, as shown below:



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

(7) a. tabe-rare-ru eat-PASS-PRES ‘to be eaten’

a’. *tabe-wa-rare-ru eat-TOP-PASS-PRES

b. tabe-aruk-u b’. *tabe-wa-aruk-u eat-walk-PRES eat-TOP-walk-PRES ‘walk around eating here and there’ c. tabe-te ik-u c’. tabe-te-wa ik-u (keredo) eat-CON go-PRES eat-CON-TOP go-PRES (although) ‘eat (and go away)’ ‘(although) (I) eat (and go away)’ (7a’) and (7b’) are impossible forms, whereas (7c’) is a perfectly formed expression with the topic marker wa inserted between the two verbal forms. Similarly, while morphological words do not permit modification of their parts, converbs permit such modification. For example, the compound form in (8a) below does not allow its second member to undergo the honorification process, although the honorification of the whole word is possible, as in (8a”). In contrast, an honorified finite verb within a converb construction is perfectly well-formed, as in (8b’). Notice furthermore that an entire converb construction cannot be honorified as a whole – see (8b”). (8) a. moti-age-ru a’. *moti-o-age-ni nar-u hold-raise-PRES ‘hold up (something)’

a”. o-moti-age-ni nar-u

b. mot-te ik-u hold-CON go-PRES ‘take (away)’

b”. *o-mot-te iki-ni nar-u

b’. mot-te o-iki-ni nar-u

The morphological modification patterns of the above type provide crucial tests for the degree of grammaticalization of the relevant converb constructions below. Grammaticalized converb constructions are thus interesting linguistic objects; they are words under both phonological and syntactic criteria, but not under morphological criteria.

3. The syntax of grammaticalized converb constructions 3.1

Teramura (1984) and Hasegawa (1996)

Teramura (1984) represents an early effort toward the understanding of the grammatical properties of grammaticalized converb constructions. First, with regard to the question of combinatorial possibilities of iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’ with various converbs, he presents the following table, intended to show the combinations of the two motion verbs with different kinds of verb as converbs:



Masayoshi Shibatani

Table 4.  Combinatorial possibilities of grammaticalized converb constructions according to Teramura (1984:163)

-te kuru ‘come’ -te iku ‘go’

umareru ‘to be born’

sinu ‘die’

mieru/kikoeru ‘visible/audible’

toozakaru ‘go away’

〇

×

〇

×

×

〇

×

〇

While the restrictions noted by Teramura appear to be correct, a quick Google search reveals that in fact all combinations noted in the table are possible. Teramura’s intuitions on the combinatorial possibilities appear to reflect the typicality of perspective chosen by native speakers rather than grammatical restrictions. For example, in the combinations of umareru ‘to be born’ and the two motion verbs, we are likely to view the birth of an entity from the perspective at which an entity emerges; hence the choice of kuru ‘come’ indicates that a movement toward the speaker is preferred. For verbs of disappearance such as sinu ‘die’, the entity disappearing is viewed from the perspective of existence; hence iku ‘go’ is preferred with such expressions. The following examples from Google indicate that speakers of Japanese can easily reverse these conventional perspectives, however, and allow various combinations that are identified as impossible by Teramura. (9) a. inoti-o sukuu-tabi kiboo-ga umare-te ik-u. life –ACC save-every.time hope-NOM be.born-CON go-PRES ‘Each time a life is saved, a hope is born.’ b.

gen-ga sin-de ku-ru =to rensyuusuru string-NOM die-CON come-PRES =when practice ki-ga use-te ku-ru... motivation-NOM lost-CON come-PRES ‘When strings [of a musical instrument] begin dying, motivation to practice becomes lost…’

c.

tamenteki, bunsekiteki-ni miru =koto-niyotte, zinkenkyooiku-no many.sided analytical-ADV look =COMP-by human.right.education-GEN genzyoo-to kadai-ga yori senmeini mie-te ik-u current.state-COM issues-NOM more clearly visible-CON go-PRES ‘By looking (at the problems) from a many sided and analytical angle, the current state and the issues of human rights education become visible even more clearly.’

d.

Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

kyuukyuusya-ga hanare-te ik-u =to sono sairen-no oto-wa ambulance-NOM go.away-CON go-PRES =when its siren-GEN sound-TOP tiisaku kikoe-te ik-u faintly audible-CON go-PRES ‘When the ambulance goes far way, the sound of its siren goes on being audible ever more faintly.’

e. haru-ga tikazui-te samusa-ga toozakat-te ku-ru=to… spring-NOM come.near-CON coldness-NOM go.far-CON come-PRES=when ‘When spring comes near and the coldness goes far away…’ These examples indicate one functional domain in which converb constructions have grammaticalized with a functional shift from a physical spatial domain to an abstract aspectual domain. Our initial focus in this paper, however, is on the degrees of grammaticalization seen in the spatial domain, where their patterns are harder to discern, due to the fact that the relevant motion verbs retain to a greater or lesser extent the original meaning of physical motion. In particular, we are concerned with the following types of expression, for which Teramura (1984) offers an analysis (indicated in the parentheses): (10) a. Taroo-wa koohii-o non-de ki-ta. (V-V) Taro-TOP coffee-ACC drink-CON come-PAST ‘Taro drank coffee (and came).’ b. Taroo-wa gakkoo-e arui-te it-ta. (v-V) Taro-TOP school-to walk-CON go-PAST ‘Taro walked (walk went) to school.’ c. Taroo-ga heya-ni hait-te ki-ta. (V-v) Taro-NOM room-to enter-CON come-PAST ‘Taro came (enter came) into the room.’ According to Teramura (1984: 157ff), expressions like (10a) depict two sequentially ordered actions; accordingly, both the converb and the finite motion verb function like main verbs (indicated by the capital V) connected by -te. In (10b), on the other hand, the converb modifies the motion verb, specifying in this example the manner of the going motion; accordingly, the relevant verbs are connected in a subordinate-main relationship, where the converb is subordinated (as indicated by the small v) to the main motion verb (indicated by V). In the case of (10c), the subordinatemain relationship is reversed, such that the converb (V) expresses the main action whose deictic orientation is indicated by the motion verb (v). According to Teramura’s analysis, the finite motion verbs in the expression type (10c) are most advanced in grammaticalization, turning themselves into something like deictic markers, whereas those in the expression types (10a) and (10b) retain the original verb status.



Masayoshi Shibatani

More recent work of Hasegawa (1996) is couched in the framework of Role and Reference Grammar, which pays special attention to issues of clause-linkage type. Hasegawa’s classification differs somewhat from Teramura’s reviewed above. The main syntactic division she draws is between nuclear coordination and nuclear subordination types. In the former, the converb and the finite motion verb are in a coordinate relation, together forming a complex nuclear (predicate). This analysis resembles Teramura’s V-V analysis in that the full verbal status of both the converb and the finite motion verb is recognized. The nuclear subordination type is similar to Teramura’s V-v analysis; hence the converb alone functions as a nuclear (predicate), with the finite verb functioning as a deictic operator. Hasegawa would classify the three types of expression in the following manner: (11) a. non-de kur-u (Nuclear coordination; Teramura’s V-V) drink-CON come-PRES ‘drink (and come)’ b. arui-te ik-u walk-CON go-PRES ‘go (by) walking’

(Nuclear coordination; Teramura’s v-V)

c. hait-te ku-ru enter-CON come-PRES ‘enter (come in)’

(Nuclear subordination; Teramura’s V-v)

There are both similarities and differences between the two analyses. Both Teramura and Hassegawa recognize a full verbal status for motion verbs in (11a) and (11b). While Teramura recognizes a diminished autonomy of the converb in (11b), Hasegawa considers the converb and the finite verb to be of equal status. As for (11c), Teramura recognizes some degree of verbiness in the finite motion verb, but Hasegawa considers it to have lost the predicate function completely, perhaps along with concomitant decategorialization from verb to deictic operator.3 Whether or not a degree of verbiness is intended in the representations of “v” and “V” by Teramura, or complete decategorialization is recognized for certain motion verbs in the relevant converb constructions by Hasegawa, the following discussion shows that their analyses do not accord well with the facts. In particular, it will be shown below that the iku/kuru ‘go/ come’ verbs in the non-de iku/kuru ‘drink-CON go/come’ type (10a, 11a) are least verb-like (contrary to Teramura and Hasegawa’s analyses), that motion verbs in the arui-te iku/kuru ‘walk-CON go/come’ type (10b, 11b) are most verb-like (agreeing with Teramura and Hasegawa’s analyses), and that those in the hait-te iku/kuru ‘enterCON go/come’ type (10c, 11c) are verb-like to a considerable extent, contra Teramura’s and Hasegawa’s analyses.



3.2

Grammaticalization of converb constructions

Cline of grammaticalization

While there appear to be both instantaneous and gradual aspects to the grammaticalization process (see Section 4 below), the framework of grammaticalization is especially attuned to the task of capturing gradual patterns of change in the status of lexical items. In particular, the changes to the motion verbs of coming and going in converb constructions within the grammaticalization framework reveal that these verbs do not change their category membership instantaneously, and that a synchronic description of them must recognize a cline of categoriality along a path of change from verb to auxiliary. The remainder of this section is devoted to a demonstration that the three relevant construction types are distributed along the following cline of grammaticalization: (12)

Less grammaticalized (More V-like) arui-te iku/kuru

(Teramura’s v-V; Hasegawa’s

walk-CON go/come

Nuclear coordination)

hait-te iku/kuru

(Teramura’s V-v; Hasegawa’s Nuclear subordination)

enter-CON go/come

non-de iku/kuru drink-CON go/come

(Teramura’s V-V; Hasegawa’s Nuclear coordination)

More grammaticalized (Less V-like)

Of the various possible combinations of converbs and motion verbs, we single out the above three patterns, since they exhaust Teramura’s representations of types in terms of the combination of V and v symbols – V-V, v-V, and V-v. In reality, the possibility exists that there are numerous intermediate types of combination interspersed among the three representative ones dealt with here. Of the three combination types, the arui-te kuru/iku ‘walk-CON come/go’ type represents combinations involving a motion verb and a manner of motion verb ( aruku ‘walk’, hasiru ‘run’, hau ‘crawl’, oyogu ‘swim’, tobu ‘fly’, etc.). In the following discussion, this type will be exemplified by expressions and glosses such as arui-te iku ‘walk come’ and hasit-te kuru ‘run come’. The hait-te iku/kuru ‘enter-CON go/come’ type represents combinations of a motion verb and a verb of change-of-location (deru ‘exit’, agaru ‘ascend’, oriru ‘descend’, otiru ‘fall’, etc.), and examples such as hait-te kuru ‘enter come’ and de-te iku ‘exit go’ illustrate this type of construction. Finally, the non-de iku/kuru ‘drink-CON go/come’ type represents combinations of a motion verb and a non-translational action (taberu ‘eat’, asobu ‘play’, sake-o nomu ‘drink sake’, eiga-o miru ‘see a movie’ etc.). In the following discussion, examples such as non-de kuru ‘drink come’ and tabe-te iku ‘eat go’ illustrate this type of construction. Thus even if the examples in the following discussion have the





Masayoshi Shibatani

form of arui-te iku ‘walk go’, non-de kuru ‘drink come’, it should be understood that the relevant points of discussion apply equally to other instances of the same type such as hasit-te kuru ‘run come’ and tabe-te iku ‘eat go’. The methods used in arriving at the pattern of distribution of different construction types seen in (12) typically involve comparison of the grammatical properties of iku/kuru ‘go/come’ in their full-fledged main verb function vs. those in converb complex predicate constructions. The greater the similarity is between them, the less grammaticalized the finite motion verbs in converb constructions are. 3.2.1 Mieru suppletion As mentioned in section 2, grammaticalized converb complex predicates do not show the morphological property of lexical integrity, such that finite motion verbs may undergo morphological processes on their own right. The first of such processes examined here is the suppletion of kuru ‘come’ by the honorific expression mieru ‘(lit.) visible’ shown below, where lexical kuru is suppleted by mieru: (13) Yoru-ni naru-to,

takusan-no kyaku-ga

night-to become-when many-GEN

ku-ru/mie-ru

customer-NOM come-PRES/come.HON-PRES

rasii. EVI ‘I hear that many customers come when night falls (speaking of a restaurant).’ Kuru ‘come’ of the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ and hait-te kuru ‘enter come’ type easily supplete with mieru, but that of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type does not. This indicates that while kuru in the former two types is similar to the main verb kuru, the one in the latter type is not. (14) a. Yamada-sensei-wa gakkoo-ni arui-te ki-ta/mie-ta. Yamada-Prof.-TOP school-to walk-CON come-PAST/come.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada walked (walk come) to school.’ b.

Yamada-sensei-ga kyoositu-ni hait-te kit-ta/mie-ta Yamada-Prof.-NOM classroom-to enter-CON come-PAST/come.HON.-PAST toki... when ‘When Professor Yamada came into (enter come) the classroom…’

c. Yamada-sensei-wa ippai non-de ki-ta/*mie-ta.4 Yamada-Prof.-TOP a.drink drink-CON come-PAST/come.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada had a drink (and came).’



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

3.2.3 Rassyaru truncation That there is no pragmatic conflict in the honorific expression of non-de kuru ‘drink come’ is shown by the fact that irassyaru, another honorific suppletive form of iku/ kuru ‘go/come’, is perfectly acceptable in this type of converb construction. Indeed, the three types of converb construction under study are all compatible with this honorific form. What is particularly interesting about the irassyaru form is that it truncates to rassyaru by deleting the initial vowel. (15) a. Yamada-sensei-wa gakkoo-ni arui-te ki-ta/irassyat-ta/rassyat-ta. Yamada-Prof.-TOP school-to walk-CON come-PAST/come.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada walked (walk come) to school.’ b.

Yamada-sensei-ga kyoositu-ni hait-te kit-ta/irassyat-ta/rassyat-ta Yamada-Prof.-NOM classroom-to enter-CON come-PAST/come.HON.-PAST toki... when ‘When Professor Yamada came into (enter come) the classroom…’

c. Yamada-sensei-wa ippai non-de ki-ta/irassyat-ta/rassyat-ta. Yamada-Prof.-TOP a.drink drink-CON come-PAST/come.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada had a drink (and came).’ While the truncated rassyaru versions in (14) are all acceptable, there is a difference in the degree of felicity in these expressions. Rassyaru truncation is least favored with aruite-kuru ‘walk come’ in (14a), though it is not impossible.5 On the other hand, nonde kuru ‘drink come’ is the favored type for a contracted rassyaru expression. The haitte kuru ‘come enter’ type falls in the middle of these two polar types. These impressionistic evaluations of the three rassyaru forms are corroborated by the ratio of contracted rassyaru forms against their non-contracted irassyaru counterparts. The following table is based on a Google search which excluded irrelevant rassyaru/ irassyaru forms such as honorific versions of iru ‘be’.6 Table 5 contains polite imperative expressions (e.g. Go wash your face). While the truncated forms appear regularly with the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type, the ratio of truncated expressions is not as high as with the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type, for which the favored versions are clearly truncated rassyaru forms. The significance of the truncation phenomenon is that the lexical verbs kuru/iku ‘come/go’, which easily supplete for irassyaru, resist truncation: (16) a. Yamada-sensei-ga kyoositu-ni ki-ta/irassyat-ta/*rassyat-ta. Yamada-Prof.-NOM classroom-to come-PAST/come.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada came to the classroom.’ b. Yamada-sensei-ga Amerika-ni it-ta/irassyat-ta/*rassyat-ta. Yamada-Prof.-NOM America-to go-PAST/go.HON-PAST ‘Professor Yamada went to America.’



Masayoshi Shibatani

The fact above that the honorific irassyaru of the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type least favors the truncation indicates that the verb kuru here is most similar to lexical kuru, whose honorific irassyaru version never contracts to rassyaru. On the other hand, kuru of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type is least verb-like in that it favors the rassyaru truncation. That kuru of the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type permits the rassyaru truncation, though less frequently, is significant in that this verb has a function different from the main verb kuru. This may mean that the motion verb has been grammaticalized to some extent even in arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type constructions, as the reduction in form permitted in them is certainly an indication of grammaticalization. At any rate, it is clear from the pattern of the truncation of irassyaru that kuru of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type is least verb-like in favoring the truncation, contrary to Teramura’s and Hasegawa’s analyses that this form is similar to lexical kuru. Table 5.  Truncation ratio of rassyaru vs. irassyaru (kotti-ni) aruit-te irassyai (kotti-ni) arui-te rassyai ‘ (here-to) walk-CON come.HON’ (kotti-ni) hasit-te irassyai (kotti-ni) hasit-te rassyai ‘(here-to) run-CON come.HON’ de-te irassyai de-te rassyai ‘exit-CON come.HON’ non-de irassyai non-de rassyai ‘drink-CON come.HON’

27 23 5 5 494 1,060 34 84

tabe-te irassyai tabe-te rassyai ‘eat-CON come.HON’

57 155

kao-o arat-te irassyai kao-o arat-te rassyai ‘face-ACC wash-CON come’

23 115

3.2.3 Valency property The lexical motion verbs iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’ sanction both goal and source arguments, though the goal argument is rarely seen with the verb of coming due to the lexical specification of the deictic information in it – that the motion is directed toward a deictic center, typically the place of speech. This valency property of these motion verbs



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

plays an important role in Japanese converb constructions. Unlike their English counterparts, manner-of-motion verbs in Japanese such as aruku ‘walk’, oyogu ‘swim’, and hau ‘crawl’ do not allow the specification of a goal argument. In order to express a goal with these verbs, they must be combined with iku ‘go’ or kuru ‘come’, as shown below: (17) a. *Taroo-wa gakkoo-e arui-ta. Taro-TOP school-to walk-PAST ‘Taro walked to school.’ b. Taroo-wa gakkoo-e arui-te it-ta/ki-ta. Taro-TOP school-to walk-CON go-PAST/come-PAST ‘Taro walked (walk went/came) to school.’ The fact that iku of the arui-te iku ‘walk go’ construction licenses a goal argument means that it retains the valency property of lexical iku. Compare this with iku in the other types of converb construction. (18) a. Taroo-wa zibun-no heya-o de-te, Hanako-no heya-ni it-ta. Taro-TOP self-GEN room-ACC exit-CON Hanako-GEN room-to go-PAST ‘Taro exited his room and went to Hanako’s room.’ a’. *Taroo-wa Hanako-no heya-ni zibun-no heya-o de-te it-ta. Taro-TOP Hanako-GEN room-to self-GEN room-ACC exit-CON go-PAST ‘(lit.) Taro went out (exit went) of his room to Hanako’s room.’ b. Taroo-wa ringo-o tabe-te, gakkoo-e it-ta. Taro-TOP apple-ACC eat-CON school-to go-PAST ‘Taro ate and apple and went to school.’ b’. *Taroo-wa gakkoo-e ringo-o tabe-te it-ta.7 Taro-TOP school-to apple-ACC eat-CON go-PAST ‘(lit.)Taro eat-went an apple to school.’ While clausal (or VP) conjunction converb constructions in the (a) and (b) forms are perfectly grammatical, the parallel complex predicate forms (a’) and (b’) do not permit a goal expression, indicating that the motion verbs in the latter have lost the verbal property of licensing a goal argument. These should also be compared with the forms in (17b), which show that motion verbs in it retain this argument licensing property, and thus behave more like lexical iku/kuru. In order to better appreciate the property of valency loss seen in (18), compare them to the following pattern seen in English, where the verb go in combination with eat in (19b) has lost the argument licensing property associated with its lexical counterpart in (19a). (19) a. Let’s go to McDonald’s to eat. b. *Let’s go eat to McDonald’s. c. Let’s go eat at McDonald’s.



Masayoshi Shibatani

3.2.4 Fragments A converb in an ungrammaticalized construction can form a sentence fragment in response to a yes-no question. Compare the following examples: (20) a. Zitensya-ni not-te gakkoo-e kita=no? bicycle-to ride-CON school-to come-PAST=Q ‘(You’ve) come to school riding a bicycle?’ b. Un, zitensya-ni not-te. yeah bicycle-to ride-CON ‘Yeah, riding a bicycle.’ Again, grammaticalized converb constructions do not behave uniformly. The arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type barely allows a fragment expression, while the other two types resist it altogether. (21) a. Arui-te ki-ta=no? walk-CON come-past=Q ‘(You) came walking?” b. *?Un, arui-te. yeah walk-CON ‘Yeah, by walking.’ (22) a. b.

De-te ki-ta=no? exit-CON come-PAST=Q ‘(You) came out?’ *Un, de-te. yeah exit-CON ‘Yeah, (having) exited.’

(23) a. b.

Ippai non-de ki-ta=no? a.drink drink-CON come-PAST=Q ‘(You) had a drink (and came)?’ *Un, non-de. yeah drink-CON ‘Yeah, (having) drunk.’

There may be a number of ways of interpreting this phenomenon, but it can be understood as showing that the converb complex arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ is structurally ‘less tight’, hence the converb and the finite verb are morphologically more autonomous than those involved in the other two construction types. This interpretation is corroborated by a pattern of contracting of iku ‘go’ to -ku. According to the Googlebased survey summarized in Table 6 below, iku of the arui-te iku ‘walk go’ type contracts least while that of the non-de iku ‘drink come’ type contracts most frequently. 8



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

Table 6.  Contraction of iku to -ku arui-te iku=to arui-te-ku=to walk-go=when

328,000 956 0.003 %

de-te iku=to de-te-ku=to exit-go=when

58,200 637 0.01 %

tabe-te iku=to tabe-te-ku=to eat-go����� =���� when

17,400 751 0.04 %

Notice that lexical iku never contracts to ku. The fact that iku of arui-te iku ‘walk go’ contracts less frequently compared to that of tabe-te iku ‘eat go’ indicates that the former is structurally more autonomous than the latter. This contraction fact also shows that the tabe-te iku ‘eat go’ type is at a more advanced stage of grammaticalization than the other two types. 3.2.5 Scope of negation The status of the motion verbs in the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type noted above is consonant with the fact that these verbs cannot support negative scope, indicating that they are turning into a suffix status. Observe: (24) a.

Daremo basu-ni not-te ko-na-katta. no one bus-to ride-CON come-NEG-PAST ‘No one came riding a bus.’ (No one came on the bus = wide scope reading) (They came but no one came by bus = narrow scope reading)

b.

Daremo heya-kara de-te ko-na-katta. no one room-from exit-CON come-NEG-PAST ‘No one came out of the room.’ (No one came out = wide scope reading) (No narrow scope reading possible; They came but not exiting a room)

c.

Daremo gohan-o tabe-te ko-na-katta. no one meal-ACC eat-CON come-NEG-PAST ‘No one had a meal (and came).’ No wide scope reading is possible; No one came after having eaten a meal) (They came but no one had a meal = narrow scope reading)

It is clearly seen that while the finite motion verb of the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ can support negative scope also giving rise to a wide scope reading for an expression like (24a), those of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type cannot – (24c) above can never

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Masayoshi Shibatani

mean that no one came. The motion verb here is thus behaving more like an affix, which cannot support negative scope independently of the root to which it is attached. The reason that the de-te kuru ‘exit come’ does not allow a narrow scope reading is unclear, but it may have to do with the a higher degree of lexicalization of this form.

3.3

Summary of the syntactic properties of the three types of converb construction

The following table summarizes the findings discussed in this section. Table 7.  Summary of syntactic patterns

Lexical kuru ‘come’ arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ de-te kuru ‘exit come’ non-de kuru ‘drink come’

mieru

rassyaru

-ku

Valency

Fragment

〇

✕

✕

〇

〇

N/A

〇

△

△

〇

△

wide/narrow

〇

〇

〇

✕

✕

wide

✕

◎

◎

✕

✕

narrow

Neg. scope

(◎ = super, 〇= O.K., △＝grudgingly, ✕ = no)

Table 7 clearly substantiates our earlier claim that converb construction types are distributed along a cline of grammaticalization as depicted in (12) above. In particular, it shows that motion verbs of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type are most advanced in grammaticalization, and are least verb-like – contrary to the analyses of Teramura (1984) and Hasegawa (1996). Moreover, those of the de-te kuru ‘exit come’ type still retain some verbal properties, indicating that they have not decategorialized completely as implied in Hasegawa’s work. Finally even motion verbs of the arui-te kuru type, being susceptible to phonological reduction, behave differently from their lexical counterparts, indicating that they are on the way to being (further) grammaticalized.

4. Methodological and theoretical implications On the methodological front, the discussion above shows the importance of syntactic analysis in grammaticalization studies. On the one hand, intuitive semantic analyses seldom carry over to proper syntactic analyses. For non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type expressions, Teramura (1984: 157) – while recognizing a subtle difference between the relevant converb constructions and their paraphrases – suggests that they can be understood as expressing sequential events, e.g. an action of drinking followed by a mo-



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

tion of coming. In grammaticalized form, however, these expressions do not express sequentially connected events. Specifically, finite motion verbs no longer express the whole meaning of a motion event. The meaning of motion verbs of going and coming comes in two dimensions, one expressing movement of an entity along a spatial path, and the other a deictic orientation of the movement. In the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ construction type, the dimension of physical movement has been completely lost, as reflected in the loss of a goal-sanctioning valency property. The motion verbs in these constructions now have the sole function of indicating deictic information, i.e. indicating where the actor ends up after the execution of the action expressed by the converb. Thus, sake-o non-de ki-ta (sake-ACC drink-CON come-PAST) does not assert that someone performed an act of translational motion toward the deictic center after having drunk sake. Rather, it means that someone ended up in the speaker’s sphere after having drunk sake somewhere away from it. It is for this reason that the translations of relevant examples in this paper parenthesize the motion component as ‘drank sake (and came)’. Syntactic analysis, furthermore, is crucial in showing that the phenomena under consideration fall in the category of grammatical change known as grammaticalization. Meaning shifts and extensions by themselves do not constitute grammaticalization phenomena per se. In order for a semantic change to qualify as a case of grammaticalization, the form in question must be grammaticalized, i.e., change its status from lexical to grammatical. In other words, decategorialization is an important component of the grammaticalization process. Thus, when verbs are involved as they are here, it is important to show that they lose certain verbal properties. There are many theoretical implications of the present study, but here we restrict them to those that appear to be intimately connected. The first concerns the question of the gradualness of grammaticalization.

4.1

Gradual vs. instantaneous grammaticalization

From the time of the Neogrammarians, the question of gradualness of historical change (phonetic or otherwise) has been controversial, the issue itself having multiple facets ranging from the actualization of change to its spread. The same issue arises with changes characterizable as grammaticalization. The pattern in Table 7 indicates that gradual loss of verbal characteristics in finite motion verbs affects different types of converb constructions. However, the question remains as to whether those at an advanced stage in grammaticalization realize each step of the grammaticalization paths. That is, did iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’ in the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ construction type once had a stage where they behaved like those in the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type? Was there a stage where kuru in the former type could be suppleted with mieru or where iku sanctioned a goal argument as those in the latter type now do? Alternatively could the change be instantaneous such that as soon as a construction of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ is formed, the finite motion verbs contained therein are used as

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Masayoshi Shibatani

deictic markers losing their verbal properties instantaneously?9 Both positions have been maintained in the field. Brinton and Traugott (2005) and others (e.g., Bybee, Pagliuca and Perkins 1991) generally believe that grammaticalization is gradual, while the possibility of instantaneous grammaticalization is entertained by Givón, as shown by the following quotations: Grammaticalization is gradual in the sense that it is non- instantaneous and pro-

ceeds by very small and typically overlapping, intermediate, and sometimes indeterminate, steps. (Brinton and Traugott 2005:100)

[Instantaneous grammaticalization] involves the mental act of the mind recognizing a similarity relation and thereby exploiting it, putting an erstwhile lexical item into grammatical use in a novel context. The minute a lexical item is used in a frame that intends it as grammatical marker, it is thereby grammaticalized. (Givón 1991:122) While changes in the formal properties of a grammaticalized item may be gradual, as shown above in the contraction phenomena of motion verbs (see Tables 5 and 6), there seems to be at least clear cases where instantaneous grammaticalization occurs accompanying the functional shift from the spatial to the temporal domain. As alluded to earlier, Japanese converb constructions of coming and going have also developed a function of aspectual marking. Examples include the following: (25) a.

soredake syabet-te simau-to hidoku hara-ga het-te that.much talk-CON finish-when very stomach-NOM decrease-CON ki-ta. come-PAST ‘(lit.) When I finished talking all that much, my stomach began to decrease/I began to become hungry.’

b.

sikamo sono aida kekkoo ta-no onna-to ne-te moreover that interval well.enough other-of woman-with sleep-CON ki-ta. come-PAST ‘Moreover during that period (I) have been sleeping well enough with other women.’ c. sooyatte iki-te ik-u. that.way live-CON go-PRES ‘(I) will go on living that way.’ d. Atama-ga dandan okasiku nat-te it-te… brain-NOM gradually funny become-CON go-CON ‘My brains gradually keep on turning funny…’ (Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood)



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

These forms can be considered to have an aspectual function in that iku/kuru ‘go/ come’ add a span to the event expressed by the converbs. The finite expression hara-ga hetta ‘(lit.) the stomach decreased/got hungry’, for example, locates change of state at one point in time. When it combines with kuru ‘come’ as in (25a) hara-ga het-te ki-ta, the whole expression entails change of state over a span of time. Moreover, this expansion of change over time span is conceived to be directed toward the speaker by virtue of the use of kuru ‘come’. When iku is used as in (24c,d), the expansion of the event is viewed to take place in a direction away from the speaker, giving a future-oriented interpretation if the finite form has a present tense ending as in (25c). The widely received scenario for the development of temporal meanings from motion verbs developed by Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994: 269) holds that meaning elements, e.g. inferences, giving rise to this development already exist in the lexical use of motion verbs. For example, “[w]hen one moves along a path toward a goal in space, one also moves in time.” What happens is the gradual loss of the spatial meaning with increased dominance of the temporal meaning. Under this scenario the only change necessary is the generalization to contexts in which the subject is not moving, as in (25) above, where an aspectual meaning uniquely obtains. This scenario of gradual grammaticalization, however, faces a serious challenge when confronted with a wide range of cases of the development of temporal meanings from motion and other types of verbs. Crucial cases in Japanese relate to examples such as the following, where no aspectual reading is possible: (26) Boku-wa kore-kara-mo eki-e arui-te ik-u. I-TOP this-from-also station-to walk-CON go-PRES ‘I will walk to the station from now on too.’ As detailed in the next section, it is precisely in those contexts where the meaning of spatial movement does not obtain that give rise to the aspectual meaning in question. That is there is no stage where the aspectual meaning has become dominant with concomitant bleaching of the spatial meaning that bridges the gap between literal spatial expressions and aspectual ones, which are purported to derive via generalization of the intermediate expressions. The shift in meaning here, instead, appears best considered as a case of instantaneous metaphorical transfer. That is, once an image schema of motion is metaphorically transferred from the spatial domain to the temporal one, then the grammaticalization takes place instantaneously, as in Givón’s characterization above. Whether a meaning shift such as this would count as a case of grammaticalization is debatable, but if the change were accompanied by a decategorialization process, it would be considered as a case of grammaticalization. Indeed, the Japanese aspectual iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’ do not behave like lexical iku/kuru. For example, aspectual kuru ‘come’ does not supplete for honorific mieru, unlike lexical kuru, and honorific irassyaru of aspectual iku contracts to rassyaru, unlike the irassyaru form suppleting lexical iku (see earlier discussions on these phenomena). Observe:



Masayoshi Shibatani

(27) a. Satoo-sensei-wa syoozikini iki-te ki-ta/*mie-ta. Satoo-Prof.-TOP honestly live-CON come-PAST ‘Prof. Sato has been living honestly.’ b. syoozikini iki-te ik-eba/irassyar-eba/rassyar-eba... honestly live-CON go-if/go.HON-if/go.HON-if ‘If (you) keep on living honestly…’

4.2

Contexts facilitating grammaticalization

Our study raises an important question that past studies do not concerning the context or environment which propels grammaticalization. The earlier discussion shows that grammaticalization of motion verbs does not take place uniformly. The verb iku ‘go’ in non-de iku ‘drink go’ constructions is far more advanced in grammaticalization than in the arui-te iku ‘walk go’ constructions. Generalizing the case to include instantaneous grammaticalization, the question can be formulated as: “Which contexts facilitate grammaticalization?” By “facilitate” we refer to two situations, one where a specific context propels grammaticalization at a faster rate than others, the other concerning the context in which instantaneous grammaticalization – including metaphorical extension – is easier to take place. Past grammaticalization studies have raised a similar question but at a very general level. For example, Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991) show that metaphorical extension or transfer of an imagine schema from one (concrete) domain to another (abstract) is a major driving force for semantic change and grammaticalization. We have also recognized the effect of such a mechanism in the development of the aspectual use of iku/kuru ‘go/come’ in Japanese. But metaphorical extension does not explain the cline of grammaticalization exhibited by iku/kuru in the spatial domain, where metaphorical extension is not involved. A question also remains as to which contexts favor/disfavor metaphorical extension or instantaneous grammaticalization in the sense of Givón (1991). Another factor invoked in the discussion of both the actualization and spread of a grammaticalization process is textual frequency. Here is a relevant quote from Traugott and Heine (1991: 9): Given that a form A is a candidate for grammaticalization both because of its semantic context and its salience, a further condition has to apply for grammaticalization to take place: The form has to be used frequently. The more grammaticalized a form, the more frequent it is...The seeds of grammaticalization are therefore in a correlated set of phenomena: Semantic suitability, salience and frequency. Only the third actually leads to grammaticalization and hence to fixing, freezing, idiomatization, etc. (Emphasis added)



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

Does this apply to our case? Not really. First, situations concerning frequency are not as straightforward as Traugott and Heine (1991) put it. That is, determining the token frequency of constructions is not simple, since the frequency of use of a construction varies greatly depending on the specific lexical items involved. For example, in one recent Google count hat-te iku (crawl-CON go) occurred 963 times, whereas the same Manner of motion + Motion combination of arui-te iku (walk-CON go) yielded 623,000 instances. In ascertaining the token frequency, then, it is necessary to compare the frequency of different types of verb combination. The following table, from Shibatani and Chung (to appear), shows the token frequencies of the three combination types in a modern fiction in Japanese and Korean: Table 8.  Token frequency of three combination types (Japanese; Ito Sei Hanran: Korean; Kim Joo Yong Kokicapinun kaltaylul kkekkci anhnunta)

Japanese V-te iku/kuru V-CON go/come Korean V-e/ko ota/kata V-CON come/go

Manner

Location change

Action

23

109

6

68

358

11

Our case may also be at variance with a generally observed correlation between frequency of use and the size of a grammatical item. For example, Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994: 20) draw the following conclusion: There is a link between frequency of use and phonetic bulk such that more frequently used material, whether grammatical or lexical, tends to be shorter (phonetically reduced) relative to less often used material.

Determining the frequency of use across construction types is rather difficult, as noted above, but if Tables 5 and 6 above suggest anything, it is that in those expressions that are more advanced in grammaticalization but still occur comparatively less frequently we observe higher rates of occurrence of phonologically reduced forms.10 Neither metaphorical extension nor frequency is thus able to account for the pattern of grammaticalization examined in this paper at both the functional and the formal level. In the balance of this paper, we will explore semantic factors differentiating the contexts that facilitate grammaticalization from those that hinder it. Verbs conjoined by the -te conjunctive in Japanese express different kinds of event combinations. Combinations of the motion verb iku ‘go’ or kuru ‘come’ and manner of motion verbs (aruku ‘walk’, hasiru ‘run’, oyogu ‘swim’, etc.) result in a semantically congruous whole in that there is complete spatio-temporal overlap, such that when one

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Masayoshi Shibatani

walks, s/he necessarily moves (goes or comes), and when one goes or comes to some place, s/he does so in some manner (e.g., walk, run, swim). Indeed, English lexicalizes macro-events comprised of these sub-events in manner-of-motion verbs such as walk and swim, which – unlike their Japanese counterparts – sanction a goal argument (e.g. walk to the station, swim to the shore). Combinations of location change and motion are similarly congruous in that there is partial spatio-temporal overlap. But the overlap is not to the full extent as in the Manner + Motion combinations, since it obtains only at the point of threshold in the case of Location change + Motion combinations. Compared to these combinations, those of sequentially ordered events, such as drinking and going to some place or eating and coming back, i.e., those not tied by such unifying relations as cause, purpose, and result lack semantic congruity and do not usually form a macro-event that is lexicalized in a single verb. Indeed, they do not even enter into verb serialization in many languages.11 The three types of converb construction examined in this paper thus have the following patterns of event combination, which can be characterized in terms of degree of semantic congruity: More congruous Manner + Motion Location change + Motion Action + Motion Less congruous

Notice that in Japanese, the combination of action and motion represents a pre-grammaticalization stage. That is, current forms such as non-de kuru ‘drink come’ and tabete iku ‘eat go’ do not combine action and motion in the literal sense, since they have already undergone grammaticalization, as described above. Our characterization of the three types of event combination then allows us to draw the following hypothesis on the context that propels or facilitates grammaticalization: (28) Grammaticalization is facilitated in semantically less congruous environments This hypothesis makes sense for the process of semantic bleaching, whereby a meaning component is more easily lost when there is no semantic support or reinforcement from the surrounding environment. Interestingly it is precisely this kind of semantically incongruous environment where metaphorical extension is also facilitated. As mentioned above, Japanese converb constructions involving verbs of going and com-



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

ing have also developed aspectual meanings (see examples in (25)). In combination with a converb, however, the aspectual meaning of iku/kuru ‘go/come’ obtains most readily in semantically incongruous combinations of events. Indeed, a large majority of the tabe-te iku ‘eat go’ and non-de iku ‘drink go’ forms found in Google are of the aspectual type illustrated in the following examples: (29) a. eigo-de gohan-o tabe-te ik-u English-with meal-ACC eat-CON go-PRES ‘(lit.) to go on eating meals with English/to go on living on the job using English’ b. dondon karee-o tabe-te ik-u steadily curry-ACC eat-CON go-PRES ‘to keep on eating curry steadily’ (30) a non-de ik-u utini azi-ni-mo nare…. drink-CON go-PRES while taste-to-also get.used.to ‘(you) also get used to the taste while (you) keep on drinking’ b. kare-mo dondon biiru-o non-de ik-u he-also steadily beer-ACC drink-CON go-PRES ‘He too keeps on drinking beer.’ There are more instances of spatial expressions than aspectual ones involving nonde kuru ‘drink come’ and tabe-te kuru ‘eat come’ forms, but one still encounters the following kinds fairly frequently: (31) a.

Nan-no tame-ni ima-made gyuunyuu-bakari non-de what-GEN reason-to now-up.to milk-only drink-CON ki-ta=n. desu=ka come-PAST=NMLZ COP=Q ‘For what reason have you been drinking only milk?’

b. Ningen-wa nani-o tabe-te ki-ta=ka. human-TOP what-ACC eat-CON come-PAST=Q ‘What have humans been eating?’ In contrast, there are no instances of the aspectual type for combinations like arui-te iku ‘walk go’ and de-te iku ‘exit go’. Indeed, native speakers of Japanese find a clear difference in grammaticality between the (a) and (b) sentences below: (32) a. korekara-mo dondon sake-o non-de ik-u from.now-also steadily sake-ACC drink-CON go-PRES ‘From now on too (I will) keep on drinking sake steadily.’ b. *korekara-mo dondon eki-e arui-te iku from.now-also steadily station-to walk-CON go-PRES (Intended for) ‘From now on too (I will) keep on walking to the station.’



Masayoshi Shibatani

(33) a. Ano kooen-o sanzyuu-nen-rai zutto arui-te ki-ta. that park-ACC thirty-year-over steadily walk-CON come-PAST ‘(I) have walked in that park steadily for over thirty years.’ b. *Sanzyuu-nen-rai zutto uti-kara gakkoo-ni arui-te ki-ta. thirty-year-over steadily house-from school-to walk-CON come-PAST ‘(I) have walked from the house to the school for over thirty years.’ Notice that in (33a) we have an action expression ‘walk (in) the park’ rather than a translational motion event ‘walk to some place’. The combination of the former with a motion verb expresses an incongruous event combination. In (33b), we have a congruous combination of manner and motion events, which fails to yield an aspectual interpretation. In other words, where a literal interpretation of the V-te iku/kuru form yields an incongruous event combination, aspectual interpretation obtains. This means that instantaneous grammaticalization (or a case involving metaphorical extension) is facilitated in the same environment where non-metaphorical and gradual grammaticalization is propelled, namely a semantically incongruous context. This situation has parallels in the temporal domain in other languages such as Formosan language Atayal and Thai, calling into question the widely accepted scenarios of the development of tense/aspect morphemes offered by Heine et al. (1991), Hopper and Traugott (1993), and Bybee et al. (1994), who suggest that tense/aspect meaning develops first in a semantically congruous environment, where inferences of intention and prediction obtain (see Shibatani and Huang 2006).

5. Summary and conclusion This paper has examined two patterns of grammaticalization in Japanese. One represents a case of gradual grammaticalization in which a meaning component of translational motion verbs of coming and going is lost as they occur as a finite verb in converb constructions. The loss of the motion meaning in these verbs has entailed a loss of valency property such that they can no longer sanction a source or goal argument in constructions at an advanced stage of grammaticalization. Advancement in grammaticalization is also accompanied by a formal reduction in motion verbs, as predicted by the general principle of the grammaticalization process. It was then shown that neither metaphorical extension nor frequency of use is a factor propelling grammaticalization in these converb constructions with motion verbs. Instead, an environment facilitating grammaticalization was identified as one in which an incongruous event combination obtains. It was further demonstrated that plausible cases of instantaneous grammaticalization involving metaphorical extension are also facilitated in an environment where a literal interpretation of the expressions leads to semantically less congruous event combinations. Congruous event combinations, on the other hand, inhibit metaphorical extension and instantaneous grammaticalization.



Grammaticalization of converb constructions 

This paper has also shown the importance of syntactic analysis in grammaticalization studies. In addition, it underscores the importance of a meticulous investigation of currently ongoing changes, which are much easier to document than less accessible ones. Finally, dealing with grammatical constructions as a whole as units of analysis affords a more fine-grained perspective than dealing with individual forms in isolation since the constructions provide a linguistic context that may play an important role in grammaticalization.

Notes 1. See Bisang (1995) on the similarities and differences between converb and serial verb constructions and Shibatani and Huang (2006) for the demonstration that the converb complex predicates and serial verbs do not form distinct types of complex predicates. 2. This caveat is necessary because a structure that raises the negative -nai may contain sika and -nai in two separate clauses; e.g. Boku-wa [Taroo-ni-sika aitai]-to omow-anai ‘(lit) I don’t think (I) want to meet only Taro/I think I don’t want to meet anybody but Taro/I don’t think I want to meet anybody but Taro’. See Matsumoto (1996) for similar arguments that (3a) involves a simplex structure. 3. Actually, the categorial status of what she calls operator is not entirely clear in Hasegawa’s work. But if the central definitional property for verbs is their ability to function as a predicate, then Hasegawa’s deictic operators do not count as verbs, since they do not function as predicates. 4. The form non-de mieta is fine if understood as an honorific version of non-de iru (drink be) ‘is drinking’. 5. Be aware that arui-te kuru ‘walk come’, for example, can be ambiguous between a translational motion reading, as in (14a) with a specified goal or source argument, and a nontranslational action reading, as in kooen-o arui-te kuru ‘walk (in) the park (and come)’, which belongs to the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type of (14c). 6. The table lists de-te irassyaru/rassyaru ‘exit come’ rather than hait-te irassyaru/rassyaru ‘enter come’ because the latter are involved in a large number of ambiguous cases between the intended hait-te iku type and the non-de iku type. 7. Expressions like the following are possible with the interpretation that the effect of drinking persists, hence overlaps with the motion event: Gakkoo-ni sake-o non-de ku-ru=to-wa nanigoto=ka? school-to sake-ACC drink-CON come-PRES=COMP-TOP whatever =Q ‘Whatever (is the matter with you) to come to school (after) drinking sake?’ This is similar to the following type of expression, where again the result of an action overlaps with the motion event. Hanako-wa gakkoo-ni mizikai sukaato-o hai-te ki-ta. Hanako-TOP school-to short skirt-ACC wear-CON come-PAST ‘Hanako came to school wearing a short skirt.’

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Masayoshi Shibatani To a large extent, these expressions behave similarly to the arui-te kuru ‘walk come’ type, in which there is a complete spatio-temporal overlap between the manner component and the motion component of the motion event. See the relevant discussion in Section 4. 8. The expressions cited here are framed in a complement construction headed by the formal noun to ‘when, as’ in order to exclude extraneous instances of the relevant phenomena. 9. In answering the questions posed here we need historical evidence. Another type of evidence comes from languages having similar construction types. See Shibatani and Chung (2005) for Korean evidence suggesting a gradual loss of valency property in the motion verbs of the non-de kuru ‘drink come’ type construction. 10. As mentioned in the text, determining the correlation between frequency and form size is tricky in that certain expressions occur more frequently across the board. For example, the imperative form De-te ik-e! (exit-CON go-IMP) ‘Get out!’ occurs very frequently despite being of the de-te iku type. The ratio of reduced forms of this expression indeed increases more dramatically than with the other expressions of the same construction type. Google count: de-te ik-e=to (exit-CON go-IMP=COM) ‘(e.g., I was told) to get out’ 16,700; de-te-k-e=to 16,500. 11. In Mandarin, Thai and Atayal, for example, simple sequentially ordered events such as eating and then going to some place do not serialize.

References Bisang, W. 1995. Verb serialization and converbs – differences and similarities. In Converbs in Cross-Linguistic Perspective, M. Haspelmath and E. König (eds), 139–188. Berlin: ��������������� Mouton de Gruyter. Brinton, L. J. and Traugott, E. C. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: CUP. Bybee, J., Pagliuca, W. and Perkins, R. 1991. Back to the future. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. 2, E. C. Traugott and B. Heine (eds), 17–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bybee, J., Perkins, R. and Pagliuca, W. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. DeLancey, S. 1991. Origins of verb serialization in Modern Tibetan. Studies in Language 15: 1–23. Foley, W. and Olsen, M. 1985. Clausehood and verb serialization. In Grammar Inside and Outside the Clause: Some approaches to theory from the field, A. Woodbury and J. Nichols (eds), 17–60. Cambridge: CUP. Givón, T. 1991. Serial verbs and the mental reality of ‘event’: Grammatical vs. cognitive packaging. In Approaches to Grammaticalization Vol. 1, E. C. Traugott and B. Heine (eds), 81–127. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grein, M. 1998. Mittel der Satzverknüpfung im Deutschen und im Japanischen: Eine TypologischKontrastive Analyse. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. Hasegawa, Y. 1996. A Study of Japanese Clause Linkage: The connective TE in Japanese. Stanford CA: CSLI Publications/Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers. Heine, B., Claudi, E. and Hünnemeyer, F. 1991. Grammaticalization: A conceptual framework. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Hopper, P. and Traugott, E. C. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Lord, C. 1993. Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.



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Matsumoto, Y. 1996. Complex Predicates in Japanese: A syntactic and semantic study of the notion ‘Word’. Stanford CA: CSLI Publications/Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers. Schmidt, C. 2004. Cosubordinate converbs in Japanese. Paper presented at the First Rice University and UT Austin Workshop on Language in Use. October 23–24, 2004. Rice University. Shibatani, M. and Chung, S. Y. 2005. On the grammaticalization of motion verbs: A JapaneseKorean comparative perspective. The 15th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference. October 7–9, 2005. University of Wisconsin, Madison. To appear in the proceedings. Shibatani, M. and Huang, L. 2006. Serial verb constructions in Formosan languages: their form and grammaticalization patterns. The Linguistics of Endangered Languages (Third OxfordKobe Seminar in Linguistics), April 2–5, 2006. Kobe, Japan. To appear in the proceedings. Teramura, H. 1984. Nihongo-no Imi-to Sintakusu (Syntax and Semantics of Japanese) Vol. II. Tokyo. Kurosio Publishers. Traugott, E. C. and Heine, B. (eds). 1991. Approaches to Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Contact, connectivity and language evolution Yaron Matras University of Manchester

This paper is concerned firstly with introducing a preliminary sketch of a function-oriented theory of language contact. Second, it will address the position of connectivity devices as mental or cognitive operations, which constitute part of the bilingual’s communicative activity. From the behaviour of connectivity devices in bilingual communication, I will be drawing some conclusions as to their position in the grammatical apparatus. The final issue to be addressed is a rather speculative addendum, a commentary on the possible position of connectivity operations in the ancient architecture of the language faculty itself.

1. Preliminaries: A function-oriented theory of language contact Linguists normally view contact-related change, and often also synchronic bilingual behaviour, through the prism of self-contained linguistic ‘systems’: Contact is envisaged as a partial convergence of two systems. I propose an alternative approach to language contact, one that consistently takes the perspective of the bilingual speaker, and which places at the top of its agenda the task to investigate how speakers act in multilingual settings. To the bilingual speaker, languages are not analytical ‘systems’. They are, rather, components of an overall repertoire of forms, constructions, experience, and skills on which the speaker draws in order to communicate. The bilingual speaker, very much like the monolingual speaker who is familiar with various registers of just one language, acquires rules on the selection of components within this repertoire through experience and socialisation. These rules tend to point toward the selective usage of distinct repertoire components in separate environments, or for separate sets of communicative activities. The key to communicating in a bi­-lingual repertoire is therefore the acquisition and the application of skills that enable the bilingual speaker to draw demarcation boundaries within the repertoire, and to maintain those demarcation boundaries in line with the communicative conventions and social expectations of the surrounding speech community.1 Rather than talk about the bilingual’s languages, I therefore choose to discuss the distinct components of a bilingual’s overall repertoire of linguistic-communicative structures.

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Yaron Matras

Investigating language contact is therefore not about describing how systems converge, but about investigating how successful bilingual speakers are in maintaining demarcation lines within their linguistic repertoires: Where will speakers fail to maintain the boundary between components of the repertoire? Around which grammatical categories or constructions? For which language-processing operations? When will they license themselves consciously to lift the boundary? And under which circumstances will either the lifting of a demarcation boundary, or the failure to maintain it, become habitual, and lead ultimately to a permanent shift in the position of the boundary – i.e. to language change? My basic assumption is that both the maintenance of demarcation boundaries within the repertoire, and their partial lifting or even longer-term removal around specific structures, are functional to communication in multilingual settings. This is a view of language contact that does not discriminate between diachronic and synchronic aspects of contact, or between idiosyncratic occurrences and widespread variation, but takes an integrated approach to the theme of acquiring, maintaining, and re-setting demarcation boundaries within the repertoire. This is the view that is taken, because any changes in the conventions of linguistic behaviour that become accepted by the speech community will have had their roots in individual innovations that speakers introduce at the level of the single utterance, embedded into a specific communicative event. As in monolingual speech (cf. Croft 2000), changes in bilingual settings too are individual innovations which are imitated, replicated, and ultimately propagated successfully throughout the speech community or in certain sectors of it. Bilingual behaviour is a way to navigate through the challenge of communicating, using a relatively wide and diverse repertoire of linguistic structures, and under a complex set of contextual constraints on variant selection. Contact-induced language change is a set of solutions to this challenge, which have become favoured by a significant number of speakers in a significant set of communicative constellations. The task of contact linguistics is to describe and explain speakers’ communicative navigation strategies in multilingual settings, and the conditions under which they lead to longer-term solutions, and so to change. This begins with the gradual process of the acquisition of the skill that enables the speaker to actively set demarcation boundaries within the repertoire. In respect of the infant acquiring two languages from birth, the agenda for investigation has long been defined as a need to analyse the acquisition of boundaries as a social skill (Ochs 1988, Lanza 1997). In respect of more mature speakers, who are generally self-confident in the skill of maintaining boundaries among repertoire components, the agenda of the contact linguist is to define the conditions under which those speakers license themselves to lift boundaries and make discourse-strategic use of the repertoire in its entirety, or indeed of the contrast between repertoire components (cf. e.g. Maschler 1994, Auer 1999). Discourse-strategic bilingual activities such as situational, conversational, and metaphorical codeswitching, insertions, loan translations or loan blends may be considered in this light.



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

But even in respect of the mature and self-confident speaker, the question arises whether difficulties in maintaining separation between repertoire components might still occur, either in certain situations, or indeed around particular processing functions of language, manifesting themselves around certain grammatical categories or constructions. This would point toward a cognitive trigger, rather than a discoursestrategic one, for certain kinds of language mixing. Are there instances of particular language-processing operations, where under certain conditions even mature and skilled bilingual speakers fail to keep apart their repertoire components? The hypo­ thesis put forward here is that this is indeed the case with certain types of connectivity markers: When engaging in the linguistic-mental operation known as ‘connectivity’, under certain conditions, bilingual speakers may ‘lose control’ of the selection mechanism that maintains demarcation between the different components of the linguistic repertoire, and select a structure that is cognitively functional (in that it triggers the relevant processing function) but socially inappropriate (in that it is not an acceptable variant in the particular setting). Some types of connectivity devices stand out in their vulnerability in such situations. From this it is firstly possible to derive an hypothesis of contact-induced language change: Should the difficulties in maintaining a boundary between the repertoire components persist around a particular function of language beyond just spontaneous and idiosyncratic use, and should the resulting pattern of ‘language mixing’ become accepted and even propagated within the speech community, then a cognitive trigger may be said to have sown the seeds for language change. Second, it can be argued that language contact can shed light on the internal structure of grammar; such ‘pathological’ errors in navigating through the bilingual repertoire indicate that the mechanism involved in selecting connectivity structures is more error-prone, and so that it is structured differently from that which governs the selection of other grammatical operations or lexical items. On this basis we might hypothesise that connectivity occupies a different kind of position in the speech production mechanism.

2. Connectivity devices in multilingual language acquisition I base this section on informal observations of the language acquisition process of a trilingual child, whom we shall call ‘Ben’. Born and raised in England, Ben is exposed to two languages at the home: German, which he hears from his mother, and Hebrew, which he hears from his father. Both parents speak their respective languages consistently to Ben, consciously trying to avoid mixing. Between the ages of 0:4 and 4:4, input was balanced: During the first two years of his life, Ben spent four days a week with an English-speaking child minder, and was cared for at home during roughly half of the working week primarily by his father, and during the other half primarily by his mother, while weekends were spent with both parents. At the age of 1:11, Ben’s parents split up and moved into separate households, in separate towns. Ben stayed with his moth-

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Yaron Matras

er, spending three to four working days at an English-speaking nursery, while six days out of a fourteen-day cycle were spent with his father. Holiday time was split equally among the two parents. Most of the holiday time with the mother was spent in Germany, and around half the holiday time with the father was spent in Israel – in both countries with family and relations. On the whole, then, between the age of 0:4 and 4:4, Ben spent roughly equal amounts of time with each of the two parents (each speaking his/her language consistently) and at the English-speaking nursery, with exposure during holidays to monolingual contexts of German and Hebrew. Ben’s active language acquisition history begins between the age of 1:3–1:6, with the acquisition of lexical items from all three input languages. In the early phase, the lexicon appears mixed, characterised, not surprisingly, by the absence of bilingual synonyms and the indiscriminate use of individual lexical items, irrespective of addressee or context (cf. already Volterra & Taeschner 1978). A consistent desire to separate the languages becomes clear however by the age of 1:9, by which time much of the vocabulary is used selectively according to setting (setting being defined primarily by the parent-addressee, and gradually also by a number of other adults who are associated with one language rather than the other). Bilingual synonyms begin to appear during this period, while there is also a set of preferred lexical items, containing elements from all three languages, which the child continues to use irrespective of context. By the age of 2:4 – 2:6, Ben has acquired a fairly fluent command of both his domestic/parental languages, German and Hebrew, with English lagging somewhat behind in active use. In both German and Hebrew, Ben is able to conjugate verbs in various tenses, to make full use of person inflection and inflected pronouns or pronominal clitics, and to produce complex sentences with the full range of conjunctions. He is fully aware of the context-bound separation of languages, and pursues it consistently. However, lapses do occur: In situations immediately following the transition from one parental household to another, i.e. within a few hours or on the first day, or in other situations of partial ambiguity, such as when speaking on the phone to one parent while in the care of the other, Ben occasionally slips into the ‘wrong’ language, that is, into the language that is not the language of the addressee (i.e. the slips are either into the language of the parent with whom he had been spending the past few days prior to the transition, or, in the case of phone conversations, into the language of the parent at whose house he is currently staying). The slips are unintentional; sometimes they are noticed and self-repaired, but quite often they remain unnoticed by the child, and usually un-commented on by the hearer. The most interesting aspect of these bilingual slips is the fact that they involve almost exclusively a particular class of discourse and connectivity markers. Most frequently affected are the particles ‘yes’ (Hebrew ken/ German ja) and ‘no’ (lo/nein), the conjunctions ‘because’ (ki/weil), ‘and’ (ve/und), ‘or’ (o/oder), and ‘but’ (avál/aber), and occasionally focus particles such as ‘too’ (gam/auch), ‘even’ (afílu/sogar) or ‘at all’ (bixlál/überhaupt):



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

(1) Hebrew; age 2:3, first few days in the father’s care after returning from a 3week holiday in Germany; inspecting the shell of a snail in the garden:

báyit šel xilazón aber éyn xilazón bifním house of snail but [German] is-no snail inside ‘A snail-shell, but there is no snail inside’

(2) German; age 7, on the phone to the mother while at the father’s house, describing a collection of insects:

dann gibt’s Butterfly, ve/ und zwei Craneflies then is and [Hebrew] and two ‘Then there’s a butterfly, and/ and two craneflies’

(3) Hebrew; age 5:2, reaching to inspect his trousers while planning a game in which a toy is to be hidden in a pocket:

yeš li überhaupt kis? there.is to.1sg at all [German] pocket ‘Do I even have a pocket?’

(4) Hebrew; age 7:2, on the phone to his father while on holiday in Germany, about a sports event that was being shown on television there:

Jan Ulrich hayá be’érex mispár šéva oder šmóne/ o šmóne was approximately number seven or [German] eight or eight ‘Jan Ulrich was about number seven or eight/ or eight’ Language choice errors, or rather, speech production errors of the type illustrated in (1) – (4) occur in both directions – German connectors in Hebrew utterances and vice versa – especially during the age period 2:3 – 4:6, but occasionally also later. Of particular interest is the history of the adversative conjunction, Hebrew avál, German aber, at an earlier phase during this period. Both language forms of the conjunction (as well as the English form) had been acquired and used regularly in the individual languages before the age of 2:6. At 2:6, Ben spent a three-week holiday with his mother in Germany. Upon his return, and for the next three months, German aber consistently replaced the Hebrew adversative conjunction in Hebrew discourse. It appears as though the two languages underwent a fusion of the structure expressing contrast between propositional units in discourse.2 The demarcation line between the repertoire components collapsed around the particular processing operation of contrast, allowing aber to function independently of context or setting and so independently of ‘language’ selection. This situation prevailed until the age of 2:10, when Ben left for a three-week holiday with his father to Israel. Within a week of interacting in the monolingual Hebrew environment, Hebrew avál was reinstated in Hebrew discourse. Then, upon Ben’s return home, and for the next 2 – 3 weeks, avál replaced aber in German discourse. Thus, a repetition of the process of fusion took place, with the languages in reverse roles.

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Yaron Matras

How can we make sense of the turbulent fate of the contrastive conjunction during this period? We might first establish that, while an entire set of connectivity markers is prone to instability around the transitions between contexts (= between sets of extralinguistic factors that condition the selection of particular elements within the linguistic repertoire), contrast is affected in a special way, and there is greater difficulty in keeping apart the repertoire components, and less flexibility to select the appropriate form and so to accommodate to the new extralinguistic setting. The behaviour of contrast is similar to, but is more extreme than that of the other connectivity markers. Next, we can establish that the child’s difficulty in maintaining separation between repertoire components is not due to the overall dominance of any one set of linguistic structures (= one ‘language’). Rather, ‘dominance’ or loyalty to a particular set of structures is variable and fluid. It is, in a way, this changing loyalty which triggers the confusion in the first place. The child undertakes an effort to accommodate to the constraints of the new setting; consequently, a language becomes dominant – not within the repertoire as a whole, but pragmatically, as the preferred set within the repertoire for a series of ongoing activity domains. It is, in other words, pragmatically dominant (see Matras 1998). In this section we saw that even a bilingual child with maximum domain separation between the languages and a high level of linguistic awareness and avoidance of mixing, encounters certain difficulties in keeping apart two of his languages around connectivity functions, especially contrast. There is a certain difficulty, in situations of relative ambiguity which surround the transition between settings, to disassociate connectivity devices from the pragmatically dominant language – the language in which communicative performance took place until the transition. The speaker/child is thus unable to maintain the demarcation boundary consistently. Instead, the boundary collapses occasionally around a specific function or set of related functions, leading to an instantaneous or temporary fusion – i.e. non-separation – of the structures of connectivity (or certain functions thereof) in the two languages.

3. Fusion in adult speech In this section I will demonstrate that the difficulties encountered by the bilingual child and discussed in the previous section are not particular to children, but may just as well affect adult or mature bilingual speakers. Consider first the case of a young, but linguistically mature Hebrew-English bilingual, brought up partly in Israel and partly in the United States. At the age of around eight, he is addressed, in Israel, by a monolingual Hebrew speaker of a similar age group, who asks him a yes/no question: (5) Hebrew; asked a yes-no question by Hebrew monolingual of same age group: S: uh-húh. [ʔʌ̃ˈhʌ̃] ‘Yes’.



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

H: ((looks puzzled)) ma? ‘What’? The speaker’s reply is an affirmative signal which he attributes to a non-language-specific sector of his linguistic repertoire – a kind of language-independent linguistic gesture. In fact, this sequence of segments is not understood in the Hebrew context/setting, i.e. it is not familiar to the hearer with a monolingual Hebrew repertoire. Virtually the same kind of communicative breakdown occurs at a somewhat later age, here in the United States, when the speaker is confronted with a question by an English monolingual adult: (6) English; having been asked a yes-no question by English monolingual adult: S: ts-. [ʇə] ‘ No’. H: ((awaits response)) The click-related implosive sound indicating a negative reply, which is common in the Mediterranean region, is meaningless to the English monolingual hearer, who continues to await a response. In both situations, the speaker mistook operators that help regulate the interaction, for gestures that are language-independent. This kind of collapse of the demarcation boundaries differs from the type discussed in the previous section; here, there is no realisation that demarcation exists around a particular function. The result in both cases, however, is a fusion of both components for a particular language processing function (or group of functions). Consider now the following excerpts (7) – (8) from a television interview, broadcast in the United Kingdom in the documentary series ‘Dispatches’ on Channel 4 television, on 8 June 1997. The speaker is German, and is being interviewed in Berlin about his part in an arms smuggling scheme: (7) S: Well jus/ just the way ǝ ǝ the m/ the weapons ǝ brought ǝ/ I/ I have brought to London, nǝ, und I/ I have told them the truth, nǝ, that they were brought by car, nǝ and/ and ǝ... H: Were they very interested? S: Yes, they were very interested, nǝ, to know how, nǝ.



(8) At the border in England were by the custom/ they have investigated this car, very very ǝ ǝ thoroughly, and they have removed the panels from the doors, the panels from the luggage room and they in/ investigated in the engine compartments aber they didn’t find anything but they/ they have forgotten to get unten ǝ/ ǝ •/ ((clears throat)) they/ they forgot to look under the • car.

The first excerpt, (7), is characterised by the frequent insertion of the (northern) German tag nǝ. Its consistent appearance suggests that it is not attributed by the speaker to any single component of his repertoire, but has again the status of a sector-independent structure within the repertoire, a kind of universal communicative gesture, appli-

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cable with no setting-related constraints. In reality, of course, nǝ is completely foreign to English speakers and fails to achieve its communicative function when directed at a monolingual English addressee. In addition to this absence of realisation of a demarcation boundary, in both (7) and (8) the speaker fails to maintain the boundary around altogether three forms/structures: Two of them are connectors – und ‘and’ in (7), and aber ‘but’ in (8).3 It is not clear that in either of the cases the speaker actually noticed his error, as no obvious self-repair is inserted. Still, one can safely assume that the speaker is aware of the German origin of the two words, and aware of their English counterparts. The German insertions convey the impression as though chaining devices in the narrative are being carried out in German, while the actual propositional part of the discourse – though possibly planned in German4 is on the whole communicated successfully in English. The conclusion is that there is a set of connectivity devices which at times escapes the speaker’s control with respect to conscious language choice, and that another subset of connectivity items – those that are less ‘lexical’, and appear more ‘gesture-like’ – are in fact processed by the speaker as ‘untagged’ for any particular language, i.e. as part of the overall linguistic repertoire, rather than of a particular component of that repertoire, constrained to a specific set of communicative domains. More evidence for lapses in adult bilingual’s control of the language selection mechanism around connectors follows. In (9), a Czech academic whose foreign working language is generally English gives a brief survey of her research activities at a German-speaking academic forum: (9) ...in Norwegen/ über diese zwei Sprachen, Bokmål and Nynorsk, und so weiter. ‘...in Norway/ about these two languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk, and so on.’ In (10), a native speaker of Polish who has been living in Germany for the past decade or so meets friends from Germany in London, where she has been attending an advanced English language course and living with an English family during the past two weeks. She crosses the street from the Café where the party is sitting to inspect a restaurant, which is said to be decorated in Polish style. Having returned and confirmed that the style is on the whole indeed Polish, she says: (10) ...bis auf/ bis auf die Tischdecken, because/ eh weil sie... ‘...except/ except for the tablecloth, because/ uh because it...’ The error was noticed by the speaker, and a self-repair is inserted. Note that in both (9) and (10), the target of the error – the prevailing form – does not come from a language that is generally dominant in the respective speaker’s life, but rather from one that has pragmatic dominance in the particular communicative domain: Thus for the Czech academic in (9), English is the usual language of international academic events. For the Polish-German student in (10), English has been the focus of her communicative efforts in London over the past couple of weeks.



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

Consider finally two more examples. In (11), a group of four Israelis – the speaker, her husband, and two friends – are having lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Manchester, England. As they are engaged in conversation in Hebrew, a waiter appears to take their order. The speaker’s husband takes the active role in ordering most of the items, and in (11) the speaker intervenes and adds: (11) …and one Won Ton soup avál/ eh/ the vegetarian one. The Hebrew contrastive conjunction avál appears here, rather than English but; it is possible, though not obvious, that the error was noticed by the speaker, for there is a pause and hesitation, but no explicit repair. Finally, in (12), the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom gives an interview on BBC television (Newsnight, 7 June 2004), commenting on plans for municipal elections in Saudi Arabia. In response to a question challenging him about the authorities’ ability to ensure fair elections, he says: (12) I would beg to say that yaʕni/ the Kingdom is a very big territory. The Arabic discourse marker yaʕni in fact derives from an Arabic inflected verb meaning ‘it means’. Nonetheless, as a discourse marker it appears to be assigned to those gesture-like items of speech that are not consciously assigned to a particular component of the linguistic repertoire; yaʕni appears frequently in foreign-language discourse of Arabs. For a trained diplomat speaking on national television about matters of state, it is certain that the insertion of yaʕni constitutes a non-volitional, potentially embarrassing clash with his own and his audience’s expectations in respect of the wellformedness of his discourse. We can safely assume that the insertion is not intentional nor strategic in any way, but that it represents a lapse in the speaker’s control over the mechanism that governs selection over repertoire components. This brings us to the principal point of this section, and that is, that in all instances documented here, the failure to maintain demarcation boundaries between repertoire components surrounding connectivity devices is not in any way discourse-strategic: It is not pre-planned, it is not conscious, in fact it is often self-repaired, and it does not yield any overt communicative advantages for the speaker, either in terms of prestige or recognition on the part of the hearer, or in terms of efficiency of communication and the ability to express a function or relation that would otherwise have to remain unexpressed (this is already excluded through the potential breakdown in communication or at least the lack of any guarantee that the hearer will be able to decode the foreign structure successfully). We can therefore rule out two factors that are often regarded as principal triggers for language mixing, namely prestige-related or emblematic mixing, and functional gap-filling. There remains therefore what must be regarded as a language-processing related or cognitive trigger, a non-volitional and sub-conscious mechanism which, in its quasi-pathological character remotely resembles some symptoms of bilingual aphasia: the inability, around specific languageprocessing functions (mental operations), to maintain a demarcation boundary between components (sets) within the linguistic repertoire, and to select structures in

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accordance with the context- or domain-particular constraints that govern their normal use in the speech community.

4. Variation in connectivity marking in bilingual communities It has been argued that in bilingual communities speakers will use discourse markers to flag their linguistic abilities (Poplack 1980), or that they will make use of bilingualism to mark out boundaries between utterances (Maschler 1994), or that frequent use of discourse markers will flag cultural integration (Clyne 2003).5 In the previous section we saw examples of bilingual speech production in which cognitive difficulties of language processing and language production override social-setting related and conversational constraints. I suggest on this basis that bilingual speakers, while generally able to maintain demarcation boundaries within their complex linguistic repertoires, encounter inconvenience when it comes to connectivity devices. The removal of demarcation boundaries is a solution of convenience, and hence at least covertly advantageous to the speaker. This ‘covert’ advantage of course competes with the overt communicative disadvantages of losing face when failing to select correctly (i.e. according to the social norms of the community) among the repertoire components, or of risking a breakdown in the efficiency of communication. But let us assume a situation where a) there is no loss of face, since most speakers are bilingual, hence slips of the kind documented in section 3. are commonplace; and b) there is no breakdown of communication, since all members of the speech community understand the pragmatically dominant language into which the slips are likely to occur. In such cases, the inconvenience of maintaining demarcation boundaries around utterance-organising operations might not be counteracted by factors such as prestige or efficiency of communication. Where can we expect to encounter such situations? They are, in fact, common in minority language settings where several conditions are met: 1) The minority language is an ethnic language, whose primary function is to flag loyalty to a clan or ethnic group; it is mainly used for group-internal communication; 2) It is primarily an oral language, and enjoys minimal institutional support (i.e. little or no support in schools, media, written tradition or other institutions, and no norm dictating language purism); 3) Bilingualism is widespread among all adult speakers of the minority language, and interaction with persons outside the community, and so use of the majority, dominant language, is frequent. Although members of the community might well value the maintenance of their own language, the regular appearance of connectors that are identical to those of the second, external or dominant language might not be regarded as endangering the coherence of the ethnic (minority) language. Indeed, we saw above that in the case of some connectivity structures, especially those that are interaction-related and hearerdirected and have a remote relation to the content of adjacent propositions, the structures involved are sometimes regarded as non-component-specific, i.e. as part of the



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

overall repertoire of linguistic structures, but untagged for a specific component that is limited to particular communicative domains or settings. The motivation to remove the inconvenience of having to maintain strict demarcation boundaries around utterance-organising operations, might then override the wish to preserve the internal, aesthetic coherence of a separate ethnic language, or might indeed not be seen at all as contradicting the latter. Consider the example of Romani, a typical oral minority language lacking the protection of any institutions of literacy or other kind of language regulation, in a permanent situation of bilingualism, its key functions being to serve as family- or clanlanguage, flagging ethnic separateness. Examples (13) – (14) stem from a corpus of recordings of the Lovari dialect, spoken here by a second-generation immigrant from Poland to Germany: (13) Laki familija sas also kesave sar te phenav, artisturi, nǝ? her family were part [German] such how comp I-say artists part [German] Her family were like such how shall I say, showpeople, right? (14)

Taj žasas ande veša taj rodasas, taj dikhasas, khelasas and we-went in woods and we-searched and we-saw played ame halt, nǝ. we part [German] part [German] ‘And we used to go into the woods and search, and look around, we like used to play, right.’

The speaker belongs to the first generation in her family to grow up with both languages, Romani and German (previous generations spoke Romani and Polish, Slovak, and Romanian). Note that the German discourse particles also, halt, nǝ are treated as an integral part of the Romani discourse. They are not regarded as foreign, and they do not disturb the subjective (from the speaker’s point of view) well-formedness of the Romani discourse. Needless to say, they do not cause either loss of face or barriers to comprehensibility within the extended family, which is where Romani is mainly used. On the other hand, there is nothing to suggest that acceptance of German culture, or flagging of German-language competence, are motivating triggers behind the insertion of German particles. Bilingualism is an accepted reality in Romani communities, and at least among members of the second generation of immigrants it is a self-evident norm which does not entail any privileged position. Cultural adaptation is often functional, but a culture of contrast is cherished as a key to the preservation of a diasporic identity. There is therefore, in the Romani-speaking context, no obvious advantage of flagging any form of cultural or emotional accommodation to the outside, non-Romani environment; if anything, community members who do appear strongly integrated into the dominant, surrounding culture are looked down upon as semi-assimilated by other members of the community. What we witness in (13) – (14), therefore, is the

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emerging acceptance of regular insertions of utterance-organising devices from the contact-language into the home-language discourse. In (13 – (14) we witness the acceptability of those connectors that operate exclusively at the interactional level, like fillers and tags. They convey processing instructions in respect of the roles of the participants and the sequencing arrangement of speech activities, and have a special function as an invitation to the hearer to accept the speaker’s role and point of view. These connectors tend to be less overtly lexical or even grammatical, and we might conclude that it is for this reason that they are more volatile to the mixing of boundaries between repertoire components during conversation, and so also more prone to propagation and ultimately acceptance within the speech community. There is indeed evidence in support of such an hypothesis. Thus, the speaker cited in (13) – (14) uses German sentence particles, but the Polish contrastive conjunction ale ‘but’ (recall that the speaker’s family immigrated to Germany from Poland). However, those connectors that make reference to logical relations among propositions that are part of a propositional chain, are also susceptible when it comes to crossing demarcation boundaries and gaining acceptability. Consider examples (15) – (16) from conversations with two native speakers of Low German originating from the province of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, who immigrated to the United States as teenagers in the mid-1950s:6 (15) IF: (a) und dor arbeidet ik den för hunnertfofti Dåler and there worked I then for hundredfifty dollar de Monat the month DH: (b) jåå, dat weer al wat anners. yes that was already something else IF: (c) dat weer wat anners, und he weer uk en Düütsche that was something else and he was also a German een, ni, and äh ik weer de drüdde, drüdde or one no and uh I was the third third or feerte Düütsche, wat för em arbeiden dee. fourth German who for him work did IF: (a) ‘And there I then worked for one hundred and fifty dollars a month DH: (b) Yes that was already different. IF: (c) That was different, and he was also a German, right, and uh I was the third, third or fourth German who worked for him. (16)

dat weer’n Ünnericht för süstein Stunnen, but ik hef bloos that was a lesson for sixteen hours but I have only acht Stunnen måkt, åber dor hef ik uk nix leert. eight hours made but there have I also nothing learned ‘That was a sixteen-hour class, but I only did eight, but I also didn’t learn anything there.’



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In (15) we find both Low German und and English and (as well as or), and in (16) both Low German åber and English but. Although some effort is made to select connectors in line with the overall choice of linguistic set (lexical, grammatical), i.e. in line with the selected ‘language’ of the discourse, this effort is not consistent, and the infiltration of English connectors does not seem to be regarded by the speaker as a clash with the norms and expectations on well-formedness of communication structures. Thus, in both the Romani examples and the Low German ones, speakers are licensing themselves to lift the demarcation boundaries within their repertoire around a specific class of grammatical operations. That the adoption of such a licence is gradual, makes common sense, and is also supported by evidence from speech communities where original (native, or inherited) devices continue to be used alongside those markers that are borrowed from the surrounding dominant language. Mosetén is spoken by approximately 800 people in the foothill-region of the Bolivian Andes. It has been in contact with Spanish since the 17th century, but Spanish influence has been particularly strong since the 19th century. The following examples (from Sakel, in press) illustrate the acceptability of Spanish connectors in Mosetén discourse: (17)

Wënjö’ khö’ï mömö’ jishyiti’ y move f only.f comb and [Spanish] me’me’ shiphki’ raej dyaba. so leave all peanut ‘She must have come, [and] she just combed herself and so the peanuts came out [of her hair].’

(18) Chhibin o tsiis ji’jaem’te penne chapatikdyetyi’. three or [Spanish] four good raft big.raft ‘Three or four rafts to make a big raft.’ (19) Me’ jïmë mö’ pero mö’ majjo’ me’. so close 3f.sg but [Spanish] 3f.sg much so ‘This (water-source) is closer, but that one has more (water).’ (20) Tyiñetyi’ pero-ki pen’-ki jai’bai. semi.red but [Spanish]-co side-co white ‘It (the peanut) is semi-red, but one side is white.’ While examples (17) – (19) show plain integration of the Spanish connectors y ‘and’, o ‘or’ and pero ‘but’ into Mosetén discourse, in (20) the Spanish contrastive connector pero is combined with a Mosetén marker of contrast. The two devices are, typologically and apparently also functionally, not incompatible with one another, so that the lifting of boundaries here may be conceived of as making full use of the entire repertoire, with no constraint on domain-specific selection. Anders (1993) documents the speech of ethnic Germans in Russia. Despite the preservation of some literary tradition in German, and a closed and rather isolated

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community structure, Russian discourse particles are infiltrating German-language discourse and gaining acceptability; this can be seen by examining their frequency, as well as by paying attention to the fact that such elements are rarely accompanied by any self-repairs: (21) T: Der Mann war krank und wir konnten doch nicht. the man was ill and we could part not P: Ja. yes T: Nu und • • wie er gestorben ist, und dann • • • hat es nicht part [Russian] and as he died is and then has it not so lang gedauert. so long lasted T: ‘The man was ill and so we couldn’t. P: Yes. T: Well and • • when he died, and then • • • it took so long.’ Other Russian connectors, such as no ‘but’, appear in the corpus alongside their German equivalents (in this case aber): (22) Ma: Sie wollen jetzt noch Brot holen? you want now still bread fetch No ich hab etwas zu Hause! but [Russian] I have some at home Ba: A, ich han Brot. Aber auf morge. oh [Russian] I have bread but for tomorrow Ma: Do you still want to get bread now? But I’ve got some at home! Ba: Oh, I’ve got bread. But for tomorrow. We have established that a) connectivity devices are prone to lapses in control over the choice of repertoire component in early bilingualism, and to speech production errors involving control over the choice of repertoire component in adult bilingualism, and that b) connectivity devices are subject to variation in communities with stable bilingualism, with markers from the surrounding majority or dominant language gradually gaining acceptance as part of the inventory of linguistic structures of the in-group, ethnic, immigrant or minority language.

5. Connectivity structures and grammatical borrowing My claim in this paper (see also Matras 1998) is that variation of the kind seen in the previous set of examples is an outcome of the gradual acceptance and conventionalisation of spontaneous and unintentional lapses in bilingual speakers’ overall effort



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to maintain demarcation among their repertoire components. We shall return to a discussion of the reasons behind the pressure triggering such lapses specifically around connectivity devices in the discussion below. Once variation sets in, it motivates change: Where too different forms compete for the same function, speakers are likely to regard one of them as more fashionable than the other. Change is thus likely to affect the inventory of connectivity devices; one might say, therefore, that the connectivity apparatus is particularly prone to grammatical borrowing in language contact situations where the recipient language is the weaker or rather the group-internal language. Turoyo (Christian Neo-Aramaic of Tur Abdin, southeastern Turkey; Jastrow 1992) for example, a minority language in a multilingual region, shares its connective and discourse particles amma ‘but’, ya ‘or’, faqat ‘however’, and ya … ya ‘whether/either … or’, ḥetta ‘even’ and balki ‘maybe’ with the surrounding languages Kurmanji (Kurdish), Turkish, and Arabic, the particles û ‘and’ with Kurmanji and Arabic, the connectors ǝnkān ‘if ’ and lašān ‘in order to’ with Arabic, and the particle disa ‘again’, hēš ‘still’, edi ‘then, so’, šxwa ‘anyway’, tǝ ‘at all’, veğa ‘now’, and žnu ‘only then’ with Kurmanji. Such wholesale adoption of the inventory of connective devices (including coordinating and some subordinating conjunctions, interjections, discourse particles, focus particles, and phasal particles) is common in other languages under similar sociolinguistic conditions (stable and widespread multilingualism, primarily oral tradition, restriction of the language to in-group or family communication). Domari, for instance, the Indic language of the Dom peripatetics of the Middle East, employs the full inventory of Arabic conjunctions and discourse particles, including all coordinating and subordinating conjunctions and co-particle (co-relatives), relative particles, phasal and focus particles, interjections, fillers, and tags (items in italics are grammatical loans from Arabic): (23) law ēr-om xužoti kān laher-d-om-s-a if [Arabic] come.past-1sg yesterday cond [Arabic] see-past-1sg-3sg-ant ‘If I had come yesterday I would have seen him’. (24) warik-ar-a mlāy-ēk minšān mā džan-ad-is wear-3sg-ant veil-pred.m so.that [Arabic] neg [Arabic] know-3pl.subj-3sg ‘She used to wear a veil so that one would not recognise her’ (25) qabel-mā dža-m xałłaṣk-ed-om kam-as before-comp [Arabic] go-1sg.subj finish-past-1sg work-obl ‘Before I left I finished my work’ (26) iza wars-ari, n-aw-am-eʔ if [Arabic] rain-3sg neg-come-1sg-neg ‘If it rains, I shall not come’ (27) na kil-d-om bara liʔann-hā wars-ari neg go.out-past-1sg out because-3sg.f [Arabic] rain-3sg ‘I did not go out because it is raining’

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(28)

ū daʔiman/ yaʕnī/ kunt ama and [Arabic] always [Arabic] that.is [Arabic] was.1sg [Arabic] I kury-a-m-ēk wala kil-šami wala aw-ami. house-obl-loc-pred.f and.not [Arabic] exit-1sg and.not [Arabic] come-1sg ‘And I was always/ I mean/ at home, not going out nor coming’

(29) mana illi to-r-im iyyā-h bread rel [Arabic] gave-2sg-1sg res-3sg [Arabic] ‘the bread that you gave me [it]’ As a result of this wholesale incorporation of Arabic connectors, along with the syntactic convergence of Domari with Arabic and its replication of Arabic word order and clause structure features, sentence organisation and clause combining is identical in the two languages. For Domari speakers, the in-group component of their linguistic repertoire, or what makes up the ‘Domari language’, therefore does not include a specific inventory of connectors or connectivity structures, but is limited to the internal organisation of clauses or even just constituents. As far as speakers are concerned, speaking ‘internally’ (speaking Domari) and speaking ‘externally’ (Arabic) are identical when it comes to connectors and connectivity devices. From a diachronic viewpoint, Domari has undergone complete fusion with Arabic in the domain of connectivity. Romani, too, tends to borrow connectivity markers from the various surrounding languages with which Romani dialects have come into contact. Most prone to early borrowing are, as we saw above, discourse particles, fillers, and tags. Coordinating conjunctions form an interesting hierarchy of borrowing in Romani. All dialects of Romani borrow the conjunction ‘but’ from a current or recent contact language (e.g. Slavic no, po and ali/ale, Hungarian de, Turkish ama, German aber). A pre-European expression for ‘or’, vaj, is retained in some dialects. Elsewhere, ‘or’ is often found to be a more stable borrowing than ‘but’: For instance, the Ajia Varvara Romani dialect of Athens has ja ‘or’ from its Recent L2 Turkish, but ala ‘but’ from its Current L2 Greek; Helsinki Romani has elle ‘or’ from its Recent L2 Swedish, but mut ‘but’ from its Current L2 Finnish. Pre-European ta(j) ‘and’ is retained in many dialects, though often alongside a borrowed conjunction for ‘and’. The additive conjunction too may be a more conservative, earlier loan than the contrastive or alternative conjunction; thus Bugurdži Romani hem/em from the Recent L2 Turkish, alongside pre-European thaj, but ili ‘or’ and po/ali ‘but’ from the Current L2, Serbian. There is a clear implicational hierarchy for the borrowing of coordinating conjunctions, based on contrast (cf. Matras 1998): If ‘and’ is borrowed, then ‘or’ is also borrowed, and if ‘or’ is borrowed, then ‘but’ is also borrowed.7 Romani is not unique in this regard. A sample of languages under the cultural influence sphere (directly, or via another language) of Arabic (Matras 1998) show a similar hierarchy, with Arabic-derived contrastive expressions such as lakin or amma most widespread (cf. Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Turkish, Lezgian, Albanian, Somali, Hausa, Ful), followed by Arabic-derived disjunctive expressions (ya), followed by additive conjunctions from Arabic (such as ve/w). In a sample of 29 Mesoamerican languages



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

discussed by Stolz & Stolz (1996), 21 languages borrow Spanish pero ‘but’, 16 borrow o ‘or’, and 12 borrow y ‘and’. The results are by and large implicational: If a language in the sample borrows y, it also borrows pero. There are no exceptions to this rule. If a language borrows y, with only two exceptions it also borrows o. If a language borrows o, it is also very likely to borrow pero, there being only three exceptions. We return to the significance of this hierarchy in the Discussion below. The Macedonian dialect of Turkish has borrowed not only individual connectors from its contact language, Macedonian, but also the design of clause combining, which relies on free-standing, clause initial conjunctions introducing finite clauses (whereas in Turkish clause combining is often achieved through converbal structures, with converbs marked as suffixes to verbs): (30) i şimdi onların atları kaldi “Yürük”. and [Macedonian] now 3pl.gen name.pl.poss stay.past Yürük And so they kept the name “Yürük” (31) a gemide para yok whereas [Macedonian] boat.loc money none whereas on the boats there’s no money In (30) – (31), we find the Slavic (Macedonian) clause-initial conjunctions i ‘and’ and a ‘and, however; whereas’, and so also a contrast between two distinct connectivity types – addition, and contrastive-addition – which do not exist in (Standard) Turkish. The organisation of clause combining structures in Macedonian Turkish replicates the Macedonian blueprint even in those cases where no actual formal material is borrowed. Thus in (30), the first embedded clause (‘what I want to say’) is finite, and is introduced by a conjunction ne, deriving from the interrogative ‘what’8; this conjunction also serves as a relativiser. The second, modal clause (‘I want to say’) is also finite, showing the typical Balkan infinitive-loss and its replacement through a finite (in this case, subjunctive) verb describing the target action (cf. Matras 2003/2004): (32) bilirsin ne istiyom deyim know.aor.2sg what want.prog.1sg say.subj.1sg ‘You know what I want to say.’ Note that Macedonian Turkish remains, in contrast to the other languages of the Balkans, an agglutinating, postpositional, and predominantly SOV language, and so typologically quite distinct. In terms of syntactic typology, the structure of clause combining might be regarded as the first (and so far principal) domain in which convergence with the neighbouring languages takes place. Connectivity structures, then, appear particularly vulnerable not just to the actual borrowing for formal material such as conjunctions and other particles, but also to the replication of patterns of constituent ordering, agreement and overall form-function mapping that form the mental blueprint for the respective construction. We find evidence for this tendency toward con-

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vergence of clause combining structures in other linguistic areas, too. Consider the structure of complementation in a number of languages in the northern Levant / eastern Anatolian region – Kurmanji (Iranian), Neo-Aramaic (Semitic), Arabic (Semitic), and Domari (Indo-Aryan). (33) Kurmanji: ez di-xwaz-im her-im mal-ê I prog-want-1sg go.subj-1sg home-obl (34) Neo-Aramaic (Zakho, Iraq): ana g-ib-ǝn āz-in l-bēsa I prog-want-1sg go.subj-1sg to-home (35) Arabic: ana biddī a-rūḥ ʕa-l-bēt I want.1sg 1sg-go.subj to-def-home (36)

Domari: ama biddī dža-m kury-ata I want.1sg go.subj-1sg home-dat ‘I want to go home’

Note that the languages differ in basic word order rules, Kurmanji showing predominantly SOV, the others showing mainly SVO. As is the case in Macedonian Turkish, the structure of connectivity appears more prone to convergence than other aspects of syntactic typology. Based on a selection of case studies, we can arrive at the following tentative conclusion about the position of connectivity devices in language contact situations: a. Connective particles are prone to direct borrowing (i.e. replication of form), particularly from a dominant language (whereby the prestige of the dominant language is the key to long-term acceptability of the forms, but not necessarily the trigger for their initial insertion at the utterance level). ‘Smaller’ or ‘weaker’ languages will tend toward fusion of the inventory of connective particles with that of the dominant language. The susceptibility of connective particles to borrowing tends to be hierarchical, with those expressing contrast as well as those with minimal lexical content (i.e. gesture-like) among the most likely to be affected. b. Connectivity structures that operate at the level of the entire organisation of the complex clause are prone to replication of that organisation pattern. Such convergence or pattern replication occurs under the influence of a dominant language, but also in linguistic areas (where relations of prestige and dominance may not be obvious). What is replicated here is primarily the rules of form-function mapping, the ordering of elements and their grammatical meaning. In other words, we are dealing here with the replication or fusion of constructions (in the sense of Construction Grammar; cf. Goldberg 1995, Croft 2001).



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

6. Discussion: The triggers of fusion around connectivity devices Why is connectivity prone to fusion (of the inventory of operators and their functions) and convergence (of the inventory of constructions) in language contact situations? If our hypothesis is correct, and fusion begins as speech production errors where speakers select the correct function, but fail to observe the constraints on the selection of the appropriate form (‘language’), then we must assume that there is a property of the mental processing operation that is associated with connectivity, and which interferes with the mechanism that controls the selection of items within the overall repertoire of forms and constructions in accordance with context- and situation-bound constraints (i.e. the demarcation mechanism). We must therefore search for the answer to the question of the susceptibility of connectivity devices to borrowing in the function of connectivity in processing language in discourse. Approaches to discourse agree that connectivity does not just concern the relation between the content of one clause or phrase and that of another that is adjacent to it. Rather, it concerns the complex communicative interrelations between the speaker and the hearer during the sequencing of units of discourse (cf. already Schiffrin 1987; see also Rehbein 1979, Redder 1989, Ehlich 1986). The speaker has to guide the hearer into processing relations between utterances, or between the propositional components of utterances. With some combinations of propositions, the processing track is more problematic than with others, i.e. some connections are harder to accept against the set of existing presuppositions. This is where the speaker has to ‘work harder’ in order to sustain the supportive participation of the hearer, and the hearer’s acceptance of the speaker’s authority as speaker and point of view. Similarly, the speaker has to ‘work harder’ when his/her own authority is at stake for other reasons, for instance for failing to maintain the flow of the turn, or for failing to provide convincing clarification, on in instances where the speaker may simply wish to ascertain the support of the hearer (circumstances that are often highlighted by means of fillers, hesitation markers, or tags). The inventory of structures and forms involved in such communicative procedures constitute an apparatus through which the speaker can monitor hearer-sided participation in the discourse, guide the hearer and intervene with hearer-sided processing of the discourse – a kind of ‘monitoring-and-directing’ apparatus. It contains the more obvious functions of connectors –inviting the hearer to accept a proposition as a supplementary continuation of a previous proposition (addition), urging the hearer to revise a possible course of processing and accept a broken causal chain (cf. Rudolph 1995) proposed by the speaker (contrast), or inviting the hearer to accept the speaker’s explanation of a state-of-affairs and its relevance (causation/ result). They may also include the more strictly interaction-oriented functions of connectors – inviting the hearer to continue to anticipate the conclusion of the speaker’s turn despite an interruption in the speaker’s flow of speech or clarity of expression (fillers), or inviting the hearer to signal reassurance of having accepted the speaker’s subjective

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chaining of propositions or portrayal of an overall point of view (tags). The monitoring-and-directing apparatus involves complex processing in that it depends on the speaker’s anticipation of the hearer’s mental processing of and reactions toward the discourse and communicative behaviour; thus, it calls on the speaker to make predictions about the interlocutor’s activities, and to organise actions of speech accordingly. In this light, the borrowing hierarchy of connectors discussed in the previous section has more than just coincidental value. At the top of the cline contrast>disjunction>addition we find, in discourse-pragmatic terms, maximal intervention on the part of the speaker in the hearer-sided processing of propositions, in effect blocking a pathway for processing the proposition that is available (based on presupposition), and limiting interpretation to a particular direction. With disjunction, the option of diverting a course of interpretation is introduced by the speaker, who offers the hearer an alternative pathway. Addition may be considered the most supportive of all three positions on the cline, in terms of the firm and clear direction of processing which the speaker offers to the hearer, and its harmonious relationship to contextual presuppositions. Borrowing thus appears to mirror the intensity of tension between anticipated, presupposition-based hearer-sided processing of propositional content, and the direction that the speaker’s following speech activity takes. If we trace borrowing of connectors back to a lapse in exercising control over the selection mechanism through which bilingual speakers maintain context-bound demarcation among repertoire components, then we come across a link between interactional tension of this kind, and failure at a given instant to maintain control over the demarcation boundary. Compromising demarcation boundaries is thus, we hypothesise, triggered by the mental processing effect of intense monitoring-and-directing by the speaker of hearer-sided participation in the discourse. This explains why alongside connectors and connectivity structures, other operators whose function it is to process, explicitly, hearer-sided expectations, and so to highlight explicitly the relevance of propositional contents (in the sense proposed by Blakemore 2002; cf. also Sperber & Wilson 1986), such as focus particles (even, too) or phasal particles (still, no longer), are similarly prone to bilingual speech production errors (i.e. ‘wrong’ choices) as well as to long-term borrowing in contact situations. It appears, then, that the monitoring-and-directing apparatus is tightly associated with the forms that trigger the individual operations (but for contrast, you know for tags/fillers, and so on), which reduces the ‘reflection time’ that the speaker has at his/ her disposal to contemplate the selection of an appropriate element, and which makes this selection more automaticised or gesture-like, compared with other linguistic selections. At the same time, the procedures involved in monitoring-and-directing appear more abstract and so more loosely associated with any particular subset within the repertoire of linguistic forms and constructions, and so more prone to evading control over the context-bound demarcation among repertoire components. In practice, what this means is that the bilingual speaker, when initiating a monitoring-and-directing procedure, is prone to select the structure that encodes this procedure



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

from the pragmatically dominant language (i.e the language to which strongest mental attention has recently been directed), rather than from the selected language of the ongoing interaction. If the structure is a word-form, that word-form is likely to be inserted. If the structure is a construction, that is a pattern of form-function mapping, then this pattern will be replicated drawing on elements of the selected language of the interaction.

7. Epilogue: Connectivity and language evolution If our interpretation of the data discussed in the sections above is correct, then we can conclude that the position of connectivity devices at the top of the cline of structural borrowing reflects the particular position of connectivity in the grammatical apparatus. What, then, is that particular position, and what can we learn from it about the ancient architecture of the language faculty? The evolution of language is probably the most speculative domain in current linguistic discussions (cf. Wray 2002, Tallerman 2005, for an overview). This final section does not pretend to offer any methodological breakthrough in the study of language evolution. Rather, it relies on an interpretation of the empirical evidence discussed in the previous sections, and joins the pool of speculations on the significance of empirical evidence to theories of the emergence of language. The monitoring-and-directing apparatus, we argued, is more difficult to control as part of the demarcation of repertoire components (= ‘separation of languages’ in the bilingual repertoire). This positions the monitoring-and-directing apparatus in a different category from other types of linguistic structures and constructions, not just functionally, but from the point of view of the nature of its retrievability or mental activation. Indeed, its potential detachability from a closed subset of the repertoire places it in the vicinity of other means of communication, such as gestures, that are tightly associated with a particular interactional function, but only more loosely associated with just a particular set of contexts or settings (a particular ‘system’ or ‘language’). Which other elements of language might be regarded as belonging to this class of gesture-like functions, and is there any evidence linking them with connectivity devices? There is, in fact, some experimental evidence based on neuroimaging of the brain, indicating that the processing of clause conjoining is linked to greater right-hemispheric activity (Friederici 2001). There appears to be rather clear evidence linking the processing of prosody to greater right-hemispheric activity, compared to the processing of melodic features of language (Schirmer et al. 2001; Friederici 2001; cf. also McMahon 2005). There is also cross-linguistic evidence that discourse particles, including clause-initial coordinating conjunctions, tend to be produced correctly by patients suffering from agrammatism (Menn & Obler 1990: 1370), which again supports the impression of some kind of neurofunctional separation of discourse-organisational operators from other function words. Brain lateralisation could therefore be a factor promoting susceptibility to bilingual production errors in some linguistic procedures – those procedures that are more difficult to control in an analytical fashion. Not sur-

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prisingly, this involves functions that show greater dependency on non-analytical, right-hemispheric processing. We might assume that the source of the neurofunctional distinctness of connectors and discourse markers is related to their function as a kind of verbal gesture expressed by the speaker to accompany the organisation of speech at the discourse level, and especially to direct the attention and participation of the hearer. These are elements with which the speaker may be said to reach out to the hearer. McMahon (2005) argues for a primary function of prosody in an evolutionary sense, one that emerged prior to the emergence of language as an analytical faculty. It is noteworthy that prosody, like connectivity, is particularly susceptible to contact-induced change, and to convergence in linguistic areas. Arguably, contact-susceptibility in these domains is linked to instinctive (rather than analytical), gesture-like communicative activities. If there is indeed a right-hemispheric orientation for connectors and discourse markers, as there is for prosody, one would be tempted to assume that monitoring-and-directing functions evolved prior to the emergence of language as a more analytic (and lefthemisphere-oriented) faculty. The assumption that monitoring-and-directing operations emerged early in the sequence of evolution of communicative functions is not incompatible with Tomasello’s (1999) suggestion that language evolved is response to the emergence in humans of the capacity to ‘identify’ with fellow humans as intentional agents. It is possible that, much like prosody, the gesture-like nature of grammatical elements such as connectors and discourse markers is a residue of the earliest mental ‘tools’ used by human to capture an interlocutor’s attention and to try and influence the course of an interlocutor’s intentions and actions. The interactional aspects of connectivity might therefore belong to the more primitive, more ‘instinct’-driven and less analytical components of human communication; as such, they are more prone to escaping the analytical control of the bilingual who struggles to maintain what is, effectively, a socially constructed demarcation boundary within a repertoire of communicative tools.

Notes 1. Grosjean’s (2001) speaks of ‘language modes’, which involve a cline of different degrees of activation of each language within the bilingual’s repertoire. 2. See Matras (1998) for a discussion of fusion in this sense. Cf. Meisel (1990), who characterises the lack of grammatical separation between languages in Bilingual First Language Acquisition as fusion. 3. The third – unten ‘below’ – reveals that at least part of the utterance was planned in German, and the local expression which serves as a crucial reference point escapes the simultaneous transposition of the original mental plan of the proposition into English. This slip does not escape the speaker’s attention, however, and he pauses to save face, then repairs.



Contact, connectivity and language evolution 

4. See previous footnote, and note German word order patterns in … were by the custom, the use of the perfect tense, and the lexical composition luggage room < German Kofferraum. 5. But see also Salmons (1990) for a different approach to bilingual discourse markers, one that emphasises the convergence of communicative strategies. 6.

Examples provided by Dörte Hansen-Jaax, 1995.

7. Aikhenvald (2002: 182) mistakenly cites this hierarchy in reverse order: “In the hierarchy of borrowing suggested by Matras (1998: 303), the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ is considered more likely to be borrowed than ‘or’”, and goes on to say that Tariana is a counterexample, since the coordinating conjunction is not borrowed, neither is the Portuguese contrastive conjunction mas borrowed, although Portuguese o ‘or’ does appear. 8. In Standard Turkish a paratactic construction resembling this structure is possible, but the default embedded clause would be nominal: bil-ir-sin de-mek iste-diğ-im-i know-aor-2sg sayinf want-past.part-1sg-acc.

References Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2002. Language Contact in Amazonia. Oxford: OUP. Anders, K. 1993. Einflüsse der russischen Sprache bei deutschsprachigen Aussiedlern [Arbeiten zur Mehrsprachigkeit 44]. Hamburg: Germanisches Seminar. Auer, P. (ed.). 1999 Codeswitching in Conversation. Language, interaction and identity. London: Routledge. Blakemore, D. 2002. Relevance and Linguistic Meaning. The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers. Cambridge: CUP. Clyne, M. 2003. Dynamics of Language Contact. Cambridge: CUP. Croft, W. 2000. Explaining Language Change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow: Longman. Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: OUP. Ehlich, Konrad. 1986. Interjektionen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Friederici, A. 2001. ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Syntactic, prosodic, and semantic processes in the brain: Evidence from event-related neuroimaging. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 30: 237–250. Goldberg, A. E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press. Grosjean, F. 2001. The bilingual’s language modes. In One mind, Two languages. Bilingual language processing, J.L. Nicol (ed.), 1–22. Oxford: Blackwell. Hansen-Jaax, D. 1995. Transfer bei Diglossie. Synchrone Sprachkontaktphänomene im Niederdeutschen. Hamburg: Dr. Kovac. Jastrow, O. 1992. Lehrbuch der Turoyo -Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Lanza, E. 1997. Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism. A sociolinguistic perspective. Oxford: OUP. Maschler, Y. 1994. Metalanguaging and discourse markers in bilingual conversation. Language in Society 23: 325–366. Matras, Y. 1998. Utterance modifiers and universals of grammatical borrowing. Linguistics 36: 281–331.

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Yaron Matras Matras, Y. 2003/2004. �������������������������������������������������������������� Layers of convergent syntax in Macedonian Turkish. Mediterranean Language Review 15: 63–86. McMahon, A. 2005. Heads I win, tails you lose. In Headhood Elements, Specification and Contrastivity, P. Carr, J. Durand and C. Eden (eds), 255–275. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Meisel, Jürgen M. 1990. ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Code switching and related phenomena in young bilingual children. In Papers for the Workshop on Concepts, Methodology and Data [European Science Foundation Network on Code Switching and Language Contact], 143–168. Menn, L. and Obler, L. K. 1990. Cross-linguistic data and theories of agrammatism. In Agrammatic Aphasia: A cross-language narrative sourcebook, L. Menn and L. K. Obler (eds), 1369–1389. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ochs, E. 1988. Culture and Language Development: Language acquisition and language socialisation in a Samoan village. Cambridge: CUP. Poplack, S. 1980. Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics 18: 581–618. Redder, A. 1989. Konjunktionen, Partikeln und Modalverben als Sequenzierungsmittel im Unterrichtsdiskurs. ��� In Dialoganalyse II, E. Weigand and F. Hundsnurscher (eds), 393–407. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Rehbein, J. 1979. Sprechhandlungsaugmente. Zur Organisation der Hörersteuerung. In Die Partikeln der deutschen Sprache, H. Weydt (ed), 58–74. Berlin: ������������������� De Gruyter. Rudolph. E. 1995. Contrast. Adversative and concessive expressions on sentence and text level. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Sakel, J. In press. The borrowing of Spanish discourse markers in Mosetén. International Journal of Bilingualism. Salmons, J. 1990. Bilingual discourse marking: Code switching, borrowing, and convergence in some German-American dialects. Linguistics 28: 453–480. Schiffrin, D. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: CUP. Schirmer, A., Alter, K., Kotz, S. and Friederici, A. 2001. Lateralization of prosody during language production: A lesion study. Brain and Language 76: 1–17. Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. 1986. Relevance. Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 1996. Funktionswortentlehnung in Mesoamerika. Spanisch-amerindischer Sprachkontakt [Hispanoindiana II]. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 49: 86–123. Tallerman, M. (ed.) 2005. Language Origins. Perspectives on evolution. Oxford: OUP. Tomasello, M. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Volterra, V. and Taeschner, T. 1978. The acquisition and development of language by a bilingual child. Journal of Child Language 5: 311–326. Wray, A. (ed.) 2002. The Transition to Language. Oxford: OUP.

ALLORA On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian as donor language Thomas Stolz University of Bremen

The article addresses the issue of function-word borrowing from Italian into a number of languages spoken in Italy or neighbouring regions. Among the most frequently borrowed items, the discourse particle allora stands out as the most widespread Italian loan. The article explores the properties which make allora a prime candidate for being borrowed. The borrowability of allora is compared to two competing relative chronologies of function-word borrowing whose empirical basis does not contain evidence from language-contact situations with Italian. It is argued that the success story of allora calls for a partial revision of those models which ascribe particular importance to adversative conjunctions and discourse particles (translating English but and however) because the ubiquitous Italian discourse particle is a serious competitor for the role of prime mover in the chronology of function-word borrowing.

1. From Spanish to Italian Some (though by far not all) function words are known for being particularly prone to being borrowed in language contact situations.1 Especially discourse markers / particles lend themselves easily to transfer from one language to the other. On Thomason’s (2001: 70) borrowing scale, they occur as early as stage 2 which is described as a phase of “slightly more intense contact (borrowers must be reasonably fluent bilinguals, but they are probably a minority among borrowing-language speakers)”. Unsurprisingly, discourse markers / particles also count among the most prominent elements in codeswitching because they most often occupy positions at the periphery of clauses, sentences and paragraphs – positions which are frequently involved in codeswitching (Myers-Scotton 1993). Recent research has revealed that discourse markers / particles of one and the same prestigious superstrate or adstrate language are indiscriminately borrowed by recipient languages with very diverse genetic, areal and typological back-

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Thomas Stolz

grounds. Matras (1998: 301–305) for instance has studied the almost ubiquitous borrowing of adversative and coordinating conjunctions corresponding to English but / however and and / or in numerous contact constellations. He provides an intriguing cognitive explanation for the prominence of not only adversative conjunctions in the inventories of borrowed function words across languages: [T]he trigger behind language mixing around discourse-regulating grammatical elements is cognitive, not social, in the sense that it derives from the mentalprocessing functions associated with the linguistic expression, or in plain terms from its communicative-interactional function. The ‘donor’ language is the one that is pragmatically dominant in the particular instance in which transfer occurs, that is, it is a linguistic system to which speakers show a special situative commitment and to which their efforts at norm-conforming linguistic behavior are currently directed. Typically, such a donor system belongs to the language in which group-external communication takes place, and where the speakers under consideration, being outsiders, do not participate in defining the norm. Conversely, their own group may be tolerant toward changing norms and may accept such cognitively triggered transfers. If such a constellation persists, recurring transfers may be conventionalized. Prestige is thus not itself a motivation for the transfer of discourse markers […], but at most a background precondition for the wholesale, long-term borrowing of this class of items [inverted commas original] (Matras 1998: 396).

These rather appealing ideas, however, have not been left unchallenged. In her chapter on Portuguese influence on the Amazonian language Tariana, Aikhenvald (2002: 179– 86) observes that her evidence runs counter to the patterns familiar from other contact constellations where discourse markers are prime candidates for being borrowed. Tariana does not seem to have borrowed any discourse markers from Portuguese (although it has borrowed the preposition até ‘until’ [a somewhat doubtful case though], the conjunction ou ‘or’ and the negator nem ‘nor’). Aikhenvald (2002: 182) emphasises that the notorious adversative conjunction has not been borrowed into Tariana. Moreover, she claims that the borrowing of the disjunctive ou ‘or’ without prior borrowing of the coordinating e ‘and’ disproves the validity of Matras’s borrowing hierarchy. However, this latter claim is caused by a misinterpretation of the implication and ⊃ or ⊃ but.2 Matras (1998: 303 and elsewhere) clearly states that but is the unmarked case whereas the borrowed or implies borrowed but and borrowed and implies borrowed or and but. Thus, only the absence of Portuguese mas ‘but’ in Tariana is a challenge to Matras’ model. In the light of such potential counter-evidence it is advisable to extend our empirical basis by reviewing more contact constellations with different donors and recipients and, other sets of function words. With a view to testing Matras’s hypothesis, it is thus necessary to look at function words other than adversative conjunctions and functionally closely related items from a comparative perspective. These additional function words have to be checked in de-



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

tail for their borrowability in order to determine whether or not there is something special about say, adversativity, which facilitates the borrowing of its expressions provided by the prestigious (or in Matras’s terms “pragmatically prominent”) language. If a certain class of markers behaves differently from other function words fulfilling discourse-organizing tasks when it comes to being borrowed, then this evidence has to be checked against Matras’s model and the hierarchies proposed therein. If however there is no evidence for a special status of one class of markers in comparison to other discourse particles then a revision of the model is called for. This will also be the case if it turns out that certain languages – be they recipient or donor languages – yield divergent results in language contact situations. Thus, in this contribution, I will give special attention to a different set of discourse particles whose functional domain does not prototypically revolve around adversativity (see below). I will also look at languages which hitherto have not been prominent in the literature on our topic. In order to guarantee comparability with Matras (1998), I will largely refrain from discussing social factors, whose potential effects in function-word borrowing will be focused upon in a follow-up study. The paradigm case of parallel borrowing behaviour is the Hispanicisation of (many of) the indigeneous languages presently spoken in those territories which once belonged to the erstwhile Spanish colonial empire or which now form part of the officially Spanish-speaking successor states of the former colonies in Latin America (Zimmermann 1987; Th. Stolz 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002; Ch. Stolz 1998; Stolz and Stolz 1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2001). Owing to the common exposure to Spanish as their prestigious donor language, languages of different genetic affiliation and typological classes on three continents have become similar in spite of their original structural diversity. The features they now share are the ones which they have borrowed independently from Spanish: more often than not, languages in Austronesia (Philippines, Marianas, Easter Island), the Americas (from Mexico to Tierra de Fuego) and – though probably to a lesser extent – Africa (Northern Maroc, West Sahara and Equatorial Guinea) display almost identical and relatively extended sets of Spanish-derived function words with discourse particles ranking highest. The widespread use of Spanish entonces ‘then, therefore, thus’ in Autronesian and Amerindian languages exemplifies this tendency. In (1)-(4) I present sentences from Philippinian, Polynesian, Tupi-Guaranian and Totonac-Tepehuan languages which have integrated entonces into their systems without ever having been in direct contact with each other.3 In these sentences, the usage to which the borrowed versions of entonces are put in the recipient languages largely conforms to the patterns provided by the donor language Spanish, although functional and distributional equivalence is not necessarily strict, as recipient languages may employ borrowed items in a way which is at odds with the rules of the donor language. Note too that direct Spanish influence on Hiligaynon ceased more than a century ago whereas it is very strong (and ever increasing) in the three remaining cases.4

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(1)

Hiligaynon [Austronesian, Philippinian – Philippines] (Wolfenden 1971: 79–80)5 Madamo ang bulak dira’ intonsis manguha kita many Det flower at_there therefore Fut:get 1Pl ‘There are lots of flowers there, so let’s get some.’

(2)

Rapanui [Austronesian, Polynesian – Easter Island] (Makihara 2001: 198) entonces ka u’i mo hakapiri o tātou entonces Imp look Subord unite Poss 1Pl.Incl ‘Therefore, let’s look to unite ourselves.’

(3)

Guaraní [Amerindian, Guaraní-Tupi – Paraguay] (Gregores and Suárez 1967: 188) etónse ko’éro ‘ó ko’è=muaéro še po-visitá ta entonces tomorrow or day_after_tomorrow I you-visit Fut ‘Then, tomorrow or the day after, I will visit you.’

(4)

Totonac [Amerindian, Totonac-Tepehuan – Mexico] (Levy 1990: 42) entonces tuku li:-cha:’lhka:tnan-a chi? entonces what Ins-work-2Sg.Incomp now ‘What then are you working on now?’

Chances are that we would encounter similar phenomena not only in Rifeño or other varieties of Berber exposed to Spanish influence in Northern Maroc, but also in heavily Hispanicized substandard / regional varieties of Basque where the normative influence of the unified standard Batua is still rather restricted. Given that the recipient languages, or their immediate predecessors, made use of autochthonous means fulfilling functions similar to those of the borrowed Spanish items during pre-contact times (and, in many cases, continue to do so even today), it makes no sense to attribute the astonishing homology among the recipient languages to incidentally shared structural “deficiencies” (since, of course, there are no deficiencies in natural languages). Likewise, it is impossible to identify any “positive” structural feature common to so many dissimilar languages which might have triggered the borrowing process. Is there then anything about the Spanish discourse markers / particles which makes them irresistible when languages come into contact with Spanish? In order to answer this deliberately naive question, it is necessary to turn our attention to a different donor language. If the discourse markers / particles of other donor languages prove less successful in language contact situations, the idea becomes more tenable that there is something about the Spanish elements (or the socio-communicative conditions in the Spanish sphere of influence) which makes them especially attractive for being borrowed. However, if it turns out that (certain classes of) discourse markers / particles rank high on the borrowability hierarchy independent of the donor language, then the Spanish elements are nothing extraordinary – they only corroborate a general tendency. In this contribution, therefore, I look at the impact Italian and its regional varieties have been exerting on co-territorial minority languages and the somewhat outlier heavily Italianized Maltese language spoken on the Mal-



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

tese archipelago just south of Sicily. I haven chosen Italian as the test case because of the following reasons: (i) Like the seemingly problematic Portuguese (according to Aikhenvald 2002, see above), Spanish and Italian are both Romance languages and are thus easy to compare. (ii) The periods of Hispanicization and Italianization are almost co-extensive as both have been in existence for at least half a millennium in some parts of the territories under scrutiny. In addition, there is also an almost identical division into sub-periods of different contact intensity: for the first centuries, both Spanish and Italian were only sporadically present in the non-Romance speech-communities – a situation which changed drastically in the 19th century when official language policy started to aim at an enforced cultural and linguistic homogenization. (iii) The Italian case is different from the Spanish one as it does not reflect a typical colonial situation but a socially assymmetric adstrate constellation within the zone of cultural and / or demographic dominance of the prestigious group. (iv) Except Maltese, the languages influenced by Italian are all of Indo-European stock and thus distantly related to and structurally not too dissimilar from Italian and its dialects. Thus, the Italian situation differs considerably from the ones described in Matras (1998), Stolz and Stolz (1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2001) and Aikhenvald (2002) whose focus is on genetically diverse contact constellations. On the basis of a genetically less heterogeneous sample, one might expect different behaviour on the part of the recipient languages. If this hypothesis is falsified however, claims with a language-independent scope can be formulated. (v) As with Spanish, the contact situations both actually involve bilingual ones (with Italian or a local variety thereof being one of the languages mastered by the speakers) and historical ones (for which Italian has almost completely disappeared from the inventory of actively used languages of the population).

The languages to which I mostly refer in the remainder of my contribution are in alphabetic order: (Italo)-Albanian (also called Arbëresh), Cimbrian (Germanic) a heavily Italianised variety of Upper German (Bavarian), (Italo-)Greek (also called Griko), Maltese and Molise Slavic, a South Slavic variety.6 (Italo)-Albanian, Cimbrian, (Italo-)Greek and Molise Slavic are minority languages spoken in relatively small and isolated village varieties scattered about various Italian regions, namely the Veneto and Trentino for Cimbrian, Molise, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia for (Italo)-Albanian, Calabria and Puglia for (Italo-)Greek, and Molise for Molise Slavic. Owing to the better accessability of reliable data for Calabria, my discussion of (Italo-)Albanian and (Italo-)Greek focusses on their Calabrian varieties. (Italo)-Albanian has the largest speech-community with about 88,000 speakers whereas Cimbrian, (Italo-)Greek and Molise Slavic together count no more than 20,000 speakers. Maltese is of course the official language (co-official with English) of the Republic of Malta with slightly less than 400,000 resident native speakers. Maltese boasts of a normative grammar and a

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relatively rich literary tradition dating back to the late 18th century. It has been experiencing a constant increase in functions and domains ever since the 1930s when its status was made official (to the detriment of the erstwhile dominant Italian). With Malta’s admission to the EU, Maltese has also become one of the official languages of this supra-national organization whereas the above minority languages of Italy are more or less endangered notwithstanding recent legal provisions aiming at their preservation. Literacy in these languages is limited. Practically all speakers of the minority languages also know Italian and / or a regional Romance variety. On Malta, active knowledge of Italian is restricted although a sizeable number of Maltese are still able to understand Italian fairly well (which continues to be present on the islands because of mass tourism, TV and radio). In sociolinguistic terms, the speech-communities of the minority languages in Italy can be compared to the ones of many indigeneous languages in modern Latin America where Spanish is omnipresent in daily life outside the local residence and the autochthonous Amerindian languages are confined to home, family and perhaps the village. Maltese on the other hand compares with those languages which, as a result of the vicissitudes of political history, were able to emancipate themselves from the foreign dominance, for instance Tagalog in the Philippines (where English ousted Spanish as it did with Italian on Malta).

2. Italian The Italian equivalent of Spanish entonces is allora. Allora is multifunctional in the sense that it may be employed as temporal adverb meaning ‘then, at that time’ (Renzi, Salvi and Cardinaletti 1995: 284–286), as a paragraph-connecting discourse particle with a range of consecutive-causal-temporal readings corresponding to English then / thus / therefore and as a marker of turn-taking (Renzi, Salvi and Cardinaletti 1995: 245). Furthermore, it is also used with a certain adversative flair especially in emphatic questions (comparable to English but / still / yet), as a marker of the apodosis in emphatic (often counterfactual) conditional clauses (Renzi, Salvi and Cardinaletti 1991: 781–784) and as a marker of emphatic imperatives. Some of these functions are secondary in the sense that allora fulfills them only if it occurs in combination with other more dedicated elements. In (5), I give examples for most of the above functions of allora. The majority of the examples is taken from the Italian translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le petit prince – a source that will be important in subsequent sections too. (5) (5.1)

Italian [Indo-European, Romance – Italy] Temporal adverb (LPP Italian XIV.34) E dopo di allora è cambiata la consegna? and after of allora be.3Sg change:Part:F Det:F task:F ‘And has the task been changed since then?’



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

(5.2)

Temporal discourse particle (LPP Italian XIV.11) Allora veniva il turno dei lampionai allora come:Past:3Sg Det turn of:Det.M.Pl lamp_lighter:Pl della Russia e delle Indie of:Det.F Russia and of:Det.F.Pl Indies ‘Then it was the turn of the lamp-lighters of Russia and the Indies.’

(5.3)

Temporal-consecutive discourse particle (LPP Italian I.35) E allora non parlavo di boa and allora Neg speak:Past:1Sg of boa ‘And thus I did not talk about boas.’

(5.4)

Causal discourse particle (LPP Italian II.35) Non avevo mai disegnato una pecora Neg have:Past:1Sg ever paint:Part:M Indef:F goat e allora feci per lui uno di quei due disegni and allora make:Perf:1Sg for him one:M of this:M.Pl two painting:Pl che avevo fatto tante volte which have:Past:1Sg make:Part:M so_many:F.Pl time:F.Pl ‘I had never painted a goat and therefore I produced for him one of the two paintings I had made so often.’

(5.5)

Emphatic imperative (LPP Italian IX.51) Hai deciso di partire e allora vattene! have:2Sg decide:Part.M of leave:Inf and allora go:you:Loc ‘You have decided to leave and thus go away!’

(5.6)

Adversative support in questions (LPP Italian VII.8) Ma allora le spine a che cosa servono? but allora Det.F.Pl thorn:F.Pl to what thing serve:3Pl ‘But then what purpose do the thorns serve?’

(5.7) Turn-Taking (LPP Italian X.68–69) King: …i miei ordini sono ragionevoli. Det.M.Pl my:M:Pl order:Pl be.3Pl reasonable:M.Pl Prince: E allora il mio tramonto? and allora Det.M my:M sundown ‘King: My orders are based on reason. Prince: And what about my sundown?’ (5.8)

Conditional (Renzi / Salvi / Cardinaletti 1991: 781) Se fossi un marziano If be:Conj.Past:1Sg Indef Martian allora avrei le orecchie verdi. allora have:Cond:1Sg Det.F.Pl ear:F.Pl green:Pl ‘If I were a Martian, then I would have green ears.’

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Thomas Stolz

Owing to this wide variety of functions, it comes as no surprise that allora counts among the most frequent words of modern Italian. In the Italian frequency dictionary (Bortolini, Tagliavini and Zampolli 1971: 232), allora occupies rank 78. Unfortunately, the various functions of allora are not distinguished in the frequency count. Of the 42 occurrences of allora in the Italian version of Le petit prince, 21 (= 50%) are of a causalconsecutive nature, 13 (= 30%) can be classified as temporal whereas the other “secondary” functions are somewhat underrepresented.7 In four cases (= 9.5%), allora adds adversative emphasis to questions. It is also used twice in conditional clauses, once in turn-taking and once for the purpose of rendering an imperative more emphatic. I reckon that this distribution of allora over functions is not too far remote from the one a more extended corpus analysis would yield. The fact that it is often rather difficult to determine whether an instance of allora counts as temporal, consecutive or causal will be important in the subsequent sections. At this point, it suffices to state that allora tends to invite several readings at a time according to the principle of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Allora has a number of partial synonyms which cover different sections of the functional domain of allora. All of these partial synonyms are multifunctional themselves. For reasons of space, I restrict my further comments to three of the many partial synonyms which are particularly interesting for the present purpose. This does not mean that other partial synonyms such as quindi ‘thus’, perciò ‘therefore’, ora ‘now, thus, then’ etc. have nothing on offer for a contact-linguistically inspired investigation. Dunque ‘thus, therefore’ is responsible for the causal-consecutive part but may also be used for the purpose of reinforcement in emphatic questions (Cusatelli 1979: 580), poi ‘then’ is a temporal adverb although it is not free of consecutive and emphatic functions similar to the ones mentioned for dunque (Cusatelli 1979: 1285) and dopo ‘after(wards), behind’ is a temporal (and spatial) adverb, preposition and discourse particle (Cusatelli 1979: 571). In (6), each of these partial synonyms is exemplified in their prototypical function. (6) (6.1)

Italian [Indo-European, Romance – Italy] poi (LPP Italian II.46) Lo guardó attentamente e poi disse it.Obj watch:Perf.3Sg attentively and poi say.Perf.3Sg ‘He watched it carefully and then said:…’

(6.2)

dopo (LPP Italian XXIV.32) e dopo un silenzio disse ancora and dopo Indef silence say.Perf.3Sg again ‘And after a moment of silence he said again:…’

(6.3)

dunque (LPP Italian III.23) Tu vieni dunque da un altro pianeta? you come:2Sg dunque from Indef other:M planet ‘Thus you come from another planet?’



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

As to their frequency, two of the partial synonyms are more frequent than allora itself, namely poi, which occupies rank 54 in the frequency dictionary, and dopo which ranks 74 (Bortolini, Tagliavini and Zampolli 1971: 232). Both are thus high frequency items. Dunque however is much more seldomly used and thus winds up on rank 325 (Bortolini, Tagliavini and Zampolli 1971: 237). Surprisingly, all three partial synonyms fail to come close to the values reported for allora in the above sample text: poi accounts for 25 cases followed by dopo with 14 and dunque with just seven attestations. Only when added up they can compete with allora in terms of statistics. In what follows, I investigate the fate of allora in language contact situations with Italian as the donor language. For this purpose, I compare allora to its supposed competitors in the above mentioned five recipient languages.

3. Contacts 3.1

Quantities

Given the general validity of my above corpus-based layman’s statistics, one expects a similar statistical disproportion for the discourse-regulating items when it comes to borrowing.8 My working hypothesis assumes that if any of the elements discussed in section 2 is borrowed into the languages which have been in contact with Italian, allora is the most likely candidate. Moreover, if more than one of the items are borrowed then allora will not only form part of the set of borrowed items but it will also be the most frequently used. And thirdly, the use to which allora is put in the recipient languages will largely reflect the uneven distribution of this item over its various functions. I check these predictions on the basis of a relatively heterogeneous corpus. The corpus is made up of: anthologies of folklore including recorded native speaker interviews Gradilone (1970) for (Italo-)Albanian spoken in Calabria; 268 pages of original texts; Bellotto et al. (1978: 38–333) for Cimbrian; all prayers, proverbs, sayings and songs have been excluded; where there are two versions of the same story, I have opted for the one recorded in Lusern; 150 pages of original texts; Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi (1994) for (Italo-)Greek spoken in Calabria; 218 pages original texts (discounting prayers, proverbs, sayings and songs); Breu and Piccoli (2000: 421–44) for Molise Slavic, just 12 pages of original texts; All text editions are bilingual and provide faithful Italian translations which allow direct comparison. All sources comprise texts produced by a variety of native speakers of the recipient languages. For (Italo-)Albanian, Cimbrian and (Italo-)Greek, this practice also implies that different village varieties are represented in the collections. The texts were recorded in the decades after the 2nd World War (the [Italo-]Greek ones al-

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ready in the 1950s, some of the ones documenting Molise Slavic as late as the 1990s) and thus reflect contemporary usage. Short written texts for religious purposes: these stem exclusively from the (Italo-) Greek dialect spoken in Bova (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 424–486); the translation of Le petit prince into Maltese by Tony Aquilina, 85 pages. Thus, the corpus contains an uneven assortment of very few written texts and an overwhelming majority of recorded spoken language. Owing to this imbalanced mixture of registers and also owing to the difference in size, the direct statistical correlation of the individual results is ruled out as the margin of potential errors is too wide. Nevertheless the absolute figures and the statistical weight of the borrowed items per language are telling in themselves. In table 1, I present the token frequencies of the four items mentioned in the previous section complemented randomly by the functionally unrelated intanto standard Italian ‘(mean)while’; colloquial Italian also ‘however’ (Cusatelli 1979: 878) as an additional control category. Intanto is number 410 in the Italian frequency dictionary (Bertolini, Tagliavini and Zampolli 1971: 239) and is thus an item of medium frequency. For easy reference, I repeat the Italian values in the first line of table 1. The recipient languages follow from top to bottom according to how many of the discourse-regulating elements are attested in the corpus. Boldface marks the highestranking token frequency values per language. Zero frequency is additionally highlighted by grey shading. A comment is called for as to the results I have obtained for Cimbrian. In his descriptive grammar of Cimbrian, Tyroller (2003: 88) states that [o]kkasionell aus dem Italienischen übernommene Wörter, wovon vor allem Konjunktionen wie alora [a’lo: a] dann‘ und dunque [ ] ‚also‘ betroffen sind, werden hier nicht berücksichtigt, da sie nicht zum festen System des Zimbrischen von Lusern gehören, sondern nur gelegentlich in bestimmten Situationen gebraucht werden.9 Table 1.  Token frequencies language

allora

dopo

intanto

dunque

Italian (Italo-)Greek (Italo-) Albanian Cimbrian Molise Slavic Maltese

42 1 170 118 12 38

poi

14 130 65

1 3 34

7 26 1

25 153 0

18 3 0

8 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

At least for allora, this statement is clearly contradicted by the statistics. Allora is much too frequent to be just an “occasional” transfer from Italian. The absence of dunque from my Cimbrian corpus however is not only in line with Tyroller’s observation but also fits in with a general trend (see below). The first part of my working hypothesis is borne out by the numerical values. Allora is indeed attested in each and every recipient language. As a matter of fact, allora is the only element which has been reported for all of the languages.10 Were it not for the unique case of (Italo-)Greek, the second part of the working hypothesis would also hold because allora is the most frequently used of the items under scrutiny in four out of five recipient languages. Wherever dopo is attested, it is always second best – outnumbered either by allora (with ratios ranging from 3-to-1 [= identical to the one calculated for standard Italian] to 6.5-to-1) or by poi (with a ratio of 1.7-to-1) in (Italo-)Greek. The position of allora in (Italo-)Albanian, Cimbrian, Molise Slavic and Maltese is very strong whereas it is particularly weak in (Italo-)Greek where it is attested only once. This discrepancy is of course statistically significant as the frequency count for the (Italo-)Greek varieties is based on almost 220 pages of text. Rohlfs (1977b: 142) surveys the (Italo-)Greek equivalents of Italian allora for all (Italo-)Greek varieties including the ones spoken in the Salento. According to his description, all (Italo)Greek varieties make use of autochthonous elements instead of borrowing allora. This marginal status of allora in (Italo-)Greek goes along with exceptionally high figures for poi, dopo and dunque in the same varieties. Poi is the topmost item in terms of token frequency. Moreover, (Italo-)Greek is the only recipient language for which poi is attested as a borrowing in the corpus. Apart from (Italo-)Greek, dunque has made it only into (Italo-)Albanian where I have found one isolated example. Thus, (Italo-)Greek diverges from the rest of the recipient languages (and to some extent also standard Italian) in the sense that it attributes more importance to items which elsewhere are less prominent as to frequency. An explanation that comes immediately to mind is that the differences observed can be accounted for if, in lieu of the standard language, Italian dialects are considered primary contact partners of the recipient languages. The high frequency of dunque in (Italo-)Greek could perhaps reflect the fact that in the southernmost Romance varieties, the cognates of Italian dunque are more frequently used to the detriment of allora. This is a fair guess as for instance Sardinian – a distinct Romance language often associated with the southern Italian varieties in the pertinent literature – avoids allora while it makes ample use of a cognate of dunque. In the Sardinian translation of Le petit prince, there is no trace of allora at all whereas duncas – the Sardinian equivalent of Italian dunque – turns up 24 times. Its functional range in Sardinian seems to cover much of the fuzzy zone of temporal-consecutive-causal relations for which allora is responsible in Italian (as duncas is used in many of the sentences where the Italian version has allora). However, there seem to be some problems with this kind of explanation. Dunque is especially frequent in the (Italo-)Greek dialect of Bova whereas, at Roccaforte, dunque is a low frequency item. Moreover, the Calabrian varieties of (Ita-

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Thomas Stolz

lo-)Albanian, which are spoken to the north of the (Italo-)Greek ones, do not favour dunque at all. This supposed riddle is easily solved however. While it is true that both (Italo-)Albanian and (Italo-)Greek varieties in Calabria are spoken in what Italian dialectology calls la zona meridionale estrema (= southernmost dialectal area), they are not immediate neighbours. The (Italo-)Albanian varieties are located in the province of Cosenza i.e. in the northern part of the dialectal area whereas the (Italo-)Greek varieties are spoken in the distant southern tip of Calabria, in the province of Reggio. As it happens, the extant Calabrian dialect dictionaries clearly show that the Romance dialects spoken around Cosenza differ from the ones spoken in the vicinity of Reggio as to the presence of cognates of allora and dunque. Rohlfs (1977a: 72 and 246) reports that dunca (= dunque) is used throughout Calabria whereas allura (= allora) is restricted to the varieties spoken near Cosenza. Accordingly, there is no entry for allura in the dictionary of the Romance variety of Reggio compiled by Malara (1970) whereas dunca forms part of the recorded items. In his comparative grammar of the (Italo-)Greek varieties, Rohlfs (1977b: 146) explicitly states that for Calabria the equation “allora = […] addunca” holds. Thus, the (almost complete) absence of allora from (Italo-)Greek has a trivial explanation: the Romance varieties with which (Italo-)Greek has been in contact most intensively simply lack this item. In its stead, the cognates of dunque and poi are more frequently employed both in the local Romance varieties and their (Italo-)Greek partners in contact. The fact that dunca is common to all Calabrian varieties of Romance may also explain why it is at least marginally attested in Calabrian (Italo-)Albanian. Outside the extreme southern dialectal area, dunque is likely to occur less frequently as opposed to allora. The frequency values given for the standard language support this idea (see above). Independent of the diachronic developments which have to be scrutinized in a separate study, it is possible to interpret the outcome of my frequency count in table 1 as suggestive of an implication, viz. wherever allora is favoured, dunque is much less frequent and vice versa. We may speculate therefore that allora has remained marginal in (Italo-)Greek even after standard Italian became more important in language contact because dunque already occupies good part of the territory. The single occurrence of allora in (Italo-)Greek most probably reflects a recent development. For those varieties where allora is strong however, the reverse is true: dunque is an exception because allora has already been there before. Before I discuss what these facts teach us in more general terms, it is necessary to look at a selection of examples in order to determine which functions of the borrowed items dominate in the recipient languages.

3.2

Qualities

In the recipient languages, allora may come in different phonological shapes – most commonly allura, but also as reduced alure, alor and lor. What strikes the eye immediately is the fact that despite the relatively high token frequency of allora in the various



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

recipient languages, it normally does not have the full range of functions as in the donor language. The overwhelming majority of cases belongs to the area of temporalconsecutive-causal relations which also dominate in the donor language. Thus, the third part of the working hypothesis successfully stands the test. (Italo-)Albanian and Maltese display the widest ranges of functions of allora; the only function shared by all recipient languages including (Italo-)Greek is the consecutive-causal one. Examples for the various functions of borrowed allora are given in (7)-(12). For contrastive purposes, I add fitting examples for the use of (Italo-)Greek dunca in (13). (7) (7.1)

Temporal (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] (Gradilone 1970: 52) Allura u martuen e mbetëtin kutjènd allora Pass marry:Aor.3Pl and remain:Imperf.3Pl happy ‘Then they married and remained happy.’

(7.2)

Cimbrian [Indo-European, Germanic – Italy] (Bellotto et al. 1978: 217) Alóra ‘s püable is gãnt huam is o’. allora Det.Nt boy be.3Sg go:Part home it too ‘Then the boy went home too.’

(7.3)

Maltese [Afro-Asiatic, Semitic – Malta] (LPP Maltese XXVI.23) Allura jien stess baxxejt rasi… allora I self lower:Perf:1Sg head:Por.1Sg ‘Then I lowered my head…’

(7.4)

Molise Slavic [Indo-European, Slavic – Italy] (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 429) Alor su prisegl allora be.3Pl marry:Part ‘Then they married.’

(8) (8.1)

Temporal-causal (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] (Gradilone 1970: 88) Allura ajo e zeza vate t’ i rrëmbit zogun allora that Det black:Def.F go.Aor.3Sg Subord him catch bird:Def.M: Acc ‘Thus the black one went to catch the bird for him.’ (8.2)

Cimbrian [Indo-European, Germanic – Italy] (Bellotto et al. 1978: 258) Alóra issar aldar darschrakht allora be.3Sg:he right_there frighten:Part ‘Thus he immediately was shocked with fear.’

(8.3)

Maltese [Afro-Asiatic, Semitic – Malta] (LPP Maltese I.35) Allura la kont noqgħod nitkellem fuq sriep boa allora Neg be.Perf:1Sg 1Sg:stand.Imperf 1Sg:speak.Imperf on snake:Pl boa ‘Thus I spoke neither about boas…’

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Thomas Stolz

(8.4)

Molise Slavic [Indo-European, Slavic – Italy] (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 432) Alor je mu da ovi praščič allora be.3Sg him give.Part that piglet ‘Thus he gave him this piglet.’

(9) (9.1)

Consecutive-causal (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] (Gradilone 1970: 19) Allura u poxhár ditë e natë nd’ atë finester allora Pass put day and night near that.Acc window e nëng tundej and Neg move ‘Thus she stood at the window day and night and did not move.’

(9.2)

Cimbrian [Indo-European, Germanic – Italy] (Bellotto et al. 1978: 310) alóra sain-sa ghebeest naünzekh. allora be.3Pl-they be:Part ninety ‘Well then they were ninety [wolves].’

(9.3) (Italo-)Greek [Indo-European, Greek – Italy] (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 163) Allúra su kófto tin ģefali Allora you behead:1Sg Det.Acc head ‘Thus I decapitate you!’ (9.4)

Maltese [Afro-Asiatic, Semitic – Malta] (LPP Maltese III.18) Allura inti wkoll ġej mis-sema! allora you also come.Part from:Det-heaven ‘Then you too come from the heavens!’

(9.5)

Molise Slavic [Indo-European, Slavic – Italy] (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 422) tvoja divojka lor je ndelidžend your:F daughter:F allora be.3Sg intelligent ‘Thus, your daughter is intelligent!’

(10) (10.1)

Emphatic question (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] (Gradilone 1970: 231) Allura çë kem’ bëmi nanì? allora what have:1Pl do:1Pl mommy ‘What then do we have to do, mum?’

(10.2)

Maltese [Afro-Asiatic, Semitic – Malta] (LPP Maltese V.10) Mela allura jieklu l-baobabi wkoll? then allora 3:eat.Imperf:Pl Det-baobab:Pl also ‘Well then, do they eat the baobabs too?’



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

(11) Turn-Taking (11.1) (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] (Gradilone 1970: 298) A: Ma u ngë të njoh ngë të pé maj! but I Neg you know.1Sg Neg you see.1Sg.Aor ever B: Allura gjegjnje gjithë njo çë thotë ki… allora listen all know.Imp what say.3Sg this ‘A: But I do not know you, I have never seen you! B: Well, listen everybody, that’s what this one says…’ (11.2) Maltese [cf. 5.7 above] [Afro-Asiatic, Semitic – Malta] (LPP Maltese X.68–69) King: …l-ordnijiet tiegħi huma raġonevoli Det-order:Pl of:1Sg they reasonable:Pl ‘My orders are based on reason.’ Prince: Allura ser tniżżilhieli x-xemx allora Fut 2Sg:go_down:Caus:DO.3Sg.F:IO:1Sg Det-sun li tlabtek? that beg.Perf:1Sg:DO.2Sg ‘Well, are you going to let the sun go down like I asked you to do?’ (12)

Emphatic imperative (Italo-)Albanian [Indo-European, Albanian – Italy] Allura nga me mua bír’ im nga allora come.Imp with me son my come.Imp ‘Then come with me, my son, come!’

(13) (13.1)

(Italo-)Greek [Indo-European, Greek – Italy] temporal (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 434) O Ġoséppi dúnka eyái apissu to lleiδíondu Det.M Joseph dunque go.3Sg behind Det.M.Gen.Pl brother:Gen.Pl: Por.3Sg ‘Then Joseph followed his brothers.’

(13.2)

Temporal-causal (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 430) Ećino dúnka eyérti this dunque raise:Aor.Pass.3Sg ‘He thus raised himself.’

(13.3)

Consecutive-causal (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 394) Dúnka ipiye pánd’ ambró Dunque go:Imperf.3Sg always forward ‘Thus he progressed continually.’

(13.4)

Emphatic question (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 303) Addúnka esù ise o δyávolo? dunque you be.2Sg Det.M devil ‘Then you are the devil?’

(Gradilone 1970: 126)

 Thomas Stolz

(13.5)

Emphatic imperative (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 93) Addúnka δotému ta rúxa! dunque give:Imp.2Pl:me Det clothes ‘Then give me my clothes!’

In (Italo-)Greek, dunca covers most of the functions which elsewhere among the recipient languages form part of the domain of allora. With the proviso that some of the languages are clearly underrepresented in my corpus because of the limited size of the available texts, I summarize the results of my investigation of allora in the five recipient languages in table 2. Attested functions are labeled yes in the appropriate cells whereas empty cells – additionally shaded grey – indicate that there is no evidence for such a function of allora in the corpus. Table 2.  Attested functions of allora per recipient language language (Italo-) Albanian Maltese Cimbrian Molise Slavic (Italo-)Greek

consecutive-causal

temporal

temporalcausal

emphatic question

turntaking

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes yes yes yes

yes yes yes

yes yes yes

yes

yes

emphatic imperative yes

Unsurprisingly, what seems to be most attractive in the borrowing process is the quirky area of temporal, consecutive and causal relations between which the boundaries are often blurred. I admit that there might be better ways of classifying some of the above examples. However, the reclassification would most probably take place within the said quirky area and not go beyond it. Two things have to be made clear in connection with the above findings. First of all, the examples of allora in the recipient languages are by no means restricted to narrative passages. A considerable number of examples stem from direct speech. The dialogues are very often lively or dramatic and thus invite markers of emphasis. Nevertheless, emphatic allora is relatively rare in my corpus. Thus, there is no additional bias to the detriment of spoken language. Secondly, in none of the recipient languages is allora without autochthonous competitors. For instance, in Cimbrian, alóra and asó (standard New High German also ‘thus’) compete even in one and the same idiolect and in one and the same text. In Maltese, there is Semitic mela ‘thus’ which may even co-occur with allura in a kind of doublet construction (see [10.2] above) familiar from the context of Hispanicization (Ch. Stolz 1998). In (Italo-)Greek too, the combination of borrowed dunque and autochthonous arte ‘then’ is commonplace at least in the few extant written texts. This co-existence of functionally related autochthonous elements



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

supports the view that there is no structural reason for the borrowing of allora and other function words because the recipient languages have a repertoire of adequate means of their own. Irrespective of the difficulty to determine the exact make-up of the class of discourse-regulating elements for the early stages of the recipient languages, it is legitimate to assume that there were no structural gaps even at the time when contact with Romance varieties first began. The modern standard varieties to which the minority languages of Italy are directly related of course display the full array of discourse markers of all kinds among which functionally partial equivalents of Italian allora are well represented.

3.3

Hierarchy

The above is suggestive of a rather strong attraction not only of allora itself but of elements which have a bundle of vaguely contoured temporal-consecutive-causal functions. The ubiquity of such items in the inventories of borrowed function words of the recipient languages of my sample makes it necessary to check whether or not these elements are in an implicational relation to the discourse-regulating elments discussed by Matras (1998), namely coordinating and, disjunctive or and adversative but. Table 3 surveys the presence / absence of Italian e ‘and’, o ‘or’ and ma ‘but’ / però ‘however’ in the recipient languages. Brackets indicate that the evidence is exclusively corpusexternal. Grey shading marks the absence of a borrowing in a given language. Table 3.  Distribution of coordinating, disjunctive and adversative elements over recipient languages language

Molise Slavic (Italo-)Albanian (Italo-)Greek Cimbrian Maltese

coordinating

disjunctive

adversative

e

o

ma

però

yes

yes yes (yes)

yes yes yes yes

yes yes yes (yes)

Before I comment on these findings, examples for the borrowings are presented in (14)-(17). For (Italo-)Greek o ‘or’ and Maltese però ‘however’, I was unable to find any evidence in my corpus and thus had to resort to additional sources. The (Italo-)Greek example is taken from the dialect spoken in the province of Otranto in the southernmost part of Puglia, the so-called Salento. For (Italo-)Albanian, I have refrained from interpreting the frequent conjunction e ‘and’ as a loan from Italian because there is an identical conjunction e ‘and’ in standard Albanian – one of two allomorphs of edhe ‘and’ (the other being dhe ‘and’). In Cimbrian, e occurs twice as part of the expression

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Thomas Stolz

e bèn ‘well then’ (= Italian ebbene ‘well then’) which does not allow us to count e as a separate morpheme. (14)

Coordinating e Molise Slavic (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 431) E je donija doma e be.3Sg bring:Part home ‘And he carried (it) home.’

(15) (15.1)

Disjunctive o (Italo-) Albanian (Gradilone 1970: 203) Ngapu dí o tri dit e shoqja i thot after two o three day Det.F woman:Def him say.3Sg ‘After two or three days, his wife said to him…’

(15.2)

(Italo-) Greek (Rohlfs 1977b: 210) krási o gála wine o milk ‘wine or milk’

(15.3)

Molise Slavic (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 424) ti maš arsolvit si pula je you have:2Sg decide:Inf if filly be.3Sg do trajina o je do bešče of coach:Gen o be.3Sg of she_donkey:Gen ‘You have to decide whether the filly belongs to the (coach-pulling) horse or to the donkey.’

(16) (16.1)

Adversative ma (Italo-) Albanian (Gradilone 1970: 7) Ma si vate e erdhe? ma how go.Aor.3Sg and come.Aor.3Sg ‘But how did he go and come?’

(16.2)

Cimbrian (Bellotto et al. 1978: 42) Ma alls in an stròach ghit’s-en an schüttlar ma all in one strike go.3Sg:it-him Indef push ‘But all of a sudden, he was hit by something that made him tremble.’

(16.3)

(Italo-) Greek (Rossi Taibbi and Caracausi 1994: 303) Ma kánnome to xartí! but make:1Pl Det.Acc contract:Acc ‘But let us make the contract!’



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

(16.4)

Molise Slavic (Breu and Piccolo 2000: 436) Ma sa jidu cukar ma now eat:3Pl sugar ‘But now they eat sugar.’

(17) (17.1)

Adversative però (Italo-) Albanian (Gradilone 1970: 102) però mos u harrò! però Neg.Imp it forget.Imp ‘But don’t forget it!’

(17.2)

Cimbrian (Bellotto et al. 1978: 202) Di laüt però hãm-en alle pensaart ke… Det people però have-they all think:Part that ‘The people however have all thought that…’

(17.3)

Maltese (Aquilina 1990: 1050) jien niġi però trid tweghedni li… I 1Sg:come.Imperf però 2Sg:must 2Sg:promise.Imperf:me that ‘I will come but you have to promise that…’

(17.4)

Molise Slavic (Breu and Piccoli 2000: 423) però ti inim na pat però you make:1Sg Indef pact ‘However, I make a pact with you.’

Ma is a high frequent item in all of the recipient languages whereas però occurs only occasionally. It comes as no surprise that però is absent from (Italo-)Greek as the extant descriptions of the Romance varieties spoken in Calabria do not mention any cognates of però at all. The mere difficulty in finding appropriate examples for some of the borrowings in relatively sizeable collections of texts is a telling fact. This is also true of the astonishing results obtained for Molise Slavic. The limited character of the available texts notwithstanding, all candidates for borrowing are indeed attested. This difference between Molise Slavic and the other recipient languages is indicative of an advanced stage of Italianization of Molise Slavic. In what way do allora-like elements correlate with the ones surveyed in table 3? The answer to this question is straightforward: wherever allora is borrowed we also find an element with adversative functions and vice versa. Both categories are in an equipollent implication. Synchronically, it is next to impossible to decide whether or not there is a chronology which still gives precedence to one of thet two competing categories. Our present state of knowledge does not allow for any substantial diachronic speculations. Suffice it here to mention some interesting evidence from the early period of written Maltese. Kontzi (1999: 431) looks at the Italianisms in religious texts by the cleric Panzavecchia dating back to the early 19th century. In these old texts, he noticed occurrences of Italian e ‘and’ and o ‘or’ – two elements which today have disappeared from

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Thomas Stolz

the Maltese lexicon. As the author of the texts examined by Kontzi had ideas of his own about what should be part of the Maltese language (Kontzi 1999: 428–429), it is difficult to interpret the presence of the two conjunctions in the said texts. As the two conjunctions are also attested in the 18th century religious texts by Ignazio Saverio Mifsud (Zammit Ciantar 2005: 694 and 702) it is possible that they were part of the common Maltese lexicon of the times, and thus lend some support to Matras (1998) as and and or occur together and thus fulfill the required implication. However, the evidence also supports Aikhenvald (2002) because but is never expressed by an Italianism in Panzavecchia’s writings where the Semitic imma and iżda (both ‘but, however’) abound instead, i.e., but is missing from the list of early borrowings whereas and and or are attested. However, in the 18th century, some rare instances of ma però occur in the above mentioned religious texts (Zammit Ciantar 2005: 701): a combination of two adversative conjunctions of Italian, viz. ma ‘but’ and però ‘but, however’. The situation is inconclusive: either but was borrowed from Italian in Maltese already in the 18th century but remained infrequent, and thus did not figure in the texts of Panzavecchia, or the early attestations of but are idiosyncrasies of the Maltese cleric who wrote the texts. Independent of which of the two possibilities actually applies, one thing is clear: e / o – like ma – only had an ephemeral existence in Maltese, and thus chances are that they never were fully integrated elements. This in turn suggests that they were latecomers, whereas other elements – such as the adversative però – became well-established members of the Maltese system of which they still form part today.

4. Conclusions In (18), I summarize the results of the above discussion in the shape of three implicational scales. (18)

Implicational hierarchies

(18.1) Material borrowings poi

⊃

dunque

⊃

intanto ⊃

dopo

⊃

allora

(18.2) Functions of allora

turn-taking emphatic imperative

⊃

temporal-

⊃

causal

⊃

consecutivecausal

poi



⊃

dunque

⊃

intanto ⊃

dopo

⊃

allora

Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

(18.2) Functions of allora

turn-taking emphatic

⊃

temporal-

⊃

causal

⊃

imperative

consecutivecausal

emphatic

temporal

question

(18.3) Classes of discourse-regulating elements adversative coordination ⊃

disjunctive

⊃ consecutive-causal

With the notable exception of (Italo-)Greek where the Italian loans o ‘or and ma ‘but’ have ousted completely the autochthonous elements (Rohlfs 1977b: 210), most of the recipient languages add the Italianisms to their inherited inventories and thus enlarge them. They thus have several options among more or less synonymous alternatives. Pragmatical prominence drives the selection mechanism which determines the actual choice the individual speaker makes in a given situation. However, it is still largely unclear to what extent pragmatical prominence correlates with certain functions and thus with clearly defined classes of discourse-regulating elements. While it seems plausible that not anything goes, the evidence at hand suggests that there is more than one possibility for the status of the pragmatically most prominent category. The Italian scenario resembles the Spanish one where temporal-consecutive-causal elements (= entonces and pues) are most widely spread together with the adversative pero ‘but’. The disjunctive o ‘or’ is also quite common as a Hispanism in recipient languages whereas coordinating y ‘and’ is a rare bird among the borrowings (Stolz and Stolz 1996b). In a way, Italian and Spanish as donor languages seem to constitute a common “type” when it comes to borrowing. Matras’s and Aikhenvald’s cases potentially represent different types. Whether the idea that there is a typology can be substantiated is a question which can be answered only by extending our empirical basis.

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Thomas Stolz

Future research also has to reveal whether there is a moderate kind of situationdependency of function-word borrowing (as the differences in borrowing behaviour of Matras’s sample, Tariana and the Italian case seem to suggest). Clearly, the issue of universality vs. idiosyncrasy can be tackled properly only if we have access, in addition to more crosslinguistic evidence, to sufficient diachronic data. These data will then help to test the validity of the implicational scales put forward in this section.

Notes 1. This article builds on ideas I have developed in Stolz (2005) and fits in with a large-scale research project on processes of Romanicization worldwide. I am grateful to Ermenegildo Bidese, Walter Breu, James R. Dow, Elvira Glaser, Miki Makihara, Tamar Khizanishvili, Steven Roger Fischer, and Aina Urdze for their kind help with technical and bibliographical matters. A word of thanks is also due to the two anonymous readers of the first draft of this paper and to the editors of this volume for their kind invitation to participate in this undertaking. 2. I am especially grateful to the two anonymous readers for making me aware of the fact that I followed Aikhenvald’s mistaken interpretation too closely in the earlier version of this paper. 3. A word of caution is in order: the term language is used in a very unspecific sense. This is of course a simplification, as the reported cases may be typical only of one variety of a diatopical system, whereas other related varieties do not make use of the borrowed items. It cannot be ruled out completely that, in some cases, idiosyncrasies of an individual speaker come to the foreground and are not representative of any interpersonal variety at all. In the absence of the necessary socio-linguistic clues, I have taken all examples at face value, accepting them as instances of common communicative practice (see also Stolz 2003). 4. For a general outline of the extra-European presence and fate of Spanish, I refer the reader to Quilis (1992). 5. In the examples, boldface marks those items which are focused upon in the discussion. The borrowed function words are glossed with their equivalent form in the donor language. The examples are given in the graphic representation they have in the sources on which I draw. The abbreviations I use in the transmorphemization are spelled out in the appendix. For each example, the object language is identified by its glossonym accompanied by genetic and geographic information in square brackets. 6. This sample of languages is identical to the one I used for my earlier paper on related issues of Italianization (Stolz 2005). For further socio-linguistic information on these varieties, the reader is advised to consult Bellinello (1998). The collection of articles edited by Breu (2005) assembles numerous studies of processes of Italianization in the co-territorial languages of Italy. The Maltese situation and its historical background are described in some detail in Brincat (2000). 7. In some substandard varieties of Italian, the frequency of allora is probably even higher. The translation of Le petit prince into the dialect spoken in the city of Milan contains 47 attestations of alora, the local equivalent of standard Italian allora. Since I have not yet checked spoken language corpora and more sizeable dialect materials, these assumptions of mine must remain conjecture.



Allora: On the recurrence of function-word borrowing in contact situations with Italian 

8. Note that I do not claim that frequency generally dictates borrowing behaviour as one of the anynonymous readers suggests. However, if certain words such as discourse markers are borrowed at all, it makes sense to assume that their frequency in the donor language has a say in their borrowability. Meaning: it is more likely that the most frequent discourse marker is borrowed before a (considerably) less frequent one. On the other hand, it is by no means necessary that the most frequent items of a potential donor language are borrowed at all (especially because the top-ranking elements such as definite and indefinite articles, etc. often lack salience). 9. “Occasional transfers from Italian, especially conjunctions like alora [] ‘then’ and dunque [] ‘thus’, will not be considered here as they do not belong to the established system of the Cimbrian variety of Lusern but are used only occasionally in determined situations” [my translation]. 10. As has been pointed out by one of the anonymous readers, my sources are partly based on oral usage of speakers and thus the possibility is high that at least some of the instances of allora are cases of code-switching and cannot be counted as proper borrowings. Apart from the fact that it might be difficult to determine exactly where to draw the dividing line between the two categories, the evidence is overwhelmingly indicative of borrowing as very often allora comes in a phonological shape that presupposes adaptation and integration. Admittedly, the isolated instance of allora in (Italo-)Greek is problematic and might turn out to instantiate code-switching. These difficulties notwithstanding, the hapax allora in (Italo-)Greek lends additional support to the idea of different adstrate constellations on Italian soil (cf. below).

Abbreviations Acc = accusative, Aor = aorist, Caus = causative, Cond = conditional, Conj = conjunctive, Def = definite, Det = determiner, DO = direct object, F = feminine, Fut = future, Gen = genitive, Imp = imperative, Imperf = imperfect(ive), Incl = inclusive, Incomp = incompletive, Indef = indefinite article, Inf = infinitive, Ins = instrumental, IO = indirect object, Loc = locative, M = masculine, Neg = negation, Nt = neuter, Obj = object, Part = participle, Pass = passive, Past = past tense, Perf = perfect(ive), Pl = plural, Por = possessor, Poss = possessive, Sg = singular, Subord = subordinator,

References (a) Translations of Le petit prince LPP Italian: Nini Bompiani Bregoli. 1994. Il piccolo principe. Milano: Bompiani. LPP Maltese Toni Aquilina. 2000. Iċ-ċkejken prinċep. Msida: Mireva LPP Milanese Lorenz Banfi. 2002. El princip piscinin. Gressan: Wesak. LPP Sardinian Andria Deplano. 1997. Su prinzipeddu. Cagliari: Artigianarte. (b) Quoted literature Aikhenvald, A. Y. 2002. Language Contact in Amazonia. Oxford: OUP. Aquilina, J. 1990. Maltese-English Dictionary. Vol. II: M-Z and addenda. Malta: Midsea Books. Bellinello, P. F. 1998. Minoranze etniche e linguistiche. Cosenza: Editoriale BIOS. Bellotto, A. et al. 1978. I racconti di Luserna. Vicenza: Circolo Culturale M. Ghandi di Luserna, Istituto di Cultura A. dal Pozzo di Roana.

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Thomas Stolz Bortolini, U., Tagliavini, C. and Zampolli, A. 1971. Lessico di frequenza della lingua italiana contemporanea. Milano: IBM Italia. Breu, W. (ed.). 2005. L’influsso dell’italiano sulla grammatica delle lingue minoritarie (problemi morfologici e sintattici). Rende: Università della Calabria. Breu, W. and Piccoli, G. 2000. Dizionario croato molisano di Acquaviva Colleroce. Campobasso: s.l. Brincat, J. 2000. Malta – elf sena ta‘ storja. Malta: PIN. Cusatelli, G. 1979. Dizionario Garzanti della lingua italiana. Milano: Garzanti. Field, F. W. 2002. Linguistic Borrowing in Bilingual Contexts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gradilone, G. 1970. Novellistica albanese: Racconti popolari die S. Sofia d’Epiro, S. Demetrio Corone, Macchia Albanese, S. Cosmo Albanese, Vaccarizzo Albanese, S. Giorgio Albanese. Firenze: Olschki Editore. Gregores, E. and Suárez, J. A. 1967. A Description of Colloquial Guaraní. The Hague: Mouton. Kontzi, R. 1999. Wort und Schrift. Des Kanonikus Fortunato Panzavecchia Bibelübersetzung ins Maltesische, nach den Handschriften des Kathedralarchivs in Mdina. Tübingen: Narr. Levy, P. 1990. Totonaco de Papantla, Veracruz. México: El Colegio de México. Makihara, M. 2001. Modern Rapanui adaptation of Spanish elements. Oceanic Linguistics 40(2): 191–223. Malara, G. 1970. Vocabolario dialettale calabro-reggino-italiano. Bologna: Forni Editore. Matras, Y. 1998. Utterance modifiers and the universals of grammatical borrowing. Linguistics 36(2): 281–331. Myers-Scotton, C. 1993. Duelling Languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Quilis, A. 1992. La lengua española en cuatro mundos. Madrid: MAPFRE. Renzi, L., Salvi G. and Cardinaletti, A. 1991. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. II. I sintagmi verbale, aggetivale, avverbiale. La subordinazione. Bologna: Il Mulino. Renzi, L., Salvi G. and Cardinaletti, A. 1995. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. III. Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole. Bologna:Il Mulino. Rohlfs, G. 1977a. Nuovo dizionario dialettale della Calabria. Ravenna: Longo Editore. Rohlfs, G. 1977b. Grammatica storica dei dialetti italogreci (Calabria, Salento). München: Beck. Rossi Taibbi, G. and Caracausi G. 1994. Testi neogreci di Calabria. Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neogreci. Stolz, C. 1998. Hispanicisation in modern Yucatec Maya: Grammatical borrowing. In Convergencia e individualidad. Las lenguas mayas entre hispanización e indigenismo, A. Koechert and T. Stolz (eds), 165–194. Hannover: Verlag für Ethnologie. Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 1995. Spanisch-amerindischer Sprachkontakt: Die ‘Hispanisierung’ mesoamerikanischer Komparationsstrukturen. Iberoamericana 58/59(2/3): 5–42. Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 1996a. Spanisch-amerindischer Sprachkontakt: Funktionswortentlehnung in Mesoamerika. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 49(1): 86–123. Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 1996b. ‘Transpazifische Entlehnungsisoglossen’. Hispanismen in Funktionswortinventaren beiderseits der Datumsgrenze. In Areale, Kontakte, Dialekte. Dynamik der Sprache in mehrsprachigen Situationen, W. Enninger et al. (eds), 262–291. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 1997. Universelle Hispanismen? Von Manila über Lima bis Mexiko und zurück: Muster bei der Entlehnung spanischer Funktionswörter in die indigenen Sprachen Amerikas und Austronesiens. Orbis 39(1): 1–77.



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Stolz, C. and Stolz, T. 2001. Hispanicised comparative constructions in indigenous languages of Austronesia and the Americas. In Lo propio y lo ajeno en las lenguas austronésicas y amerindias, K. Zimmermann and T. Stolz (eds.), 35–56. Frankfurt: Vervuert. Stolz, T. 1996. Sprachkontakt, Sprachwandel und ‘Grammatikalisierung’ als Faktoren bei der Hispanisierung von indigenen Sprachen in hispanophonen Einflußzonen. In Grammatikalisierung in der Romania, S. Michaelis and P. Thiele (eds), 81–106. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Stolz, T. 1997. Grammatical Hispanisms in Amerindian and Austronesian languages. Amerindia 21: 137–160. Stolz, T. 1998. Die Hispanität des Chamorro als sprachwissenschaftliches Problem. Iberoamericana 70: 5–38. Stolz, T. 2002. General linguistic aspects of Spanish-indigenous language contacts with special focus on Austronesia. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 79: 133–58. Stolz, T. 2003. Not quite the right mixture: Chamorro and Malti as candidates for the status of mixed language. In The Mixed Language Debate. Theoretical and empirical advances. Y. Matras and P. Bakker (eds), 271–315. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Stolz, T. 2005. Italianisierung in den alloglotten Sprachen Italiens. In Das Zimbrische zwischen Germanisch und Romanisch. E. Bidese, J. R. Dow and T. Stolz (eds), 43–68. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Thomason, S. G. 2001. Language Contact: An introduction. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Tyroller, H. 2003. Grammatische Beschreibung des Zimbrischen von Lusern. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Wolfenden, E. P. 1971. Hiligaynon Reference Grammar. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Zammit Ciantar, J. 2005. Il-priedki bil-Malti ta’ Ignazio Saverio Mifsud. Eddizzjoni kkumentata bi studju kritiku. PhD dissertation, Fakultà ta’ l-Arti, Università ta’ Malta. Zimmermann, K. 1987. Grammatisch bedeutsame Entlehnungen aus dem Spanischen in Otomí. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie des Sprachkontakts. Neue Romania 5: 20–58.

Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children German in contact with French / Italian Natascha Müller Bergische Universität Wuppertal

The present article investigates finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses. It will argue that there is cross-linguistic influence in the case of bilingual German-French and German-Italian children. The children use a Romance syntactic derivation for German finite subordinate clauses which is based on an analysis of Romance infinitival clauses in which the prepositional complementizers enter the derivation above the VP, and not as sister to the IP they are associated with. The relation between complementizer and IP is expressed by movement of the IP from within the VP to the specifier position of the complementizer. The generalization of this type of derivation to all kinds of complementizers is enforced by the existence of constructions in the German input of the children which are compatible with this kind of analysis. The result of the child analysis is root word order in German subordinate clauses. We will argue that the children chose the Romance analysis since it minimizes the interaction between syntax and pragmatics.

1. Introducion: Crosslinguistic influence and language separation Research in bilingual first language acquisition has been guided by two main approaches: Either it has been argued that bilingual children are not able to separate their two languages from early on, since the two languages influence each other (e.g. Taeschner 1983), or it has been shown that bilingual children are able to separate their two languages from early on and that there is no evidence for crosslinguistic influence (Meisel 1989, 1994, Genesee, 1989, Genesee, Nicoladis and Paradis 1995). Put differently, language separation and crosslinguistic influence have been considered as being mutually exclusive in describing early child bilingualism. The main reason for the assumption of mutual exclusiveness is that most research has conceptualized separation and influence as involving whole language systems (or languages). Recently, some researchers have

 Natascha Müller

become interested in the possibility that only some domains in simultaneous bilingualism are vulnerable for cross-linguistic influence, while others are developed by the children without any sign of influence. The present paper looks at the development of finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses. In particular, it will be argued that the absence of root-/non-root asymmetries in German child grammar is motivated by assumptions which pertain to the syntax–pragmatics interface. More specifically, it will be argued in line with Herkenrath, Karakoç and Rehbein (2003), that cross-linguistic influence may have the effect that “the grammar of the bilingual children becomes ‘larger’ than that of monolinguals” (ibid.: 257), which represents a problem if the child has to unlearn this grammatical option. The kind of cross-linguistic influence discussed in this paper is driven by pragmatics, i.e. by the function of the subordinate clause, and is “created” by the bilingual children as a grammatical option which generalizes to all cases of subordination. Thus, a pragmatically motivated option, which is well-defined for the recipient language (the language which is being influenced), is overgeneralized to the effect that the option is treated as if it was an obligatory syntactic rule.

1.1

Two conditions for cross-linguistic influence

Hulk and Müller (2000) and Müller and Hulk (2000, 2001) have defined two conditions under which cross-linguistic influence is likely to occur. (a) The vulnerable grammatical phenomenon is an interface property, e.g., a grammatical property located at the interface between syntax and pragmatics; (b) The surface strings of the two languages are similar for the expression of the vulnerable grammatical phenomenon. What is meant by interface property? As a first example, let us have a closer look at the null-subject phenomenon. Languages like Spanish and Italian do not express subject pronouns unless subjects carry contrastive stress. In non null-subject languages like English and German, sentences like duerme, dorme are translated as ‘he/she/it sleeps’ or ‘er / sie / es schläft’. The correct interpretation of the Spanish and Italian sentence implies the interpretation of the subject. Thus, null-subjects are part of the syntactic description of these sentences, namely pro. The existence of null-subjects is one property of the so-called null-subject parameter. Null-subjects in null-subject languages are not regulated by syntactic constraints. They are possible whenever the subject can be considered as known to the hearer. Chomsky (1981: 65) has formulated a conversational maxim, the Avoid Pronoun Principle (APP), in order to guarantee that knownsubjects are indeed omitted in null-subject-languages. In other words, syntax opens the possibility to have null-subjects, whereas pragmatics regulates their use. Violation of the APP leads to unacceptable (not ungrammatical) strings, e.g. Giannii ha detto che luii va venire alla festa ‘John has said that he will come to the party’ without contrastive stress of lui, is unacceptable but a grammatical Italian construction. The APP also guarantees that expletive subjects will not be phonetically realized in languages like Spanish and Italian. The interaction between syntax and pragmatics can be summarized as follows: In null-subject-languages like Spanish and Italian, syntax allows for



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

an additional option apart from phonetically realizing subjects, namely to drop them. The choice between the two options, realization or omission, is regulated by pragmatics, not by syntax. The universal principle APP, a conversational maxim, determines that if no further conditions are specified, pronouns will be avoided (for a thorough discussion cf. Pillunat, Schmitz and Müller 2006). In non-null-subject-languages, the subject can also be omitted: Ø Hab das schon gemacht, ‘Have done it already’. One prerequisite is that the subject is the topic. So far, non-null-subject-languages seem to pattern similarly with null-subject-languages. However, contrasting with null-subjectlanguages, the subject in non-null-subject languages can only be omitted in root clauses, i.e. in first position. This syntactic restriction is unknown in null-subject-languages. The question is whether the APP also regulates subject omissions in non-null-subject languages. In German, sentences with a dropped subject and with an overt pronominal subject are discourse-pragmatically equivalent; they reflect a different speech style, the subject omission belonging to an informal register: Ø Hab das schon gemacht / Ich hab das schon gemacht. In other words, it is not pragmatics which regulates subject omissions in non-null-subject-languages, but syntax proper. The interaction of both components, syntax and pragmatics, is minimal in languages like German. We prefer the term ‘minimal’ instead of ‘non-existent’ since it goes without saying that pragmatics regulates whether subjects can be expressed as pronouns or must be expressed as lexical DPs. Notice that the assumption about minimal interaction between syntax and pragmatics in the domain of subjects can also account for the observation that expletives do exist in non-null-subject-languages and that their presence / absence is regulated by syntax, not by the APP. The second example for the interaction between syntax and pragmatics in the above non-trivial sense are object pronouns in the Romance languages. Interestingly, object clitic pronouns (‘weak’ object pronouns which cannot be stressed, co-ordinated, modified, etc., ‘le’/ ‘l’ ‘ in example (1) below) can be construed with noun phrases containing an indefinite article and assume an interpretation as a ‘type’: i.e., ‘un homme’ (‘a man’) is intended as ‘a man in general’. The important point is that the antecedent, the noun phrase the pronoun refers to (and with which it agrees in gender and number), must be an entity that can be presupposed. This explains why the utterance of speaker B in (2) is incorrect. Here, the noun phrase ‘un verre’ (‘a glass’) cannot be presupposed from what has been said before: (1) Un homme, on le reconnaît par sa façon de parler. A man, one him recognises by his way to speak ‘A man can be recognized by his way of speaking.’ (2) Speaker A: Je voudrais boire du vin. I’ d like to- drink some wine ‘I’d like to drink some wine.’ Speaker B: D’accord. *Un verre, je l’ai dans l’ étagère. Alright. A glass, I it have in the shelf

 Natascha Müller

Thus, object clitics can only be construed with a noun phrase which can be presupposed. We can push our analysis of object clitics even further and assume that the function of the clitic is that of marking presupposition. López (2003) noticed that Catalan clitics occur in constructions which contain language material which is known (‘presuppositional’). The two constructions discussed are CLLD (Clitic Left Dislocation, in which a noun phrase has been positioned at the left of the clause as in (1) and in (3) ‘les tables’/‘le tavole’) and CLRD (CLitic Right Dislocation, in which a noun phrase is being placed at the right edge of the clause as in (4) ‘ton crétin de stylo’/‘la tua stupida penna’). Clitics appear in order to mark the dislocated noun phrase as presupposed either in the discourse or by the hearer. This is nicely shown by the example (5), indicating that the construction without the object clitic is only grammatical once the object is not presupposed. If the object is presupposed, the clitic must be present; otherwise the construction becomes ungrammatical, as in (6). The examples (3) and (4) are taken from López (2003: 199) and have been translated from Catalan into French and Italian. (3) Speaker A French: Qu’est-ce que tu as fait avec les meubles? Speaker A Italian: Cosa hai fatto con i mobili? ‘What did you do with the furniture?’ Speaker B French: Les tables, je les ai réparées le matin, mais les chaises je les ai réparées le soir. Speaker B Italian: Le tavole, le ho riparate la mattina, ma le sedie Lit.: The tables(I) them repaired in the morning, but the chairs(I) le ho riparate la sera. them repaired at night. (4) Speaker A French: Qu‘est-ce que tu as fait avec le stylo? Speaker A Italian: Cosa hai fatto con la penna? ‘What did you do with the pen?’ Speaker B French: Je l‘ai oublié sur la table, ton crétin de stylo. Speaker B Italian: L’ho dimenticata sulla tavola, la tua stupida penna. Lit.: (I) it forgot on the table, your stupid pen. (5) Speaker A French: Qu‘est-ce qu’il y a? Speaker A Italian: Cos’ è? ‘What happened?’ Speaker B French: J’ ai oublié ton crétin de stylo sur la table. Speaker B Italian: Ho dimenticata la tua stupida penna sulla tavola. Lit.: (I) forgot your stupid pen on the table. Speaker B French: *Je l‘ai oublié sur la table, ton crétin de stylo. Speaker B Italian: *L’ ho dimenticata sulla tavola, la tua stupida penna. (6) Speaker A French: Qu‘est-ce que tu as fait avec le stylo? Speaker A Italian: Cosa hai fatto con la penna?



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

Speaker B French: *J’ ai oublié sur la table, ton crétin de stylo. Speaker B Italian: *Ho dimenticata sulla tavola, la tua stupida penna. Lit.: (I) forgot on the table, your stupid pen. These examples illustrate that object clitics are different from normal pronouns. Normal pronouns, although being used under certain pragmatic conditions, are not obligatory in syntax. Instead of a normal pronoun, a noun phrase can be used and the sentence remains grammatical, although it becomes pragmatically odd, marked as ‘?’, as shown in (7). (7) Speaker A German: Hast du das Buch auf dem Tisch schon gelesen? ‘Have you already read the book on the table?’ Speaker B German: Das habe ich schon gelesen, ja. It have I already read, yes Speaker B German: ?Das Buch auf dem Tisch habe ich schon gelesen, ja. The book on the table have I already read, yes In other words, French and Italian clitics are not just syntactic categories which are used under certain pragmatic conditions which favor pronominalisation, but they also mark certain syntactic constituents in the languages as presuppositional. In other words, pragmatics and syntax interact in such a way that pragmatic factors restrict the possibilities offered by the syntactic system. Both examples, the one of subject omissions and the one of object clitic realizations, illustrate a non-trivial interaction between syntax and pragmatics. These grammatical domains are characterised by the invasive nature of pragmatics onto syntax. It is this non-trivial interaction between syntax and pragmatics which bilingual children − as well as monolingual ones − find problematic in acquisition. In the case that the second language does not present this kind of interface property, the bilingual child may use the grammatical analysis of the less complex language not showing this kind of interaction for both of her/his languages. Grammatical phenomena like the use of object clitics in the Romance languages are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence due to their interface properties. The second condition which favours cross-linguistic influence is a property of the surface strings of the two languages. Hulk and Müller (2000) assume that the surface strings are similar for the expression of the vulnerable grammatical phenomenon. What is meant by 'similarity of surface strings’ in (b)? In order to illustrate similarity of surface strings, we will take the well-known example of SVO. German is a verb-second language, whereas Romance languages like Italian are generally treated as an SVO language. However, both languages share the word order SVO in some contexts: the German main clause in (8) can be translated directly into the Italian sentence in (9) below: (8) Maria liest das Buch. Mary reads the book

 Natascha Müller

(9) Maria legge il libro. Mary reads the book In other words, two otherwise syntactically different languages may share word order on the surface. Generally speaking, the hypothesis of Hulk and Müller (2000) is that word sequences in constructions which represent interface phenomena of grammar and display similarity in both languages are more difficult to process. Confronted with this major computational complexity, the bilingual child will have recourse to the less complex analysis of the grammatical property in question. If language A offers a less complex analysis than language B for the grammatical phenomenon Z, the bilingual child will make use of the less complex analysis for both languages. For example, a GermanItalian bilingual child may opt for one syntactic analysis for SVO constructions in both languages, which requires the less complex analysis. Taking computational complexity as the reason for why bilingual children use one grammatical analysis for both languages implies that monolingual children will also have problems with a grammatical phenomenon which is ‘complex’ in the above mentioned terms. Indeed, Müller and Hulk (2001) make this observation for monolingual children with the more complex language background.

1.2

Cross-linguistic influence and language dominance

Recent studies observing crosslinguistic influence have explained the influence in terms of language dominance, not in terms of properties of the grammatical phenomenon mentioned above (Bernardini Röst 2001, Döpke 1992, Gawlitzek-Maiwald and Tracy 1996, Hulk 1997, Schlyter 1993, Tracy 1995): The stronger or “more developed” language influences the weaker or “less developed” language. Most authors have defined language dominance on the basis of a comparison of MLU values in the two languages of the bilingual child and / or language use (the amount of utterances in the two languages used during a recording session). The first attempts to define ‘language dominance’ were made at the end of the 1980s and during the early 1990s. The authors of these studies chose both quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring language dominance, although there was no clear line with respect to which criterion should be considered as quantitative and which as qualitative. Quantitative criteria were associated with language performance and linguistic production, while the investigation of grammatical phenomena in both languages (considered to be areas of competence) was considered to be qualitative. ‘Language dominance’ was, in this sense, considered to be a type of ‘grammatical predominance’ (see, e.g., Lindholm & Padilla 1978, Petersen 1988, Schlyter 1993). The use of grammatical phenomena to determine language dominance, however, may be criticised because their emergence may differ in the two languages of the bilingual child, even in the respective monolingual children, and it is subject to cross-linguistic variation. An illustrative example is a bilingual child



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

who develops the accurate gender system later in German than in French. It goes without saying that we cannot conclude from this situation that the bilingual child has a dominant language, namely French, because it might be the case that monolingual German children take more time for the acquisition of gender than monolingual French children. Furthermore, the later development of gender in German may be due to cross-linguistic influence in the bilingual child. Another example comes from the article system. As Kupisch (2004) shows, the development of the article system is subject to cross-linguistic influence, with German developing faster in bilinguals than in monolinguals. The result that, due to cross-linguistic influence, convergence to the target is achieved around the same age in both languages does not allow us to conclude that the bilingual does not have a dominant language. Among the quantitative measures for language dominance range are MLU, Upper Bound (the longest utterance in a recording session), absolute number of utterances, MMU (Multi Morphemic Utterances, i.e. the number of utterances with more than one word/morpheme), quantitative aspects of the lexicon (number of verb/noun types) and the amount of mixed utterances (which contain lexical material from language A and language B). Due to space limitations, the present article cannot discuss the issue of language dominance at depth; cf. Genesee, Nicoladis and Paradis (1995), Cantone, Kupisch, Müller and Schmitz (2006). Furthermore, it is impossible to present a more thorough analysis of the bilingual children’s language dominance. Therefore, it will compare bilingual children with different degrees of balance measured on the basis of MLU.

1.3

Effects of cross-linguistic influence

After having explained the conditions for cross-linguistic influence to occur, we may ourselves ask which effects it will have on the language acquisition process. This influence may be quantitative in nature, accelerating or delaying the bilingual’s developmental process in comparison with monolingual peers. It may also have qualitative effects, often called ‘transfer’ in the literature. The term ‘transfer’ has been used in connection with second language acquisition, i.e., the successive acquisition of more than one language, and was applied to the phenomenon in which previously acquired knowledge is extended to a new domain (a new language). Depending on whether the first and the second language are similar or different for the grammatical phenomenon in question, transfer may be positive or negative. To summarise, if quantitative in nature, the acquisition process should be delayed or speeded up in the bilingual, but the data should not contain evidence for the extension of linguistic knowledge from the first L1 onto the second native language. If qualitative in nature, the data should contain evidence for the extension of a grammatical phenomenon X of language A onto language B, e.g., one should find different types of extension, XA, XE, XG, in language B, if we vary the other language, A, E, G, and by this the properties of the grammatical phenomenon, or the developmental path in bilinguals should be different from that in

 Natascha Müller

monolinguals in showing a particular type of construction which is absent in monolingual development. The most surprising aspect of cross-linguistic influence is indeed the effect of acceleration of the language acquisition process. A good example for accelerating effects in language development is finite verb placement in German. From monolingual language acquisition we know that children pass through a stage during which they place the finite (and non-finite) verb clause-finally, even in main clauses − which does not correspond to adult language (Clahsen 1982). A typical monolingual child is Chantal, who has been studied by Schmitz (2004): until the age of 2;7, the verb-final pattern prevails, i.e. she produces utterances like 'ich auch mache’, ‘I also make’ (instead of ‘Ich mache [es] auch’) or ‘die Puppe schlafen will’, ‘the doll sleep wants’ (instead of ‘Die Puppe will schlafen’) in 60% of her utterances. This amount will be reduced to 10% at the age of 2;9 and to 5% at the age of 3;0. Schmitz compared the development of verb placement in Chantal with that in German-Italian bilingual children. The child Lukas is representative for the path chosen by German-Italian bilingual children, namely that they seem to skip the stage in the development of German which is characterised by the predominance of verb-final patterns: Lukas reached a developmental stage at 2;3 which Chantal reaches at the age of 2;10. The interesting observation is that the stage with predominant verb-final placement is absent in the German of the bilingual child. Also evident is the fact that verbsecond placement (VS) is used earlier in bilingual child development, to an extent which the monolingual child only reaches after the age of 3. Delay effects are visible in other grammatical domains, like gender marking. In the monolingual French and Italian corpora studied by Kupisch, Müller & Cantone (2002) a very low number of gender errors has been observed (1.3% (385:5) for L1French and 1.9% (362:7) for L1-Italian). The observed children were all younger than 2;7. These monolingual Italian and French children mastered their gender systems very early (before 2;3) without making a significant number of target-deviant gender assignments. This was not the case for bilingual children speaking French-German and Italian-German, respectively, which have been studied by Kupisch, Müller & Cantone (2002) and Müller & Kupisch (2003). Especially the French gender system appeared to be acquired with a delay. Although the bilingual children were also quite accurate with their gender marking if we consider the whole period from 1;6 – 2;6 in Kupisch, Müller & Cantone (2002) and the period from 2;2 – 4;0 in Müller & Kupisch (2003), in particular the German-French children reached an accuracy rate of only 60% at some points in development. One of the French-German children studied by Müller & Kupisch (2003) reached the accuracy rate of 95% only at the age of 3;9. Finally, even qualitative effects of cross-linguistic influence are visible in the corpora of the bilingual children. The grammatical domain presented in this article will be an example of this kind of cross-linguistic influence in bilingual acquisition.



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

2. The research project The data to be presented are part of the research project “Die Architektur der frühkindlichen bilingualen Sprachfähigkeit: Italienisch-Deutsch und Französisch-Deutsch in Italien, Deutschland und Frankreich im Vergleich” (The architecture of the early childhood bilingual language faculty: Comparing Italian-German and French-German in Italy, Germany and France).1 The bilingual children are presented in table (1). All children have been raised bilingually (German-Italian/French) from birth in Germany. The parents decided to raise them according to the “une personne – une langue”- strategy (Ronjat 1913). In most cases (Céline is the exception) the mother speaks the Romance language to the child and the father German. The corpus consists of video recordings (made every fortnight). The recordings started, for the most part, at age 1;6. The languages were separated during the recordings. The German interviewer spoke German with the child, while the Romance interviewer interacted with the child in the respective Romance language. Table 1.  Children under investigation Alexander Céline Carlotta Lukas Jan

2.1

French/German French/German Italian/German Italian/German Italian/German

recordings started at 2;2,6 recordings started at 2;0,9 recordings started at 1;8,28 recordings started at 1;7,12 recordings started at 2;0,11

Language dominance

In the following we will discuss the German-French children Alexander and Céline (for Céline cf. Cordes 2001). We will confine ourselves to the MLU-values of the children in order to determine their language balance. More details are provided in Cantone, Kupisch, Müller and Schmitz (2006). Figure (1) shows that Alexander is a faily balanced bilingual child, his French MLU being slightly higher at all points in his development as compared to the values reached in German. In contrast to Alexander, Céline has a dominant language, namely German. Her French MLU values differ considerably from those in German, as can be seen in figure (2). In some recordings, the difference between the two languages amounts to more than 1.

 Natascha Müller

7,0 6,0

MLU

5,0 4,0

German

3,0

French

2,0 1,0

2; 2, 6 2; 3, 24 2; 5, 25 2; 7, 6 2; 8, 28 2; 10 ,2 3 3; 1, 22 3; 3, 0 3; 4, 19 3; 6, 7 3; 8, 11

0,0

age

Figure 1.  MLU: Alexander 6,0 5,0 MLU

4,0

German

3,0

French

2,0 1,0

0, 9 2; 1, 14 2; 4, 19 2; 6, 7 2; 8, 2 2; 9, 20 2; 11 ,3 3; 0, 13 3; 3, 12 3; 4, 23 3; 6, 12 3; 8, 0

0,0

age

Figure 2.  MLU: Céline

Let us turn to the German-Italian children (Loconte 2001). Figure (3) shows Carlotta’s MLU in both languages. Even more so than Alexander, she can be regarded as a balanced bilingual child. Figure (4) presents graphically the MLU-values for Lukas. Until the age of approx. 3;3, he can be considered as the most balanced child in the project. After that age, he uses Italian to a declining degree, most of his utterances in the Italian recordings being German or mixed utterances. Finally, figure (5) contains Jan’s MLUvalues. He can be compared with Céline with respect to the considerable difference between the Italian and the German MLU until approx. age 3. His German is stronger than his Italian. However, in contrast to Céline who does not use French but German



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

with the French interviewer, Jan likes to speak Italian and mostly uses Italian during the Italian recording session. 6 5 MLU

4

German

3

Italian

2 1 0 1;

8,

28

1 1;

1,

12

2;

2,

4

2;

4,

7

2;

7,

13

2;

9,

25

1 2;

1,

27

3;

2,

13

3;

4,

8

3;

6,

17

3;

8,

27

3;

11

,6

age

Figure 3.  MLU: Carlotta 6,0 5,0 MLU

4,0

German

3,0

Italian

2,0 1,0 0,0

1;

7,

12

1 1;

0,

17

2;

1,

3

2;

4,

23

2;

7,

15

2;

9,

18

1 2;

1,

27

age

Figure 4.  MLU: Lukas

3;

3,

2

3;

5,

8

3;

7,

15

3;

9,

20

1 3;

1,

22

MLU

 Natascha Müller

4,5 4 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1 0,5 0 0 2;

,1

German Italian

1

4 2;

,1

5

2;

7,

7

9 2;

,1

2 2

1 ;1

,2

7

2 3,

,1

9

4 3;

,2

3

6 3;

,1

1

3;

8,

5

1 3;

0,

7

0 4;

,1

4

age

Figure 5.  MLU: Jan

3. Crosslinguistic Influence 3.1

Finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses

Müller (1993, 1994, 1998) has concluded, on the basis of a review of the relevant literature, that bilingual children with French, Italian or English as one of their two native languages have considerable problems with finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses.



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children  Absolute number

2;4,6

2;6,25 2;7,27

Vfinal target-deviant

2;5,25

2;8,28 2;10,2 2;11,6 3;1,22 Age

3;2,16 3;3,22 3;4,19 3;5,24 3;6,21 3;8,11 3;9,7 3;10,6

3;11,10 4;1,26 4;3 4:4.25

Figure 6.  Subordinate clauses Alexander

14

2;2,27

12

10

8

6

4

2

0 2;2,6

 Natascha Müller

Absolute number

2;0,11

2;3,2 2;4,7 2;6,9 2;7,13 2;8,21 2;9,25 2;10,30 2;11,27 Age

3;1,16 3;2,13 3;3,11 3;4,8 3;5,6 3;6,17 3;7,13 3;8,27 3;10,22 3;11,26 4;1,14 4;2,11 4;3,9 4;4,6

Figure 7.  Subordinate clauses Carlotta

Vfinal target-deviant

2;2,4

20

1;11,12

18

1;10,8

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0 1;8,28



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

Adult German is a V2-language and exhibits clause-final finite verbs in subordinate clauses: Heute habe ich Geburtstag ‘Today have I birthday’ – Ich habe dir gesagt, dass ich heute Geburtstag habe ‘I have you told that I today birthday have’. German exhibits a root/non-root-asymmetry with respect to finite verb placement. For the SVO languages like French and Italian, a root/non-root symmetry with respect to word order of finite verbs can be observed, i.e. the verb in subordinate clauses follows the subject, as in main clauses. Müller (1998) concludes her review with the observation that about half of the population of bilingual children have problems with finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses if they acquire a second native language which is an SVO language, i.e. French, Italian or English. Interestingly, two of the five children studied in the present article have considerable problems with finite verb placement in subordinate clauses: Alexander in the French-German study (cf. figure 6) and Carlotta in the Italian-German study (cf. figure 7). As can be seen from the figures (6) and (7), target-deviant verb placement ceases to appear in both children only at the age of 4, i.e. German verb placement in subordinate clauses can be regarded as a grammatical domain with late acquisition. For the other three children, there are either no problems at all, i.e. the placement of finite verbs in subordinates is ‘error-free’ or the development marginally shows root word order in subordinate clauses. This is shown in figures (8), (9) and (10) for the children Jan (German-Italian), Lukas (German-Italian) and Céline (German-French). Since we are dealing with longitudinal data, absence of data should be avoided as an argument for or against hypotheses concerning language development. Let us therefore concentrate on the children Alexander and Carlotta who exhibit problems in subordinate clauses.

 Natascha Müller Absolute number

2;5,26 2;7,7

2;11,27 3;1,1 3;3,8 3;4,23 3;6,11 Age

3;7,22 3;9,15 3;10,27 4;0,14 4;2,25 4;4,6 4;5,17 4;7,5 4;9,16 4;10,27

Figure 8.  Subordinate clauses: Jan

Vfinal

2;10,8

target-deviant

2;8,18

25

20

15

10

5

0 2;1,3



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

Absolute number

1;10,17 1;11,22

2;4,23 2;5,20 2;7,15 2;8,12 2;9,18 2;10,22 2;11,27 Age

3;1,30 3;3,2 3;4,7 3;5,8 3;6,13 3;7,15 3;8,17 3;9,20

3;10,17 3;11,22 4;1,20 4;3,14 4;4,12

Figure 9.  Subordinate clauses: Lukas

Vfinal

2;3,6

target-deviant

2;1,3

14

1;9,13

12

10

8

6

4

2

0 1;7,12

 Natascha Müller

Absolute number

2;6,21 2;8,2 2;8,29 2;10,5 2;11,3 Age

2;11,29 3;0,27 3;3,12 3;4,9 3;5,15 3;6,12 3;7,17 3;8,14 3;9,18

3;10,18 3;11,15

Figure 10.  Subordinate clauses Céline

Vfinal

2;5,25

target-deviant

2;4,19

18

2;3,15

16

2;1,6

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0 2;0,9



3.2

Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

The “errors”: The influence of the other language

In her review of the literature, Müller (1998) finds that the kind of “errors” in German subordinate clauses differs as a function of the second language. Whereas children with French or English as first languages use COMP (complementizer) – X (any constituent) – Vfin –Y (any constituent), dass heute habe ich Geburtstag ‘that today have I birthday’, children with Italian use COMP – Vfin – S – X – Y, dass habe ich heute Geburts­ tag ‘that have I today birthday’. This is also true for the two bilingual children studied here: Whereas Alexander makes use of 1.9% of VSX(Y) patterns in his German subordinate clauses (only 2 out of 104), Carlotta uses it to a high degree, 32% of her subordinate clauses showing exactly this pattern until the age of 3;7. All bilingual children use SVfinX in their subordinate clauses, dass ich habe heute Geburtstag ‘that I have today birthday’, i.e. this pattern occurs independently of the specific second language, French or Italian.2 A further important result of Müller’s review is that finite verb placement in the Romance language (or in English) is not problematic, i.e. we are dealing with an error-free grammatical domain in these languages. Before we turn to the discussion of the acquisition facts, we will introduce a new view of word order in subordinate clauses and the syntax–pragmatics interface.

3.3

Complementizers in French, Italian and German- adult and child grammar

In generative syntax and other frameworks, complementizers are generally assumed to form a constituent with the infinitival IP they are associated with, e.g. in the sentence Il est important de chanter ‘It is important de sing-inf.’, de is often analyzed as forming a constituent with chanter, since de requires an infinitival, and therefore is not compatible with a finite phrase: *Il est important de vous chantiez ‘It is important de you singsubjunc.’ (Kayne 1999: 41). The same can be proposed for Italian di which, like its French counterpart, is only compatible with an infinitival. Recently, Kayne (1999) has argued that the French and Italian prepositional complementizers de / di enter the derivation above the VP, that is, not as a sister to the IP they are associated with. The relation between complementizer and IP is expressed by movement of the (infinitival) IP to the specifier position of the complementizer. Subsequent movement of the complementizer to a head W, is followed by phrasal movement to Spec, Spec,W accounts for the observed word order in these languages. If prepositional complementizers do not form a constituent with the infinitival IP they are associated with, the following derivational steps are necessary for a sentence like Gianni ha tentato di cantare, ‘Gianni has tried di sing-inf ’: The infinitival IP cantare is merged with the main verb tentato, not with di. Di is subsequently merged with tentato cantare, the result being di tentato cantare. Di then attracts the infinitival IP cantare to its Spec, resulting in cantarei di tentato ti. Di further raises to an immediately higher head W, dij+W cantarei tj tentato ti. Di+W then attracts VP to its Spec, [tentato ti]k dij+W cantarei tj tk.

 Natascha Müller

Gianni ha

WP [tentato t i] k

W' DiP

di j

cantare i

Di' dij

VP [ tentato cantare ] i k

Figure 11.  Derivation of [...] tentato di cantare

Kayne (1999) advances several arguments for his analysis. The first type of argument relates to the nominal character of French and Italian infinitives. French de and Italian di require an infinitival, and they are not compatible with a finite phrase (Kayne 1999: 40f.). (10) Il est important de chanter It is important de sing-inf. (11) *Il est important de vous chantez It is important de you sing-subjunc. (12) Gianni dice di aver capito Gianni says di have-inf. understood (13) *Gianni dice di (lui) ha capito Gianni says di (he) has understood Both Romance languages have developed a complementizer for finite clauses, namely que and che. The same generalization extends to other prepositional complementizers, like pour and per in the Romance languages. They are restricted to infinitival clauses. If a finite clause is expressed, French uses pour que, Italian perché. The second type of argument in favor of the derivation in figure (11) relates to the observation that in French and Italian, infinitives do not occupy DP positions. Thus, despite the nominal character of French and Italian infinitives, they do not occupy ordinary DP positions. In conclusion, French and Italian infinitives have to be licensed in a special way, one way being to have them preceded by de / di, or, extending Kayne’s proposal, by other prepositional complementizers like pour / per. The new idea of Kayne’s approach is that the prepositional complementizers do not form a constituent with the infinitival IP they are associated with. As a consequence, the complementizer



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

is not part of the argument of the (main) verb, but enters the derivation subsequent to the merger of the infinitival IP and the main verb. Let us assume that Romance language children have the correct analysis of infinitival clauses from the beginning. If Kayne’s analysis is extended to pour / per, which is the first prepositional complementizer in child grammar (Müller 1993), and which emerges about 6 months before the first adult-like finite complementizers, we would have the derivation in figure (12) for a French child sentence: c’est pour dormir, ‘this is for to-sleep’. c'

WP [est t i ]k

W' pour j

PourP dormir i

Pour' pour j [est

dormir i ] k

Figure 12.  Derivation of infinitival introduced by pour

This structure would conform to the adult system. Bilingual Romance-German children have been reported to use German für, the equivalent of pour / per as one of the first elements which introduces clauses (cf. Müller 1993). This is also the case for the two children of the present study who exhibit considerable problems with finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses:3 für setzen, ‘for to-sit’ (Carlotta, 2;7,13), für grattieren, ‘for to scratch’ (=kratzen, Alexander, 2;7,6). Since these German constructions are created by the children on the basis of their Romance language – the construction as such does not exist in German –, it seems plausible to extend the pour / per analysis to für in German. Thus, a child sentence like das is für einkaufen ‘this is for to-shop’ has the derivation in figure 13:

 Natascha Müller

das

WP [ist t i]k

W' FürP

für j

einkaufen i

Für'

für j [ist

einkaufen i] k

Figure 13.  Derivation of infinitival introduced by für

Kayne (1999) mentions the possibility that this kind of analysis extends to the real complementizers que / che in the Romance languages. Let us assume that this is indeed the case. We would like to exemplify this possibility with a French construction: Je sais que tu lis ce livre ‘I know that you read this book’. je

WP [sais t i] k

W'

que j

CP

IP[tu lis ce livre] i

C'

que j [sais IP [tu lis ce livre]i ] k Figure 14.  que/che clauses: the Romance derivation

If children extend the analysis of pour / per clauses to für, it is plausible that they also use their analysis of subordinate clauses introduced by que / che for German subordinates. As a consequence, they would merge a finite clause with matrix word order with the matrix verb and subsequently insert the complementizer dass (cf. figure 15), thus the absence of sentence final placement of the finite verb in these children is predicted. In other words, there is a link between the first prepositional complementizer für



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

which is syntactically analyzed like French pour and Italian per, and the persistent problems with finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses: Children who exhibit problems in German subordinate clauses adopt a course to the complementizer system via using für with the same syntactic derivation as pour / per. Indeed, a syntactic derivation of the prepositional complementizer introducing infinitival clauses is extended to real complementizers, as is indicated by the observation that prepositional complementizers can also introduce finite clauses in the children’s grammar, e.g. für das macht musik, ‘for it makes music’ (Carlotta, 2;10,30), für die bahn kann, ‘for the train can (go there)’ (Alexander, 2;11,20).

ich

WP [weiß t i] k

W'

dass j IP[du

DassP

kannst nicht mitkommen]i

Dass'

dass j [weiß

IP[du

kannst nicht mitkommen]i]k

Figure 15.  Derivation of finite subordinate clause in German with a Romance pour/peranalysis: *Ich weiß dass du kannst nicht mitkommen, ‘I know that you can not with-come’

Interestingly, the bilingual children have positive evidence for the Romance analysis of complementizers in German. German subordinate clauses are verb-final if they are introduced by a complementizer like dass.

ich weiß

CP dass

IP (head-final) du nicht mitkommen kannst

Figure 16.  dass clauses: the German derivation

German subordinate clauses which are not introduced by any lexical element do not show clause-final placement of the finite verb, but main clause word order, as shown in (14) in contrast to (15).

 Natascha Müller

(14) ich weiß, du kannst nicht mitkommen I know you can not with-come ‘I know you cannot join us.’ (15) ich weiß, dass du nicht mitkommen kannst I know that you not with-come can Thus, for a sentence without a lexical complementizer, the für-derivation would yield the correct analysis. In other words, the Romance syntactic derivation does not transfer “blindly” into child German, but is supported by positive evidence. ich

WP [weiß ti]k Øj

W' DassP

IP[du kannst nicht mitkommen] i

Dass'

Øj [weiß

IP[du kannst nicht mitkommen]i]k

Figure 17.  Derivation of finite subordinate clause in German without lexical complementizer in terms of a Romance pour/per-analysis

One may object that we do not need dassP and WP for the derivation of such sentences. But since these non verb-final clauses have to be distinguished from reported speech (which becomes visible in spoken language from the type of pronoun used: mich fragst du willst du brot oder würstchen, ‘me ask you want you bread or sausages’ (reported speech) versus mich fragst du ob ich brot oder würstchen will, ‘me ask you if I bread or sausages want’), the functional projections may be necessary, but remain empty in the course of derivation. Spoken adult German also has a small class of elements which can introduce subordinate clauses with main clause word order, weil, ‘because’ and obwohl, ‘although’ among them: Ich bin wütend weil ich kann nicht mitkommen, ‘I am angry because I can not with-come’. The next construction which might be regarded as evidence for the Romance fürderivation in German child grammar is the conditional. Rehbein (1992) shows that the German conditional has two possible realizations. Either as a wenn... dann, if... then’ construction, in which wenn would trigger the verb-final pattern typical of German subordinate clauses, or an alternative with a finite verb in clause-initial position: hätte ich im Lotto gespielt, dann hätte ich diesmal bestimmt gewonnen, ‘had I in the lot-



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

tery played, then would I this time for sure won’. Thus, the verb-final pattern competes with non-verb-final alternatives. These alternatives might constitute positive evidence for the Romance für-derivation applied to German complementizers in general. In section 3.2 we have mentioned that the Romance languages, French and Italian, have a slightly different effect on finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses. Whereas Alexander (French-German) did not use VSX(Y) patterns in his German subordinate clauses, Carlotta uses this pattern in about one third of her subordinate clauses. It is not the purpose of the present article to investigate the syntactic derivations for the different word orders. Notice, however, that those languages, which in bilingual combinations regulate that German subordinate clauses are COMP-Vfin-S-X, e.g. Italian, are characterized by the absence of that-t-effects. In turn, language combinations which exclude this pattern, like French, manifest that-t-effects.4 Müller (2005) argues that this difference explains word orders which are specific to the language combinations. We have mentioned the kind of errors bilingual children make in German subordinate clauses, because we wanted to give further evidence for the assumption that we are dealing with cross-linguistic influence, the proof being that a certain language combination matters for a certain kind of error to occur. Let us now turn to the syntax–pragmatics interface, and approach the question why the Romance analysis is extented to German subordinate clauses.

3.4

The syntax–pragmatics interface

In the Principles & Parameters framework and in early work in Minimalism (Chomsky 1995), the syntactic derivation could interface with the interpretive systems only at one point, which was called Spell Out. This operation strips the phonological features off the lexical items and maps them onto a structure called Phonetic Form, which in turn interfaces with the auditory-perceptual system. Spell Out is also the earliest point at which, given that all uninterpretable features are checked off, a structure called Logical Form can be assumed, which in turn interfaces with the conceptual-intentional system. More recently, some researchers like Epstein, Groat, Kawashima and Kitahara (1998) and López (2003) have challenged the view that interfacing with the interpretive systems must wait until the derivation is finished. Epstein et al. (1998) provide the most radical approach in the sense of assuming that the interpretive systems interface invasively with the syntactic derivation after every application of Merge and Move. As a result, there are no PF or LF structures. López (2003), building on recent proposals by Chomsky (2000, 2001) and Uriagereka (1999), defends a more moderate view on the invasiveness of the interpretive systems. He assumes that the derivation spells-out at particular points called phases. More specifically, a phase is headed by the light verb v or by C. These represent the two points at which the derivation can be handed over to the interpretive systems, once vP / CP is being derived. Once a phase is spelled-out, it is opaque. The only exception to this is the edge of the phase, which is defined as the head of the phase and its Specs.

 Natascha Müller

It is the more moderate framework which we will adopt in this article. In particular, we are interested in the point CP at which López allows the syntactic derivation to interface with pragmatics, “the interpretive module that deals with focus/ presupposition structures, contrast, and possibly other notions […]” (López 2003: 195). In his approach, pragmatic values – like presupposition and contrast – are regarded as features which are assigned to constituents in the syntactic component and remain as parts of the feature matrix of these constituents. In other words, pragmatics can assign features to constituents in the CHL (computational system for human language) which were absent in the lexical array. The pragmatic component can thus inspect a syntactic structure and attach a (pragmatic) feature to it. Pragmatics can invade the computational system only at two points in the derivation, when the vP / CP phase is being completed. What pragmatic value(s) could be involved in subordinate clauses? Let us exemplify the relevance of pragmatic values by using the example of conditionals. If encoded in a wenn... dann construction, or in the Romance equivalent construction with si / se, the feature “conditional” is introduced via the lexical array of wenn, si, and se. However, German as well as the Romance languages exhibit an alternative construction for which it would be difficult to imagine a feature “conditional” in the lexical array of one element in the clause. This is the following construction hätte ich im Lotto gespielt, dann hätte ich diesmal bestimmt gewonnen which exists in French as a construction with a clause-initial finite verb as well as aurais-je le temps.... ‘had-I the time...’.5 In this case it is necessary to assign features to constituents which are absent in the lexical array.6 López (2003: 204) discusses the case of clitics which spell out the pragmatic feature “presupposition” or “[p]”. The feature [+p] is assigned to the EPP of v. Pragmatics can “invade CHL and assigns [+p] only after the vP phase is completed.” Spec,v also becomes [+p] since this specifier is licensed by an EPP with a [+p] feature. If it is plausible to assume that in case of conditionals the whole sentence containing the verb in the conditional is marked as such, it would be the functional category C or FürP/DassP in Kayne’s analysis, which receives this feature. Pragmatics would have to assign this feature to C/Dass/Für (or the EPP of C/Dass/Für) and the specifier of C/Dass/Für would have the same feature since it is licensed by an EPP with a feature “conditional”. In other words, we would like to suggest that there are two possibilities for features to enter the derivation: either via the lexical array or via pragmatics.



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

ich

WP

schrie

W' wenn

CP

ich war baby

C' C+EPP=wenn schrie

[+temporal]

ich war baby

'I cried when I was a baby'

Figure 18.  Derivation of a German subordinate clause with [+temporal] inserted via pragmatics

Let us turn to child grammar. Research on early child language has shown that pragmatics, apart from its identifying function, can also license empty constituents (Müller and Hulk 2001). If this is plausible, this would have the following consequences for the grammatical domain of subordinate clauses. We would predict that children will first choose the possibility for features to enter the derivation via pragmatics, and only later study the lexical array in more detail. In fact, researchers find that young children, monolingual and bilingual, start to produce subordinate clauses long before they use complementizers; the position of the complementizer in the target language either remains empty in child language (Müller 1993: sitz da un pa auf papa komm nich (=sitzt da und passt auf dass der Papa nicht kommt), ‘sit there and pay-attention daddy comes not’) or is filled with a dummy complementizer, like là, ‘there’ (Müller 1993: demander maman là il est (=demander maman où il est), ‘ask mummy there it is’). This view would contradict learning models which suppose that lexical learning is the driving force in syntactic development. If the features needed for subordinates are introduced into syntax via pragmatics, or put differently, if the conjunction does not encode the respective features, it is the whole clause which marks the features. The (adult) Romance analysis of subordinates nicely reflects this relation between syntax and pragmatics. In Romance pour / per-clauses, the subordinate clause is merged with the matrix verb and later moved into the functional projection which hosts pour / per. As a consequence of the application of the Romance analysis to German subordinates, bilingual children use root word order with finite verbs in subordinate clauses. Unlike adult German, child language complementizers are not analyzed as elements inserted into a syntactic position where, in ma-

 Natascha Müller

trix clauses, the finite verb checks off finiteness. A German-French or German-Italian bilingual child will thus ignore the importance of the complementizer and assume a symmetric analysis of root and non-root clauses due to the insertion of features needed for subordination via pragmatics. Children might opt for invasive pragmatics even in cases for which the feature of subordinate clauses, conditional, temporal, causal, etc. is encoded in the lexical array of a conjunction in adult grammar. A child sentence with an invasively introduced feature [+temporal] would have the structure in figure (18), independently of whether a conjunction is present or not. Müller (1993) shows that the bilingual children who have problems with finite verb placement in German subordinate clauses acquire the target-like verb-final order with each conjunction separately. In other words, the children have to analyze and acquire the features for subordination with each lexical array. The last conjunctions to be integrated into the target-like verb-final pattern are the semantically empty complementizers dass, ‘that’ and ob, ‘if/whether’. The way children revise their analysis of German subordinate clauses may be interpreted as a further indication that the kind of cross-linguistic influence we are facing with finite verb placement in German subordinates is what is defined as transfer in section 1.3. What prediction would follow from the approach outlined here? The prediction would be that monolingual children indeed have problems with those subordinate clauses for which the adult language offers an alternative with features introduced invasively via pragmatics. These are conditionals. Stern & Stern (1928) reported these problems in conditionals in the German monolingual children they studied: wenn ihr würdet immerfort in Berlin geblieben sein, so würdet ihr immerfort Berliner gewesen sein, ‘if you would always in Berlin stayed to-be, then would you always people-fromBerlin been to-be’. Finally, let us come back to the two conditions for cross-linguistic influence to occur. To reiterate, the two conditions presented in section 1.1 were: (a) The vulnerable grammatical phenomenon is an interface properties, e.g., a grammatical property located at the interface between syntax and pragmatics; (b) The surface strings of the two languages are similar for the expression of the vulnerable grammatical phenomenon. We have already mentioned that adult German exhibits subordinate clauses with root word order. These clauses might lead the children into generalizing the Romance analysis onto German subordinates. The first condition is also fulfilled since the grammatical domain studied represents an interface property. As discussed in section 1.1, it is also true for subordinates that pragmatics and syntax interact in such a way that pragmatic factors restrict the possibilities offered by the syntactic system. In section 3.3 we have mentioned the possibility that (adult) German subordinate clauses with root word order can be analyzed à la Kayne, as Romance subordinates in general. If this assumption turns out to be correct, German would be characterized by a non-isomorphic interplay between syntax and pragmatics: If the features needed for subordination are inserted via pragmatics, the finite verb of the subordinate must check off these features (residually, this option exists for Romance conditionals). If the features



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

needed for subordination are inserted via the lexical array of the complementizer, it is the complementizer which guarantees that the construction is well-formed. It is the role of pragmatics which restricts the possibilities offered by the syntactic system. Under the assumption that children find this kind of interaction complex, they will opt for the Romance analysis of German subordinates which minimizes interaction between syntax and pragmatics. Under the Romance analysis, nothing follows for syntax if features for subordination are inserted via the lexical array of complementizers, or via pragmatics. What other consequences follow from the analysis presented here? Cantone (2004) studies code-switching in simultaneous bilingual Italian-German children from age 2;6 to 5. Her results show that children do mix between the functional head C and its complement: (16) perché ihr seid böse because you are bad (17) pecché ich war kleiner =perché because I was younger (18)

(Lu, 3;11,2, Italian recording) (Lu, 4;0,5, Italian recording)

wir sind aus- perché wir sind aus- aus- aus- auf deutsch-auf deutschland We are from – because we are from- from- from in German- in Germany (Ja, 3;1,1, German recording)

(19) hai visto che geht leicht have(you) seen that (it) goes easy

(Lu, 3;4,25, Italian context)

(20) guarda che war hier Look that (it) was here

(Lu, 3;10,3, Italian context)

Cantone hypothesizes that the language of the complementizer determines the word order of its complement. Subordinate clauses are a good testing ground for the hypothesis since German subordinate clauses are verb-final, whereas Italian subordinates are SVO. Since German weil (‘because’)-clauses can be non-verb-final in spoken language, (16) – (18) do not constitute clear examples. (19) and (20), however, might show that an Italian complementizer determines Italian word order in the subordinate clause, although the clause is made up of German lexical items. With German word order, the child should have said hai visto che leicht geht and guarda che hier war. Furthermore, in these examples the German finite verb in the subordinate clause is not accompanied by an overt subject, a possibility characteristic of Italian, not of German, given that Italian is a null-subject language. Cantone specifies that if the complementizer is Italian, then the structure below the functional head C is Italian, too, independent of whether its syntactic positions are filled with Italian or with German elements. In the examples, Italian C can be combined with an underlying structure which contains a null-subject. Under the approach of subordinates presented here, the conclusion that the language of the complementizer determiners word order in the subordinate clause fol-

 Natascha Müller

lows rather naturally. If the complementizer is Romance, the Romance analysis will apply: It merges the subordinate with the matrix verb first and later moves the subordinate into the functional projection which hosts the complementizer. Romance word order will result, which is corroborated by the data. The code-switching data thus lend support to the analysis presented here.

3.5

A note on language dominance

In what follows, we would like to exclude the possibility that language dominance is the driving factor for why the children Alexander and Carlotta extend the Romance analysis of subordinates to German. We have illustrated the MLU values of the two children. For Alexander, we could argue that since his German is weaker than his French, he will try the Romance option for German. However, notice that this argument does not generalize to Carlotta’s case. She can be considered as a balanced bilingual, nevertheless, she opts for the Romance analysis. What about the children Céline, Jan and Lukas? Lukas can be compared with Carlotta, at least until the age of 3;3. In both children, the MLUs of both languages nearly match. Jan and, to a greater extent, Céline have a dominant language, namely German. We may speculate that those children who do not show problems in subordinate clauses are children who develop German as a dominant language. Schmitz (2004), analyzing dative case errors in the children Alexander, Céline, Lukas and Carlotta comes to this result, namely that only those children who develop German as a dominant language reach the target stage as quickly as children who are balanced for grammatical domains which are vulnerable for cross-linguistic influence. Notice, however, that Lukas can be considered a balanced bilingual child until the age of 3;3, the age span during which he very rarely produces verb placement errors in subordinate clauses. Under the assumed relation between cross-linguistic influence and language dominance, we would wrongly predict that he should pattern like Carlotta. In conclusion, the balance between the two languages, although an interesting research area as such, does not explain why bilingual children show signs of cross-linguistic influence in their development of verb placement patterns in German subordinate clauses.

4. Conclusion The present investigation has attempted to show that some bilingual children may use a derivation of language A for language B as well. This was the case since language B contained two constructions of which one was the common construction in language A. A further important factor which comes into play is the syntax–pragmatics interface. Children tend to minimize the interaction between pragmatics and syntax if they interact in a way that pragmatic factors restrict the possibilities offered by the syntactic system.



Some notes on the syntax–pragmatics interface in bilingual children 

The remaining problem is why only half of the bilingual population exhibit the kind of developmental path outlined here. We have no solution to offer for the children who do not show signs of cross-linguistic influence. What seems plausible, when looking at the differing degree of balance of the children is that language dominance can be excluded as a reason for absence / presence of language influence.

Notes 1. The project is financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and directed by the present author at Bergische Universität Wuppertal ([email protected]). For further details cf. Müller, Cantone, Kupisch and Schmitz (2002), Müller, Kupisch, Schmitz and Cantone (2006) and Cantone, Kupisch, Müller and Schmitz (2006). 2. Müller (1998) also presents results from monolingual German children on the development of finite verb placement in subordinates. One reviewer formulates the prediction that monolingual German children would have similar problems with verb placement in subordinate clauses as bilinguals in German. One could also predict that there would be a bilingual-monolingual difference in the magnitude of the problem, with Romance-German bilinguals producing significantly more deviant verb placements than monolinguals because of the strengthening effect of the Romance language. It is not possible to discuss this issue in more depth, since the situation is complex. Monolingual children from Northern parts of Germany (the same region as the bilingual children studied here) acquire finite verb placement without error. They use finite verbs clause-finally even at a time when they have not acquired complementizers yet. Monolingual children from Southern parts of German take some time to acquire the correct verb placement in subordinates; this may be the case, because their input contains evidence for non-V-final placement of finite verbs with a considerable amount of lexical elements introducing subordinate clauses. Müller (1998) argues that these monolingual German children have an input in German which the Italian-German bilingual children have in the Romance language, favoring COMP – Vfin – S – X – Y. 3. Für does not figure among the prepositions which introduce infinitival clauses in standard German. Instead, the particle zu is used in German infinitival constructions. für-infinitives are in use in the Ruhr-area: 360 Eier für mitten Auto fahrn ‘360 eggs for with-the car drive’ (Gawlitzek-Maiwald 1997:35). The preposition für replaces um in für-infinitives, the common preposition to introduce infinitival clauses; the infinitival particle zu is often not realized. für-infinitives allow for the realization of the subject, which is otherwise impossible in infinitivals (Voyles 1983, mentioned in Gawlitzek-Maiwald 1997:35): *Menschen zu irren ist möglich ‘People to err is possible’ versus Für Menschen zu irren ist möglich ‘For people to err is possible’. The bilingual children investigated in the present study have been raised in the Northern parts of Germany; they did not have für-infinitives in their input. 4. French and Italian differ with respect to the presence / absence of the so-called that-t-effect: In French, it is impossible to move the subject of an embedded clauses into the front position of the main clause, thus the ungrammaticality of Qui crois-tu que viendras ‘who think you that will-come’. The sentence is grammatical in Italian Chi credi che verrà. Most researchers assume that fronted subjects cannot be moved in one step if two clauses are involved, but that they have

 Natascha Müller to land in the specifier position of the functional projection which hosts the complementizer, CP. We can interpret the examples in the sense that the French complementizer que does not license a position preceding it which can host the subject (Bošković & Lasnik 2003 assume that such a head does not have an EPP (Extended Projection Principle) feature (guaranteeing that a specifier will be projected) and therefore will not project a specifier position) whereas Italian che does. The example is ungrammatical because the subject, in order to be fronted, would have to move in one step, which is impossible though *Quii crois tu que ti viendras. An alternative account would be to analyze the trace following the complementizer que as the offending trace: *Quii crois tu ti que ti viendras. Rizzi (1990) has argued on the basis of minimality that the complementizer que does not carry agreement features and therefore cannot properly govern the subject trace, the result being an ungrammatical sentence. French qui and Italian che carry agreement feature, explaining the grammaticality of Qui crois tu qui viendras and Chi credi che verrà. “If Agr is selected for the head of Comp, it must be coindexed with its specifier; […] here the subject trace is properly head-governed by Agr in the head of Comp and antecedent-governed by the specifier of Comp.” (Rizzi 1990:52f.) He summarizes that “a C0 endowed with such features is an intrinsic governor.” (Rizzi 1990:122) Interestingly, Rizzi (1997) has noted that the that-t-effect can also be voided if a TopP (Topic Phrase) intervenes between the position which hosts the complementizer (Force in his approach) and the functional projection which hosts the trace of the fronted subject (Fin in his approach): Who did Leslie say that *(for all intents and purposes) was the mayor of the city? 5. In French, these constructions belong to the register of written language. It would be interesting to study the occurrence of conditionals in the German input of the children. 6. One reviewer remarks that the finite verb is morphologically marked for the conjunctive (II). This observation generalizes to the French example. Notice however that the morphological marking on the verb could not explain the word order. The feature “conditional” would be needed independently of the morphological marking of the finite verb. 7. One reviewer suggests that the variation among children is hard to accommodate with the presented account, given that the reinforcing effect from the Romance language is present in all children. Recent studies in the literature have suggested that the bilingual child’s problem may be related to the processing resources necessary to integrate syntactic and pragmatic knowledge (see Avrutin 1999). The processing domain is open to developmental effects, and therefore to inter-subject variation. The nature of the data, spontaneous production data, makes it impossible to disentangle a representational and a processing approach. Notice however, that a processing approach could not predict the occurrence of different target-deviant word orders, depending on the language combination. In fact, the presence of COMP-Vfin-S-X in German subordinates of German-Italian children and its absence in French-German children reinforces the competence-driven approach presented here.

References Avrutin, S. 1999. Development of the Syntax-Discourse Interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Bernardini Röst, P. 2001. Lo squilibrio nell’acquisizione di due lingue nell’infanzia: Indagine longitudinale sullo sviluppo della sintassi nominale. Lund : Licentiatavhandling, University of Lund.



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Bošković, Z. and Lasnik, H. 2003. On the distribution of null complementizers. Linguistic Inquiry 34(4): 527–546. Cantone, K. 2004. Code-Switching in Bilingual Children. PhD dissertation, University of Hamburg. Cantone, K., Kupisch, T., Müller, N; and Schmitz, K. 2006. Redefining language dominance in bilingual children. Submitted Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. The Pisa lectures. Foris: Dordrecht. Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Chomsky, N. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by Step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, R. Martin, D. Michaels and J. Uriagereka (eds), 89–156. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Chomsky, N. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A life in language, M. Kenstowicz (ed.), 1–52. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Clahsen, H. 1982. Spracherwerb in der Kindheit. Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung der Syntax bei Kleinkindern. Tübingen: Narr Cordes, J. 2001. Zum unausgewogenen doppelten Erstspracherwerb eines deutsch-französisch aufwachsenden Kindes: Eine empirische Untersuchung. MA thesis, University of Hamburg. Döpke, S. 1992. One Parent, One Language: An interactional approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Epstein, S., Groat E., Kawashima R., and Kitahara H. 1998. A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations. Oxford: OUP. Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I. 1997. Der monolinguale und bilinguale Erwerb von Infinitivkonstruktionen. Ein Vergleich von Deutsch und Englisch. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I. and Tracy, R. 1996. Bilingual bootstrapping. Linguistics 34: 901–926. Genesee, F. 1989. Early bilingual development: One language or two? Journal of Child Language 16: 161–179. Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E. and Paradis, J. 1995. Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language 22: 611–631. Herkenrath, A., Karakoç, B. and Rehbein, J. 2003. Interrogative elements as subordinators in Turkish. In (In)vulnerable Domains in Multilingualism, N. Müller (ed.), 221–269. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hulk, A. 1997. The acquisition of French object pronouns by a Dutch/French bilingual child. In Language Acquisition: Knowledge, representation and processing. Proceedings of the GALA ‘97 Conference on Language Acquisition, A. Sorace A., C. Heycock and R. Shillcock (eds), 521–526. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Hulk, A. and Müller, N. 2000. Crosslinguistic influence at the interface between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3(3): 227–244. Kayne, R. 1999. Prepositional complementizers as attractors. Probus 11: 39–73. Kupisch, T. 2004. The Acquisition of Determiners in Bilingual German-Italian and GermanFrench Children. PhD dissertation, University of Hamburg. Kupisch, T., Müller, N. and Cantone K. 2002. Gender in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition: Comparing Italian and French. Lingue e Linguaggio 1: 107–149. Lindholm, K. J. and Padilla A. M. 1978. Language mixing in bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 5: 327–335 Loconte, A. 2001. Zur Sprachdominanz bei bilingual deutsch-italienischen Kindern. MA thesis, University of Hamburg. López, L. 2003. Steps for a well-adjusted dislocation. Studia Linguistica 57(3): 193–231

 Natascha Müller Meisel, J. M. 1989. Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In Bilingualism across the Lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity, and loss, K. Hyltenstam and L. Obler (eds), 13–40. Cambridge: CUP. Meisel, J. M. (ed.) 1994. Bilingual First Language Acquisition: German and French. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Müller, N. 1993. Komplexe Sätze. Der Erwerb von COMP und von Wortstellungsmustern bei bilingualen Kindern (Französisch/Deutsch). Tübingen: Narr. Müller, N. 1994. Parameters cannot be reset: Evidence from the development of COMP. In Bilingual First Language Acquisition. French and German grammatical development, J.M. Meisel (ed.), 235:269, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Müller, N. 1998. Transfer in bilingual first language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1(3): 151–171. Müller, N. 2005. SELECT und funktionale Kategorien im bilingualen Erstspracherwerb: Französisch, Italienisch und Deutsch im Vergleich. Paper presented at Hamburg University. Müller, N., Cantone, K., Kupisch, T. and Schmitz, K. 2002. Zum Spracheneinfluss im bilingualen Erstspracherwerb: Italienisch – Deutsch. Linguistische Berichte 190: 157–206. Müller, N. and Hulk, A. 2000. Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual children: Object omissions and root infinitives. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, C. Howell, S.A. Fish and T. Keith-Lucas (eds), 546–557. Somerville MA: Cascadilla. Müller, N. and Hulk, A. 2001. Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 4(1): 1–21. Müller, N. and Kupisch, T. 2003. Zum simultanen Erwerb des Deutschen und des Französischen bei (un)ausgeglichen bilingualen Kindern. Vox Romanica 62: 145–169. Müller, N., Kupisch, T., Schmitz, K. and Cantone, K. 2006. Einführung in die Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung. Deutsch, Französisch, Italienisch. Tübingen: Narr. Petersen J. 1988. Word-internal code-switching constraints in a bilingual child‘s grammar. Linguistics 26: 479–493. Pillunat, A., Schmitz, K. and Müller, N. 2006. Die Schnittstelle Syntax-Pragmatik: Subjektauslassungen bei bilingual deutsch-französisch aufwachsenden Kindern. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 143, 7–24. Rehbein, J. 1992. Zur Wortstellung im komplexen deutschen Satz. In Deutsche Syntax. Ansichten und Aussichten, Hoffman L. (ed.), 523–574. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Rizzi L. 1990. Relativized Minimality. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Rizzi L. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar. Handbook in generative syntax, L. Haegeman (ed.), 281–337.Dordrecht: Kluwer. Ronjat, J. 1913. Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion. Schlyter, S. 1993. The weaker language in bilingual Swedish-French children. In Progression and Regression in Language, Hyltenstam K. and Viberg A. (eds), 289–308. Cambridge: CUP. Schmitz, K. 2004. Erwerb der Verben mit zwei Objekten durch bilingual deutsch/französisch und deutsch/italienisch aufwachsende Kinder. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Hamburg. Stern, C. and Stern W. 1928. Die Kindersprache, neu abgedruckt 1975. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Taeschner, T. 1983. The Sun is Feminine: A Study of Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children. Berlin: Springer. Tracy, R. 1995. Child Languages in Contact: Bilingual Language Acquisition in Early Childhood. Habilitationsschrift: University of Tübingen.



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Uriagereka, J. 1995. Aspects of the syntax of clitic placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26 (1): 79–124. Voyles, J. 1983. Ansätze zu einer deutschen Grammatik. Göppingen: Kümmerle.

section 2

Pronouns, topics and subjects

Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in popular 16th-18th century Greek narratives A synchronic and diachronic perspective Chrystalla A. Thoma University of Hamburg and Berlitz International, Costa Rica

The phenomenon of variation in weak object pronoun placement in Early Modern Greek has been the object of a number of studies. This paper presents some results from a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the phenomenon based on a varied corpus. The perspective taken is functional, focusing mainly on Talmy Givón’s model of referential cohesion in narrative discourse. The findings reveal a consistent pattern of variation that is statistically significant, and they provide a plausible explanation both for a functional distribution as well as the historical change leading to today’s relatively stable patterns.1

1. Introduction In the 16th-18th centuries (with few and sometimes controversial earlier cases) we find increased production of ‘low’ narrative texts, i.e. texts written in a popular, oral-like register in a language that is very similar to Modern Greek (cf. Eideneier 1999). Here ‘low’ is seen as opposed to ‘high’, a written register which attempted to emulate ancient Greek of the Classical and sometimes even of the Homeric period (cf. Toufexis in prep.). The Greek of the 16th-18th centuries is referred to as “Early Modern Greek”2 and this is the term we shall be using throughout this paper. In the ‘low’ narrative texts of our corpus we find great variation in the placement of unstressed, object pronouns before and after the verbal phrase. This ample variation is found in certain texts of the previous period as well (Late Medieval Greek) and has been the object of a number of studies. To date, no conclusive solution has been offered to the problem of possible rules, patterns or functions of the variation. Furthermore, most studies have concentrated on data from the earlier period, mostly poetic in nature, since available ‘low’ prose texts of that time are not very common.

 Chrystalla A. Thoma

Our aim with this study is to concentrate on the phenomenon in Early Modern Greek, offering new data and a new perspective to the ongoing discussion. We claim that in order to understand the diachronic mechanisms of language change we need to give more attention to this (immediately intermediate) stage of the language between Late Medieval and Modern Greek. We have little data as to the linguistic situation of this time,3 a situation partly amended through this paper. Hereby we present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the phenomenon in declarative finite clauses in a corpus comprising new texts4 which we tested with statistical methods. The results were compared to the Escorial Digenis Akritis of the Late Medieval period, the text on which Mackridge (see below) based his pioneer study of the phenomenon. A second important contribution of this study is that it offers a first functional explanation to the phenomenon according to Givón’s Syntax ([1990] 2001). With this study we are able to offer evidence for the distribution and function of the placement of the clitic5 object pronoun in Early Modern Greek in a synchronic analysis, but also a diachronic perspective on the development of its placement and function. We believe that our study complements other studies on the topic discussed below.

2. State of the art The variable placement of the clitic object pronoun in Early Modern Greek narratives has received the attention of a number of scholars who investigated it by means of different methods. Mackridge (1993, 2000) was the first one to formulate rules for the phenomenon concentrating on texts from the 11th to the 15th centuries. Pappas (2001, 2004a, b) was the first to undertake a quantitative analysis of the phenomenon on a large scale and to challenge certain claims concerning the phenomenon in Late Medieval Greek. He focussed on texts from the 12th-16th centuries, unfortunately poetic texts,6 and in one occasion also compared them to data (from both poetic and prose texts) from the 17th century. Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2001, 2004) approach the problem from the point of view of dialect groups of Greek and maintain that Late Medieval Greek appears to be a union of type A dialect syntax (such as Greek Cypriot, generally postverbal clitic placement except with focalized elements) and Type B/C dialect syntax (such as Pontic and Western dialects). Philippaki-Warburton (1995) and Horrocks (1990, 1997) focus on the generative rules governing clitic placement in Late Medieval Greek, therefore we shall not discuss their work here (for a critical view see Pappas 2004a: 93–99). Although Rollo (1989) was the first scholar to write about the phenomenon under study here, noting a similarity between Italian and Greek in this respect, we shall only mention his work very briefly for reasons made explicit in the following lines: Rollo was apparently content with merely offering a list of isolated examples from Early Modern Greek in which the clitic object pronoun appears in preverbal position (OV) and the Greek Cypriot dialect in which just the opposite happens (VO). Neither is any attempt made to offer any explanation as to the possible syntactic or functional rules



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

governing its placement, nor are preverbal object pronouns (OV) examined at all (cf. also Pappas 2004a: 31).7 His work is considered to be pioneer; nevertheless, the topic has since seen a lot of development and analysis from the scholars mentioned above to whom we turn our attention below.

2.1

The beginning: Mackridge (1993, 2000)

Mackridge mentions that he drew his inspiration from a book by Newton (1972) on the Greek Cypriot dialect which prompted him to formulate rules for the Early Modern Greek clitic object pronoun placement.8 His belief was that the rules followed in medieval prose texts we have from Cyprus (mainly Makhairas’s Chronicle), as well as in the modern dialect of Cyprus, are the same as in Early Modern Greek. He proposed that, until the 15th century, texts follow strict rules of clitic placement, something which they somehow stop doing later.9 Our intention is to investigate our data keeping in mind Mackridge’s rules, which were formulated for texts older than the ones under analysis here, in order to see whether they still apply to Early Modern Greek clitic placement variation. As most studies take these rules as their starting point and as there is no other existing set of rules for the phenomenon, we shall largely base the categorisation of our data on them. Our aim is to offer a quantitative and qualitative analysis in search of consistent use patterns of the variable position of clitic object pronouns in Early Modern Greek. However, we also examine the text Mackridge analyses (the Digenis Akritis verse epic, the Escorial version) in order to compare our results with a text of the Late Medieval period in search of similarities and differences. Concerning the Greek Cypriot dialect (in the Late Medieval period as well as today), we, along with other scholars (discussed below), disagree that the rules concerning the phenomenon in question are the same as in Late Medieval or Early Modern Greek. Greek Cypriot represents in all probability an earlier stage in language, also in the domain of unstressed object pronoun placement (cf. also Condoravdi/Kiparsky 2001,10 see also Pappas 2004a: 125) from which Standard Medieval Greek began diverging already at the time the Escorial Digenis Akritis epic was produced (see Discussion below). In Cypriot Greek, unstressed object pronouns are preverbal only in cases of clearly contrastive topics such as finite declarative clauses with strong subject pronouns or focalised NPs, objects and adverbs, or in cases of negation, interrogative, subordination and the subjunctive. If we accept that the Escorial Digenis Akritis indeed originated in the 12th century, then the divergence must have taken place even before that time. We do not wish to reproduce here the list of rules proposed by Mackridge as governing the placement of unstressed object pronouns in Late Medieval Greek (Mackridge 1993: 325). Let us just mention that according to him, postverbal is the default word order, with the verb usually at clause-initial position and following certain conjunctions and complementizers, as well as when preceded by an object to which the unstressed pronoun refers (object is fronted and the pronoun serves a doubling func-

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tion). The order is postverbal with certain elements such as the subjunctive, concessive and future particles να (na), ας (as), θα (tha), the negative particles μη (mi), μηδέν (miden), ουδέν (ouden), δεν (den) ‘not’, interrogative pronouns or adverbs, and semantically and syntactically focalised words or phrases (non-temporal adverbs, nouns or adjectives in an object noun phrase, subject or object complements), while the placement remains variable after subjects or temporal adverbs. Interestingly enough, Mackridge notes that the Escorial Digenis Akritis is the only text that consistently follows the rules.11 This of course poses intriguing questions as to the absolute force of these rules. Since we take a variationist approach to language, we propose that variation is to be expected in language and that, as we discuss below, variation can have a functional role which, we believe, it already played in Late Medieval Greek.

2.2

The quantitative dimension: Pappas

Pappas (2001, 2004a,b) gives a quantitative analysis with the purpose of re-examining and describing the phenomenon and adding a criticism to some previous proposals. Unfortunately Pappas not only uses mainly poetic works due to difficulties in finding prose texts of the period he examines (12th to 16th centuries), admittedly a problem if one wants to say something about the language of the period (cf. also Chila-Markopoulou 2004), but also editions that, to a great extent, are outdated or contain major editorial changes.12 Pappas offers the only statistical analysis of the phenomenon so far. He finds no statistical difference between fronted and focussed elements in determining clitic pronoun placement and remarks that it is in fact impossible in the texts under study to effectively tell them apart.13 Furthermore, in his statistical analysis, he finds no significant difference between the factors “preverbal subject” and “fronted temporal adverb”, possible factors influencing word order proposed by Mackridge (1993). He however finds a tendency for OV with preverbal subjects, which he sees as an epiphenomenon of metrical constraints, a problem particular to poetic discourse and a plausible explanation in view of the corpus he uses. In general, though, he tends to reaffirm Mackridge’s rules, although he states that they point to “poetic convention”, being therefore “stylistic” and not rules of the language as such; a claim however that he has not been able to prove (cf. again Chila-Markopoulou 2004).

2.3

Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2001, 2004)

Condoravdi and Kiparsky examine the phenomenon under study in the generative grammar framework. They focus on a theory of Greek dialects and their differences which, as they propose, explain the particularities of Late Medieval Greek. As mentioned above, they propose that Late Medieval Greek is the result of a mixture of type A and type B/C dialects. We see absolutely no contradiction between their study and



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

ours; indeed, we believe that they complement each other very well, as do the findings of the other studies mentioned above. Condoravdi and Kiparsky endorse the view that preverbal placement of the unstressed object pronoun depends on fronted focalized elements,14 a view not shared by Pappas as we have mentioned above. Indeed, as Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004: 167) go on to mention, “a constituent may be focussed if the speaker or writer thinks of it as contributing a particularly noteworthy or surprising piece of information, or wishes to represent it as such, but in the absence of enough syntactic and intonational cues one would have to be a mind-reader to predict when that is the case.” The contexts in which the reading is focussed beyond any doubt are not very common in written texts.

3. Type of data and methodology For this study we have opted for the analysis of 3rd person clitic object pronouns. We only analysed narrative parts, to the exclusion of dialogue, examining only finite declarative clauses in order to restrict our analysis. No particular attention was paid to the already relatively fixed word order in the cases of: OV: (δ)εν (den) ‘not’, temporal clauses, ότι (oti) ‘that’ and διότι (dioti) ‘because’, the relative pronoun όστις (ostis) ‘who’, and all subjunctive forms such as ας (as), να (na), θα (tha)‚ and μην (min). VO: participles, (the rare cases of) infinitives, imperatives In Mackridge’s list of rules, in finite clauses, focalised elements apparently correlate with preverbal clitic object pronoun placement, while absence thereof (with the exception of fronted objects) correlates with postverbal clitic object pronoun placement. With preverbal subjects and fronted adverbs there apparently exists variation in the placement. From this list it is easy to see why scholars who have based their studies on Mackridge’s work are convinced that there is no pattern in the correlations. With this set of possible correlations in mind, we have chosen to examine the correlations of placement, in our texts, with: a. b. c. d

Clause-initial verbs, Preverbal subjects, Preverbal adverbs, Preverbal objects.

A point that needs to be discussed, albeit briefly, is Mackridge’s claim that there is variation in the placement of the pronoun after temporal adverbs. This is a tricky point, as Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004) also mention, but in this case for different reasons to the ones they name. In narrative and especially oral narrative research, one-word temporal adverbials, such as τότε (tote) ‘then’, ευθύς/παρευθύς (efthis/parefthis) ‘immediately/then’ etc., are termed “discourse markers”.

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Discourse markers are “usually lexical expressions, (which) do not contribute to the propositional content of a sentence but signal different kinds of messages” (Fraser 1999: 936). They can be temporal (e.g. ‘then’), coordinating (e.g. ‘and’) or conjoining (e.g. ‘well’); characteristically, their propositional meaning has been attenuated over time due to a process of grammaticalisation (Georgakopoulou 1997: 93). The role of temporal discourse markers is not so much to anchor any statement in time, since paratactically joined clauses in narrative are expected to follow each other chronologically (Berman 1988: 473) as to express subjectivity. Their function is very different to that of long temporal fronted adverbials which give a clear temporal line to the text. These one-word temporal discourse markers show continuity in the same sense that the additive marker και (ke) ‘and’ does: they add similar, non-exceptional information. Thus their distribution between the two word orders is mixed. Temporal discourse markers were therefore not accounted for in our counting of fronted adverbs. The first part of the analysis is quantitative; it consists in a search of trends and patterns in the placing of the pronouns in the chosen texts (given below). For the statistical analysis, Student’s t-Test was used, as the results tested belonged to two distinct categories (i.e. preverbal and postverbal clitic object pronoun placement).

4. Texts under analysis As mentioned in section 2 (“State of the art”), other studies have made use of texts which present some serious problems for the analysis: They are poetic, answering therefore to metrical constraints, and they have undergone major changes by editors. Our aim is to avoid these problems by using a corpus of narrative ‘low’ (i.e. popular) texts that fulfil the requirements of (1) being prose and (2) having undergone virtually no editorial changes. Furthermore, we tried to examine enough texts in order to avoid findings that reflect an author’s personal style or one scribe’s errors. Although they are not as numerous as the texts analysed in Pappas (2004a), they sufficed for significance tests to be run, therefore representing a sufficient minimum. Most of these texts are brought together and examined in this perspective for the first time, thus offering new data to the ongoing discussion. The chosen texts consist of three ‘low’ versions of the Life of Aesop (D:1644, I: 1617 and K: 1600, edition in progress by Hans Eideneier), Maximos Kallioupolitis’s version of Luke’s Gospel (printed 1638) (Kasdaglis 1999), and part of an anthology by G. Kehayoglou (Kehayoglou 2001) which we used as one long text in order to see general tendencies (Ioannis Morezinos’s religious narrative about the Virgin Mary, Nikos Gabrielopoulos’ Chronicle about the plague of 1688, Ierotheos Avvatios’ chronicle about the earthquake of 1648, Dimitrios Pirris narrative about the plague of 1728, Papa-Lavrentios’ personal narrative from 1580, Parthenios Peloponisios’ religious narrative printed 1765, the anonymous narrative about the destruction of the island Santorini from the year 1669, the anonymous vitae of the blessed Josef Pangalos, Ioannis



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

Eleimon and Ieromartyr Vlassios probably from the 17th century, the family chronicle of Konstantinos Theodosis from the end of the 1400s, Ioannikios Kartanos’ religious narrative printed 1536, Agapios Landos’ religious narrative printed 1664), as well as Papasynadinos’s memoirs from the mid 1600s (Odorico 1996). We have also included the verse epic Digenis Akritis, the Escorial version (Alexiou 1985), probably composed in the 12th but transmitted in a single manuscript of the 15th c., in order to compare the phenomenon with that of the previous era.

5. Results In this section we give the findings from our quantitative investigation of the phenomenon, examining each of the four factors of influence on the placement of the clitic object pronoun mentioned in section 3 (“Type of Data and Methodology”). In Table 1 and Figure 1 we give the variation in placement of the object clitic pronoun when the verb is in initial (thematic) position in the clause, either with elided or postverbal subject. This correlation is only strong in the case of Digenis Akritis Escorial version, the one text given by Mackridge as consistent in following the list of rules he sets up, and the three ‘low’ versions of the Life of Aesop.15 However, when our corpus was tested as a whole with Student’s t-Test, no significant variation was found in the distribution of the two word orders with clause-initial verb. Table 1.  Clause-initial verb (tokens), in the first four texts very significant variation (** p<0.01) Clause-initial verb

VO

Aesop D Aesop I Aesop K Digenis Akritis

180 ** 164 ** 161 ** 54 **

Kallioupolitis: Luke Anthology Kehayioglou Papasynadinos Memoirs

99 154 17

OV 7 25 32 9 104 165 37

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Figure 1.  Percentages of clause-initial verb in relation to the placement of the clitic object pronoun before (OV) or after (VO) the finite verb

The second step, as given in Tables 2, 3 and 4 (below), was to examine the correlation in placement of clitic object pronouns with fronted, preverbal elements. In Table 2 and Figure 2 we give the correlation of clitic object pronoun placement with preverbal subject, as illustrated in example 4. Student’s t-Test showed that preverbal pronouns correlated very significantly with preverbal subjects.16 Table 2.  Overt subject in preverbal position (tokens), *significant (p<0.05) Preverbal subject Aesop D Aesop I Aesop K Digenis Akritis Kallioupolitis: Luke Anthology Kehayioglou Papasynadinos Memoirs

VO 7 4 6 2 2 5 1

OV * 3 5 54 16 85 69 19



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

Figure 2.  Percentages of overt subject in preverbal position in relation to the placement of the clitic object pronoun before (OV) or after (VO) the finite verb

As shown in Table 3 and Figure 3, preverbal pronouns correlated very significantly with preverbal objects with doubling pronouns.17 The results of preverbal direct object pronouns were pooled with preverbal indirect object pronouns in genitive and the rare cases of non-doubling pronouns following a preverbal object (referring to another element). The latter type occurred almost exclusively in Digenis Akritis, (5 cases with OV and 1 with VO); the reading of these cases, which are probably due to the poetic nature of the text, is not necessarily one of focalisation.18 Not only does this method not affect in any way the significance readings but it is also in accordance with the position that in our texts the placement of the clitic pronoun depends on the position of the fronted element and not on its being focalised (cf. also Pappas 2004a: 38 for a similar statement).

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Table 3.  Preverbal object with doubling pronoun (tokens), *significant (p<0.05) Fronted object Aesop D Aesop I Aesop K Digenis Akritis Kallioupolitis: Luke Anthology Kehayioglou Papasynadinos Memoirs

VO 0 0 2 1 0 0 0

OV * 1 5 1 21 3 24 4

Figure 3.  Percentages of preverbal object with doubling pronoun in relation to the placement of the clitic object pronoun before (OV) or after (VO) the finite verb

As shown in Table 4 and Figure 4, when tested for significance with Student’s t-Test, the predominant preverbal placement of the clitic object pronoun with fronted adverbs was found to be significantly more frequent.19 As mentioned in the Introduction, one-word adverbs, in reality discourse markers marking continuity such as “then”, were not counted among the adverbs in this table and were taken to have the same function as coordinating conjunctions such as “and” (cf. also Condoravdi and Kiparsky 2001). Indeed, their distribution is similar to that of coordinating conjunctions with clause-initial verbs.



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

Table 4.  Totals of correlation with fronted adverb, *significant (p<0.05) Fronted adverb Aesop D Aesop I Aesop K Digenis Akritis Kallioupolitis: Luke Anthology Kehayioglou Papasynadinos Memoirs

VO

OV*

3 7 1 1 0 1 3

8 4 7 47 6 44 17

Figure 4.  Percentages of fronted adverb in relation to the placement of the clitic object pronoun before (OV) and after (VO) the finite verb

Finally, we pooled together all the above discontinuity markers (overt subject in preverbal position, preverbal adverb and object) and counted the occurrences, as given in Table 5 and Figure 5. As expected, the tendency to have preverbal object pronouns was very strong, as a Student’s t-Test showed.20

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Table 5.  Discontinuity markers (tokens), **very significant (p<0.01) Discontinuity marker

VO

OV **

Aesop D Aesop I Aesop K Digenis Akritis Kallioupolitis: Luke Anthology Kehayioglou Papasynadinos Memoirs

10 11 9 4 2 6 4

12 14 62 84 94 147 40

Figure 5.  Percentages of discontinuity markers in relation to the placement of the clitic object pronoun before (OV) and after (VO) the finite verb

6. Discussion 6.1

Placement patterns

As seen in section 5, Results, there is variation in the placement of the clitic object pronoun when the verb is in initial (thematic) position in the clause, either with elided or postverbal subject (given in Table 1 of Results). This correlation, as given in the list of Mackridge’s rules, was expected to be very strong. Indeed, the tendency is strong in the one text Mackridge presents as consistently following the rules, the Escorial Di-



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

genis Akritis, and in the three ‘low’ versions (D, I and K) of one text, i.e. the Life of Aesop. However, when the whole corpus used for this study was tested, no significant tendency was verified. This finding indicates that older texts such as the Escorial Digenis Akritis probably followed this rule quite consistently. This is in fact corroborated by the same strong tendency found in the three versions of the Life of Aesop, which are all Early Modern Greek adaptations of older, linguistically more archaic narratives (Notis Toufexis, pers. comm.). If the tendency we see is not the author’s personal style, then it can be taken to be a remnant of an older feature. However, in our corpus of Early Modern Greek texts no significant tendency was found supporting this rule, suggesting that an important change was already underway: the position of the object clitic was at the time not yet consistently preverbal; still, neither position was preferred over the other. This finding is in direct contrast with Pappas’s findings (Pappas 2004a: 118) for this factor. In his counting, in the beginning of the 16th century we already find a relatively fixed preverbal placement of the clitic when the verb is clause-initial, a fact not corroborated by our texts. An instance from the corpus is given in example (1), taken from Digenis Akritis, in which the clitic object pronoun ‘το’ refers to the word θαμπούριν ‘tamboura’ in the previous clause and is postverbal. As described by Mackridge and also as the findings of this study reconfirm, this is typical in this text when the verb occurs at thematic position or when preceded by a coordinating conjunction such as (in this case) και (ke) ‘and’. (1)

Digenis Akritis Escorial (15. century) (Και επήρεν το θαμπούριν του) και αποκατάστησέν το (And he took his tamboura) and string-3SG-PAST it-PRO-ACC And he took his tamboura and strung it

In contrast, in Kallioupolitis translation of the Gospel of Luke from Hellenistic into early Modern Greek, we find great variation in the placement of the clitic object pronoun. In example (2) we see a sentence in which all placements occur postverbally with the verb at clause initial position. (2) Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke (1638) Και έφερέ τον εις την Ιερουσαλήμ και έστησέν τον απάνου εις την άκρην του ιερού και είπε τον: And bring-3SG-PAST him-PRO-ACC to Jerusalem and place-3SG-PAST him-PRO-ACC on the edge of the altar and say-3SG-PAST- him-PRO-ACC: And he brought him to Jerusalem and placed him on the edge of the altar and said to him: In example (3) from the same text and by the same author/translator, in an apparently comparable co-text, the clitic object pronoun τον occurs preverbally. (3) Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke (1638) Και τον έδωκαν βιβλίον του Ησαίου του προφήτου·

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And him-PRO-ACC give-3PL-PAST book of Isaiah the prophet; And they gave him the book of Isaiah the prophet; We then showed that the factor “preverbal subject” correlates significantly with proclitic object pronouns (as given in Table 2 of Results). Mackridge (2000: 133) mentions that further investigation is needed in this respect.21 Although Pappas (2001) mentions numbers that speak of the same tendency in his data, he ascribes it to poetic constraints. Indeed, in his corpus analysis he only found limited evidence of such a tendency even though his core corpus reaches into the 16th century, thus already into Early Modern Greek (Pappas 2004a: 42). In our corpus the tendency is significant; the finding is also valid for Digenis Akritis, indicating that already in Late Medieval Greek this factor played an important role in the case of preverbal placement of the object clitic. A functional explanation is given below (section 6.2).22 Examples (4), (5) and (6) illustrate this significant tendency in our corpus. The preverbal subjects are not focussed (i.e. not contrastive) and this is the norm of preverbal subjects in our corpus (cf. also Pappas 2004b)23 despite the fact that the position is still not fixed. (4)

Life of Aesop K (1600) Και ο δεσπότης τον λέγει And the master-NOM him-PRO-ACC say-3SG-PRESENT And the master tells him

(5)

Vita of the blessed Josef Pangalos (ca. 17th century) Και ο άγιος τα εδέχθη και έφαγε And the saint them-PRO-ACC accept-3SG-PAST- and eat-3SG-PAST And the saint accepted and ate them

(6) Papasynadinos`s memoirs (1600s) Και οι τούρκοι το εγύρισαν αλλέως, το πως είπεν τον τούρκον, οπού τα πουλεί, χριστιανόν And the Turks-NOM it-PRO-ACC turn-3PL -PAST differently, it-PRO-ACC that say-3SG-PAST Turk-ACC, who sell-3SG-PAST them-PRO-ACC, Christian-ACC And the Turks distorted it, saying that he had called the Turk who sold them a Christian Preverbal object pronouns correlated significantly with preverbal object with (doubling) pronoun (as shown in Table 3 of Results). This is important because preverbal objects are rarely focussed24 thus dispelling the idea that focusing is the main factor in preverbal placement of the clitic pronoun already in Late Medieval Greek. Pappas (2004a: 42–43) also found the same tendency for preverbal placement, although in a previous study of his (Pappas 2001: 81) he found that in “most of the instances in which the ‘doubling pronoun’ appears preverbally, the doubled element is some form of the adjective όλος.” Still, his latest view, corroborated by our findings, suggests that



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

already in Late Medieval Greek the pattern existed and was retained through Early Modern to Modern Greek, illustrated here by examples (7), (8), (9), and (10). (7) Kartanos (1536) Την τετάρτην την είχαν δια τα ζώα The-ART-DEF-FEM-ACC Wednesday-ACC it-PRO-FEM-ACC have-3PLIMPERFECT for the animals-PL-ACC As for Wednesday, they had it for the animals (8) Gabrielopoulos (1688) Τούτον τον λογισμόν τους τον έβαλαν και εις πράξην This-PRO-MASC-ACC the-ART-MASC-ACC thought-ACC it-PRO-MASCACC put-3PL-PAST and in action-ACC This thought of theirs, they translated it into action (9) Ioannis Morezinos’s religious narrative about the Virgin Mary (ca. 17th century) Τούτα τα είπεν εις όλους την νύκταν απού την επήρασιν These-PRO–ACC-PL them-PRO-ACC say-3SG-PAST to all-ACC the nightACC that her-ACC take-3PL-PAST These, she talked about them to all the night that they took her

(10) Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke (1638 ) Και πολλούς τυφλούς τους εχάρισε το φως τους And many-ACC-PL blind-ACC-PL them-PRO-ACC give-3SG-PAST their light-ACC And to many blind, he gave to them their sight The correlation of preverbal object pronouns with preverbal adverbs was also found to be significant (as given in Table 4 of Results). This difference in our findings from the findings of other scholars (for example Pappas 2004b) is probably due to the fact that we pooled together all adverbs since we propose that any preverbal adverb can and does affect the placement of the clitic. Furthermore, since we filtered temporal discourse markers such as “then”, the picture changed even more, finally resulting in a strong tendency. Examples (11), (12), (13) and (14) illustrate the patterning of a preverbal clitic object pronoun following a preverbal adverb. (11)

Life of Aesop I (1617) Πολλά του εβαρυφάνη Much-ADV him-PRO-MASC-GEN (heavy appear)-PAST He took it to heart

(12)

Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke (1638) Και με τα μαλλία της κεφαλής της τα εσφούγγιζε And with the hair-ACC of her head them-PRO-ACC-PL wipe-3PL-IMPERFECT And she wiped them with her hair

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(13) Ioannis Morezinos’s religious narrative about the Virgin Mary (ca. 17th century) Και τυφλώνουνται από τον εχθρόν, και μίαν ημέραν τηνε πιάνουσι και λέγουσίν της And blind-3PL-PR-PASSIVE by the enemy-ACC, and one day her-PRO-ACC take-3PL-PRESENT and say-3PL-PRESENT her-PRO-GEN And they are blinded by the enemy and one day they take her and tell her (14) Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke (1638) Και από τα κεραμίδια τον εκατάβασαν μαζί με το κρεβάτι εις την μέσην και έβαλάν τον μπροστά εις τον Ιησούν And from the roof tiles-ACC him-PRO-ACC lower-3PL-PAST with the bedACC in the middle-ACC and place-3PL-PAST him-PRO-ACC before JesusACC And from the roof tiles they lowered him with his bed in the middle and placed him before Jesus Supported by our findings given in Table 5 (cf. “Results”), a relatively clear picture of the placement of the clitic object pronoun in Early Modern Greek emerges in our study. Preverbal placement appears with highly significant frequency with preverbal (fronted) elements, which in their majority appear not to be focussed (see Pappas 2004a: 118 for similar findings in a brief overview of 17th century texts). These preverbal elements mentioned above correspond to discontinuity markers in Givón’s (1983, 1992) model of referential cohesion in narrative discourse and are supposed to have a functional role: they indicate junctures in the narrative line which correspond to “major topics”. Givón’s theory as it concerns our findings and the question of the functional role of clitic object placement pronoun is examined below (section 6.2). Our findings present another perspective on the ongoing discussion concerning the factors influencing the placement of unstressed object pronouns in earlier periods of Greek. Let us now see if the patterns presented above fit into a functional, both synchronic and diachronic, framework.

6.2

A functional synchronic explanation

Givón is one of the main representatives of the school of Typological discourse analysis (TDA). TDA pays particular attention to word order phenomena in a variety of languages and connects them to information distribution in discourse and to iconicity principles inside the boundaries of the clause, and in discourse (interclausally and intersententially). TDA pays close attention to referent tracking mechanisms and episodic memory retrieval and activation. According to Givón (1992: 6) “the grammar of referential coherence is not primarily about reference. Rather it is about identifying and activating the locations (“mental files”, “storage nodes”) where verbally coded text is stored in episodic memory.”



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

Narrative discourse is about “referents”, entities stable in time which can be topical (nominal) or adverbial (Givón 1979: 320–324). Referential cohesion tracks these referents and brings them back into the foreground when needed after having been relayed to a backgrounded position for a while or when the mention of other referents interferes and makes their mental retrieval difficult. The junctures in discourse where referents are brought back into the foreground are marked by long fronted discontinuity elements, i.e. nominal and adverbial groups mostly, certainly not pronouns and especially not elements for which mental retrieval is the easiest such as clitic pronouns. According to Givón (2001), in discourse we find chains of ‘primary’ (subjects) and ‘secondary’ (objects) topics. They are tracked according to the principles of iconicity and referential cohesion. The maximum degree of continuity (facility of retrieval) for subjects corresponds to zero anaphora, whereas for objects it corresponds to clitic pronouns (in Greek at least), as illustrated here for Early Modern Greek in an example from The Life of Aesop (also valid for today’s Modern Greek). Continuity (accessible topics): (Ø) ήφερεν τα (no subject) (verb) (clitic pronoun) (He) brought them Discontinuity (non-accessible/salient topics): Κάποιος γεωργός ήφερεν σύκα (explicit subject) (verb) (explicit object) A farmer brought figs We hereby propose a cohesive function of the variation in pronoun placement, an extra dimension added to the already cohesive referential nature of clitic pronouns as continuity markers of secondary topic cohesion, as illustrated above. As we have seen, preverbal clitic object pronouns co-occur with fronted elements in our Early Modern Greek corpus. The larger the fronted element, the more important the break in discourse, and the greater the processing difficulty and mental effort, creating therefore discontinuity junctures. Given by Givón as the “code quantity principle”, the definition is as follows: “The less predictable the information is, or the more important, the more prominent, distinct or large will be the code element(s) that convey it” (Givón 2001: 249). The association of this principle with word order becomes clear in the following statement: “the less predictable the information is or the more important, the more likely it is to be placed earlier in the clause (or in whatever relevant unit of structured information)” (Givón 2001: 250). We suggest that the function of preverbal placement of the clitic object pronoun is to intensify the effect of a discontinuity, or break, in discourse. The placement follows not only prosodic reasons (although this might also be the case), but certainly pragmatic reasons: the preverbal placing of the clitic, which causes it to appear between the fronted, discontinuous element and the verbal group, effectively demarcates the former and plac-

 Chrystalla A. Thoma

es it apart, giving it more emphasis. The relation to memory is defined as follows: “more prominent and more distinct coding attracts more attention”, and “information that attracts more attention is memorized, stored and retrieved more efficiently” (Givón 2001: 250). The demarcation is not only effectuated by means of prosody, since the clitic is unaccented, but also by means of a “low” point in information flow: the clitic pronoun is the entity that is easiest to retrieve from the previous clause or a clause that occurred not far back in discourse. The author takes for granted the fact that the reader/listener will not find it difficult to infer which referent is being talked about. With all the attention of the reader/listener already turned to the initial, longer and information-loaded element, a “break” in the reader/listener’s attention is helpful so that another element might follow with new information: a verb perhaps, or an object. We propose, therefore, that by means of syntactic and prosodic management, discontinuous elements (preverbal subjects, objects and adverbs) are made to stand out, creating clear junctures in discourse, a function in which the placement of clitic object pronouns appears to play an important role. This functional role was possible due to the variation in the placement of the clitic for a long period of time until late in the history of the Greek language; indeed, as our study clearly shows, important variation exists at least until the 18th century, as opposed to Pappas’s (2004a: 117) claim (cf. also Chila-Markopoulou 2004 for the same criticism), a claim perhaps based on his choice of poetic texts.

6.3

Diachronic perspective on clitic placement

The lack of stress and placement of clitic pronouns in the clause are very probably intertwined. For some time it has been known that certain positions in the clause correlate with the placement of clitics: mainly clause-second and postverbal (cf. Janse 2000: 237). The first case (clause-second placement) has received most of the attention. The famous Wackernagel’s law, which proposed that the clause-second position is reserved for clitic elements, is quoted in the majority of studies on clitics and is concerned with exactly this position in the clause. This has since been interpreted as “the first position is reserved for stressed elements”. Now, as Janse (2000: 234) accurately observes, the stress on the first position is closely linked to discourse-pragmatic reasons. It seems that prosody, like word order, follows mainly pragmatic reasons.25 The first constituent of a clause is sometimes focalised (contrastive), and for this reason receives the strongest stress in the clause. Most often, though, the literature does not mention anything about the stress of preverbal, non-focalised elements. Yet it is clear that they also carry stress, albeit not as strong as the one of focalised elements. The term “unstressed pronoun” emphasises just that: other elements in the clause carry the stress. The placement of the clitic right after preverbal elements follows, apart from discourse-pragmatic, also prosodic reasons, an opinion shared by Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004: 175), albeit, in their view, due to syntactic reasons.



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

Now we shall turn our attention to the second option, the postverbal placement. As Givón (2001: 423) points out, weak elements often cliticise on the verb because it is the element that is usually present in a clause; participants such as subjects and objects are often elided in cases of referential continuity. Verbs are hardly ever focalised in Greek, except perhaps in cases of imperative or subjunctive expressing command, and they do not carry strong stress, even if they are at thematic position in the clause. But verbs do carry stress, especially if they stand at clause-initial position with no preverbal, fronted element present. That must be the reason behind the placement of the clitic pronouns in postverbal position; see also Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004: 179).26 Essentially the first concern of word order is to serve discourse cohesion and therefore the episodic memory (Givón 1992: 5 et passim, for Ancient Greek see Dik 1994, 1995, for Modern Greek see Thoma 2006). Clause prosody, just like word order, serves the same function and places certain groups of grammatical words in certain positions in the clause; in those positions they do not disturb the function of lexical words carrying most of the informational content and cohesive power of the clause in discourse. These positions become later grammaticalised and fixed (as it happened in German and English for instance) and over time lose their discourse-pragmatic power in order to become clitics and affixes, resulting in a renewal of the circle. This “fixing of discourse strategies” (Traugott 1994) allows for new elements to take over the discourse-pragmatic role. This development of clitic pronouns seems to mirror the development of Greek pronouns from ancient Greek to this day. In ancient Greek we find clitics that tend to appear in second position in the clause, enclitic on the first constituent (Horrocks 1990: 36, Janse 2000: 233). The situation apparently changes in Hellenistic Greek, when clitic pronouns (1st and 2nd person, still no 3rd person clitic pronouns) get attached to the verbal group as a result of reanalysis (Horrocks 1990: 41), and appear postverbally even in cases of focalised fronted constituents, probably as a result of language contact with Aramaic and Hebrew, languages which have pronominal suffixes instead of clitic pronouns (Janse 2000: 237). In Medieval Greek we see the emergence of 3rd person clitic object pronouns (Mackridge 2000: 135). As Mackridge (1993: 225) aptly remarks, the placement of clitic pronouns is not really ‘free’. There is a very real possibility that the placement initially followed a pattern similar to today’s Greek Cypriot dialect, in which finite declarative clauses present fixed postverbal placement except in the case of focalised (contrastive) fronted constituents which, for prosodic reasons, attract the clitic to preverbal position. The proposal for this phase in the development of the placement of clitic object pronouns will remain for the time being tentative, since neither is there any proof that postverbal placement became fixed at any one point, offering ground for comparison with Greek Cypriot, nor that preverbal placement correlated at any given time in the history of Standard Greek only with focalised constituents. In Early Modern Greek, fronted elements, not necessarily contrastive, attract clitic pronouns to preverbal position, until that position becomes the norm and is grammaticalised in Standard Modern Greek. A similar process has taken place in

 Chrystalla A. Thoma

the Romance languages, most probably due to a similar process (cf. Martins 1994 for Portuguese, Rivero 1991 and Fontana 1993 for Spanish, cf. also Pappas 2004a).

6.4

Possible causes for patterning OV with clause-initial verb

In today’s Standard Modern Greek (in contrast to dialects such as Greek Cypriot), clitic object pronouns have become strictly proclitic on the verb, except in the case of the imperative or participle. In our Early Modern Greek corpus, the placement of the clitic object pronoun after clause-initial verb is variable. However, in certain, especially older texts, there is a tendency for the clitic pronoun to follow the clause-initial verb (see subsection 6.1), while in other, more recent texts we find a tendency to have the clitic pronoun come before the verb. If we accept that the first placement (postverbal) is the older one and that preverbal placement originated in cases of focalised and then fronted elements, the question remains why we find such variation with clause-initial verbs, a variation which obviously led to today’s relatively fixed proclitic placement. We shall propose here very briefly two possible reasons: 1 Analogy (“echo structures”, Janse 1994: 439, 1998: 262): There is the possibility of patterning the clitic object pronoun after the first clause of clause complex, as in example (15): (15) Kallioupolitis: Gospel of Luke 1638 Και ο Ιησούς τον επίασε και τον ιάτρευσε και τον απόλυσε And Jesus-NOM him-PRO-ACC take-3SG-PAST, him-PRO-ACC heal-3SGPAST and him-PRO-ACC let go-3SG-PAST And Jesus took him, and healed him and let him go 2 Hypercorrection: There is the possibility of patterning the clitic object pronoun after the subjunctive structure which is always used with preverbal pronouns when the declarative clause can be interpreted as such: (16)

Pirris (1728) Έτσι έδωκαν θέλημα και την έθαψαν (= έτσι έδωκαν θέλημα να τη θάψουν) Thus give-3PL-PAST order-ACC and her-PRO-ACC bury-3PL-PAST Thus they ordered and they buried her (= that they should bury her)

The above are indications of the process that finally led to the grammaticalisation of the preverbal position of the clitic object pronoun in Standard Modern Greek.

7. Conclusions The findings of this study can be summarised as follows: In the time period under investigation, clitic object pronouns appear quite consistently in postverbal position



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

with verb in clause-initial position in some texts which probably originated in the earlier period; otherwise, the placement appears to be random, indicative of a period of change. A significant correlation was shown to exist between preverbal clitic object pronouns and discontinuity elements (preverbal subjects, objects and adverbs) in clause-initial position. We propose that this correlation can be explained as due to the function of the position of clitic object pronouns which consists in allowing the demarcation of stressed, emphasized chunks of information (mostly topics, i.e. nominal or adverbial groups but also very often verbs in initial position) which indicate junctures of new episodes by re-introducing central referents of a narrative line. Due to their placement and lack of stress and information load, clitic pronouns enable the reader/listener to manage information in the clause better, by creating a “low” in information, reflected also in their lack of stress, signalling the end of an important unit, as well as by creating expectations for more important information to follow. As our findings also show, in Early Modern Greek texts the placement of clitic object pronouns still varies, especially in cases of verbs at clause-initial position; however in some texts they do show a predisposition for preverbal placement, foreshadowing their fixed preverbal position in Standard Modern Greek. The findings of this study are reliable because the editions chosen are without major changes and the texts are prose, avoiding thus metrical constraints on the placement of the clitics. Moreover, the findings are also valid for the Late Medieval epic Digenis Akritis. From the point of view of diachronic change, we propose that postverbal placement of clitic pronouns is probably older (following Wackernagel’s law) than the preverbal. As in Greek Cypriot and other eastern dialects (as Mackridge already proposed), preverbal placement was probably once exclusive to focalised contrastive constructions, such as focalised subjects, objects and adverbs. Later, in the time under study here, it obviously became the norm with general discontinuity patterns of preverbal subjects, objects and adverbs. This pattern was generalised in the end, resulting in today’s fixed preverbal placement in Standard Greek, whereas dialects such as Cypriot or Cappadocian retained the older word order, probably due to linguistic isolation (see Pappas 2004a). We also suggest that the grammaticalisation process of clitisation in Greek was halted due to the emergence of a written (narrative) register which imitated in many ways spoken language (cf. Eideneier 1999, 2002) and by choosing to write clitic object pronouns as separate words stopped the cycle which probably would have led to them being seen as affixes.

Notes 1. This investigation has taken place in the framework of “Research Centre 538: Multilingualism” under the auspices of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Our thanks to Prof. Dr. Hans Eideneier (Hamburg), Dr. Carlos Jiménez (Bremen), Dr. Notis Toufexis (Cambridge) and Dr. Ludger Zeevaert (Hamburg) and the anonymous reviewers for their advice and comments.

 Chrystalla A. Thoma 2. According to Horrocks (1997: 291ff.) these texts belong to Early Modern Greek and not to Late Medieval, a period ending with the fall of Constantinople. However, these are conventional distinctions; language does not always change immediately or entirely when a new historical period begins. We thank the anonymous reviewer for their comment. 3. This period has been under intensive scrutiny in the historical project H4: “Forms of Written discourse in Byzantine and Modern Greek Diglossia” under the direction of Prof. Dr. Hans Eideneier at “Research Centre 538: Multilingualism” (University of Hamburg). 4. We thank both anonymous reviewers for their comments on this point. Pappas (2004a) indeed looks at texts from the 17th century, although his sources are not mentioned and our findings are not exactly the same. Most texts here are studied for the first time, and their editions are reliable. 5. Clitic here is understood as bound to the finite verb (cf. Mackridge 1993: 317, Janse 2000: 244) but not as part of it. 6. Pappas (2004a) states that in his main corpus he examines the phenomenon in both Late Medieval and Early Modern Greek. However, his texts of Early Modern Greek are only three poetic texts from the beginnings of the 16th century (Pappas 2004a: 21). 7. “Rollo overestimated the importance of postverbal pronoun placement in a number of environments, most notably those of preceding subject and adverb” (Pappas 2004a: 33). 8. “The realization of the medieval rules came to me after reading Newton (Newton 1972: 64).” (Mackridge 2000: 135). 9. “[...] the rules seem to display a certain instability.” (Mackridge 1993: 326). 10. “[...] the system of the A-type dialects must be the most archaic of the three” […] “the syntax of A-dialects is closest to the medieval Greek system, as sketched out in Mackridge (1993)”. It is mentioned later on that A-type dialects include Greek Cypriot. 11. “[...] the redactor and/or scribe of the Escorial Digenis Akritas displays a remarkable consistency in his application of the rules governing the position of the clitic pronoun, in contrast with the situation prevailing in certain other texts […]” (Mackridge 1993: 338). 12. See also Chila-Markopoulou (2004: 2). It is common knowledge among editors of Late Medieval and Early Modern Greek texts that 19th c. editions (especially those by W. Wagner used by Pappas) are unreliable and should only be used with great caution. For a general discussion of modern editorial practices see Eideneier, Moennig and Toufexis (2001). 13. “In fact, without the necessary prosodic information (i.e. information about sentence stress), this distinction between topic and focus is hard to confirm based on the surrounding context alone.” (Pappas 2001: 86). 14. “If it is a topic, it occurs with postverbal clitics; if it is a focus, it occurs with preverbal clitics.” (Condoravdi and Kiparsky 2004: 166, here referring to preverbal subjects and adverbials). 15. Significance (one tail): df= 4, p= 0.000050872, t= 2.77644511 16. Significance (one tail): df= 8, p= 0.0135777277, t= -2.69806094 17. Significance (one tail): df= 8, p= 0.01768578, t= -2.52788826 18. “A further complication is that in certain types of presentational sentences, even modern Greek literary style allows topicalization of objects without clitic doubling” (Condoravdi and Kiparsky 2004: 167).



Distribution and function of clitic object pronouns in 16th–18th century Greek narratives 

19. Significance (one tail): df= 8, p= 0.0219835339, t= -2.3883769 20. Significance (one tail): df= 14, p= 0.003740025, t= -3.12316895 21. “Another area that needs investigation is the situation after subjects.” (Mackridge 2000: 136). 22. Janse also brings up the possibility of discourse pragmatic reasons governing the preverbal placement of clitic object pronouns with subject in initial position in two papers (Janse 1994, 1998); in a line of argument similar to that of Mackridge he claims that the reason is that preverbal subjects constitute information focus. As Pappas (2004a: 58) points out, this is not shown to be a sufficient condition for preverbal placement of the clitic; furthermore, he claims, this is apparently not the case in Late Medieval Greek. 23. “[...] fronted constituents are more likely to be focused elements than subjects“ (Pappas 2004b). 24. This is in reality a case of so-called ‘left dislocation’ of the object (Givón 2001), as in the English example “the house, he sold it”, in which the object is not New information, only topicalised. This also explains why it can not be seen as a focussed construction (see also Tzartzanos 1931 for the same idea, i.e. that doubling pronouns are connected to Given information, as well as Philippaki-Warburton 1995 and Haberland and van der Auwera 1990 for the connection of doubling pronouns to Topicality. See discussion of Objects as Secondary Topics in Givón’s model. We thank the anonymous reviewer for this comment). 25. For a different view on this matter see Revithiadou (2006). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewer for bringing this study to our attention. 26. In this sense we take weak object pronouns to be enclitic (so do Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004) as opposed to Pappas (2004a).

References Alexiou, S. (ed.). 1985. Βασίλειος Διγενής Ακρίτης (κατά το χειρόγραφο του Εσκοριάλ) και το Άσμα του Αρμούρη. Κριτική έκδοση. Athens. Berman, R. 1988. On the ability to relate events in narrative. Discourse Processes 11: 469–497. Chila-Markopoulou, D. 2004. Review of Panayotis A. Pappas. Variation and Morphosyntactic Change in Greek: From clitics to affixes. Journal of Greek Linguistics 5: 199–212. Condoravdi, C. and Kiparsky, P. 2001. Clitics and clause structure. Journal of Greek Linguistics 2:1–39. Condoravdi, C. and Kiparsky, P. 2004. Clitics and clause structure: The late medieval Greek system. Journal of Greek Linguistics 5: 159–180. Dik, H. 1994. Ancient Greek warfare: A case study in constituent ordering. In Function and Expression in Functional Grammar, E. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Falster Jakobsen and L. Schack Rasmussen (eds), 197–213. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Dik, H. 1995. Word Order in Ancient Greek. A pragmatic account of word order variation in Herodotus. Amsterdam: Gieben. Eideneier H. 1999. Von Rhapsodie zu Rap: Aspekte der griechischen Sprachgeschichte von Homer bis heute, Tübingen: Narr. Eideneier, H., Moennig, U. and Toufexis, Ν. (eds.). 2001. Θεωρία και πράξη των εκδόσεων της υστεροβυζαντινής, αναγεννησιακής και μεταβυζαντινής δημώδους γραμματείας. Πρακτικά του διεθνούς συνεδρίου Neograeca Medii Aevi IVa. Αμβούργο 28.-31.1.1999, Ηράκλειο:

 Chrystalla A. Thoma Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης (Theory and practice in the editions of Late Medieval Renaissance and Post-Byzantine popular literature). In Proceedings of the International Conference Neograeca Medii Aevi Iva, Hamburg 28.-31.1.1999. Herakleion: University Press Crete. Eideneier, H. 2002. Rhetorik und Stil – der griechische Beitrag [AZM, Working Papers in Multilingualism. Series B 43]. Hamburg: University of Hamburg, Research Centre 538 Multilingualism. Fontana, J. 1993. Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Fraser, B. 1999. What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics 31: 931–952. Georgakopoulou, A. 1997. Narrative Performances: A study of Modern Greek storytelling, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Givón, T. 1979. On Understanding Grammar. New York NY: Academic Press. Givón, T. [11990] 2001. Syntax: A functional-typological introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Givón, T. 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: The functional domain of switch reference. In Switch Reference and Universal Grammar, J. Haiman and P. Munro (eds.), 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Givón, T. 1992. The grammar of referential coherence as mental processing instructions. Linguistics 30: 5–55. Haberland, H., and van der Auwera, J. 1990. Topics and clitics in Greek relatives. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 22: 127–157. Horrocks, G.. 1990. Clitics in Greek: A diachronic review. In Greek Outside Greece II, M. Roussou and S. Panteli (eds), 35–52. Athens: Diaspora. Horrocks, G. C. 1997. Greek: A history of the language and its speakers. London: Longman. Janse, M. 1994. Son of Wackernagel: The distribution of object clitic pronouns in Cappadocian. In Themes in Greek Linguistics I, I. Philippaki-Warburton, K. Nicolaidis and M. Sifianou (eds), 435–442. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Janse, M. 1998. Cappadocian clitics and the syntax-morphology interface. In Themes in Greek Linguistic II, B. Joseph, G. C. Horrocks, and I. Philippaki-Warburton (eds), 257–281. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Janse, M. 2000. Convergence and divergence in the development of the Greek and Latin clitic pronouns. In Stability, Variation and Change of Word-Order Patterns over Time, R. Sornicola, E. Poppe and A. Shisha-Halevy (eds), 231–258. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mackridge, P. 1993. An editorial problem in the Medieval Greek texts: The position of the object clitic pronoun in the Escorial Digenes Akrites. In Neograeca Medii Aevi, N. M. Panayiotakis (ed.), 325–342. Venice. Mackridge, P. 2000. The position of the weak object pronoun in medieval and modern Greek. Yazik I Rechevaya Deyatel’Nost’ [St. Petersburg] 3. Martins, A. M. 1994. Clíticos na história do português. PhD dissertation, University of Lisbon. Newton, B. 1972. Cypriot Greek: Its phonology and inflections. Hague: Mouton. Pappas, P. 2001. Weak object pronoun placement in later Medieval Greek: Intralinguistic parameters affecting variation. OSUWPL 56: 79–106. Pappas, P. 2004a. Variation and Morphosyntactic Change in Greek: From clitics to affixes. Hampshire: Palgrave. Pappas, P. 2004b. Medieval Greek weak object pronouns and analogical change: A response to Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2001). Journal of Greek Linguistics 5: 127–158.



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Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1995. Διαχρονική θεώρηση της θέσης των εγκλιτικών μέσα στην πρόταση. Studies in Greek Linguistics 15: 123–134. Revithiadou, A. 2006. Prosodic filters on syntax: An interface account of second position clitics. Lingua 116: 79–111. Rivero, M. 1991. Clitic and NP climbing in Old Spanish. In Current studies in Spanish linguistics, H. Campos and F. Martínez-Gil (eds.), 241–282. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Rollo, A. 1989. L’ uso dell’ enclisi nel Greco volgare dal XII al XVII secolo e la legge Tobler-Mussafia. Italoellinika 2: 135–146. Thoma, C. 2006. Combining Functional Linguistics and Translation Theories: A case study of Greek Cypriot and British folktales. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Traugott, E. C. 1994. Grammaticalization and lexicalization. In The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, R. E. Asher and J.M.Y. Simpson (eds), Vol. 3, 1481–86. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Toufexis, N. In prep. Defining HIGH and LOW from a typological perspective. A case-study of the Early Modern Greek intralingual translations of the Life of Aesop. University of Hamburg. Toufexis, N. In prep. Register variation and the grammar of Medieval Greek. University of Cambridge. Tzartzanos, A. A. [11931] 1999. Νεοελληνική Σύνταξις (της Κοινής Δημοτικής) (Modern Greek Syntax of demotic Greek) Vol. I – II, Athens: Kyriakides Bros Ltd.

Sources Digenis Akritis: Jeffreys, E. (ed.) 1998: Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial versions. Cambridge: CUP. Kallioupolitis: Kasdaglis, E. C. (ed.) 1998: Η Καινή διαθήκη του Κυρίου Ημών Ιησού Χριστού. Athens: MIET, 1995–1998. Kehayoglou Anthology: Kehayoglou, G. (ed.) 2003: Πεζογραφική Aνθολογία: Αφηγηματικός γραπτός νεοελληνικός λόγος. Τόμος Α΄: Από τα τέλη του Βυζαντίου ως τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση, σελ. 1–760, Τόμος Β΄: Από τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση ως τη δημιουργία του ελληνικού κράτους, σελ. 761–1504 Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki, Institute for Modern Greek Studies, Manolis Triantafyllides Institute. Life of Aesop: Papathomopoulos, M. (ed.) 1999: Πέντε δημώδεις μεταφράσεις του Βίου του Αισώπου. Athes: Papadimas. Der Äsoproman: Eideneier, H. (ed.) In prep.: (electronic text). Papasynadinos Memoirs: Odorico, P. (ed.) 1996: Αναμνήσεις και συμβουλές του Συναδινού, ιερέα Σερρών στη Μακεδονία, 17ος αιώνας. Association Pierre Belon: Athens, Paris.

Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English Lukas Pietsch University of Hamburg

Hiberno-English (Irish English) dialects have developed an innovative grammatical pattern where the pronominal subject of an embedded gerund clause is marked with nominative instead of accusative or genitive case. This paper traces the use of this structure in older forms of Hiberno-English and contrasts it with corresponding patterns in Standard English and in Irish. It is argued that the development of the pattern is indirectly due to structural transfer from Irish, although superficially the resulting distribution of nominative and accusative pronoun forms in Hiberno-English differs crucially from that in both the substrate and the superstrate language.

1. Introduction1 The language contact situation between Irish and English in Ireland has long been recognised as a veritable hotbed of contact-induced language change phenomena. Starting in the 17th and culminating in the mid-19th century, a situation of migration, societal bilingualism and subsequent mass language shift have led to the emergence of a set of highly divergent dialects of English which show very marked traces of influence from the Irish substrate (Filppula 1999, Hickey ed. 2005). Given the intensity of the contact, it is not surprising that these effects have permeated virtually all domains of linguistic organisation, from discourse through phonology and grammar. According to Matras (this vol.), clause-combining strategies, such as complementation constructions, appear to be a domain particularly susceptible to contact-induced change. As Matras notes, such convergence effects need not involve actual borrowing of formal material, but may also happen through a replication of more abstract properties of the constructions involved, or in his words, a “fusion” of rules of form-function mapping. It will be one effect of this kind that will form the focus of this paper. One of the means of coding inter-clausal connectivity employed prominently by English is the use of non-finite verb forms (infinitives, gerunds and participles) in subordinate clauses. As in many other languages, the use of non-finite clauses in Eng-

 Lukas Pietsch

lish involves not only a special morphological coding of the verb, but in many instances a re-organisation of the basic clausal architecture as a whole, especially with respect to the licensing and case marking of nominal arguments of the verb. This is a feature that English shares – although with characteristic differences in detail – with its neighboring and contact language, Irish. Certain forms of Hiberno-English dialects seem to have diverged from Standard English in a way that may strike the observer as surprising. While in Standard English, subject arguments of gerund clauses are coded exclusively as either genitives or accusatives, Hiberno-English instead allows nominative-marked subjects in this position, as shown in the 19th-century attestation in (1):

(1) My sister Bridget stopped with her old missus after I leaving [Normil04, 1855]

Although there is a considerable amount of literature on the grammar of HibernoEnglish, and on the question of possible contact-related influences on it, this phenomenon has so far not featured prominently in the discussion. If at all, it has usually been mentioned only in passing, in connection with the somewhat better-known issue of the subordinating use of and (see Section 2.2.2 below). However, the issue of non-finite nominative subject (henceforth NNS) constructions is interesting in its own right, and it has ramifications well beyond the subordinating and cases. In this article, I will provide a contrastive analysis of the relevant aspects of the grammars of Irish, Standard English, and Hiberno-English, focussing first on the morphological system of case-marking, and then on the syntactic structures encountered in non-finite clauses. In doing so, I will also provide a first descriptive outline documenting NNS constructions in older forms of Hiberno-English, based on data from a corpus of subliterary 18th and 19th century texts.2 In conclusion, I shall then sketch out a scenario of how the NNS constructions may have developed in Hiberno-English. I will argue that the use of nominative pronouns is not explainable in a straightforward way as a simple transfer feature from Irish, because (at least at first sight) it would seem that the corresponding structures in Irish should, if anything, have reinforced the use of accusative pronouns in these positions, as they are used in many other present-day varieties of English. I will then argue, on the other hand, that transfer of a rather more subtle kind did take place after all: it proceeded not from a simple equivalence relation between surface grammatical forms of the two languages, but rather from more abstract properties of the constructional frames in which these forms appear. This abstract, indirect transfer seems to have led to a rather paradoxical result, insofar as it has led to a surface distribution of forms that differs crucially both from Standard English and from Irish.



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

2. English and Irish in contrast English and Irish, while differing sharply from each other in their general typological characteristics in many important ways, nevertheless share a good deal of common ground in the use of non-finite verb forms in embedded clauses. A central role in Irish grammar is played by the verbal noun (VN). Besides being used in a periphrastic construction to mark a progressive, it corresponds in many of its other uses to either an English gerund or a to-infinitive. While there is a great deal of functional overlap between these categories in both languages, both of them also display a fair amount of internal variation in their use. It is with respect to one aspect of this variation that I will compare the grammars of the two languages in this paper: the question of case-marking and syntactic licensing of overt subject arguments of the gerund/verbal-noun clauses.

2.1

The case systems of English and Irish

The apparent paradox which one needs to face in attempting a contact-related explanation of the Hiberno-English NNS constructions lies in the fact that Irish, in the corresponding positions of non-finite constructions, uses forms that are often identified as accusative (object), not nominative (subject) forms. Hence, one might be led to expect that any Irish influence on Hiberno-English should re-inforce the use of accusatives rather than support the innovation of nominatives in these positions. The identification of the relevant Irish forms as accusatives is, however, based on the assumption of a fundamental equivalence between the relevant domains of English and Irish morphology. In order to show that this identification is indeed mistaken (cf. Genee 1998: 15), it is necessary to give a brief analysis of the case systems of both languages. As is well known, English lacks a nominative-accusative case distinction in lexical nouns and in most pronouns, retaining only the genitive as an overtly marked case,3 contrasting with a common or default case. Beyond this distinction, it has preserved a nominative-accusative contrast only in the closed set of personal pronoun forms I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them (and marginally who/whom). However, this contrast does not follow the functional pattern of a typical nominative-accusative distinction everywhere either, namely that of marking subjects and objects/complements respectively. There has been a rather strong tendency, in many modern varieties of English, to introduce seemingly accusative forms into traditionally nominative environments, especially in those that differ markedly from the prototypical subject position, which is immediately preverbal, topical, and unstressed. Sentences such as me and John are going or it’s me illustrate this tendency, which may be interpreted as a trend towards reanalysing the accusative forms into strong and the nominative forms into weak pronouns. It should be noted that in most environments where accusative forms encroach on traditionally nominative territory, they bear focus and are often phonologically stressed. Irish, too, rather like English, lacks a nominative-accusative case distinction in lexical nouns and in most pronouns. There exists, however, a formal contrast, restrict-

 Lukas Pietsch

ed to third person pronouns. This contrast, which has traditionally often been described as one of nominative vs. accusative case, is today treated in the more neutral terms of ‘conjunct’ vs. ‘disjunct’ forms by most descriptive grammars of Irish (following Bráithre Críostaí 1960). However, modern discussions in the generative framework, based on the assumption of a universal repertoire of ‘structural cases’, have continued to discuss it in terms of nominative and accusative. When seen under this perspective, there is a perceived mismatch in ‘case’ usage between Hiberno-English and Irish in the environments in question here. The disjunct (or ‘accusative’) form of Irish is morphologically unmarked and (for the most part) historically older. The conjunct form (or ‘nominative’) is created fairly transparently from the disjunct by the addition of a prefixed element s-. Both disjunct and conjunct forms can be further expanded by another suffix to yield an emphatic, contrastive form: Table 1.  Pronoun forms in Irish

Sg. Masc. Sg. Fem. Pl. (M/F)

disjunct

conjunct

disj. contr.

conj. contr.

é í iad

sé sí siad

eisean ise iadsan

seisean sise siadsan

The conjunct forms are used exclusively in the immediately post-verbal subject position of finite lexical verbs (Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 138). The disjunct forms are used everywhere else: as objects of finite verbs, as subjects and predicates in copula clauses (which in Irish have a syntax very different from that of normal verbs); in non-finite clauses; and also as parts of syntactically complex subject NPs after finite verbs, for instance as the second of two co-ordinated subjects. It is the contrast between the use of conjunct forms as finite subjects and disjunct forms as finite objects that provides the obvious grounds for their traditional identification as, respectively, nominative and accusative ‘case’ forms. However, the additional use of the disjunct forms in so many other environments, especially in what are clearly subject positions in copula clauses, fairly strongly suggest that their identification as accusative/object-case forms is misleading. It should be noted that the apparent mismatch between subject syntactic position and seemingly ‘object-case’ form cannot be motivated along the same lines as in the English examples of the it’s me type: the disjunct/object forms display no signs of being ‘strong’ pronouns, since they tend to be just as unstressed as their conjunct counterparts; and both stand in the same formal opposition to the extra set of emphatic pronouns, which are obligatorily used whenever emphasis is required. Thus, the obvious analysis is to say that the disjunct forms are an unmarked default form, neutral with respect to structural case assignment. The conjunct forms, in contrast, are only a surface morphological variant, conditioned, like clitics, under con-



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

ditions of linear adjacency to the finite verb (for a similar argument, see Carnie 1995: 160f.).4 This analysis also happens to fit the diachronic facts better, since the conjunct/ disjunct contrast is not historically a reflex of inherited case morphology, as it is in English, but rather a fairly recent innovation (Pedersen 1913: § 491): the disjunct pronouns are a continuation of a single, unified paradigm of common-case pronouns that existed in older forms of the language, while the conjunct forms represent an innovation that has happened in Irish but not even in the very closely related sister language Scottish Gaelic. Summing up, we may characterise the relations between the pairs of forms involved in Irish and in English in terms of their markedness relations, which in some sense are just the reverse of each other. Whereas in English, the structural markedness relation between the two forms can be analysed, fairly straightforwardly, as the accusatives being the marked forms (notwithstanding the fact that they today appear in a greater range of positions, because that is arguably motivated by independent factors such as their emergent function as strong pronouns), it seems to be exactly the reverse in Irish: here, the form that happens to be used in object (and other) positions is clearly the unmarked, default form, and the one that happens to be used in (most) subject positions is a special, marked form. I will argue below that it is mainly this markedness relation, and not the superficial equivalence between seemingly subject and object forms, that became decisive in the mapping of correspondence relations between forms in both languages, during the syntactic transfer processes that led to the emergence of the nominative usage in non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English.

2.2

Subject marking in English ‘–ing’ clauses

2.2.1 Standard English In order to explain the contact processes in Hiberno-English, we first need to provide a broad sketch of the development of subject marking in mainstream English -ing clauses. In doing so, it will be useful to distinguish the following types of constructions (2): gerund clauses that stand in object or complement position within the matrix clause, i.e. those that are outwardly governed by either a verb or a preposition (2a); gerund clauses in subject position, where such a governing element is not present (2b); so-called absolute constructions, which have the function of (usual causal) adverbials (2c); and finally the special type of so-called subordinating-and clause, which is found in certain non-standard dialects of English (2d). (2) a. b. c. d.

I hate [[John’s/his/John/him] being late] [[John’s/his/John/him] being late] was bad news for all of us. [[John/him/he] being late], I decided not to wait longer. Why should we keep waiting, [and [John/him/he] being late again]!

As is well known, in clauses of the types (2a–b) the historically older option of genitive marking alternates with the more modern option of accusative/common-case mark-

 Lukas Pietsch

ing in Present-Day English. While the genitive is structurally motivated by the original nominal properties of the gerund, the innovative use of the accusative can be regarded as a sign of the gradual strengthening of the verbal properties of this category in English (Fanego 1998, 2004a). In contrast to this, the absolute constructions of the type in (2c) and apparently also those of (2d) have a different origin. Here, the original case was the nominative (“nominative absolute”), and the verb forms in these clauses were clearly participles, not gerunds, displaying no signs of noun-like syntactic behaviour. For the intrusion of non-genitive forms in the types (2a–b), Fanego (2004a) describes two unrelated, distinct sources. Non-genitive forms in environments like (2a) developed via reanalysis from instances that were morphologically ambiguous between accusative/common case and genitive case. As relevant cases Fanego (2004a: 43) mentions: the lexical class of Middle English uninflected genitive singulars, nouns ending in -s, plural nouns in general, and the pronoun her. This reanalysis was clearly structurally motivated by the presence of potentially accusative-assigning governing elements adjacent to these subject positions in the matrix clause, i.e. the governing verbs or prepositions. In terms of formal grammar, the mechanism licensing the innovative accusative case forms can therefore plausibly be characterised as one of ‘exceptional case-marking’ (ECM). In contrast to this, the non-genitive forms in sentence-initial (subject-clause) positions such as (2b) arose mainly through an extension of the superficially similar nominative-absolute type (2c). Accordingly, it is first found with common-case lexical nouns but not with unambiguously accusative pronouns. Examples of non-genitives in type (2a) can be found, though at first very rarely, from Middle English onwards (Fanego 2004a: 10; cf. also Fanego 2004b). Quoting Tajima (1996), Fanego provides some early examples from c.1400 both with commoncase lexical nouns and with unambiguously accusative pronouns in such environments, but she also notes that the latter remained much more infrequent than the former throughout Early Modern English (2004a: 8f.). Overt accusatives became reasonably common only during Late Modern English, roughly from the 18th century onwards (2004a: 43). As for structures of type (2b), Fanego’s earliest quoted examples are from the 17th century (2004a: 44). Unambiguous accusative pronouns in these positions seem at first to be excluded and are attested only much later, in the early 20th century. In their stead, some early examples attest to the occasional use of nominatives, as in (3). Note the great semantic similarity between this use of a gerund subject clause as a causal subject with make, and the causal use of a nominative absolute:

(3) I having a great esteem for your honour […], makes me acquaint you of an affair that I hope will oblige you to know. [From the Spectator, 1711–1712, quoted in Fanego (2004a: 45) after Jespersen (1961–1970: V, §§ 9.8.3)]

Unlike these structures, gerunds in non-initial (object/complement) positions like (2a) seem never to have been used with nominative subjects during the development of mainstream English, a fact that accords well with their status as ECM structures.



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

This makes the later appearance of nominatives in just these environments in Hiberno-English appear all the more striking. As for the late spread of overtly accusative forms into the sentence-initial clauses in mainstream English, it can apparently be seen in conjunction with the general spread of accusative pronouns into other nominative environments, including those of the John and me type and also those of the absolute construction (2c) itself. Summing up, we can recognise the combined effects of three interrelated processes in the development of non-finite subject case marking in Standard English -ing clauses: the development of ‘exceptional case-marking’ as a mechanism motivating overt accusatives in environments governed by a case-assigning matrix element; the emancipation of sentence-initial gerund clauses (with a subject position not overtly governed by a matrix case assigner, and therefore allowing only for common-case lexical nouns as subjects); and finally the generalisation of formally accusative pronouns as strong pronouns, intruding into various syntactic positions, at last including those in the sentence-initial gerund clauses. 2.2.2 Subordinating ‘and’ Before we turn to the use of nominatives in the Hiberno-English equivalents of clauses of the type in (2a), we should first give some consideration to the special type of adjunct clauses introduced by and, as in (2d) above. The term “subordinating and” is here understood as referring to clause-level constructions that are marked by the lack of a finite verb as being dependent clauses, but nevertheless linked by and with a finite matrix clause. This structure plays an important role in Hiberno-English and has attracted somewhat more attention in the literature than the other types under discussion here (Ó Siadhail 1984: 132–134; Häcker 1999; Filppula 1999: 200; Corrigan 2000). Subordinating and occurs both with -ing or -en participles, and with verbless predicate clauses. There has been some discussion about the subordinating function of and found in this construction, about its semantics, and whether it was a feature of older forms of English outside Ireland. Corrigan (2000: 77) attempts to trace the history of the construction as far back as Old English. However, the evidence she cites from the early periods only concerns construction types with finite subordinated clauses, and Corrigan provides no argument to support her implicit suggestion that these types are in any way historically related to the non-finite type at issue here. Filppula (1991) finds some seemingly more pertinent examples in Early Modern English texts between 1500 and 1710, but even this list does not convincingly prove a special role of and as a subordinator in a specialised construction type, since most of the examples can be analysed simply as absolute constructions of the type (2c) that are coordinated among each other, as in (4):

(4) all physitians having given him over and he lying drawing his last breath there came an old woman unto him. [1635, quoted in Filppula 1991: 624]

 Lukas Pietsch

It seems, in short, that the role of subordinating and in Standard English and in its older forms has sometimes been over-stated in the literature. If anything, subordinating and with non-finite clauses was quite marginal in Early Modern English and emergent Standard Modern English. However, evidence of comparable structures is more solid in certain forms of dialectal English. Häcker gives some northern Middle English and Older Scots examples, such as (5):

(5) Lorde,... I thank the... that thou to daie hase giuene me grace Almous to take... Off thaim that was wont to be myne awne menne and seruid me, And i vnknawen vnto thaim ‘... at a time when I was unknown to them’ [Häcker 1999: 42] Ó Siadhail (1984: 133–134) quotes plausible examples from literary representations of the 19th-century spoken vernacular of Warwickshire in the English Midlands, taken from novels by George Eliot. Similar examples from late 19th-century Lincolnshire are quoted by Häcker:

(6) I thought then and I think now, it fell strange and hard on her, and her nobbut seventeen [Häcker 1999: 42]

The most solid evidence, according to Häcker, comes from modern Scottish varieties, both from the varieties of the Highlands and western islands (where English has been or used to be in contact with Gaelic until very recently), and from Lowlands Scots. Finally, Quirk et al. (1985: § 11.44) recognise the construction, in its verbless form, as a feature even of Standard Present-Day English, but describe it as a marginal type of “irregular sentence”, a formal idiom that is in some sense extraneous to regular clausal syntax: (7) a. How could you be so spiteful and her your best friend? b. They left without a word, and he so sensitive. While Quirk et al. recognise both the use type with the accusative and, “less commonly”, that with the nominative, the picture that emerges with respect to case usage in the older varieties is as follows: The oldest attestations, from Middle English, Early Modern English and literary early 19th-century Scots, invariably have nominative marking, and are in this respect formally identical to nominative absolutes. Later examples from British varieties, especially from more colloquial, dialectal forms, mostly have accusative marking. This is also generally true for modern Scots. Häcker (1999: 43) plausibly interprets this as a diachronic development; it seems to be yet another manifestation of the overall trend for accusative pronouns to encroach on nominative domains and to take on strong-pronoun functions. As for the Irish varieties, the picture is mixed. Ó Siadhail (1984: 131–132) provides evidence of a preference for the nominative in data from the southern Irish counties of Clare (Munster), and Carlow and Wicklow (Leinster), the nominative being used in all of six examples cited by him. Likewise, Filppula (1999: 200) finds only nominative marking in his data from Clare, Kerry, Wicklow and Dublin, all in the south. In con-



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

trast to this, Henry (1957: 206) reports that in the more northern county of Roscommon (Connacht) both cases were used. Finally, Corrigan (2000: 87) finds an exclusive use of the accusative in her data from Armagh (Ulster), likewise in the north. This suggests that there is a geographical north-south divide across Ireland, with the northern varieties siding with the British dialects whereas the southern ones have developed a new, specialised use of the nominative. This north-south divide apparently corresponds with a semantic innovation also found mainly in the south of Ireland (Corrigan 2000: 79). The structures attested in Standard English, those from the modern northern British dialects, and also most of those found in the northern parts of Ireland, all have a narrow, pragmatically specialised function, which – following Filppula – we may call the “exclamative” use type. These sentences express concessive or causal meanings, and are used emphatically to signal a stance of personal emotional involvement, such as reproach or regret, as in the examples (6) and (7) above or in the following example (8): (8) he is never in work and when he was he give Me nothing & him nicely in health [Doorle07, 1905]

In contrast to this, southern Hiberno-English uses subordinating and in a more neutral fashion, expressing purely temporal relations (9): (9) a. I only thought of him there and I cooking my dinner (‘...while I was cooking …’) [Häcker 1999:38, quoting Filppula 1991: 618] b. One of them James came over and borrowed 3 pounds of me and he going to the diggings (‘… while he was going …’) [Hogan_04, 1857] c. and once our waggon overset and we in it but received no material injury except the children’s faces a little scratchd (‘… while we were in it …’) [WrighH01, 1802] This use type is generally thought to be a syntactic transfer feature from Irish, which, in very similar fashion, uses the connector agus (‘and’) both as a co-ordinating conjunction and as a non-finite clausal subordinator, with a very similar range of meanings. Summing up, the picture that emerges from these findings is the following: while certain uses of subordinating and, together with the marginal use of nominatives in absolute participle constructions, were present in various forms of Late Modern English and plausibly also in those that served as input to the language contact situation in Ireland between the 17th and the 19th centuries, southern forms of Hiberno-English, apparently under the influence of a formally comparable syntactic pattern in Irish, radically extended the use of subordinating and by making it take over certain new functions which it had in Irish but not previously in English. In doing so, HibernoEnglish consolidated the use of the nominative, developing it from the minor and rather marginal use type that it was in English, into an apparently much more frequent

 Lukas Pietsch

and more deeply entrenched feature of its syntactic system. This increased use of the nominative found a parallel or further extension in the innovative use of the same case in another group of constructions too, namely in those non-initial gerund clauses that were governed by potentially accusative-assigning verbs or prepositions. It is to these constructions that we will turn next. 2.2.3 Non-initial gerund clauses in Hiberno-English Unlike the use of subordinating and, the other non-finite nominative subject (NNS) constructions in Hiberno-English have up to now found little or no attention in the literature. Hence, to the best of my knowledge, appropriate data regarding their existence and distribution in modern dialects of Irish English is lacking at present,5 and the presentation below will be confined to 19th-century attestations from our corpus. Apart from that, there are only occasional remarks about some dialectal constructions that are somewhat similar, but not quite identical, to the type to be documented here. For instance, Henry (1957: 190) documents cases of nominative subjects with to-infinitives in a 20th-century Connacht dialect (10), but does not mention parallel cases with gerunds. (10) It’s a point o’ law for she to put him out (‘Her right to put him out (of the house) is legally debateable’) [Henry 1957: 190] Another rare hint is found in Filppula (1999: 197), who quotes examples with -ing forms following when; however, since when in Standard English can introduce both non-finite (participial) and finite subclauses, both these examples could be understood simply as finite clauses with copula drop, a feature that is independently well attested in some Hiberno-English dialects. As will become clear shortly, an analysis as finite copula drop is excluded in many of the cases to be presented below. The when cases also differ from most of the others discussed in this section insofar as when does not govern case in Standard English and would therefore not be a candidate for ECM-style licensing of accusative case either. (11) a. indeed I walked it myself when I young [Filppula 1999: 197] b. I remember when I going to school, I remember three of my uncles went away [...] she and most of her family went to America, when I going to school. [Filppula 1999: 197] In our corpus, nominatives in gerund clauses in potential ECM environments are attested with a variety of different governing elements. Most often they occur as complements of prepositions, both prepositional adverbial adjuncts and as parts of prepositional phrasal-verb constructions. There are also a few attestations of object clauses governed directly by a verb. The most frequently attested governing subordinator is after. In Standard English, after would require subjectless constructions under conditions of subject control, i.e. obligatory co-reference between the matrix subject and the non-overt subject of the embedded clause. Strikingly, in our examples (12), overt nominative sub-



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

jects are included both with and without co-reference with the matrix subject. They also occur with the after-clause both preceding and following the main clause. (12) a. If a an Irishman goes to drive horses or Bullocks here after he comming out from home, he might as well go whistle a gig to a milestone [Normil03, 1863] b. After he returning the Creditors Came and took charge of all the goods [Normil04, 1863] c. My Sister Bridget stoped with her old Misses after I leaving, [Normil04, 1863] d. Their Father & Mother felt very uneasy after they going but they are delighted now [Dunne_12, 1874] e. Mrs Farrell had high mass for the repose of his Soul in a few day after She getting word from his wife [DunneJ01, 1868] Similar constructions are found with various other prepositional subordinators (13): (13) a. I recd. your letter about the first of Jany. last and would have written an answer to you ere now were it not for I being paying Michl. Moores passage as required by you [Hogan_04, 1857] b. Her uncles & aunt was very much dissapointed in She not coming. [Mahony02, 1887] c. Michl. Gready Patt McGrath and Bridget Neylon were as glad as if we Gave them a thousand pound for we being along with them. [Normil01, 1854] d. Moreland Sold his property twelve Months ago to his tennants & agreed to Sell this Evicted farom to the Evicte{****} by he Getting one thousant pounds from the Land Commissioners [MarshM05, 1907] e. what is the Cause of we not Getting the possession of this farom [MarshM04, 1907] f. The place was finally handed over to me by my niece on 1st Nov ‘03 on I paying her the sum of £42 and £3 Cost [ReillP01, 1907] The following examples show NNS constructions in object clauses of verba sentiendi (14). (14b) is particularly interesting, as the nominative subject is a resumptive pronoun syntactically duplicating an extracted wh- element: (14) a. When I heard she being in this place I went to see her directly [Normil04, 1863] b. I have a friend which I did not know she being in this Town until of late, Michael Healys daughter from Ballanagun. [Normil04, 1863] All in all, the NNS constructions in question are not particularly frequent in the corpus data: in a corpus of c.227,000 words, there are a total of 19 unambiguous tokens (counting only those tokens where the subject is unmistakably a nominative pronoun, excluding cases of you and it as well as all tokens involving full lexical nominals.) To these we may add 9 tokens of subordinating and with nominative subjects, and 10 tokens of nominative absolutes of the type also found in mainstream English (these latter forms being apparently a feature of formal, conservative written registers in gen-

 Lukas Pietsch

eral, and probably not particularly characteristic of the spoken dialects reflected in these writings). Given the small numbers, it is clear that not much can be inferred with statistical certainty about their distribution across the corpus. Nevertheless, the attestations provide ground for the hypothesis that the pattern is a regular and productive one, not restricted to idiomatic lexical idiosyncrasies of certain subordinating elements but rather a general syntactic pattern characteristic of gerund clauses at large, at least in certain forms of Hiberno-English. Moreover, the distribution of the attestations across the different individuals in the corpus indicates that within the spectrum of varieties and registers represented, the NNS structures are characteristic of specifically Irish-influenced dialectal varieties.6 Eight of the nine informants who use the NNS construction come from the southern provinces of Ireland, and except for one (or possibly two) they are all Catholics. Moreover, most of the individuals involved here display heavy signs of other dialectal phenomena in their writings which can be also characterised as Hibernicisms and/or which can also be plausibly linked to Irish contact effects. NNS constructions are conspicuously absent from other writers in the corpus whose linguistic profiles display signs of different dialectal backgrounds, especially those influenced by northern, Ulster-Scots speech forms. The southern Irish dialects are usually regarded as the historical outcome of the development of a mixture of mainly southwest English settler dialects with a strong contact-induced admixture of Irish substrate features. It is therefore reasonable to assume that contact effects are likely to have played some role in the development of the NNS constructions too.

2.3

Subject marking in non-finite clauses in Irish

Having discussed the use of nominatives in English non-finite clauses, we can now turn to Irish in order to investigate in what ways it would have provided any relevant structural parallels. As is well known, Irish non-finite clauses are formed with the help of a verbal noun (VN). There is a variety of structural configurations: the non-finite clause may be headed by a bare verbal noun, or by a verbal noun preceded by the particle a (15); or, in yet other environments, the verbal noun may appear as part of a progressive periphrastic construction headed by the progressive marker ag (16). (15) roimh í a dhul before she going ‘before she went …’ [Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 248] (16) agus é ag tíocht ó bhainis and he at coming from wedding ‘… when he was coming from a wedding’ [Ó Siadhail 1989: 284 ] There is also some variation in the coding of subject (and object) arguments of these clauses. Owing to its nominal, gerund-like quality, the VN may take genitive argu-



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

ments in certain environments, realised as either a genitive-marked full NP following the VN, or a possessive pronoun preceding it. However, unlike in English, it is regularly the object argument, not the subject, that is coded in this way.7 Subjects of verbalnoun clauses can be expressed as oblique agent phrases, using the preposition do ‘to’ (17, 18). This preposition is used elsewhere in Irish to express possessors too (similar to French à). As a means of coding subjects/agents, it has no obvious parallels in English. The do-agents can appear either after (17) or before (18) the verbal noun. (17) Le linn an chaint sin a rá dó while this talk saying to.him ‘while he was saying this …’ [Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 256] (18) Le linn dúinn a bheith ag fanacht leo … while to.us being at waiting with.them … ‘while we were waiting for them …’ [Ó Dónaill 1977, v.s. “do”] An alternative strategy for the coding of either objects or subjects is the use of a structure that has variously been called “raising” (Noonan 1995, Disterheft 1982), “promotion” (Armstrong 1977) or “displacement” (Genee 1998). Here, a nominal or pronominal argument, in the unmarked common case, is placed in a preposed (“promoted”) position, to the left of the verbal noun, i.e. in a position superficially resembling that of the subject of English gerund clauses (19,20). This position can hold either object or subject arguments in Irish.8 The following VN in these constructions is usually marked by the particle a and lenition, historically a reflex of a former preposition do (‘to’).9 According to Ó Siadhail (1989: 277) and Genee (1998: 442), there has been an historical trend away from the genitive/do to the promotion structures. (19) tar éis iad féin a shábháil na gcéata after they themselves saving hundreds.gen ‘… after they themselves saved hundreds’ [Ó Siadhail 1989: 256] (20) an bun a bhí le mé féin a thógaint geite the reason that was with I myself taking fright.gen ‘… the reason of my becoming frightened’ [Ó Siadhail 1989: 256] Of the three coding strategies for nominal arguments with verbal nouns in Irish, two diverge quite radically from English: the genitive coding because it picks out the wrong argument, and the prepositional coding because it has no structural counterpart in English at all.10 It is thus only the third, the promotion construction with the morphologically unmarked NP to the left of the verbal noun clause (15, 19, 20), that offers itself as a basis for cross-linguistic identification and may be implicated in a possible transfer process regarding the nominative-subject structures in Hiberno-English. It is therefore useful to compare briefly the structural properties of the promotion construction in Irish with those of the subject position of gerund clauses in English.

 Lukas Pietsch

The position of the “promoted” nominal argument to the left of the verbal noun is unique within the overall system of Irish grammar, as it diverges radically from the normal verb-initial (and, more generally speaking, head-initial) pattern that Irish displays everywhere else. In finite clauses, neither objects nor subjects can usually precede their verbs in Irish, unless fronted through special syntactic processes. There are basically three approaches that can be found in the literature in treating the anomaly of this pre-VN position formally. Some, like Disterheft (1982) and Noonan (1995), have characterised the construction as an instance of “raising”, assuming that the promoted nominal is moved out of the embedded clause to occupy a structural object position in the matrix clause. For Noonan (1995: 72f.), the crucial argument for this analysis is the occurrence of the disjunct pronoun forms in these positions, which he identifies as “object forms”. As I argued above I consider that morphological identification misleading. Furthermore, there is strong structural evidence that indeed the promoted NP behaves syntactically as part of a single constituent together with the following a-VN phrase, a fact that rallies against a raising analysis in the strict sense. This is suggested, among other things, by the fact that they can occur together as sentence fragments in elliptical sentences (Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 251). Moreover, when the promoted element is a pronoun and the subclause is governed by a preposition in the matrix domain, the preposition fails to fuse with the pronoun into a so-called inflected preposition form, as would be expected if the pronoun was formally an element of the matrix construction. This clearly shows that the governing relation is not between the preposition and the nominal argument as a standalone constituent of the matrix clause, but between the preposition and the NP-a-VN construction as a whole. See also Genee (1998: 451), referring to Armstrong (1977) for further arguments against the raising analysis. It should be noted that the analysis of the promoted nominal as part of a common NP-a-VN constituent is not contradicted by cases in which it is visibly moved away from the verbal-noun construction, as this seems to happen through independently motivated mechanisms, for instance by wh-extraction (22), focussing extraction to the right (23), or in an ‘easy-to-please’ construction (25) (examples adapted from Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 251). (21) Dúirt sí leis na leabhair a dhíol said she with.him the books selling ‘She told him to sell the books’ (22) Cá bhfuil na leabhair a dúirt sí leis a dhíol where are the books rel said she with.him selling ‘Where are the books that she told him to sell?’ (23) Dúirt sí leis gan a dhíol ach na leabhair said she with.him neg selling but the books ‘She told him to sell only the books.’



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

(24) Is furasta é a mhealladh is easy he deceiving ‘It is easy to deceive him.’ (25) Tá sé furasta a mhealladh is he easy deceiving ‘He is easy to deceive.’ If one accepts the analysis that the promoted element (such as iad féin in example (19)) is part of a single NP-a-VN constituent, this leaves as a further issue of formal analysis the question of headedness within this construction. Studies that have dealt primarily with the diachronic development of the construction since Old Irish (Gagnepain 1963: 18, Genee 1998: 451) have assumed that the promoted NP is the head, implying that the a-VN phrase is in some way adjoined to it on the right. This view is primarily motivated by the historical roots of the construction: the particle preceding the VN was originally the preposition do (‘to’), and thus the syntax of the construction [NP [do [VN]] overtly resembles that of an NP postmodified by an adjoined do-possessor phrase [NP [do [NP]]. Moreover, as Genee (1998: 104) points out, the promoted nominal originally carried overt case marking (genitive or accusative), reflecting the case assigned to the embedded construction as a whole by the governing matrix construction (cf. Gagnepain 1963: 129– 134, 235–240). However, genitives in this position are reported to have survived only as an optional structure in the modern dialects, having been largely replaced by a structure where the promoted nominal is in the invariant common case regardless of the matrix construction (Gagnepain 1963: 240, Ó Siadhail 1989: 276). In contrast to the view that regards the promoted NP as the head, recent analyses of present-day Irish conducted within a generative approach have chosen to interpret it as occupying a specifier position at the left edge of a clausal structure projected by the VN. This analysis obviously fits more easily with the common assumption of clausal constituent order being determined by elements moving upwards across a universal grid of positions defined by a set of functional heads c-commanding the verb in an X-bar scheme. According to different versions of this view (see the survey in Carnie 1995: 90–98), the particle a is assumed to represent a functional head position, variously identified as Agr (Duffield 1991) or AgrO (Noonan 1992, Bobalijk/Carnie 1992), and the promoted object and/or subject is either in its specifier position or else, a step higher up in the tree, in Spec-T. The formal accounts differ technically in how they handle the question of case. As far as I am aware, none of those analyses that see the promoted NP in a specifier position deals with those alternative (conservative) structures where it bears overt genitive case-marking assigned by the governing matrix element. As for the other, more modern option, where the promoted NP is in the common unmarked case, all the generative analyses seem to agree that the structural case (in the abstract sense of Chomskyan case theory) assigned to it is indeed an accusative, not a nominative (Tallerman 2005: 850). This assumption is upheld even by Carnie (1995: 88), who elsewhere acknowl-

 Lukas Pietsch

edges that the morphological facts – i.e. the use of disjunct pronoun forms – are not necessarily evidence for accusative as opposed to nominative status (1995: 160f.). While the assignment of accusative case to promoted object NPs presents no theoretical problem within this framework, the assignment of assumedly accusative case to promoted subjects requires some exceptional mechanism. Different analyses assume either accusative assignment via non-finite properties of T, or an ‘exceptional casemarking’ (ECM) mechanism – but the latter not involving any overt matrix element as in English, but a hypothesised non-overt complementiser at the left edge of the embedded clause. If one abstracts away from the purely theory-internal sides of these analyses, one finds them to agree on one point: they are all based on the intuition that the structural licensing conditions for the promoted nominals are strictly clause-internal and can be descriptively stated in terms of linear order of elements within the bounds of the embedded clause alone, particularly in terms of adjacency with the following a-VN constituent. There is no structural dependency between the promoted nominals and any particular syntactic configuration involving overt elements further up in the matrix domain. In particular, if one ignores the optional genitive structures mentioned earlier, there is no evidence of anything openly resembling the English ECM mechanism. If, moreover, one discards the theory-internally motivated assumption of a universal nominative-accusative case distinction, taking into account that Modern Irish lacks any overt morphological expression of such a contrast, then it seems fair to sum up that the constructional frame responsible for the licensing of these VN arguments is defined in purely positional terms and does not involve case-marking in the sense of an overtly expressed morphological mechanism at all. The syntactic relation between the nominal and the VN is not morphologically coded on the nominal – neither by case morphology proper nor by the other principal means of morphological coding available in Irish, initial consonant mutations. The case properties specified for this position can thus best be described as being simply the maximally unmarked, common case.

3. Conclusions: Transfer and markedness in the development of Hiberno-English NNS structures We can now summarise the essential structural difference between the Irish and the English systems with respect to the subject position in non-finite clauses: Standard English requires subjects in the initial position of gerund and infinitive clauses to be licensed through a case-assignment relation with an overt, adjacent governing element, using either genitive assigned by the gerund itself, or accusative assigned via ECM from outside the clause. Present-day Irish has a structural subject slot found in superficially the same position, before a verbal noun, but its structural conditioning is different: subjects in this position are not sensitive to licensing through a government



Nominative subjects of non-finite clauses in Hiberno-English 

relation from outside the clause, and they bear no morphological marking to reflect such a licensing relation. It seems to have been this relationship of deceptive structural similarity between English and Irish that provided the ground for a transfer-induced structural reanalysis of the English gerund clauses by Irish learners. In their English input, Irish learners in the 18th and 19th centuries were obviously faced with a situation of great variability in pronoun marking in a number of closely related constructions, a situation which would easily lead to systemic simplification or restructuring. In gerund clauses, there was variation between accusative and genitive marking. Moreover, although initially rare, there was also the superficially similar absolute participle construction, which already had the nominative. We may hypothesise that this nominative usage first increased in frequency as Irish speakers co-opted the absolute-participle pattern in order to create the Hiberno-English subordinating-and clauses of the type “I saw John and he going home”, on the model of Irish “Chonaic mé Seán agus é ag dul abhaile”. This nominative usage then could also serve as an analogical trigger for an extension of nominatives into the – superficially similar – subject positions of gerund clauses proper. What made this extension structurally motivated was, in turn, the reanalysis of the gerund clauses on the model of the corresponding Irish verbal-noun clauses: Irish learners apparently failed to acquire the rules of the morphosyntactic licensing relation between the governing matrix element and the accusative-marked subject position in these clauses, because such a licensing relation was not (or at least not obligatorily) a feature of the corresponding Irish structures. Thus, Irish speakers could opt for the nominative, which they perceived as the maximally unmarked case-form of English, and which in this respect corresponded to the Irish disjunct (é, í, iad) pronoun forms. This correspondence held even though both sets of pronouns had otherwise completely different, almost reverse, distributions in finite clauses. It was thus abstract structural relations between constructions and between morphological paradigms, rather than superficial equivalence relations between individual items, that were decisive in contact-induced structural transfer.

Notes 1. This work, including the ongoing compilation of the corpus on which its results are based, was funded in the framework of the Collaborative Research Centre No. 538 ‘Multilingualism’ by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). 2. The Hamburg Corpus of Irish Emigrant Letters (Pietsch, i. prog.) is being compiled at the University of Hamburg. Some of the material is also available in previously published collections: Miller et al. (2003), Fitzpatrick (1994), and O’Farrell (1984); the rest was collected from various archival sources in Ireland. In the preliminary form used for this study, the corpus consisted of some 230,000 words produced by 162 writers, ranging from the early 18th to the beginnings of the 20th century. It consists of letters, diary entries and other similar sub-literary

 Lukas Pietsch text types, most of them written in the context of emigration from Ireland to America and Australia or related in some other ways to the political and social upheavals of the 19th century. 3. For the present discussion, we can set aside the discussion about the genitive -s being a phrasal/syntactic rather than morphological category. I shall assume, for the purposes of this paper, that both the possessive -s on nouns or noun phrases, and the possessive forms of pronouns, are representative of a common grammatical category ‘genitive’ in English. 4. An anonymous referee rightly points to a similar line of argumentation in Wigger (1970: 36). Wigger also mentions the survival of lenited thú as a specifically accusative alternant of tú, as being the only isolated remnant of a genuine morphological nominative-accusative contrast in the language. The same referee also mentions an older approach proposed by Hartmann (1960: 11), who attempts to justify the nominative-accusative distinction on the basis of a unified semantically-based characterisation of the two forms. According to him, the “nominative” denotes “an entity presented as differentiated and identical to itself, from which the event originates” (“einen als differenziert und mit sich selbst identisch gesetzten Gegenstand, von dem der Vorgang seinen Ausgang nimmt”), while the “accusative” denotes “a participant which is neutral with respect to the feature of ‘differentiated, positive origin’” (“Beteiligung eines Gegenstandes am Vorgang bei Indifferenz gegenüber dem Merkmal ‘differenzierter, gesetzter Ausgangspunkt’”). Based as it is in a theory of linguistic relativism (1960: 8), this proposal seems of little relevance in the present debate. 5. In an internet discussion forum in 1991, Marion Gunn attested to the use of nominatives in after-clauses in present-day Dublin English: “after he going out”. [http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~smacsuib/gaelic-m/logfiles/91/log9109.txt] 6. This hypothesis will be the subject of a separate, more extensive study elsewhere. 7. Only occasionally, subjects of intransitive verbs can also be coded as genitives: bhíomar ag súil lena dteacht (lit. ‘we.were at hoping with.their coming’; ‘we were hoping for them to come’). (Bráithre Críostaí 1960: 260). 8. According to Ó Siadhail (1989: 256), there is some dialectal variation: while in northern dialects of Modern Irish, both a subject and an object (in this order) can be promoted in front of a VN, southern Irish has only a single structural slot that can hold either a subject or an object but not both. 9. Here, too, there is dialectal variation, as northern Irish dialects allow the verbal noun wit­h­ out the particle if the promoted nominal is an intransitive subject (Ó Siadhail 1989: 257f.). 10. Henry (1957: 186) quotes some examples in mid-20th-century Roscommon English where the Irish do-agents have apparently led to a calque using of-agents in English: I saw him, goin’ to Mass o’ me (‘… when I was going to Mass’); They were there comin’ away o’ me (‘… when I was coming away’). Nothing resembling these structures is attested in our corpus.

References Armstrong, J. 1977. The Syntax of the Verbal Noun in Modern Irish Prose 1600–1650. PhD dissertation, Harvard University. Bobalijk, J. D. and Carnie, A. 1992. A minimalist approach to some problems of Irish word order. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 12: 110–134.



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Bráithre Críostaí [The Christian Brothers]. 1960. Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí. Dublin: Mac an Ghoill. Carnie, A. H. 1995. Non-Verbal Predication and Head Movement. PhD dissertation, MIT. [http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~carnie/papers/Carnie95Dissertation.pdf] Corrigan, K. 2000. What are small clauses doing in South Armagh English, Irish and Planter English? In The Celtic Englishes II, H. Tristram (ed.), 318–338. Heidelberg: Winter. Disterheft, D. 1982. Subject raising in Old Irish. In Papers from the 5th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, A. Ahlqvist (ed.), 44–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Duffield, N. 1991. Particles and Projections. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California. Fanego, T. 1998. Developments in argument linking in Early Modern English gerund phrases. English Language and Linguistics 2: 87–119. Fanego, T. 2004a. On reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change: The rise and development of English verbal gerunds. Diachronica 21: 5–55. Fanego, T. 2004b. Some strategies for coding sentential subjects in English: From exaptation to grammaticalization. Studies in Language 2: 87–119. Filppula, M. 1991. Subordinating and in Hiberno-English syntax: Irish or English origin? In Language Contact in the British Isles: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Language Contact in Europe, P. S. Ureland and G. Broderick (eds.), 617–631. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Filppula, M. 1999. The Grammar of Irish English: Language in Hibernian style. London: Routledge. Fitzpatrick, D. 1994. Oceans of Consolation: Personal accounts of Irish migration to Australia. Cork: Cork University Press. Gagnepain, J. 1963. La syntaxe du Nom Verbal dans les langues celtiques. Vol. 1: Irlandais. Paris: Klincksieck. Genee, I. 1998. Sentential Complementation in a Functional Grammar of Irish. The Hague: HAG. Häcker, M. 1999. ‘And him no more than a minister’s man’: The English subordinating and-construction in crosslinguistic perspective. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 7: 36–50. Hartmann, H. 1960. Der Typus ocus é im Irischen. In Indogermanica: Festschrift für Wolfgang Krause, H. Hartmann and H. Neumann (eds), 8–23. Heidelberg: Winter. Henry, P. L. 1957. An Anglo-Irish Dialect of Roscommon: Phonology, accidence, syntax. Dublin: University College. Hickey, R. (ed.). 2005. Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in transported dialects. Cambridge: CUP. Jespersen, O. [1909–1949] 1961–1970. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. 7 Vols. Reprint. London: George Allen & Unwin. Miller, K., Schrier, A., Boling, B., and Doyle, D. 2003. Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and memoirs from colonial and revolutionary America. Oxford: OUP. Noonan, Maire. 1992. Case and Syntactic Geometry. PhD dissertation, McGill University, Montreal. Noonan, Michael. 1995. Complementation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, T. Shopen (ed), vol. 2. 42–140. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Farrell, P. 1984. Letters from Irish Australia, 1825–1929. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation. Ó Siadhail, Mícheál. 1984. Agus (is) / and: A shared syntactic feature. Celtica 16: 125–137. Ó Siadhail, Mícheál. 1989. Modern Irish: Grammatical structure and dialectal variation. Cambridge: CUP.

 Lukas Pietsch Pedersen, H. 1913. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Pietsch, L. In prog. Hamburg Corpus of Irish Emigrant Letters. Electronic corpus files. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Tajima, M. 1996. The common-/objective-case subject of the gerund in Middle English. NOWELE 28/29: 569–578. Tallerman, M. 2005. The Celtic languages. In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, G. Cinque and R. S. Kayne (eds), 841–879. Oxford: OUP. Wigger, A. 1970. Nominalformen im Conamara-Irischen. Hamburg: Lütke.

section 3

Finiteness in text and discourse

Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic Text construction, text subdivision, discourse types and taxis Lars Johanson The paper deals with connectivity phenomena relevant for construing and subdividing Turkic texts, particularly the ways in which aspect, actionality and tense interact to connect utterances. The issues addressed include aspectotemporal discourse types as textual cooccurrence patterns, the contribution of aspectotemporal items to the expression of taxis, and serialization by means of non-modifying converbial junctors in periodic chain sentences, where long series of predications represent events of equal thematic ranks. While periodic chain sentences were typical of the narrative styles of older non‑Europeanized Turkic varieties, their modern use is strongly limited. The dominant modern written registers construct texts according to patterns in which subordination strongly covaries with modification. This linguistic Europeanization has led to considerable atrophy of Turkic converbial syntax.

1. Introduction The present paper is devoted to connectivity phenomena of relevance for text construction and subdivision in Turkic languages, in particular the interaction of aspect, actionality and tense. After a short account of the nature of this interaction, specific aspectotemporal discourse types in the form of textual cooccurrence patterns will be discussed. The paper will also address the question of how the interaction of aspect, actionality and tense may contribute to the expression of taxis relations. Finally, comments on the combinatory properties necessary for construing and subdividing text portions, in particular the role of serialization by means of converbial junctors in periodic chain sentences will be presented. While the issues addressed are relevant for Turkic languages in general, the examples will be chosen from Turkish.

 Lars Johanson

2. Aspect-actionality-tense The following discussion of the possibilities to connect utterances by means of aspectotemporal interaction in Turkic languages is based on a model that distinguishes the functional layers tense, aspect and actionality (Johanson 1971, 1994a, 2000, 2001a, 2001b). Aspect is seen as operating on actionality, whereas tense operates on aspect + actionality. Aspect is expressed by viewpoint markers which are grammatical devices conveying different perspectives of linguistically represented events relative to the event’s limit. Events are conceived of as having an initial limit, the terminus initialis, a final limit, the terminus finalis, and a more or less salient interval between them, the cursus. Turkic languages express intraterminality and postterminality, two perspectives grammaticalized as viewpoint operators in the verbal morphology. The intraterminal perspective, +intra, envisages, at a given vantage point, an event within its limits, intra terminos, i.e. after its beginning and before its end. Intraterminals are marked imperfectives offering an introspective manner of presentation that allows to view an event from inside, and not in its totality. Combination with past tense yields +past (+intra), ‘intraterminal-in-past’, e.g. Turkish geliyordu ‘was coming’. The postterminal perspective, +post, envisages, at a given vantage point, an event after the transgression of its decisive limit, post terminum, i.e. after its beginning or its end. Postterminality is typical of resultatives and perfects. Though the event is totally or partly absent from the view, it is still relevant at the vantage point, possibly through observable results or traces. Combination with past tense yields +past (+post), ‘postterminal-in-past’, e.g. Turkish gelmişti ‘had come’. Intraterminals and postterminals possess unmarked opposition partners that negate the respective concept, or are indifferent towards it: non-intraterminals (‑intra), non-postterminals (‑post). The adterminal perspective, as represented by Russian and Polish perfectives, envisages an event at the very attainment of its crucial limit, ad terminum. Turkic languages, which lack adterminals, +ad, and non-adterminals, ‑ad, use non-intraterminal and non-postterminal items to cover adterminal situations, e.g. Turkish geldi ‘came’.

3. Aspect-sensitive actional categories A classificatory framework for the analysis of the interplay of aspectual and aspectsensitive actional categories has been suggested in Johanson 1971: 194–233 and 2000: 145–169. The main distinctions are as follows:



Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic 

Table 1. Actional structure

The actional content is conceptualized

Transformative Finitransformative Initiotransformative Nontransformative

as implying transformation as implying final transformation as implying initial transformation without transformation

Nontransformatives do not imply any limit that must be attained in order for the action to count as accomplished, e.g. yürü‑ ‘to move’. Transformatives do imply such a crucial limit. With finitransformatives, this limit is the final one, e.g. gel‑ ‘to come’. With initiotransformatives, it is the initial one, e.g. otur‑, which denote two evolutional phases: a transformational ‘to sit down’ and a resulting posttransformational ‘to sit’. The lexical meaning of initiotransformatives comprises both an initial transformation and a resulting state. The first phase stands for a telic and dynamic action, the second one for an atelic and static action. The verb thus corresponds to both a finitransformative and a nontransformative verb in English, e.g. to sit down and to sit. It can thus occur in constructions such as ‘(has) V-ed and is still V-ing’. This type can be exemplified with an English verb such as to hide.

4. Temporally localized perspectives A given aspectual perspective is presented as valid at some vantage point. This may be the primary point of view, the moment of speaking, e.g. English I am writing, I have written. An anteriority relation, +past, may establish a secondary point of view, situated prior to the primary point of view, at which a corresponding perspective is opened. What +past markers localize on the time-axis is not a narrated event as such, but the aspectual perspective on it. This principle is essential for the contribution of tense-aspect to connectivity. In a narrative ‘text world’, the deictic centre represents the ‘topic time’ to which the plot has advanced. We are led from one point to another, each one constituting a potential vantage point for an aspectual perspective.

5. Aspectotemporal discourse types The contribution of tense-aspect markers to connectivity is heavily dependent on the cooccurrence situation in various discourse types. In Johanson (1971: 76–87) it was claimed that the semantic analysis of aspectual oppositions require an account of aspectotemporal discourse types, the cooccurrence patterns in which the relevant

 Lars Johanson

items may occur and compete. Discourse types with limited inventories do not allow for the realization of all relevant values of a given system. Modern Turkish texts offer a broad choice of aspectotemporal discourse types. The historical narrative uses +past items at the basic discourse level. The vantage point can move variably along the time-axis. The ‑di-based historical narrative is the most differentiated discourse type with numerous items providing optimal contrasts. The ‑miş-based historical narrative is a discourse type used in traditional story-telling. For the synchronous report, present tense markers such as ‑iyor describe events simultaneous to the speech event. Each event is viewed in its course and is subsequently out of view. No event is viewed in its totality. Relative anteriority is signalled by +past markers, e.g. items such as ‑di. There is also a minimal discourse type consisting of a present tense in ‑mektedir and a postterminal item ‑miştir. There are also discourse types whose basic level is not simultaneous with the speech event, although the predications are not marked for +past. In non-deictic ‑iyor-based and ‑ir-based narratives with variable vantage points, a kind of praesens historicum may be expressed. These discourse types have a modest inventory of items. They do not employ the simple past in ‑di, but a retrospective view may be represented by the postterminal item ‑miş(tir). Evidential (indirective) discourse types are characterized by a reduced inventory of aspectotemporal items. The indirective copula particle imiş is temporally indifferent, i.e. ambiguous between past and present time reference, e.g. Ali geliyor ‘Ali comes/ is coming’, Ali geliyordu ‘Ali was coming’ vs. Ali geliyormuş ‘It appears that Ali comes / is coming / was coming’.

6. Aspect in dependent clauses Aspectual values are also marked in dependent clauses, i.e. constituent clauses, relative clauses, converb clauses and secondary predications. Different items compete with each other and give rise to different oppositions. There are thus intraterminal converb markers such as Turkish ‑(y)erek. Most converbs carry other semantic values than aspectual values. Turkic converbs have been studied from an aspectual point of view in Johanson (1990, 1995, etc.). The connective role of aspect in converb clauses will be dealt with below.

7. Contributions to taxis Another kind of connectivity concerns taxis, commonly defined as information about the temporal localization of narrated events relative to other events with respect to simultaneity and non-simultaneity (Jakobson 1975). Taxis relations are represented by



Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic 

pairs of clauses: constructions consisting of two independent clauses or containing one dependent clause (Nedjalkov & Otaina 1987, Mal’čukov 2000). Descriptions of taxis relations may be based on models of temporal information as dealt with in formal semantics or logic-based temporal models from artificial intelligence. For a set of primitive time elements related by order relations see, for example, Ma & Knight 1994. How may actionality-aspect-tense items contribute to the expression of taxis? They can often be interpreted as localizing one event relative to another event, to express simultaneity and non-simultaneity in ways that are deceptively similar to the expression of taxis relations. Intraterminality may be interpreted as simultaneity, and postterminality as anteriority. However, signalling temporal localization of events is not the primary task of viewpoint markers. They present the narrated events as envisaged aspectually, specifying how they come into view at a given vantage point. One reported event may localize the aspectual viewpoint of another reported event, i.e. serve as the vantage point for it, e.g. Gülerek girdi ‘He entered laughing’, where girdi ‘entered’ sets the vantage point for gülerek ‘laughing’.

8. Simultaneity Two events may be simultaneous in the sense that both occupy the same temporal interval. Such cases can be expressed by aspectually equal independent clauses, e.g. Ali piyano çaldı, Ahmet dinledi ‘Ali played the piano, [and] Ahmet listened’ or constructions with dependent converb clauses, e.g. Ali piyano çalarken Ahmet uyudu ‘While Ali played the piyano, Ahmet slept’. The two events may be envisaged intraterminally or postterminally, e.g. Ali piyano çalıyor, Ahmet dinliyordu ‘Ali was playing the piyano, [and] Ahmet was listening’; Ali piyano çalmış, Ahmet dinlemişti ‘Ali had played the piano, [and] Ahmet had listened’. Two events may be partially simultaneous in the sense of temporal inclusion: One event is localized within the temporal interval occupied by another event. Both events may be expressed by independent clauses, e.g. Ahmet girdi. Ali piyano çalıyordu ‘Ahmed entered. Ali was playing the piyano’. One of the events may be expressed by a dependent clause, Ali piyano çalarken Ahmet girdi ‘While Ali was playing the piano, Ahmet entered’ or Ahmet girince Ali piyano çalıyordu ‘When Ahmet entered, Ali was playing the piano’. The including event is typically expressed by intraterminals, whereas non-intraterminals would suggest successive events. But not even constructions with explicit intraterminals express taxis relations accurately. The temporal relation suggested does not create a connection between the two events, but between the interval occupied by the including event and an included point of time serving as a vantage point. What is localized is just the aspectual viewpoint. The temporal location of the event represented by girdi or girince serves as the vantage point for an introspective view of the including event. The construction states that the including event was in

 Lars Johanson

progress at this point, but it does not tell us when it had started or whether it was continued after that point.

9. Anteriority One reported event may precede another event or follow it, immediately or some time after its completion. Both events may be expressed by independent clauses, e.g. Ahmet girdi. Ali gitmişti ‘Ahmet entered. Ali had left’. One of the events may be expressed by a dependent clause, e.g. Ali gittikten sonra Ahmet girdi ‘After Ali had left, Ahmet entered’. Chains of aspectotemporally equal clauses may, according to the iconic principle of linear successivity (Johanson 1971: 246–248), be interpreted in terms of successive events. They are, however, far from stable indicators of taxis relations, since they can also be used for non-successive events, e.g. Ali çaldı, Ahmet dinledi ‘Ali played, [and] Ahmet listened’. Postterminals may often seem to suggest anteriority. ‘Postterminals-in-past’ localize a postterminal perspective at a past vantage point, e.g. Ahmet girince, Ali gitmişti ‘When Ahmet entered, Ali had left’, where girince ‘when entering’ sets the vantage point for gitmişti ‘had left’. They may often be interpreted in terms of two anteriority relations (‘past-in-past’), suitable for ‘flashbacks’ in narratives. However, this interpretation is only valid for finitransformatives. With other actional types, the event may well continue after the vantage point. For example, with initiotransformatives, whose crucial limit is the initial one, postterminals just signal that the initial limit is transgressed. The event itself may still be in progress, e.g. Ahmet girdi. Ali uyumuştu ‘Ahmet entered. Ali had fallen asleep/was sleeping’. Compare English had hidden, which may also be interpreted as ‘was still hiding’. Postterminals are thus not stable indicators of taxis relations. The temporal relation suggested does not create a connection between the two events, but rather between the interval occupied by the postterminal view of the event and a viewpoint. Postterminals refer in an indirect way to an event that has already, entirely or partly, disappeared from the range of vision, but is still relevant. They do not tell us when the postterminally viewed event started or whether it continues after the vantage point. Comrie’s definition of the aspectual ‘perfect’ type as a relation between a state and a previous situation (1976: 52) has been criticized. The description of something as being prior to some point on the time-axis seems to concern a temporal relation according to Comrie’s own criterion, “tense is grammaticalised expression of location in time” (1985: 9). This apparent contradiction disappears if the posterminal perspective of the event, not the event itself, is situated anterior to the vantage point (Johanson 2000: 104).



Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic 

10. Taxis in Modern Uyghur The contribution of aspectotemporal items to connectivity in the terms of taxis is similar in other Turkic languages. Rentzsch (2005), analyzing a passage of a literary Uyghur text with respect to taxis relations, shows that the interpretation of the order of events is totally dependent on cotextual and contextual information. The aspectual values of the occurring items contribute to the decoding only as far as they do not contradict the interpretations determined by cotext and context. Certain aspectoactional orderings tend to suggest particular taxis interpretations, which are, however, not compulsory. The author concludes that aspectual operators signal perspectives, and that the taxis interpretations are just facultative secondary readings of successive aspectoactional complexes occurring in the text.

11. Text construction and text division It is important to try to determine the combinatory properties by means of which aspectotemporal items may contribute to connectivity in the broad sense of text construction. The con­structional casting moulds are relatively similar across the Turkic languages. The independent sentence with its ‘canonical’ structure and optimal marking for aspect, tense, mood and person is the central item of text construction. It can be compared to a tree that is firmly rooted in the discourse base. Independent sentences are mostly of equal narrative rank and combine with each other—juxtaposed or connected by junctors—with relatively few restrictions. Independent sentences can expand internally through subordination, other predications functioning as their dependent clauses marked by subjunctors. Dependent clauses may express certain aspectual notions, but they are typically unmarked for tense, mood and person. Unable to strike root in the discourse base, they remain branches or twigs on the trunk of the independent sentence tree (cf. Johanson 1994b). They are essential for the construction of texts, but information from the root of the sentence is necessary for their interpretation. They normally do not express contents of the same narrative rank as their superordinate clauses. Converbial clauses mostly modify their matrix clauses semantically, e.g. ‑(y)ince in Ali gelince Ahmet gitti ‘When Ali came, Ahmet left’, or Ali düşerek yaralandı ‘Ali hurt himself by falling’ where the dependent clause functions as an adverbial modifier. Certain converbs, however, are suitable for non-modifying uses. Converb markers such as Turkish ‑(y)ip are normally non‑modi­fying, suggesting equal narrative values in the sense of ‘to do and [then] to do’, e.g. Ali düşüp yaralandı ‘Ali fell and hurt himself ’ rather than ‘Ali, having fallen, hurt himself ’. They can thus represent chains of events in narrative texts, suggesting equal thematic values and sequential relations. Non-

 Lars Johanson

modifying converbs are subject to interpretations of linear successivity and may thus have a serializing and propulsive (‘plot-advancing’) force. Non-modification is not signalled in an unequivocal way. Certain converb clauses vacillate beteen modifying and non‑modifying readings depending on contextual determination. Even converbs that clearly tend towards modification, e.g. ‑(y)ince, may allow non‑modifying reinterpretations: Ali düşünce yaralandı ‘When Ali fell, he hurt himself ’ or ‘Ali fell and hurt himself ’, Ali düşerek yaralandı ‘By falling Ali hurt himself ’ or ‘Ali fell and hurt himself ’. In narrative texts, forms that are primarily mo­difying are sometimes used to represent events of equal rank and must be interpreted accordingly.

12. Periodic chain sentences Non-modifying converbs may play important connective roles for construing and subdividing larger text portions. They form the basis of the techniques of periodic chain sentences, long series of predications representing events of equal thematic rank. The last member of a periodic chain sentence, the independent basis, optimally rooted with respect to tense, mood and personal reference, offers information essential for the interpretation of the preceding members. The need for temporal-modal and illocutional independence of each member is relatively limited in narrative discourse types. In many types of older Turkic chain sentences the members can even have different subjects (first actants) without any overt marking of subject switches. These narrative patterns are widely spread in the world of Turkic texts, though the precise functions of the converb markers may vary to a certain extent. The patterns in question are found in popular narrative prose as well as in highly elaborated older literary texts. Converb markers of the Turkish type ‑(y)ip suggest sequences of events according to the principle of linear successivity. Their function can be compared to the finite non-intraterminal and non-postterminal -di, which can cover adterminal situations and have a propulsive effect.

13. An example of a periodic chain sentence Sequences of events of equal rank may be subdivided by means of non-modifying items that signal major and minor incisions in the flow of events. Ottoman prose often displays highly complex ramifications in the sense of divisions and subdivisions, arrangements of branches and twigs. In the following long periodic chain sentence, quoted from Evliya Çelebi’s ‘Book of Travels’, the non-intraterminal and non-postterminal converbs in ‑n a and ‑dïkda, which normally get modifying readings (‘when doing’), serve as non-modifying items marking major incisions, i.e. dividing the chain into major sections (cf. Johanson 1994b).



Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic 

1. Emma: ne idügi maclu:mïmïz olmayup 2. Paša-yï müdebbirden ol maha:lle adam varïn a

[minor incision] [major incision]

3. bizim yaγma ïlardan ikiyüz adamï Xa:n askeri ema:n vermeyüp [minor incision] 4. kïlïjdan gečirüp [minor incision] 5. ümlesi a:m-ï šeha:deti nu:š ve γam-ï dünya:yï fera:mu:š ėdüp [minor incision] 6. kellelerin Xa:na götürürken bu xaber-i mu:hiš pašaya gelin e [major incision]

7. ‘Bire bin-e!’ deyüp 8. tarfetü’l-cayn ičre bunlara kari:b vardïkda

[minor incision] [major incision]

9. ümle bašlarï bïrakdïrup [minor incision] 10. atlarïmïza tekli:f-i ma:-la:-yuta:klar ėdüp [minor incision] 11. Mah:mu:di: begi Ibra:hi:m Beg ileride bulunup [minor incision] 12. xa:nlïlar da Bitlis derelerine girme sadedinde iken Ibra:hi:m Beg anlarï čevirüp [minor incision]

13. čoγïnuŋ atlarï kalup [minor incision] 14. ‘Bitlis deresine a:n atam’ derken anlarï da kayd bend ėdüp [minor incision] 15. četa:čet bir xaylisi tüfengleširken Paša daxi yetišüp [minor incision] 16. altïyüz Xa:n askerinden an ak iki yüz ellisi piya:de sengista:na düšüp [minor incision]

17. xala:s oldïlar

[chain basis]

Example 1

In this text, representing a specific historical discourse type, converbs that are normally modifying may be interpreted as non-modifying items subdividing the periodic chain sentence. The predications are ordered successively as narratively equal information units. Though the converbial subjunctors are postpositive, they indicate relations to the subsequent predications right down to the final basic predication. We may thus analyze the sentence as if it would convey the following successive events:

1. But we did not know what was happening 2. By order of the prudent Pasha a man went to that place

3. 4. 5.

[Then this happened:] The Khan’s soldiers mercilessly killed two hundred of our pillagers They put them to the sword All of them emptied the cup of martyrdom and forgot the pleasures and sorrows of this world 6. While they took their heads to the Khan, this horrible news reached the Pasha

[Then this happened:] 7. He said: ‘Mount!’

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8. In the twinkling of an eye we got close to them

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

[Then this happened:] We made them drop all the heads We pressed our horses to the utmost Ibrahim Beg, the emir of Mahmudi, was right in the front Just as the men of the Khan were about to enter the Bitlis river-beds, Ibrahim Beg made them turn around The horses of most of them were left behind Just as they wanted to enter the Bitlis river-bed, he caught and bound them While quite a few of them were firing their muskets, the Pasha arrived Of the Khan’s six hundred soldiers only 200 escaped on foot into the rocky hills They saved themselves

Example 1.  Translation

In the rough analysis given here, I have taken the liberty of rendering each single predication as an independent sentence, ignoring the normal patterns of modification. Compare the stylistically elegant translation in Dankoff (1990: 204–205): “We had no idea of what was happening. By the time the prudent Pasha had sent a man there to investigate, the Khan’s soldiers had mercilessly put to the sword two hundred of the pillagers, making them quaff the wine of martyrdom and forget the tribulations of this world, and were taking their heads to the Khan. When this horrible news reached the Pasha, he cried ‘Mount!’ and in the twinkling of an eye we nearly caught up with them and made them drop the heads. As we pressed our horses from behind, Ibrahim Beg, emir of Mahmudi, appeared in front and made them turn around just as they were about to enter the Bitlis river-beds. Many of them abandoned their horses in order to plunge into the river and save their lives, but they were caught and bound. Quite a few stood fast and began firing their muskets. Just then the Pasha came up. Of the Khan’s six hundred soldiers only two hundred managed to escape into the rocky hills, minus their horses.”

14. Connective techniques of chain sentences Chains of the connective kind dealt with here are typical of the narrative styles of older non‑Europeanized Turkic varieties. In these chains, converbs offered ideal devices for serialization and subdivision. On the other hand, texts written in European languages exhibit other connective devices for the construction of narrative text­s. Series of independent sentences play an important role. Rightbranching subordination makes it possible to combine propulsive predications by means of conjunctio relativa techniques (cf. Johanson 1975), i.e. to form chains with a progressive direction of reference, e.g. ‘X occurred, whereupon Y occurred, whereupon Z occurred’, etc. This



Aspectotemporal connectivity in Turkic 

technique is impossible within the leftbranching Turkic subordination system, but the patterns just demonstrated have a similar effect. Since the text structures demonstrated here defy a discursive analysis of the kind applied to Europeanized varieties, they are very often thought not to be rule-governed at all. The great Ottoman writer Evliya Çelebi has been criticized for his allegedly chaotic style, sometimes characterized as a ‘verbal jungle’. However, his prose texts exhibit clear regularities which should in fact also be describable. A discourse-oriented study of narrative techniques must take this clause combining strategy more seriously and try to determine its intricate rules. The aspect-based connective conventions of non‑Europeanized Turkic prose styles are still largely undescribed. The use of these sentence types is strongly limited in modern Turkic texts. In written Ottoman, the typical Turkic periodic chain sentences disappeared in the 19th century under the influence of French prose styles. In most other Turkic languages, this sentence type vanished under Russian influence. Its decline is thus an effect of linguistic Europeanization. The dominant registers of modern written varieties use the subordination systems to construct texts according to European patterns in which subordination strongly covaries with modification. This development has led to considerable atrophy of Turkic converbial syntax.

References Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge: CUP. Comrie, B. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: CUP. Dankoff, R. 1990. Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis. Leiden: Brill. Jakobson, R. 1957. Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb. Cambridge MA: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University. Johanson, L. 1971. Aspekt im Türkischen. Vorstudien zu einer Beschreibung des türkeitürkischen Aspektsystems [Studia Turcica Upsaliensia 1]. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Johanson, L. 1975. Some remarks on Turkic ‘hypotaxis’. Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 47: 104–118. (Reprinted in Johanson, Lars 1991. Linguistische Beiträge zur Gesamtturkologie, 26‑70. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó). Johanson, L. 1990. Zur Postterminalität türkischer syndetischer Gerundien. Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher N. F. 9: 137–151. Johanson, L. 1994a. Türkeitürkische Aspektotempora. In Tense Systems in European Languages, R. Thieroff and J. Ballweg (eds), 247–266. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Johanson, L. 1994b. Ein türkisches Erzählsatzmuster. In Gedenkschrift Wolfgang Reuschel, D. Bellmann (ed.), 165–174. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Johanson, L. 1995. On Turkic converb clauses. In Converbs in Cross-linguistic Perspective. Structure and meaning of adverbial verb forms – Adverbial participles, gerunds [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 13], M. Haspelmath and E. König (eds), 313–347. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

 Lars Johanson Johanson, L. 2000. Viewpoint operators in European languages. In Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, Ö. Dahl (ed.), 27–187. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Johanson, L. 2001a. On three dimensions of aspectual terminality. In Aspects of Typology and Universals [Studia Typologica 1], W. Bisang (ed.), 53–62. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Johanson, L. 2001b. The aspectually neutral situation type. In Aktionsart and Aspectotemporality in Non-European Languages [Arbeiten des Seminars für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft 16], K. H. Ebert and F. Zúñiga (eds), 7–13. Zürich: ASAS-Verlag. Ma, J. & Knight, B. 1994. A general temporal theory. Computer Journal 37: 114–123. Mal’čukov, A. L. 2000. Opyt isčislenija taksisnyx značenij (na materiale tungusskix jazykov). Issledovanija po jazykoznaniju. K 70-letiju člen-korrespondenta Rossijskoj Akademii Nauk A. V. Bondarko, S. A. Čubik (ed.), 186–196. Sankt-Peterburg. Nedjalkov, V. and Otaina, G.A. 1987. Tipologičeskie i sopostavitel’nye aspekty analiza zavisimogo taksisa (na materiale nivxskogo jazyka v sopostavlenii s russkim). In Teorija funkcional’noj grammatiki. Vvedenie. Aspektual’nost’. Vremennaja lokalizovannost’. Taksis, A. V. Bondarko (ed.), 296–319. Leningrad: Nauka. Rentzsch, J. 2005. Aspekt im Neuuigurischen [Turcologica 65]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Connectivity by means of finite elements in monolingual and bilingual Turkish discourse* Birsel Karakoç Uppsala University Sweden

The topic of this article concerns the acquisition of the connective role of finite elements in Turkish by monolingual Turkish children and Turkish children growing up as bilinguals in Germany. First, the structural and typological properties of the Turkish finite verbal forms and their connective role are briefly presented. After having discussed the research up to now on the topic of acquisition of the Turkish finite forms, I will formulate the assumptions of the paper, and present the data of our mono- and bilingual groups of children, which will be analysed and compared with regard to the connective role of finite forms.

1. Introduction In this study I deal with narratives of mono- and bilingual children between the ages of 5 and 8. Narratives embrace different kinds of discourses, such as reports, stories, retellings, descriptions, fairy tales and others. Since the use of the respective structures strongly depends on the acquisition of certain discourse categories (cf. Rehbein and Grießhaber 1992), I want to explore to what extent functions of syntactical structures specific to discourse develop between the ages of 5 and 8 in a bilingual context. More specifically, it is to be investigated how children acquire the ability to form concatenations of speech actions in discourse.1 Discourse concatenation in Turkish, particularly, can be established by certain uses of finite aspectotemporal elements. It is expected that this ability of the child can be optimally analysed by means of retold narrations (cf. Rehbein 1999b).

2. Connectivity by means of finite forms in Turkish In Turkish, a finite predication consists of a lexeme, a predicate core, a bounded finite element and personal suffixes. On one side, the lexical components, functionally to be described – according to Bühler (1934) – as symbol field components, bear the predi-

 Birsel Karakoç

cates and carry the knowledge about the schemes of events, action, process of the sentence. The finite elements, on the other side, enable the predicate to be anchored to the speaker (S) and the hearer (H) for the processing of knowledge at the level of the predication. By means of finite elements the finite verb (‘finitum’) fulfils its purpose of anchoring the utterance as a whole in the perceived or imagined time and place of speech (Rehbein 1995: 275–278; Rehbein and Karakoç 2004). According to Johanson (e.g. 1971, 1994, 2000a, 2000b and this volume), the Turkish verbal system as a whole is characterized by two aspectual ideas. Without any modification of the lexical content (‘symbol field’ according to Bühler and the Functional Pragmatics framework) of a lexeme, an action can be looked at from a different point of view, relating to the initial stage, course and end stage. It is a question of different subjective forms of construal of on one and the same action. Intraterminality (+INTRA) and postterminality (+POST) are the two possibilities of subjective points of view. Intraterminality is the aspectual perspective which “envisages, at a given vantage point, an event within its limits, intra terminos, i.e. after its beginning and before its end”. Postterminality is the perspective which “envisages, at a given vantage point, an event after the transgression of its decisive limit, post terminum, i.e. after its beginning or its end” (Johanson, this vol.).

Figure 1.  Morphological structure of finite verbal forms and their values

From a formal-structural point of view, there are two kinds of finite suffixes: morphologically simple finite suffixes which signal, in terms of content, an aspectual idea; and morphologically complex finite forms, which are composed of a simple form plus a copula element. The copula elements, which can occur both as free morphemes and as suffixes, are used to express functions such as temporality,2 evidentiality or epistemic modality. While morphologically simple finite forms only express an aspectual meaning, the compound forms are marked both for aspectual value and for anteriority (+ANT), evidentiality (+EVIDENT) or presumptivity (+PRESUM) (s. figure 1).3



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

Connectivity can be established in Turkish by means of finite aspectotemporal structures of utterances (s. Johanson, this vol.). This kind of connectivity links two or more different utterances, thereby forming a discourse or text. In accordance with Rehbein (1999a), I call this kind of connectivity ‘utterance-external connectivity’. Thus, in Turkish, connectivity of the propositions results from a consistent perspectivity of the utterances (Rehbein 1999a: 189). The finite verbal forms in Turkish show certain properties specific to discourse type. Linguistic structures of similar content can differ from each other with regard to the discourse types in which they are used.4 Within such discourses, connectivity is utterance-externally realized by means of finite verbal forms and is subject to certain rules. The exact functional quality of the respective finite form cannot be understood within an individual utterance, but, rather, within larger linguistic units.5 In German, according to Redder (1992) (s. also Rehbein 1995; 1999b), the finite verb is a combination of procedures in which the verbal lexical element is the expression of symbol field and the finite flexives occur as expressions of different field affiliations (for the theory of linguistic fields with linguistic procedures in the framework of Functional Pragmatics cf. Ehlich 1986; 1999; Rehbein 2001b and Rehbein, this vol.). Typologically, narrations in German are constituted by deictic procedures. The constellation is established by means of deictic procedures and is often continued both by these and by refocusing procedures (s. Rehbein 1977, 1995; Redder 1992; Rehbein and Karakoç 2004). In comparison, in Turkish the setting of the origo moving and the installation of narration space or, rather, the orientation of the H takes place via the finite aspectual predication, and continuity in action space is ensured by sequences of these forms. Thus, the Turkish finite aspectual forms are constitutive for discourse and text type (s. e.g. Johanson, this vol.). Below, I will use the term ‘aspectual discourse type’ in order to explain the quality of certain discourse types constituted by the consistent use of aspecto-temporal forms (s. also Rehbein and Karakoç 2004). Aspectual discourse type is strongly dependent on the constellation of talk (s. Rehbein 1977: § 11). In this sense, I call the basis of an aspectual discourse type ‘discourse basis’. A finite form is called ‘discourse basis-constitutive’ if it constitutes a discourse basis. I call a form ‘discourse basis-relative’ if its existence depends on the respective basis level. Thus we have two different potentials of certain forms. Each aspectual discourse type has a specific copula form which is used in nominal predications and marks the discourse basis. I call this the ‘basis copula’ (cf. Johanson 1971; Karakoç 2005). We will now look into three aspectual discourse types which have been found empirically in the project data I have examined for this study:6 the –mIş-based discourse type, the -DI-based discourse type, and the –(Ø)Iyor-based discourse type.7 The -mIş-based discourse type: I speak of a mIş-based discourse type, if the finite form –mIş provides continuity in the narrative space and is responsible for the successive concatenation. In this case, the mIş-form constitutes the discourse basis of narration together with the intraterminal form –(Ø)Iyormuş. While the mIş-form carries

 Birsel Karakoç

the action, the intraterminal form –(Ø)Iyormuş presents the action in its course. In this way, an aspectual contrast takes place. The use of other finite forms serves for various purposes of discourse organisation, such as anteriority (e.g. –mIştI). This means that a temporal contrast within the given discourse can be interpreted as being background information, previously unverbalized “forgotten” information or as an insertion. The mIş-based narrative gives a certain framework, and a certain contour within which only specific forms for aspectual and temporal oppositions are appropriate. The mIş-based narrative does not give any information on the internal process of the actions. The narrator does not involve him- or herself in the story, but gives the whole account postterminally. The mIş-based narrative shows the features of collective knowledge and is used in traditional story-telling. In example (1), the five-year old monolingual child Melike (Mek) recounts the story of Snow White on the basis of the –mIş form.8 It is interesting that Melike initially, after a short while of deliberating, begins her utterance, but repairs it after vardı “there was/it was once” (sc 3). That means that she thinks of which narrative type she would like to establish for her retelling. After this attempt she decides to tell the story in a mIş-based narrative and, therefore, begins with the predication varmış “there was/it was once, (as told, as heard)”. By means of the nominal copulative predication varmış (var + imiş), a narration space is installed. In this example the mIş-form is used as a discourse basis-constitutive form. After deciding in favor of the mIş-based discourse type for the story and moving the origo into an imagination space the child has the possibility to open a different perspective on individual actions within this narrative basis, i.e. to use intraterminal forms like –(Ø)Iyormuş or -(V)rmIş in order to represent the individual actions as in the process. The predication in score areas 15–16 functions just like this Ormanda gezinip gezinip dururmuş “He was walking in the forest”.



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

 Birsel Karakoç



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

The -DI-based discourse type: The –DI and the intraterminal form –(Ø)Iyordu constitute another discourse type of narration. The form –DI provides for the continuity in the imagination space, i.e. the sequence of actions is carried out by the use of –DI. The intraterminal form –(Ø)Iyordu presents actions in process. A change of –DI into – (Ø)Iyordu serves the two-dimensional aspectual representations. Other finite forms which express relative anteriority can also be used within the –DI-based narrative, e.g. –mIş –mIştI or -DIydI. The use of such forms can mean, as mentioned, a temporal contrast within the narrative. The -DI-based narrative gives a direct view of the actions and reports on narrative actions experienced by S. The speaker is directly involved in the story and verbalizes the events in the succession in which they originally occurred.

 Birsel Karakoç



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

The –(Ø)Iyor-based discourse type: A third narrative discourse type which occurs in my data is constituted by the intraterminal form –(Ø)Iyor, which forms the discourse basis in these discourses.9 In an –(Ø)Iyor-based narrative –mIş, -mIştI or –DI can express relative anteriority. The communicative function of an -(Ø)Iyor-based narration is to make the narrative more lively. S and H seem to be directly involved in the story told. An example for the –(Ø)Iyor-based narrative occurs in the fragment of discourse given above. In example (1) Melike retells the story read out by the interviewer in a -mIş-discourse type which she continuously keeps from (sc 2) to (sc 49) forming a concatenation of speech actions. After having finished the –mIş-based discourse Melike says that she also watched a film version of this story which she starts to retell. She retells the film version in a –(Ø)Iyor-based narrative (s. the following example (2)).10 The postterminal form mIş would not be suited to the retelling of a film watched directly.11 In principle it is possible to perform a retelling of a story read out by the interlocutor in each of the discourse types mentioned. However, it is obviously first and foremost expected that the child retells a story that was told or read out to him on the basis of –mIş. The mIş-form, as already seen in example (1), is used as a discourse basis-constitutive form. It can also express the relative anteriority within the other aspecto-temporal narrative structures. In this respect it is important to differentiate between the different aspecto-temporal discourse types. It is especially important to consider this point in regards to the function of -mIş. For the analysis, we have to consider exactly which potential of that form is used and whether the form activates either its discourse basisconstitutive function or its discourse basis-relative function. It should be considered whether a shift from –mIş to another finite form means a shift of discourse types (a shift from a –mIş-based discourse into another discourse type) or marks only a temporal contrast moving within the given discourse without any discourse type change.

 Birsel Karakoç

In narrative recountings, characteristically, the succession of actions is presented linearly (plot-line). For instance the -(Ø)Iyor-predications within a -(Ø)Iyor-based discourse type continue the succession of narration. If another form like –mIş is used within this succession of actions, the action represented with this form interrupts the succession and thus inserts a background information, a memory, a later information etc. That means that in this case there is a temporal–like relationship between the form of the discourse basis (-(Ø)Iyor) and the form for the relative anteriority (–mIş). The action expressed with –mIş can only denote anterior information which is to be conceived as being relative to the discourse basis. It cannot cause any absolute shift of constellation (s. figure 2).

Figure 2.  Propositional realization of succession of actions in narrative discourse und the role of aspectual forms in it

3. Research on the topic There has been some research carried out on the topic of the acquisition of finite elements by monolingual Turkish children. Aksu-Koç (1988) gathered data from three monolingual children between the age of 1;9 (21 months) and 2;6 (30 months) analysing how they acquire the forms –DI and –mIş which she categorizes from a temporaldeictical perspective of view as “past tenses”.12 According to this data, Aksu-Koç (1988) identified -DI as being acquired at an earlier stage. The form already appears within the first recordings, so she concludes that it is acquired before an age of 21 months. The form –mIş appears at a later stage in her data. Looking through her data she suggests that the hearsay is the last function of –mIş to be acquired. Taking the verbalization of certain picture sequences as a basis, she identified that only one child aged 2;1 (25



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

months) reveals some narrative utterances with –mIş (cf. Slobin and Aksu-Koç 1982; Aksu-Koç and Slobin 1985; Aksu-Koç 2000). Aksu-Koç (1994) investigates the data from older children and adults. This data is elicited with the help of pictures from the frog story (Slobin 1985). The children were compiled within the context of a cross sectional analysis in the age groups of 3, 5 and 9 and the adults within an age group of 20–24. Aksu-Koç (1994) does not apply the conception of aspectotemporal discourse types known since Johanson (1971), but rather interprets the aspects as temporal deixis, noting that one finite form functions as “anchor tense” or “favored tense” in the Turkish narratives. Taking this as a basis she points out that three forms –(Ø)Iyor, -DI and –mIş have been investigated from the age of three onwards, but without a clear function of discourse organization. The children are not able to maintain the dominant tense over several utterances. More than half of the children from the group of 5-year olds remain on the line of dominant form and can realize an adequate form shift. In the group of children aged 9 all speakers are capable of mastering the discursive and connective use of forms. Aarssen (1996) investigates how children in the age range from 4 to 10 develop the ability to conceptualise and express “temporal structures” in narratives in Turkish and Dutch and analyses the narratives of 20 bilingual informants per age group. He compares the findings with those of monolingual informants (10 per age group) (1996: 123). In the data of bilinguals as well as of monolinguals he finds that the children have difficulty in establishing a “stable temporal frame” in which they can tell their stories and that a lot of “unmotivated tense shifts” are found. He remarks that for the bilingual children a development towards the use of –DI and –mIş as “anchor tenses” was found, while the monolingual informants retell their stories mainly in –(Ø)Iyor-form (Aarssen 1996: 137–156). Rehbein and Karakoç (2004) deal with how the finite elements in the retellings of Turkish-German bilingual and Turkish monolingual children are used for the purposes of discursive connectivity. Analysing a large data basis they find that the number and the range of different finite forms are significantly higher with monolinguals than with bilinguals13 and that the –(Ø)Iyor form in monolingual Turkish is highly preferred. Furthermore they observe that shifts of aspecto-temporal forms occur in the sample of bilingual informants and that two thirds of these switches are unacceptable (2004: 142).

4. Assumptions and research questions The present study is based on the general assumption that the acquisition of linguistic forms takes place within the framework of larger units (discourse forms) due to the acquisition of their function (Rehbein and Grießhaber 1992). The emphasis lies on the following research questions.

 Birsel Karakoç

1

Which special constellation do the children mentally refer to, i.e. hearsay, report of the film version of the story, or the reconstruction of the story with the help of pictures?

2 Do the children establish an aspectual discourse structure? Which discourse types occur in children’s retellings? How do they handle the specific complex requirements of each (individual) discourse type? What do the realizations of the constellations look like? 3 How long are the concatenations of utterances of the children? In this context, we first have to precisely investigate whether the child’s utterances are elicitated by the interlocutor, or whether the children are able to initiate concatenations of speech actions themselves. How is the continuity in imagination space maintained? Are these discourses characterized as sequences or as concatenations of utterances?

With respect to this, within the specific constellation of the narration, I will look into the proportional relationship between the children’s and the interlocutor’s utterances.

4 How do the children handle the principle of serialisation within a choosen discourse type? Do they, in an appropriate way, verbalize different perspectives on specific actions, or express temporal oppositions within a discourse structure?

5. The data I will investigate the questions mentioned above on the basis of linguistic data which include the accounts derived from a picture book (Snow White).14 The story is read out to the child from the picture book by the interviewer, and then the child is asked to retell the story (cf. footnote 10). Table 1.  Age groups monolingual Age group 5 6 7 8

Number of children 2 2 2 2

bilingual Age group 5 6 7 8

Number of children 2 2 2 2

As shown in table 1, I have analysed sixteen discourses from sixteen different children. Eight discourses are from monolingual children, eight from bilingual children. For both the mono- and the bilingual group, four groups of 5, 6, 7 and 8-year-olds have been formed. This allows us both to analyse the development of the children between



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

the ages of 5 and 8 longitudinally and to compare corresponding age groups between the mono- and bilingual children.

6. On the acquisition of aspecto-temporal discourse structures by monolingual children Let us take a look at the monolingual group. 1. Concerning the question of special constellation, I observed that 55 percent of the stories retold by monolinguals refer to the story that was read by the interviewers. 27 percent refer to the film version of the story. The remaining 18 percent retell the story with reference to the pictures in the book. However, the stories referring to the pictures were told in addition to the original stories (table 2). Table 2.  Occurrences of each constellation (monolingual children) Reliance on readaloud story 5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds Total

Reliance on film Reliance on pictures in version of the story the story book

2 1 2 1

1 1

6 = 55 %

3 = 27 %

1 1

1 2 = 18 %

2. As far as the diversity in the use of aspecto-temporal discourse types is concerned, I found that, within the monolingual groups, there are a number of different types (table 3). Already in the category of 5-year-old children, all three of the possible discourse structures occur. This seems to match the findings of Aksu-Koç (1994) that more than half the children from the group of 5-year old monolinguals investigated in her study remain on the line of “dominant form” constituting a discourse structure (but cf. Aarssen 1996 which finds that both bilinguals and monolinguals have difficulties in establishing a “stable temporal frame”). To sum up, 11 different discourse types can be found among the eight children in the monolingual group. I noticed that children in the group of 5-year-olds usually retell the story twice by changing the constellation. As shown in example (1) above, the 5-year-old child first refers mentally to the story read to her, retelling her own story in a mIş-based discourse. Then she retells the story once more (example 2), basing it on a film version she had seen (s. the remark in footnote 10). In this case, she retells the story according to a different discourse structure, namely an –(Ø)Iyor-based narrative. This means that she is also able to change the discourse types according to the different patterns in her knowledge.

 Birsel Karakoç

Table 3.  Occurrences of aspectotemporal discourse types (monolingual children) -mIş-based discourse

-DI-based discourse

–(Ø)Iyor-based discourse

Discontinuous discourse

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

2

1 1 2

1 1 1 1

-

Total

3

4

4

-

1

3. Table 4 below gives us an impression of the quantitative distribution of utterances. We find that the discourses of monolinguals from the age of 5 and onward were established by means of aspectual forms following one another and therefore building utterance concatenations. They were able to form reasonably long narratives, as can be seen in the examples above. The 5-year-old monolingual child Melike retells the story from score area 2 up to 49 all by herself (example (1)). She carries out a long concatenation of aspecto-temporal forms, a narrative discourse structure in –mIş. We observed that the other 5-year-old child displayed a similar result, although she does not retell the story in a detailed and lengthy version, as she only remembers certain events. However, she keeps the aspectual narrative within a long concatenation without the help of the interviewer. In the 5-year-old monolingual children, the utterances of the children form 91 per cent of the total utterances. In the 6-year-old children, we have calculated 90 per cent, in the 7-year-old children 86 percent, and in the 8-year-olds 98 percent. This means that the interlocutor does not co-constitute the narrative retelling. Table 4.  Percentage of child utterances in total of utterances (monolingual) Total of utterances in absolute numbers (Interlocutor + Child) 5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

147 153 155 175

Child utterances % in absolute (Utterances of child) numbers 134 139 134 172

91% 90% 86% 98%

Taking the results from table 4 as a basis, I would like to sum up certain tendencies within the monolingual group. On the whole, the concatenations of speech actions are typical for this group. However, this should not be strictly interpreted in a way that the interlocutor does not participate in the narrative story of the child at all. Rather, it



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

should be considered as a tendency in development that the children make up the sequences of actions on their own in 86 to 98 per cent of the cases (s. table 5). Table 5.  Overall characterization of discourses with regard to the initiation of concatenations (monolingual children) Interlocutor-initiated Concatenation

Child-initiated Concatenation

-

+ + + +

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

Table 6.  Shifts of finite forms within the given aspectual discourse type (monolingual children) -mIş-based discourse

-DI-based discourse

–(Ø)Iyor-based discourse

5-year- Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs yes olds Shift of forms 8 Shift of forms 1 Shift of forms 4 Inadequate shifts - Inadequate shifts - Inadequate shifts 6-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs yes olds Shift of forms Shift of forms 13 Shift of forms 1 Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts - Inadequate shifts 7-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs yes olds Shift of forms Shift of forms 9 Shift of forms 10 Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts - Inadequate shifts 8-year- Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs yes olds Shift of forms 2 Shift of forms Shift of forms 2 Inadequate shifts - Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts -

4. On the level of given discourse structures, I am investigating the possible diversity of finite forms which are used to realize aspecto-temporal oppositions. The finite forms which occur within each particular discourse type are used adequately by the whole group of monolingual children (s. table 6). This finding corresponds with the result in Aksu-Koç (1994) that the monolingual children in the same age range are capable of establishing aspecto-temporal narratives and performing adequate form shifts within these structures (By way of contrast, Aarssen 1996 found that in the data of bilinguals as well as of monolinguals a lot of “unmotivated tense shifts” occurred).

 Birsel Karakoç

7. On the acquisition of aspecto-temporal discourse structures by bilingual children We will now look at the results from the bilingual group: 1. In the bilingual data, I found that the children in 75 per cent of the constellations retell the story with reference to the pictures of the book. In contrast to the monolingual group, the bilingual group makes more use of the procedure of co-construction and uses the pictures in the book as a basis more often. They describe what they see in the pictures (from the original speech situation).15 Table 7.  Occurrences of each constellation (bilingual children) Reliance on readaloud story 5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

1

Total

1

Reliance on film Reliance on pictures in the version of the story story book

1

1

2 2 1 1 6 = 75 %

2. In the data of 5-year-old children, we find a kind of question-answer pattern where the answers consist mostly of one utterance. Connected sequences and utterance-spanning with finite elements can hardly be found. Thus, connectivity is established mainly by means of co-construction between H and S and with question-answer sequences. In the group of 6-year-olds, an attempt to build concatenated sequences of speech actions that go beyond the scope of one utterance can be observed, although in general most discourses seem still to be interlocutor-initiated and the question-answercharacter is predominant. Characteristic of these discourses is that the 6-year-old children establish discontinuous aspecto-temporal discourses. This means that they often show shifts from one discourse basis to another. The basis established initially is not continued and the origo is not maintained. In comparison with the group of 6-yearolds, the children aged 7 and 8 years reveal longer child-initiated concatenations and realizations of aspectual narratives (s. table 8). At this age range of bilingual children I found –DI and –(Ø)Iyor-based narratives. –mIş-based narratives do not occur in the bilingual data I have investigated for this study. By way of contrast, Aarssen (1996) remarks that for the bilingual children a development towards the use of –DI and –mIş as “anchor tenses” was found (Aarssen 1996: 137–156).



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

Table 8.  Occurrences of aspectotemporal discourse types (bilingual children) -mIş-based discourse

-DI-based discourse

–(Ø)Iyor-based discourse

Discontinuous discourse

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

-

1 1

1

+ -

Total

-

2

1

+

As already mentioned, we observed discontinuous narrative structures in the data of the 6-year-old bilingual children. Through such unmotivated shifts of finite forms H must repetitively orientate herself/himself again and again, and at least a monolingual Turkish H will get confused, being forced to focus and re-focus a new point in time from utterance to utterance. The perpetuation of the established discourse basis structure is important in that the origo is anchored and an imagination space is established through it. Therefore the unmotivated shift of forms means that the origo is newly established and consequently the H cannot easily grasp the succession of actions (Rehbein and Karakoç 2004). In the following I will give an example of this phenomenon: example (3) is taken from the discourse of the 6-year-old bilingual boy Kubat. It shows different finite elements following each other. In score area 52, a DI-predication occurs, whereas in score area 54 a –mIş, and in score area 55 an –(Ø)Iyor-predicate are used. In this case the question is: why can the use of these different finite forms not be understood as shifts of forms for an aspecto-temporal purpose within an established discourse structure (e.g. in the sense of relative anteriority), but rather as a shift of the discourse basis itself? In narrative discourses, it is characteristic that the sequences of action are presented in a linear form. The forms used, one after another, continue the sequence of the story. If another finite element is used within this plot, the actions presented with this element may interrupt the sequence. These interruptions may express background information, an insertion, something remembered by S and so on (cf. figure 2 and the explanation for it above).

 Birsel Karakoç



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

I would now like to return to example 3. We must answer the question whether we are dealing with an inadequate shift of discourse basis, or with a normal shift of forms within the discourse structure which has already been established. Every action is combined with different finite forms, first dedi, [say-DI] “he said” (score area 52), then demiş [say-mIş] “he said” (score area 54) and then söylüyor [say-(Ø)Iyor] “he says” (score area 55) (s. figure 3). But in this case the plot (sequences of action) is linear. None of these actions interrupt the succession in terms of the content. One event happens after another. This sequence in terms of content is not linguistically reproduced adequately by using the finite predications. In contrast to this we saw in examples (1) and (2) that continuity is linguistically maintained by means of the consistent use of finite elements of the given discourse basis.16

Action1

[-DI]

+

Action2

de-di

+

say-DI

+

[-mIş]

+

Action3 [-(Ø)Iyor]

de-miş

+

söyl-üyor

say-mIş

+

say-(Ø)Iyor

Figure 3.  Realisation of succession of actions in 6-year-old bilingual child Kubat

In the groups of 7 and 8 year old children (especially one 7-year-old bilingual child in my data), I have observed a stabilization of discourse basis. Finite elements play a role

 Birsel Karakoç

by establishing and continuing the origo. Long consistent concatenations of finite elements can be found both in –DI- and in –(Ø)Iyor-narratives. In the entire bilingual group, no discourse structure with -mIş can be found, although -mIş as a finite verbal form in single utterances sometimes occurs (cf. Karakoç 2006 on the realization of evidential forms in bilingual Turkish children; Herkenrath and Karakoç 2006; cf. also Pfaff 1993 and Boeschoten 1990). 3. In the group of 5-year-olds, we found a high level of speech activity on the part of the interlocutor. However, in this group a question-answer-pattern with a high H-initiated activity occurs, yet no narrative concatenations of utterances. In the group of 6-year-old children, we have a result of 56 percent and in the group of 7-year-old children a result of 84 percent of child utterances. In this context the high number of utterances can be explained as follows: one child in this group shows an advanced ability to retell and can keep the basis line of discourse over longer utterances. It is of course important to consider the individual abilities of the children. In the 8-year-old children, we find a lower percentage rate again (54 percent) (s. table 9). Table 9.  Percentage of child utterances of the total utterances (bilingual)

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

Total of utterances in absolute numbers (Interlocutor + Child)

Child utterances in absolute numbers

% (Utterances of child)

125 229 141 149

50 129 118 79

40 % 56 % 84 % 54 %

If we sum up the tendencies within the whole bilingual group in the data under investigation, we observe much more co-construction and H-initiated activities in contrast to the monolingual group of children (table 10). Table 10.  Overall characterization of discourses with regard to initiation of concatenations (bilingual children)

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

Interlocutor-initiated Concatenation

Child-initiated Concatenation

+ (+) -

(+) + +



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

4. If we closely consider the various types of aspecto-temporal structures that occur on a whole, we can see that form shifts occur for temporal purposes. All in all, we have two types of aspecto-temporal discourses within the whole bilingual group. Within these discourses, there are numerous adequate occurrences and a couple of inadequate shifts of forms (s. table 11). Table 11.  Shifts of finite forms within the given aspectual discourse type (bilingual children) -mIş-based discourse

-DI-based discourse

–(Ø)Iyor- based discourse

5-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs no olds Shift of forms Shift of forms Shift of forms Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts 6-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs no olds Shift of forms Shift of forms Shift of forms Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts 7-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs no olds Shift of forms Shift of forms 17 Shift of forms Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts 3 Inadequate shifts 8-year- Discourse type occurs no Discourse type occurs yes Discourse type occurs yes olds Shift of forms Shift of forms 1 Shift of forms 20 Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts Inadequate shifts 3

8. Three levels of linguistic development Looking at the results presented up until now, the discursive properties of connectivity, which are constituted by finite elements, can be compared by characterizing them on three different levels of linguistic development (s. tables 12 and 13).

 Birsel Karakoç

Table 12.  Discursive features of finite connectivity in monolingual children discursive features of finite connectivity Child-initiated (Concatenation) Interlocutor- Discontinuity in the initiated discourse basis (Sequence)

Continuity in the discourse basis Problems with the perspectivization and temporal contrast

Adequate shift of forms

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

+ + + +

Table 13.  Discursive features of finite connectivity in bilingual children discursive features of finite connectivity Child-initiated (Concatenation) Interlocutor- Discontinuity in the initiated discourse basis (Sequence)

5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds

Continuity in the discourse basis Problems with the perspectivization and temporal contrast

Adequate shift of forms

+ + +? +?

On the first level of linguistic development, we ask the question whether narrative concatenations occur that are adequate to the constellation of the retelling. All in all, the child-initiated concatenations predominantly occur in the monolingual group, compared to an age dependent sequence of development in the bilingual group. Within the bilingual group the percentage rate of co-operation by the interlocutor is rather high in the 5-year-old group. The connectivity is established up to 60 per cent by the H. We are confronted with a question-answer-pattern rather than with narrative accounts. The actions of the story to be retold are reconstructed step-by-step with the help of questions and individual answer utterances by the child. On the second level of linguistic development, the question is which features the existing concatenations show. Another question is whether the forms of discourse ba-



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

sis are consistently continued in order to present a coherent plot, or whether there are unmotivated shifts. And finally, we should ask whether there are any unmotivated shifts from one discourse basis to another. In the group of 6-year-old bilingual children we find, as mentioned earlier, attempts at establishing an aspectual discourse basis. Yet the children fail maintain the chosen basis consistently. We can see these children have already acquired the morphological structures but not the complete discursive functions of the finite forms. The third level of linguistic development concerns the use of different possible finite forms within an established discourse type. In the bilingual group, it seems that there are some unmotivated, inadequate shifts and thus some problems regarding the perspectivization and the linguistic realization of temporal contrast.

9. Conclusions The study found that in the data of bilingual informants the Turkish finite aspectotemporal elements function much less as discourse type-constitutive elements than in the data of monolingual informants. Especially –mIş-based narratives do not occur in the bilingual data investigated for this study. One could say the bilinguals seem to prefer a dual system with –(Ø)Iyor and –DI (Rehbein and Karakoç 2004; Karakoç 2006; Herkenrath and Karakoç 2006; cf. the finding by Aarssen 1996 which seems not to correspond with this result). By contrast, we observe a highly frequent use of temporal-deictic expressions such o zaman, sonra, ondan sonra etc. in the bilingual group (cf. example (3) above). Consequently, the utterance-external connectivity seems to be maintained by means of these elements.17 In this context we may talk about a functional expansion of the deictic elements in contact Turkish (cf. Rehbein 2001a; Her­ kenrath, Karakoç and Rehbein 2003; Rehbein and Karakoç 2004). The results are based on the analysis of data of the evocative field experiment (EFE 1) “retelling a story / fairy tale which is read out”. Although it is expected that the children verbalize the retellings of a story read out by the adult person in all discourse types mentioned above, it would be interesting to analyse more data collected by using other evocative field experiments (homileïc discourses, biographic narratives, movie retellings, retelling of a self-read book, talking about a picture, talking about games played during the recording etc.) in order to investigate which discourse type is preferred by children for which constellation type and which acquisition patterns can be observed. By just taking e.g. the description of a picture sequence presented to S and H (e.g. Aksu-Koç 1994; Slobin 1985) or a movie retelling (e.g. Erguvanlı Taylan 1987) as a basis the whole potential range of connective use of these forms cannot be completely presented. The study only dealt with the use and function of Turkish aspecto-temporal elements in spoken narratives. It would be also very interesting to see how the acquisition and conceptualization of written aspecto-temporal text types take place in bilingual school constellations.

 Birsel Karakoç

Notes * This work is a result of the research project SKOBI (Linguistic connectivity in bilingual Turkish-German children – Principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Jochen Rehbein), which is settled in the SFB 538 Mehrsprachigkeit (Collaborative Research Center No. 538 Multilingualism), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). The project SKOBI deals with the linguistic devices of connectivity acquired by Turkish children in a bilingual environment through their interaction with German. The results are compared with those of monolingual Turkish children. I would like to express my special thanks to Prof. Dr. Jochen Rehbein and Annette Herkenrath, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. 1. I would like to briefly explain the theoretically important terms of “concatenation” vs. “sequentialisation”, and “Hearer-initiation” (“H-initiation”) vs. “Speaker-initiation” (“S-initiation”), which are used for categorization in the following data analysis. These terms were established by Rehbein (1984). In the linguistic activities of narrating, describing and reporting, we deal not with sequences of interactional activities between speaker (S) and hearer (H). Instead, the main emphasis is placed on a long lasting activity of an individual speaker. For sequences of linguistic activities carried out systematically one after the other by the same speaker, the term “concatenation” (concatenation of speech actions) has been proposed within the theoretical framework of Functional Pragmatics (FP, cf. Ehlich and Rehbein 1986). If child utterances are elicited by an interlocutor, discourse intention as well as the retold narrative story are H-initiated (interlocutor-initiated). In this case, we have to deal with a condition of sequentialisation (sequentialised concatenation). If, however, the utterances of the child follow each other, the narration is S-initiated (child-initiated), and we are dealing with the situation of concatenation of speech actions (S-initiated concatenation) (Rehbein 1999b: 13). 2. «Anteriority» as a temporal notion is conceived as «Abstandnahme von der nächstliegenden Realität» (self-distancing from immediate reality) and “eine Relation der Reihenfolge, die zwei Terme voraussetzt” (a relation of sequence based on two terms as a prerequisite, cf. Johanson 1971: 52–55). 3. The idea of “focality” is not discussed here because it does not play a role in the data analysed in this study (cf. on this point e.g. Johanson 2000b). 4. For the discursive distribution of some finite verbal forms in Noghay, another Turkic language, cf. Karakoç (2000) and (2005). 5. Johanson (1971) introduced the notion that in Turkish all important text and discourse types are based on the cooccurence of specific finite forms. 6. For further discourse and text types constituted by use of other aspectotemporal forms cf. Johanson (1971: 76–87). 7. In Turkish, another narrative type exists which is based on the finite form –(V)r. One function of this discourse type is to make the narrative more lively than the –(Ø)Iyor-based discourse type, but it usually occurs in traditional story telling. I have not found any narrative discourse type which is based on -(V)r in the data I investigated for this study. 8. Examples in the general section on Turkish finite elements are taken from the project data analysed in this study. However, they are not discussed from the acqusitional point of view here, but rather serve as empirical illustrations of the linguistic phenomena mentioned. It should also



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

be mentioned that the child language data are presented just as the children speak, i. e. the mistakes of children are not corrected by us. 9. The –(Ø)Iyor-based discourse type is primarily used to form descriptions, accounts of facts, reports etc. –(Ø)Iyor also may constitute narrative discourse (cf. Johanson 1971: 80). In this study –(Ø)Iyor-based descriptions, accounts etc. do not play a role. They are thus not dealt with further. 10. In the present study, I observed that some of the children wanted to retell the film version of the story about Snow White, even though the interlocutor had read out the story from the book. The film version of the story was not shown to the children, but is well known to most of the children from their own experience. 11. It is thus not surprising that Erguvanlı Taylan (1987) did not observe any –mIş-based narratives in her data of retellings of films. 12. These forms differ from each other, as mentioned above, with regard to their aspectuality but not with regard to their temporality. -mIş is a form expressing evidentiality. In comparison, -DI does not show any evidential meanings (s. e.g. Csató 2000 and Johanson 2000a). 13. Cf. the results in Herkenrath and Karakoç (2002) in which a reduced number and range of Turkish subordination elements can be observed in bilingual informants. 14. The experiment book used for the data collection is not a picture book where the individual sequences of the events are presented by means of the pictures (as used e.g. by Slobin 1985), and includes few pictures only. 15. According to Aksu-Koç (1988) the verbalization of knowledge gained by hearsay is the function of –mIş that children acquire last. The ability to verbalize complex discourse forms is necessary in order to depict facts that are absent in terms of time and space and are thus not directly visible to a communication partner in the field of perception. In this regard narration and narrative abilities seem to be very important in language acquisition (Rehbein 1999b). 16. This partial discontinuity of the ongoing plot line is, according to my investigations, also caused (or motivated) by the integration of reported speech into the action line of the basis discourse level. The integration of direct speech into the real story basis seems to be a very complex matter for the children. I will not deal with this point in any further detail. 17. For the use of deictic elements in bilingual children s. Rehbein (2001a); for the use of o zaman in bilingual children s. Baumgarten et al. (this vol.).

 Birsel Karakoç

Abbreviations 3SG ABL ACC ANT CAU CDCOP COP CV CVCOP DAT DEI DIM FUT GEN IJ ICOP INS LOC MOD NEG PAR PAS OPT PCOP PL POP PRS PST PSS PTC PTE PVERB Q REF REC ⇔TEMP VN

3rd person singular Ablative Accusative Anteriority Causative Conditional copula Copula Converb Converbial copula Dative Deixis Diminutive Future Genitive Interjection Indirective copula Instrumental Locative Modal Negation Participle Passive Optative Past tense copula Plural Postposition Present tense Past tense Possessive Particle Postterminality Postverb Interrogativity marker Reflexive Reciprocal Temporal opposition Verbalnoun



Connectivity by means of finite elements in mono- and bilingual Turkish discourse 

References Aarssen,���������� J. 1996. Relating Events in Two Languages. Acquisition of cohesive devices by TurkishDutch bilingual children at a school age. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Aksu-Koç, A. 1988. The Acquisition of Aspect and Modality. The case of past reference in Turkish. Cambridge: CUP. Aksu-Koç, A. 1994. Development of linguistic forms: Turkish. In Relating Events in Narrative. A crosslinguistic developmental study, R. A. Berman and D. Slobin (eds), 329–392. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Aksu-Koç, A. 2000. Some aspects of the acquisition of evidentials in Turkish. Evidentials. Turkic, Iranian and neighbouring languages, L. Johanson and B. Utas (eds), 15–28. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Aksu-Koç, A. and Slobin, D. I. 1985. The acquisition of Turkish. In The Crosslinguistic study of Language Acquisition. I: The data, D. I. Slobin (ed.), 839–878. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Baumgarten, N., Herkenrath, A., Schmidt, T., Wörner, K. and Zeevaert, L. This volume. Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora: Some exemplary analyses from modern and historical, written and spoken corpora. Boeschoten, H. E. 1990. Acquisition of Turkish by Immigrant children. A multiple case study of Turkish children in the Netherlands aged 4 to 6. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Bühler, K. 1934. Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Fischer (repr. 1978 Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein). Csató, É. Á. 2000. Turkish miş- and imiş-items. Dimensions of a functional analysis. Evidentials. Turkic, Iranian and Neighbouring Languages, L. Johanson and B. Utas (eds), 29–43. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ehlich, K. 1986. Funktional-pragmatische Diskursanalyse – Ziele und Verfahren. Verbale Interaktion. Studien zur Emprie und Methodologie der Pragmatik, D. Flader, D. (ed.), 127–143. Stuttgart: Metzler. Ehlich, K. 1999. Funktionale Pragmatik – Terme, Themen und Methoden. Deutschunterricht in Japan 4: 4–24. Ehlich, K. and Rehbein, J. 1986. Muster und Institution. Untersuchungen zur schulischen Kommunikation. Tübingen: Narr. Erguvanlı Taylan, E. 1987. Tense variation in Turkish narratives. In Studies on Modern Turkish. Proceedings of the Third Conference on Turkish Linguistics, H. E. Boeschoten and L. Th. Verhoeven (eds), 177–188. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Erguvanlı Taylan, E. (ed.) 2001. The Verb in Turkish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Herkenrath, A. and Karakoç, B. 2002. Zum Erwerb von Verfahren der Subordination bei türkisch - deutsch bilingualen Kindern - Transkripte und quantitative Aspekte [Arbeitspapiere zur Mehrsprachigkeit, Folge B, 37]. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, SFB 538 Mehrsprachigkeit. Herkenrath, A. and Karakoç, B. 2006. Linguistic connectivity in German-Turkish language contact. Talk given in Jahrestagung der Societas Linguistica Europaea 2006: Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics, Workshop on Multilingualism and Universal Principles of Linguistic Change Universität Bremen, 30. August -02. September 2006. Herkenrath, A. and Karakoç, B. and Rehbein, J. 2003. Interrogative elements as subordinators in Turkish – aspects of Turkish-German bilingual children’s language use. (Non)vulnerable

 Birsel Karakoç Domains in Bilingualism [Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism 1], N. Müller (ed.), 221– 269. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Johanson, L. 1971. Aspekt im Türkischen. Vorstudien zu einer Beschreibung des türkeitürkischen Aspektsystems [Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Turcica Upsaliensia I]. Uppsala: University of Uppsala. Johanson, L. 1994. Türkeitürkische Aspektotempora. In Tense systems in European languages, R. Thieroff and J. Ballweg (eds), 247–266. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Johanson, L. 2000a. Turkic indirectives. Evidentials. Turkic, Iranian and neighbouring languages, L. Johanson and B. Utas (eds), 61–87. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Johanson, L. 2000b. Viewpoint operators in European languages. In Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, Ö. Dahl (ed.), 27–187. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Johanson, L. and Utas, B. (eds). 2000. Evidentials. Turkic, Iranian and neighbouring languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Karakoç, B. 2000. The finite copula bol- in Noghay and its functional equivalents in Turkish. Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages, A. Göksel and C. Kerslake (eds.), 143–149. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Karakoç, B. 2005. Das finite Verbalsystem im Nogaischen [Turcologica 58]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Karakoç, B. 2006. Evidentiality in Turkish-German bilingual children. Talk given at the 13th International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Uppsala University, 16–20. August 2006. Pfaff, C. 1993. Turkish language development in Germany. In Immigrant Languages in Europe, G. Extra and L. Verhoeven (eds), 119–157. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Redder, A. 1992. Funktional-grammatischer Aufbau des Verb-Systems im Deutschen. In Deutsche Syntax. Ansichten und Aussichten, L. Hoffmann (ed.), 128–154. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Rehbein, J. 1977. Komplexes Handeln. Elemente zur Handlungstheorie der Sprache. Stuttgart: Metzler. Rehbein, J. 1984. Beschreiben, Berichten und Erzählen. Erzählen in der Schule, K. Ehlich (ed.), 67–124. Tübingen: Narr. Rehbein, J. 1995. Grammatik kontrastiv – am Beispiel von Problemen mit der Stellung finiter Elemente. Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache 21: 265–292. Rehbein, J. 1999a. Konnektivität im Kontrast. Zu Struktur und Funktion türkischer Konverben und deutscher Konjunktionen, mit Blick auf ihre Verwendung durch monolinguale und bilinguale Kinder����� . In Türkisch und Deutsch im Vergleich, L. Johanson and J. Rehbein (eds), 189–243.������������������������� Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Rehbein, J. 1999b. Erzählen in zwei Sprachen – auf Anforderung. Kinderkommunikation – einsprachig und mehrsprachig. Mit einer erstmals auf Deutsch publizierten Arbeit von Lev S. Vygotskij, Zur Frage nach der Mehrsprachigkeit im kindlichen Alter, K. Meng, K. and J. Rehbein (eds), In press. Münster: Waxmann. Rehbein, J. 2001a. Turkish in European Societies. Lingua e Stile XXXVI-2/2001: 317–334. Rehbein, J. 2001b. Konzepte der Diskursanalyse. Text- und Gesprächslinguistik. 2 Vols., K. Brinker et al (eds), 927–945. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Rehbein, J. and Grießhaber, W. 1992. L2-Erwerb versus L1-Erwerb: Methodologische Aspekte ihrer Erforschung. Kindliche Sprachentwicklung. Konzepte und Empirie, K. Ehlich (ed.), 67–119. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.



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Rehbein, J. and Karakoç, B. 2004. On contact-induced language change of Turkish aspects: Languaging in bilingual discourse. Languaging and Language Practices, C. B. Dabelsteen and J. N. Jørgensen (eds), 125–149. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism. Slobin, D. I. (ed.). 1985. The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition I: The data. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Slobin, D. I. and Aksu, A. A. 1982. Tense, aspect, and modality in the use of the Turkish evidential. Tense – Aspect: Between semantics and pragmatics, P. J. Hopper, (ed.), 185–200. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

section 4

Subordination – coordination

Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish* Celia Kerslake University of Oxford

This article examines the distribution of non-finite and finite strategies within each of the major categories of subordinate clause (nominal, adjectival/relative and adverbial) in Turkish. Noting the association of the various non-finite strategies with less formal registers, it seeks psycholinguistic, pragmatic and rhetorical explanations for the popularity of these alternative structures alongside a fully developed system of non-finite subordination.

1. Introduction In structural terms, Turkish subordinate clauses are of two broad types: a. Finite (F): the predicate may be verbal or nominal, and is marked in the same way as if it were the predicate of a main clause. b. Non-finite (NF): the predicate is verbal, and is marked by distinctive subordinating morphology. Although NF is generally regarded as the predominant subordination strategy in Turkish, F is also widespread in particular types of subordinate clause, and often correlates with particular registers of language use, and/or with the operation of pragmatic or psycholinguistic factors.1 In this paper I propose to examine the distribution of contrasting subordination strategies within each of the three major functional classes of subordinate clause: nominal, relative and adverbial. I shall consider to what extent the distribution overlaps or is complementary in semantic terms, and suggest how particular areas of overlap can be accounted for by pragmatic, sociolinguistic/stylistic and psycholinguistic factors. This is not claimed to be an exhaustive survey, but I attempt to cover the most salient phenomena within each functional class. In the final part of the paper I shall attempt to draw some conclusions about Turkish subordination as a whole.

 Celia Kerslake

1.1

Formal characteristics of F and NF clauses in Turkish

Before proceeding to look at the specifics of particular functional categories of subordinate clause, it will be useful to identify more specifically the distinctive features of Turkish F and NF clauses as defined above. 1.1.1 F subordinate clauses F subordinate clauses nearly always contain, either at the beginning or at the end, a subordinator constituent that is structurally a separate word. The only exception to this is that certain verbs (expressing perception or desire) can take an F noun clause as their complement without the intervention of a subordinator: (1) Mehmet artık başka bir yerde otur-uyor. Mehmet now other a place-loc live-impf ‘Mehmet now lives somewhere else.’ (2) [Mehmet/Mehmet-i2 artık başka bir yerde oturuyor] san-ıyor-um. -acc think-impf-1sg ‘I think [Mehmet now lives somewhere else].’ (3) and (4) are examples of F noun clauses containing subordinators, one of which, diye, occurs obligatorily at the end of its clause and the other, ki, obligatorily at the beginning of it: (3) [Bu oda ders için çok uygun diye] düşün-üyor-um. this room lesson for very suitable sub think-impf-1sg ‘I think [this room is very suitable for teaching].’ (4) Anla-dı-k ki Necla artık biz-den ayrıl-mış-tı. understand-pf-1pl sub Necla now we-abl separate-pf-p.cop ‘We realized that Necla had now parted company with us.’ The Persian-derived general subordinator ki3 (whose meanings include ‘that’, ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘when’, ‘so that’, etc), and other items that contain or may contain it, such as nasıl ki ‘just as’ and madem(ki) ‘since’, are the only subordinators in Turkish that stand at the beginning of their clause.4 The subordinators that appear at the end of their respective clauses, principally diye ‘that’, ‘so that’, etc and gibi ‘as if ’, are of native Turkish origin, and their position conforms to the left-branching word order typology of Turkish. Of these, diye is in origin a converbial form of the verb de- ‘say’,5 and gibi is basically a postposition meaning ‘like’. I shall divide the category of finite subordinate clauses into the subtypes F-Bare (i.e. with no subordinator), F-Sub-Final and F-Sub-Initial. A few remarks should be made at the outset about the peculiar features of F-Sub-Initial clauses introduced by ki. Unlike other F-Sub-Initial clauses (such as those introduced by madem(ki)), ki-clauses obligatorily follow the main clause to which they are attached. In an article first published in 1975, Johanson drew attention to the problem-



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

atic status of these structures, which he suggested should probably be viewed as paratactic rather than hypotactic. He observed (1991: 212; also 1992: 109) that ki-introduced clauses cannot themselves form part of an NF subordinate structure embedded in the typical Turkish manner. This is illustrated in my examples (5) – (6): (5) a. İzmir-de [anne-m-in pek sev-diğ-i] İzmir-loc mother-1sg.poss-gen very.much love-part-3sg.poss bir komşu-muz var-dı. a neighbour-1pl.poss existent-p.cop b. İzmir’de bir komşumuz vardı ki annem on-u pek sev-er-di. s/he-acc love-aor-p.cop ‘In İzmir we had a neighbour that my mother was very fond of.’ (6) a. [İzmir’de [annem-in pek sev-diğ-i] bir komşumuz ol-duğ-un]-u exist-vn-3sg.poss-acc anlat-tı-m. tell-pf-1sg b. * İzmir’de bir komşumuz olduğunu [ki annem onu pek severdi] anlattım. ‘I told [them] that in İzmir we (had) had a neighbour that my mother was very fond of.’ (5a) and (5b) contain, in addition to their main clause, respectively the NF and F-SubInitial (ki) versions of a relative clause modifying the noun phrase bir komşumuz ‘a neighbour of ours’. (6) shows that while the version with the NF relative clause can be readily converted into an NF complement clause, this is impossible with the version involving a ki-clause. In view of their somewhat indeterminate status, clauses introduced by ki will not be enclosed in square brackets in the examples from now on.

1.2

NF clause morphology

The most fundamental aspect of the finite/non-finite distinction in Turkish subordinate clauses is morphological, and is articulated at the extreme right-hand end of the chain of suffixes attaching to the root.6 To facilitate the recognition of non-finite structures in the examples used in this article the subordinating suffixes that mark a clause as NF will be shown in bold italics. The examples below contrast the finite verb of a simple sentence (7) with three types of NF subordinate clause: adjectival/relative (8), nominal (9) and adverbial (10). (7) Onlar-a bu kart-ı göster-iyor-sun. them-dat this card-acc show-impf-2sg ‘You show them this card.’ (8) [onlara göster-diğ-in] kart show- part-2sg.poss ‘the card (that) you show them’

 Celia Kerslake

(9) [Onlara bu kartı göster-me-n]-i show-vn-2sg.poss-acc ‘I told you to show them this card.’

söyle-miş-ti-m tell-pf-p.cop-1sg

(10) [Onlara bu kartı göster-erek] gir-iyor-sun. show-cv enter-impf-2sg ‘You get in by showing them this card.’ In Turkish, finite verbs are obligatorily marked for person. Some NF verb forms (like those illustrated in (8) and (9)) equally include, in addition to the appropriate subordinating suffix, a person marker, while others, like that exemplified in (10), are unmarked for person. Even where a person marker does occur in an NF form, however, this is selected not from one of the sets that occur on finite predicates, but from the quite separate set of nominal suffixes that indicate possession (poss). At the cost of some over-simplification, I present below a summary of the morphological marking of Turkish NF subordinate clauses. (11) Noun clause morphology:7 -mA(K)8 -mA + poss -(y)Iş + poss -DIK/-(y)AcAK + poss

verbal noun (vn) suffixes ‘infinitive’ (no person marking) used in evaluative, resultative and volitional utterances in relatively restricted use used mainly in indirect statements/questions

(12) Relative clause morphology:9 -(y)An, –mIş, -(y)AcAk -DIK/-(y)AcAK + poss

participle (part) suffixes ‘subject participle’ (no person marking) ‘object participle’ (possessive marking indicates the subject)

(13) Adverbial clause morphology: converbial marking Either a distinctly converbial suffix such as -(y)ArAk, -(y)IncA, etc (glossed cv) or a composite form based on one of the vn/part forms: -mAk + (…) e.g. -mAk için ‘in order to’ -mA + poss + (…) e.g. -mA-sI için ‘in order for X to’ -DIK/-(y)AcAK + poss + (…) e.g. -DIğ-I zaman ‘when X’

1.3

Conditional clauses

Conditional clauses occupy a position intermediate between the F and NF types, but closer to the former. They are marked either with the stressed suffix -sA or the unstressed copular clitic -(y)sA. All conditional clauses are marked for person in the same way as finite predicates, and -sA forms (but not those with -(y)sA) can also occur as main clauses, expressing wishes.



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

(14) Conditional clause morphology (a) Verb stem + tense/aspect/modality OR nominal predicate + (y)sA + person markers (‘real’ conditions) (b) Verb stem + -sA + person markers (hypotheticals) (c) Verb stem + -sA + past copula + person markers (counterfactuals) The presence of a wh-phrase within any type of conditional clause produces a universal conditional: (15) a. Sen bahçe-de ol-acak-sa-n ben de ora-ya gel-e-yim. you garden-loc be-fut-cond.cop-2sg I too there-dat come-opt-1sg ‘If you’re going to be in the garden, I’ll come there too.’ b. Sen nere-de olacaksan ben de oraya geleyim. where-loc ‘I’ll come wherever you’re going to be.’

2. Noun clauses The overall picture within the noun clause category is as follows: a. NF structures are available across the entire range of semantic sub-types. Where the subject of the NF clause is different from that of the superordinate clause and is represented in the NF clause by a noun phrase, this noun phrase receives genitive marking. b. F-Bare structures are in complementary distribution with F-Sub-Final structures containing diye, and are available only as complements (or subjects) of a small number of verbs. c. F-Bare/F-Sub-Final structures, while widely available, are confined to informal registers.10 d. The use of F-Sub-Initial structures (introduced by ki) seems to be motivated mainly by pragmatic factors.

2.1

Sentence types involving non-person-marked NF noun clauses

The only verbal noun suffix that regularly occurs without person marking is -mAK. 2.1.1 Types of sentence in which non-person-marked NF noun clauses are obligatory Perhaps predictably in view of the fact that finite verbs have to be marked for person, the type of sentence from which F noun clauses are most clearly excluded are those that predicate something of an activity, experience or state viewed in the abstract, without reference to any subject:

 Celia Kerslake

(16) [Hediye al-mak] her zaman hoş ol-mu-yor. present get-vn every time nice be-neg-impf ‘It’s not always nice to get presents.’ In contexts where the superordinate clause expresses the attitude or behaviour of the subject of that higher clause towards his/her own potential or actual involvement in some activity, experience or state, the noun clause expressing that activity, experience or state again is usually obligatorily NF: (17) Meryem [yalnız kal-ma]-yı sev-mi-yor. Meryem alone be.left-vn-acc like-neg-impf Meryem doesn’t like being left alone.’ (18) Ali [bu araba-yı kullan-ma]-ya başla-dı. Ali this car-acc use-vn-dat begin-pf ‘Ali has begun to use this car.’ 2.1.2 One type in which non-person-marked NF alternates with F-Bare The only context of the kind treated in 2.1 in which the use of an F noun clause is possible is one expressing desire, with the verb in the superordinate clause being almost invariably iste- ‘want’. If an F clause is used it is of the F-Bare type, its verb is marked for optative (or 3rd person imperative) modality, and its person marking reflects the standpoint of the speaker, not the subject (unless the two are the same). As in all similar pairs of examples to follow, (a) and (b) below express the same proposition, using respectively an NF clause and an F clause: ( 19) a. Çocuk [anne-sin-e yardım et-mek] iste-miş-ti. child mother-3sg.poss.dat help aux-vn want-pf-p.cop b. Çocuk [anne-sine yardım et-sin] istemişti. aux-imper.3sg ‘The child had wanted to help his/her mother.’

2.2

Sentence types involving person-marked NF noun clauses

The verbal noun suffixes that can or must be followed by person markers are -mA, -(y)Iş, -DIK and -(y)AcAK. 2.2.1 Types of sentence in which person-marked NF noun clauses are obligatory On the basis of a combination of syntactic and semantic criteria several categories of sentence can be identified for which, although the NF strategy involves person marking for subject, there is no alternative F strategy available for the noun clause. Among the most important are those where the noun clause is:



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

a. the subject of an evaluative or descriptive sentence: (20) [Bura-ya kadar gel-me-miz] zor ol-uyor. here-dat as.far.as come-vn-1pl.poss difficult be-impf ‘It’s difficult for us to come all this way.’ b. the subject of a sentence expressing the impact of a situation on some object: (21) [Kemal-in bir şey söyle-me-yiş-i] ben-i şaşırt-tı. Kemal-gen a thing say-neg-vn-3sg.poss I-acc surprise-pf ‘It surprised me that Kemal didn’t say anything.’ c. the complement of a copulative sentence: (22) Bu-nun neden-i [sen-i kıskan-ma-sı-dır]. this-gen reason-3sg.poss you-acc be.jealous-vn-3sg.poss-mod ‘The reason for this must be that s/he is jealous of you.’ d. the subject or object of an act of causation, facilitation or obstruction: (23)

Bu yöntem-le [hasta-nın daha az acı çek-me-si] this method-ins patient-gen more little pain suffer-vn-3sg.poss sağla-n-abil-ir. ensure-pass-possib-aor ‘By this method it can be ensured that the patient suffers less.’

e. the oblique object of an act of helping or permitting: (24)

[Çocuk-lar-ın bahçe-de oyna-ma-ların]-a izin ver-ir child-pl-gen garden-loc play-vn-3pl.poss-dat permission give- aor mi-siniz? q-2pl ‘Would you [please] let the children play in the garden?’

f. an event or state to which a cause, purpose, benefit, etc is attributed: (25) [Öyle yap-ma-ların]-ın neden-i belli. so do-vn-3pl.poss-gen reason-3sg.poss obvious ‘The reason for their doing this is obvious.’ The fact that all of the above patterns involve -mA (or -(y)Iş11 rather than -DIK/-(y)AcAK is not fortuitous. The pair of suffixes -DIK/-(y)AcAK (differentiated by tense) mark a clause as expressing a proposition rather than an event/state. They are overwhelmingly associated with the concepts of factivity, cognition and communication, and their finite counterparts, as we shall see below, therefore attract the F-SubFinal subordinator diye, derived from the verb de- ‘say’.

 Celia Kerslake

Alternation of F-Bare and F-Sub-Final clauses with person-marked NF clauses 2.2.2.1 Wishes. The same F-Bare structure seen in (19b) above can be used to express a wish for something to be done or undergone by a subject other than the subject of the act of wishing. In this case the NF form receives person marking in the form of a possessive suffix: 2.2.2

(26) a. [Çocuğ-un anne-sin-e yardım et-me-sin]-i child-gen mother-3sg.poss.dat help aux-vn-3sg.poss-acc iste-miş-ti-m. want-pf-p.cop-1sg b. [Çocuk annesine yardım et-sin] istemiştim. aux-imper.3sg ‘I had wanted the child to help his/her mother.’

2.2.2.2 Directives. Where the superordinate verb expresses not the mere desire for something to happen but an articulated instruction, request, recommendation, etc for it to be brought about, there is again a choice available between an NF and an F strategy for the noun clause. In this case, however, the finite construction requires the inclusion of the subordinator diye (literally ‘saying’), and the subordinate clause is treated as if it were direct speech, its person deixis being centred on the person uttering the directive, not on the speaker of the sentence as a whole. Thus although the verbal noun in (27a) is marked for 1st person. its finite counterpart in (27b) is 2nd person imperative. (27) a. Tülay [doktora git-me-m]-i tavsiye et-ti. Tülay doctor-dat go-vn-1sg.poss-acc recommendation aux-pf b. Tülay bana [doktor-a git diye] tavsiye etti. I.dat doctor-dat go[2sg.imper] sub ‘Tülay advised me to go to the doctor.’

2.2.2.3 Cognition, communication and factual status. Noun clauses in sentences that deal with knowledge or communication of, make a claim about or question the factual status of a proposition present a slightly complex picture in terms of the distribution of F and NF strategies. In the majority of cases the most generally acceptable strategy is an NF noun clause marked with the subordinator -DIK (relative present or past tense) or -(y)AcAK (relative future tense): (28) [Siz-in-le konuş-acağ-ımız]-ı onlar-a söyle-me-di-k. you-gen-ins talk-vn-1pl.poss-acc they-dat tell-neg-pf-1pl ‘We didn’t tell them (that) we were going to talk to you.’



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

(29) [Adam-ın endişeli ol-duğ-u] belli-ydi. man-gen anxious be-vn-3sg.poss obvious-p.cop ‘It was obvious that the man was anxious.’ The distribution of alternative (informal) F-Bare/F-Sub-Final strategies in this category is as follows: a. F-Bare clauses The direct juxtaposition of a bare finite clause occurs regularly with the verb san‘think’ (in the sense of ‘be under the impression that’), as seen in (30b): (30) a. [Herkes-in git-tiğ-in]-i san-ıyor-du-m. everyone-gen go-vn-3sg.poss-acc think-impf-p.cop-1sg b. [Herkes git-ti] sanıyordum. go-pf ‘I thought everyone had gone.’ Where the content of the noun clause is interrogative, the F-Bare strategy may also occur if the superordinate clause expresses cognition: (31) a. [Ayşe-nin ne kadar iste-dig-in]-i bil-mi-yor-uz. Ayşe-GEN how.much want-VN-3SG.POSS-ACC know-NEG-IMPF-1PL b. [Ayşe ne kadar isti-yor] bilmiyoruz. want-IMPF ‘We don’t know how much Ayşe wants.’ However, an F clause is not acceptable where the superordinate verb is sor- ‘ask’: (32) a. [Ayşe-nin ne kadar iste-dig-in]-i sor-du. b. *[Ayşe ne kadar isti-yor] sordu. ‘S/he asked how much Ayşe wants.’ b. F-Sub-Final clauses with diye Outside the contexts illustrated in (30) – (31), noun clauses in sentences expressing cognition or communication can usually be articulated in F form by the interposition of diye between the subordinate and superordinate predicates: (33) a. [Sınav-ın ertele-n-diğ-in]-i duy-muş-tu-k. exam-gen postpone-pass-vn-poss.3sg-acc hear-pf-p.cop-1pl b. [Sınav ertele-n-di diye] duymuştuk. -pf sub ‘We had heard that the exam was being postponed.’ c. The role of factivity With factive predicates both the F-Bare and the F-Sub-Final strategy become unacceptable:

 Celia Kerslake

(34) a. [Adam-ın endişeli ol-duğ-u] belli-ydi. b. *[Adam endişeli] (diye) belli-ydi. ‘It was obvious that the man was anxious.’ (35) a. b.

(See (29))

[Mehmet-in sen-i sev-diğ-in]-i anla-mı-yor mu-sun? Mehmet-gen you-acc love-vn-poss.3sg-acc understand-neg-impf q-2sg *[Mehmet seni seviyor (diye)] anlamıyor musun? ‘Don’t you realize that Mehmet loves you?’

However, in the case of the matrix verbs anla- ‘understand’, ‘realize’ and bil- ‘know’, these factive readings give way to the non-factive ‘think’, ‘be under the impression that’ (i.e. become synonymous with san-) when stress is placed on the complement rather than on the matrix verb. In such cases the matrix verb is almost always in a past tense form:

Factive

(36) [Mustafa-nın evli ol-duğ-un]-u biL-İyor-du-m.12 Mustafa-gen married be-vn-3sg.poss-acc know-impf-p.cop-1sg ‘I knew Mustafa was married.’

Non-factive

(37) a. [Mustafa-nın evLİ ol-duğ-un]-u biliyordum. b. [Mustafa evLİ diye] bil-iyor-du-m. sub ‘I thought Mustafa was married.’ (38) a. [Sen-in Mehmet-i sev-diğ-in]-İ anla-mış-tı-m. you-gen Mehmet-acc love-vn-2sg.poss-acc think-pf-p.cop.1sg b. [Sen Mehmet’i sev-İyor-sun diye] anlamıştım. -impf-2sg sub ‘I thought you loved Mehmet.’ (35) – (38) show that the factive readings of these two verbs are obtained only by a combination of NF subordination with stress on the verb itself. Where, as in (37) and (38), stress is placed on the complement clause, this produces non-factive meaning with both NF and F-Sub-Final clauses.

2.2.2.4 Emotion. For the expression of complements of verbs of emotion, FSub-Final clauses with diye are freely available as informal alternatives to NF constructions:13 (39) a. [Sen-in gel-e-me-diğ-in]-e üzül-dü-k. you-gen come-possib-neg-vn-2sg.poss-dat be.sad-pf-1pl b. [Sen gel-e-me-di-n diye] üzül-dü-k. come-possib-neg-pf-2sg sub ‘We were sorry you couldn’t come.’



2.3

Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

Finite (F-Sub-Initial) noun clauses formed with ki

Unlike other noun clauses in Turkish (F and NF), which normally precede the main predicate (but may be placed after it if backgrounded, i.e. context-retrievable), F-SubInitial clauses introduced by the enclitic ki obligatorily follow it. The fact that ki in noun clauses is enclitic, generating stress on the preceding constituent and often followed by a brief pause,14 reinforces the highlighting of the main predicate that is achieved by this linear re-ordering. By placing the main predicate at the beginning of the sentence the speaker draws attention to the status of what s/he is about to present: a desire, a conjecture, a deduction, etc. In (40) – (41) the unmarked sentence employing the NF strategy is given first, as (a). (40) a. [Bütün çocuk-lar-ımız-ın bilgisayar kullan-abil-me-lerin]-i all child-pl-1pl.poss-gen computer use-possib-vn-3pl.poss-acc isti-yor-uz. want-impf-1pl b. İsti-yor-UZ ki, bütün çocuk-lar-ımız bilgisayar kullan-abil-sin-ler. use-possib-opt-3pl ‘We want all our children to be able to use computers.’ (41) a. [Çevre kirliliğ-i-nin önemli ölçü-de environment pollution-nc-gen important measure-loc azal-dığ-ı] iddia ed-il-iyor. decrease-vn-3sg.poss claim aux-pass-impf b. İddia edil-iYOR ki, çevre kirliliği önemli ölçüde azal-mış. decrease-ev/pf ‘It is claimed that environmental pollution has substantially decreased.’ In terms of their semantic range, F-Sub-Initial noun clauses introduced by ki can be used in the categories of sentence discussed in 2.2.1 and 2.2.3, namely those expressing wishes, cognition, communication and factual status. In the case of wishes, the verb in the ki clause, like its counterparts in F-Bare and F-Sub-Final clauses (see 2.1.2, 2.2.1) is given optative or 3rd person imperative marking, as seen in (40b). The main clause to which a ki-introduced noun clause stands as subject or complement is almost invariably declarative and affirmative. In contrast to the situation with the F-Bare and F-Sub-Final structures examined above, the use of F-Sub-Initial noun clauses is not register-bound. The occasional appearance of a nominal ki-clause in formal writing is not regarded as stylistically inappropriate. But it is in spoken discourse that its pragmatic possibilities can be exploited to greatest effect. Apart from the rhetorical effect of using an inversion of the canonical sequence of complement-main clause to highlight the speaker’s attitude or stance, this strategy can also win him/her time for organizing the substantive content of his/her

 Celia Kerslake

communication. Furthermore, it can be a highly effective device for getting oneself listened to in a competitive speech arena: (42)

Ben di-yor-um [ki, bu öneri-ler-in hiçbiri-si-nin fayda-sı I say-impf-1sg sub these proposal-pl-gen none-3sg.poss-gen use-3sg.poss ol-maz]. be-neg.aor ‘What I say is, none of these suggestions will do any good.’

Because of their decidedly marked status, nominal ki-clauses do not usually occur repeatedly within a single utterance or paragraph.

3. Relative clauses The standard relativization strategy in Turkish is a left-branching clause whose verb is marked with one of two types of subordinating suffix (shown in (12) above). The functions of these two sets of suffix are illustrated in (43) – (45): (43) [ben-i yemeğ-e çağır-an] arkadaş I-acc meal-dat invite-part friend ‘the friend who has invited me to lunch/dinner’ (44) [yemeğ-e çağır-dığ-ım] arkadaş meal-dat invite-part-1sg.poss friend ‘the friend (that) I’ve invited to lunch/dinner’ (45) [arkadaş-ım-ı çağır-dığ-ım] yemek friend-1sg.poss-acc invite-part-1sg.poss meal ‘the meal to which I’ve invited my friend’ The -(y)An type of suffix, seen in (43), is used predominantly where the relativized constituent is the subject, or the possessor of the subject, of the relative clause. The -DIK type seen in (44) and (45), on the other hand, is used where the relativized constituent has a non-subject function (object or adverbial) in the relative clause. The -DIK type of suffix is always followed by a person marker (possessive suffix) referring to the subject of the relative clause (which may additionally be represented by a genitive-marked noun phrase at the beginning of the clause). NF relative clauses can be non-restrictive as well as restrictive.15 The non-restrictive type, while rare in speech, is a regular feature of the written language. The following example is taken from a bio-bibliographical dictionary of writers:



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

(46) [Küçük yaşta şiire ilgi du-yan] İbrahim Alâettin [aruzla yaz-dığ-ı] ilk şiirlerini çeşitli dergilerde yayımladı. ‘İbrahim Alâettin, who became interested in poetry as a young child, published his first poems, which he wrote in ‘aruz’ metre,16 in various journals. As far as relative clauses are concerned,17 the only F structure that appears to have some sort of functional resemblance to the standard NF strategy is an F-Sub-Initial clause with ki. Apart from the fact that its verb is finite, this type of ‘relative’ clause is post-nominal, in contrast to the canonical pre-nominal position of the participial clause. A recent study by Schroeder (2002) has shed important new light on the contrastive distribution of these two strategies. There appear to be two major factors determining the distribution of ki-introduced ‘relative’ clauses: a. They are essentially a feature of unplanned spoken discourse (or of informal writing styles that imitate this). b. Semantically they are overwhelmingly non-restrictive.18 For the vast majority of restrictive relative clauses there simply is no F strategy available. The use of the quasi-relative ki-structures is convincingly explained by Schroeder (2002: 81) in terms of “the tendency of spoken Turkish towards a stronger paratactic organization of the text”. This he sees as part of a cross-linguistic tendency of unplanned/spoken discourse “to organize information in smaller, syntactically autonomous units”, which has various advantages for interactive communication and also “allows the speaker to plan his/her talk ‘as s/he goes along’”. These imperatives of the speech situation, Schroeder notes, cannot always be accommodated by left-branching syntactic structure. We shall return to this crucial issue in section 5. There are two kinds of antecedent for ki-introduced ‘relative’ clauses: (i) a noun phrase, or (ii) the entire preceding clause.19 Only the first type is even potentially capable of reformulation with a pre-nominal NF relative clause, and the pragmatic impact of the utterance may be reduced by such a substitution. In (47) there seems very little to choose between the two strategies: (47) a. Ev-de bir sorun çık-tı, ki (on-u) hemen hallet-me-m home-loc a problem crop.up-pf ki (it-acc) at.once solve-vn-1sg.poss gerek-iyor. be.necessary-impf b. Evde [hemen halletmem gerek-en] bir sorun çıktı. -part ‘A problem has cropped up at home that I’ve got to attend to at once.’ On the other hand, applying the same transformation to one of Schroeder’s examples, reproduced as (48a), produces a far less felicitous result: (48) a. Güzel, doğru cevap-lar ver-di-ler… ki cevap-lar-ı BEN söyle-miş-ti-m good correct answer-pl give-pf-3pl ki answer-pl-acc I tell-pf-p.cop-1sg

 Celia Kerslake

onlar-a. they-dat ‘They gave good, correct answers… It was I who had told them the answers.’ (Schroeder 2002: 78) b. ?[Benim onlar-a söyle-miş ol-duğ-um] bazı güzel, doğru I-gen they-dat tell-pf aux-part-1sg.poss some good correct cevap-lar ver-di-ler. answer-pl give-pf-3pl ‘They gave (some) good, correct answers, which I had given them.’ The syntactically autonomous structure of the ki-clause in (48a) makes it possible for ben ‘I’ to receive maximal focal stress by being placed in the immediately pre-verbal position. Not only is this possibility lost in the substitution of a pre-nominal NF relative clause in (48b), but so is also the dramatic effect of saving the information about the source of the answers until after the bland statement about the giving of correct answers has been made.

3.1

Paratactic features of ki-introduced relative clauses

One notable characteristic that distinguishes the ‘relative clause’ function of ki from its function of introducing complement or adverbial clauses is the supra-segmental phonology involved. Whereas in the nominal and adverbial functions ki is enclitic and pre-stressing, being usually followed by a slight pause in speech and a comma in writing, exactly the opposite is true in the type of clause we are considering here, where ki has no pre-stressing effect and is usually preceded by a pause.20 Developing the argument of Johanson mentioned in 1.1.1, Schroeder (2002: 75) states clearly that ‘relative’ ki-clauses are not actually subordinate clauses at all, since they are not syntactically embedded in the sentence, but rather paratactically conjoined to it. Here we will consider briefly three features of this type of structure that support Schroeder’s claim. 3.1.1 Anaphoric reference to the antecedent As seen in (5b) and (47a) above, a relative clause introduced by ki may include a resumptive pronoun referring to the antecedent. ‘Pronoun retention’ is one of the relativization strategies recognized in the typological literature, and is found, for example, in Arabic and Persian (Song 2001: 218). As far as ki-introduced Turkish relative clauses are concerned, the principles governing the use of resumptive pronouns would appear to be roughly as follows:21 a. Where the antecedent is the subject of the relative clause, use of a resumptive pronoun occurs almost exclusively with [+ human] referents, and is optional. (Note its non-use in (51) below.)



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

b. Where the antecedent is the direct object of the relative clause, use of a resumptive pronoun is strongly favoured with [+ human] referents (5b), and is optional with [– human] referents (47a). c. Where the function of the antecedent within the relative clause is that of an oblique object or adverbial, the use of a resumptive pronoun22 is obligatory: (49)

Bazı öğretmen-ler – ki onlar-dan özellikle nefret ed-er-di-msome teacher-pl ki they-abl particularly hate aux-aor-p.cop.1sg başarısız öğrenci-ler-i hep azarla-r-dı unsuccessful student-pl-acc always scold-aor-p.cop ‘Some teachers – whom I particularly hated – always scolded the unsuccessful students.’

The presence in some Turkish post-nominal ‘relative’ clauses of an item that refers anaphorically to the antecedent noun phrase underlines the syntactic autonomy of these structures. However, pronoun retention is not the only type of anaphoric reference encountered in ‘relative’ ki-clauses. Several of Schroeder’s recorded-speech examples, such as (48a) above, involve actual repetition of the head noun of the antecedent noun phrase. This noun may be preceded, as in (50), by a demonstrative determiner: (50) Bir çığlık duydum… ki bu çığlığ-ı çok çok iyi bil-iyor-um… a scream hear-pf-1sg ki this scream-acc very very well know-impf-1sg ‘I heard a scream… and I know this scream very very well…’ (Schroeder 2002: 75) 3.1.2 Post-predicate position In most of the examples of ki-introduced ‘relative’ clauses given so far, the ki-clause has been positioned not immediately after its antecedent, but after the main predicate. It appears that the examples occurring in Schroeder’s corpus are exclusively of this kind, since his definition of the noun phrase type of antecedent locates this in “the preceding clause” (Schroeder 2002: 78). Similarly, Erguvanlı (1980–81: 128) explicitly states that a relative clause introduced by ki never precedes the predicate. The possibility of detachment from its antecedent is another factor contributing to the autonomy of the ki-clause, reflected in the fact that some of the translations provided above contain not an English relative clause but rather a second juxtaposed or conjoined main clause. The overwhelming predominance of post-predicate positioning for relative kiclauses with a noun phrase antecedent arises, I suggest, from the fact the vast majority of these noun phrase antecedents are indefinite. In verbal sentences in Turkish indefinite items, unless referring to components of a previously mentioned or implied set, almost always have to be placed in the immediately pre-verbal position. Similarly, in existential sentences the subject always stands immediately before the predicative constituent var ‘existent’ or yok ‘non-existent’.

 Celia Kerslake

In cases where the noun phrase antecedent is definite, on the other hand, the kiclause may be positioned either directly after the antecedent, or after the predicate: (51) a. Anne-m bile, ki acı sev-mez, bun-u zevk-le yi-yor. mother-1sg.poss even ki ‘hot’ like-neg.aor this-acc pleasure-com eat-impf ‘Even my mother, who doesn’t like ‘hot’ [food], enjoys eating this.’ b. Annem bile bunu zevkle yiyor, ki genel-de acı sevmez. general-loc ‘Even my mother enjoys eating this – and she doesn’t generally like ‘hot’ [food].’ As mentioned above, there is a second type of relative ki-clause – claimed by Schroeder (2002: 78) to be the more common – which instead of a noun phrase has the entire preceding clause as its antecedent: (52)

Tanıdık çevre-den bir tip ol-ma-sı lazım… ki o da çok known circle-abl a person be-vn-3sg.poss necessary ki that top very zor yani. difficult I.mean ‘It should be someone from [your] circle of friends… which is really difficult, of course.’23 (Schroeder 2002: 78)

This type of F-sub-initial clause, which is functionally equivalent to the English ‘sentential relative clause’,24 has no NF counterpart in Turkish, because there is no noun phrase constituent to which an NF relative clause could appropriately be preposed. The assertion on which the appended clause provides a comment has to be fully articulated before the comment is presented to the hearer. As seen in (52), the demonstrative with anaphoric reference occurs in this type of ki-clause also, although it does not, as suggested by Kissling (1960: 145) have to be bu ‘this’. In addition to o ‘that’, formations with the determiner öyle ‘such’ are also possible: (53)

Ali bilgisayar-ın-ı çal-dır-mış, ki öyle aksilik-ler Ali computer-3sg.poss-acc steal-caus-ev/pf sub such misfortune-pl sık sık gel-ir on-un baş-ın-a. often come-aor s/he-gen head-3sg.poss-dat ‘It seems Ali has had his computer stolen; such misfortunes happen to him all the time.’

3.1.3 Inter-clausal parenthetical comments Where the ki-clause has the entire preceding clause as its antecedent, this antecedent need not be a main clause. A common function of relative ki-clauses is to provide a parenthetical25 comment on the content of an adverbial clause, before the speaker goes



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

on to present the main clause that the adverbial clause modifies. The ki-clause is structurally quite extraneous to the syntactic structure of the sentence: (54)

[Bu ev sat-ıl-ır-sa,] ki ev sahib-imiz-in niyet-i this house sell-pass-aor-cond ki landlord-1pl.poss-gen intention-3sg.poss öyle, taşın-ma-mız gerek-ecek. so move-vn-1pl.poss be.necessary-fut ‘If this house is sold – and that is our landlord’s intention – we shall have to move.’

(55)

[Defter-im-de yazılı ol-ma-dığın-a göre,] ki ben notebook-1sg.poss-loc written be-neg-vn-3sg.poss-dat seeing.that ki I bu konu-da oldukça dikkatli-yim, bugün toplantı yok-tur. this matter-loc quite careful-1sg today meeting non-existent-mod ‘Seeing that it’s not written in my diary – and I’m quite careful about these things – there’s presumably no meeting today.’

4. Adverbial clauses In principle all the semantic types of adverbial clause can be expressed in NF form in Turkish, using either specifically converbial morphology or a combination of other NF morphology with lexical items such as postpositions (e.g. için ‘for’, göre ‘according to’) or nouns (e.g. zaman ‘time’, hal ‘state’), with or without case marking (see (13) above). However, within most semantic categories there are F alternatives available, involving subordinators such as clause-final diye and gibi, and clause-initial ki, madem(ki) and nasıl ki. As noted in 1.3, conditional clauses, which are a type of adverbial clause, have their own quasi-finite morphology. The conditional copula -(y)sA is also used (with the addition of other items such as the enclitic particle DA or the interrogative nasıl ‘how’) as an alternative means for expressing adverbial clauses of concession or similarity. For reasons of space, the coverage of adverbial clauses here will necessarily be quite selective.

4.1

Adverbial clauses that can only be expressed by NF means

The following are examples of the very few adverbial clause types for which no F alternative is available: a. Manner (in sense of accompanying action or state) (56) Bun-u [üzül-erek] söylü-yor-um. this-acc be.sad-cv say-impf-1sg ‘I say this with regret.’

 Celia Kerslake

b. Substitution (57)

[Şikâyet ed-eceğ-iniz-e] konu-yu ben-im-le complaint aux-vn-2pl.poss-dat matter-acc I-gen-com konuş-say-dı-nız. talk-cond-p.cop-2pl ‘If only you had talked to me about the matter instead of making a complaint.’

Some other types of NF adverbial clauses are paraphrasable by universal conditionals (see 1.3), but not by fully finite clauses: c. Manner (in sense of conformity of one action to another) (58) a. b.

[İste-diğ-in gibi] yap. want-part-2sg.poss like do ‘Do as you want.’ [Nasıl iste-r-se-n] (öyle) yap. how want-aor-cond.cop-2sg (so) do ‘Do as you want.’ (lit. ‘However you want, do (so).’)

It should be added that within the major category of time adverbials the role of F clauses is very marginal. The repertoire of relevant NF resources allows for the articulation of a wide range of temporal relationships obtaining between the main clause situation and that expressed by the embedded clause (including ‘when’ (successive), ‘when’ (simultaneous), ‘while’, ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘until’, ‘as soon as’, ‘as long as’). The only finite structures available, involving Sub-Initial ki and ne zaman ki26 respectively, are marked constructions that speakers select for the achievement of certain pragmatic goals.

4.2

F-Sub-Final clauses with diye

As in the case of noun clauses, the use of an F strategy based on the subordinator diye is a feature of informal registers. The adverbial usage that reflects most directly the original sense of diye (‘saying’ or, by extension, ‘thinking’) is in clauses that express “how the subject of the main clause understands a situation that is relevant to the performance of the action in the main clause” (Göksel and Kerslake 2005: 463). This is often an understanding that the speaker knows to be mistaken; in other words diye is non-factive: (59) Biz [yemeğ-e çağr-ıl-dı-k diye] git-miş-ti-k. we meal-dat invite-pass-pf-1pl sub go-pf-p.cop 1pl ‘We had gone thinking we had been invited to a meal.’



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

This type of adverbial diye-clause does not have a direct NF equivalent. To express the sense of ‘under the impression that’ by non-finite means would involve the embedding of a noun clause within an adverbial clause: (60) Biz [[yemeğ-e çağr-ıl-dığ-ımız]-ı düşün-erek] gitmiştik. vn-1pl.poss-acc think-cv ‘We had gone thinking we had been invited to a meal.’ In the other main adverbial usages of diye as a subordinator the notion of ‘thinking’ has been transformed into one of motivation: cause, as in (61), or purpose, as in (62). These two senses are distinguished morphologically by the use of optative marking on the verb when purpose is intended. As in section 2 above, in the remaining examples of this section wherever alternative NF and F strategies are available the NF strategy is presented first: (61) a. Osman, [Zeliha beğen-me-diğ-i için] sakal-ın-ı Osman Zeliha like-neg-vn-3sg.poss for beard-3sg.poss-acc tıraş et-tir-miş. shave aux-caus-ev/pf b. Osman, [Zeliha beğen-me-di diye] sakalını tıraş ettirmiş. -pf sub ‘Osman has had his beard shaved off because Zeliha didn’t like [it].’ (62) a. Osman, [Zeliha-nın artık kendisiyle alay et-me-me-si -gen any.more s/he-ins mockery aux-neg-vn-3sg.poss için] sakalını tıraş ettirmiş. b. Osman, [artık Zeliha kendisiyle alay et-me-sin diye] sakalını tıraş ettirmiş. -3sg.opt sub ‘Osman has had his beard shaved off so that Zeliha won’t make fun of him any more.’ In the case of the causal example (61) there is a subtle difference in meaning between the NF and F strategies, and this again involves factivity (cf. 2.2.2.3). Whereas the NF strategy used in (61a) presupposes the truth of the asserted cause (Zeliha’s not liking Osman’s beard), the use of diye in (61b) places a distance between the speaker and the subject of the main clause, presenting the proposition that Zeliha didn’t like Osman’s beard as a perception on the part of Osman, to the truth of which the speaker is not committed.

4.3

F-Sub-Final clauses with gibi27

The postposition gibi ‘like’ may occur at the end of a clause marked with any of the following predicate markers: aorist -(A/I)r, evidential/perfective -mIş, and evidential copula -(y)mIş. The resulting structure, corresponding to a clause introduced by ‘as if ’ in English, expresses manner by evoking similarity with another (imagined) event, or

 Celia Kerslake

suggesting an underlying motivation or emotion. These clauses have a status somewhat indeterminate between F and NF, since person marking of their predicates is absent where -(A/I)r is used and optional in the case of -mIş/-(y)mIş.28 Semantically these structures are replaceable by the corresponding NF forms -(A/I)rcAsInA, -mIşçAsınA and -(y)mIşçAsınA. However, in today’s Turkish these converbial structures are in much less frequent use than gibi-clauses,29 which for their part are not subject to any register restrictions. (63) a. [Sonuç-lar-ı şimdiden bil-iyor-muşçaşına] konuş-uyor-sun. result-pl-acc already know-impf-cv talk-impf-2sg b. [Sonuçları şimdiden bil-iyor-muş(-sun) gibi] konuşuyorsun. know-impf-ev.cop(-2sg) sub ‘You talk as if you know the results already.’ Both of the above clause types may optionally be introduced by the subordinating conjunction sanki ‘as if ’, whose function is to “provide early warning to the hearer of the non-factual status of the content of the clause” (Göksel and Kerslake 2005: 466): (64) a. [( Sanki) her şey bit-mişçesine] gevşe-di-ler (as.if) every thing finish-cv slacken-pf-3pl b. [(Sanki) her şey bit-miş gibi] gevşe-di-ler finish-ev/pf sub ‘They slackened off as if everything was over.’

4.4

F-Sub-Initial clauses with ki

The phonological properties of ki when it introduces an adverbial clause are the same as when it introduces a noun clause (2.3): it generates stress on the preceding constituent, and is usually followed by a slight pause. As in the case of noun clauses, this quality gives sentences with ki a marked status. In an unmarked Turkish sentence primary stress falls on the constituent before the main verb, and anything placed after this predicate is context-recoverable and unstressed. In sentences with an adverbial kiclause, on the other hand, the ki not only throws a strong stress on to the main verb itself, but also announces that a second statement, of equal weight to the first, is to follow. The sense of expectation is heightened not only by the mid-sentence pause, but also by the fact that ki itself, while unstressed, has rising intonation. This will be illustrated with reference to two of the main types of adverbial ki-clause, both of which are popular in unplanned discourse, but avoided in formal registers. a. Dramatic presentation of an event In this type of sentence the main clause presents a situation that provides the temporal context for the sudden occurrence of an event to which the speaker gives dramatic prominence by means of the ki-clause. The verb in the main clause typically has imperfective (-(I)yordu) or past perfect (-mIştI) marking, which contrasts with the perfective



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

marking (-DI) of the event verb in the ki-clause. The anticipation of a surprising or perverse turn of events is often heightened by adding an adverbial such as tam or yeni (both meaning ‘just’) to the main clause: (65) Tam sen-i konuş-uyor-DU-K ki, birden oda-YA gir-di-n. just you-acc talk-impf-p.cop-1pl ki suddenly room-dat enter-pf-2sg ‘We were just talking about you, when you suddenly came into the room.’ (66) Okul-a yeni başla-mış-TI-M ki, bir grip salgın-ı ol-du. school-dat just start-pf-p.cop-1sg ki a flu epidemic-nc happen-pf ‘I had just started school when a flu epidemic broke out.’ As will be noted from the translations, this type of ki-clause bears a remarkable structural and functional resemblance to a particular kind of English when-clause that occurs in sentence-final position. Almost all the observations made about the English sentence pattern in question by Quirk et al. (1985: 1084) apply equally to the Turkish structure with ki that we are considering here. These authors note that (i) the more important information is given in the subordinate clause; (ii) the when-clause is nonrestrictive, i.e. makes a separate assertion; (iii) it is usually separated by intonation and punctuation from the main clause; and (iv) the overall effect is to produce a “dramatic and emphatic climax” in narrative. In Turkish this kind of sentence can be paraphrased by turning the original main clause into an NF subordinate clause marked with the temporal converb marker -(y)ken. Although the two situations are still presented in the same order (temporal context followed by highlighted event), the syntactic subordination and prosodic unmarking of the first clause significantly reduces the ‘climactic’ impact produced. (67) [Tam (biz) sen-i konuş-uyor-ken] birden oda-YA gir-di-n. just (we) you-acc talk-impf-cv suddenly room-dat enter-pf-2sg ‘Just as we were talking about you, you suddenly came into the room.’ (68) [Ben okul-a yeni başla-mış-ken] bir grip salgın-ı ol-du. I school-dat just start-pf-cv a flu epidemic-nc happen-pf ‘When I had just started school, a flu epidemic broke out.’ b. Result This type of sentence also has a close English parallel in the pattern ‘so/such… that …’. The main clause in Turkish includes one of the following deictic items, which modifies some constituent of that clause: o kadar ‘so (much)’, ‘such’, or öyle/öylesine ‘so’, ‘such’, ‘in such a way’. The function of the ki-clause is to supply cataphoric reference for this deictic modifier, by presenting a situation resulting from the (extreme) degree that it expresses. (69) Oda o kadar karanlık-TI ki hiçbir şey gör-E-mi-yor-du-k. room so dark-p.cop ki no thing see-possib-neg-impf-p.cop-1pl ‘The room was so dark that we couldn’t see a thing.’

 Celia Kerslake

It is possible to paraphrase such sentences using an NF adverbial clause of degree: (70)

Oda, [[herhangi bir şey gör-me-miz]-i engelle-yecek kadar] room any a thing see-vn-1.pl.poss-acc prevent-cv karanlık-tı. dark-p.cop ‘The room was dark enough to prevent our seeing anything.’

Even more than in the type of sentence discussed in 4.4(a), the result of such a conversion is to neutralize the rhetorical impact produced. The alteration in the shape of the sentence is more radical, with cause and effect no longer presented in their real-world sequence but as a pre-packaged whole. In view of the undoubtedly much greater production difficulty involved, (70) would come across as almost ludicrously pedantic in a conversational context.

4.5

Other F-Sub-Initial clauses

Clauses introduced by madem(ki) and nasıl ki are much more clearly ‘subordinate’ than the ki-structures just considered. Madem(ki) ‘since’ presents the information base for a question or modalized utterance articulated in the main clause. It is interchangeable with the NF form -DIğInA göre: (71) a. b.

[Ali-yi sev-me-diğ-in-e göre] on-u çağır-ma. Ali-acc like-neg-vn-2sg.poss-dat according.to s/he-acc invite-neg [Madem Ali-yi sev-mi-yor-sun] onu çağır-ma. since like-neg-impf-2sg ‘Since you don’t like Ali, don’t invite him.’

Nasıl ki ‘just as’ is used in sentences expressing the similarity of one situation to another. Its usage is paralleled by one of the functions of the universal conditional construction nasıl … -(y)sA. The equivalent NF structure is the converbial combination -DIğI gibi: (72) a. b. c.

[Ayşe-nin her gün baba-sın-ı yokla-dığ-ı gibi] sen de Ayşe-gen every day father-3sg.poss-acc check-vn-3sg.poss like you top anne-n-le daha yakından ilgilen-meli-sin. mother-2sg.poss-ins more closely take.interest-oblig-2sg [Nasıl ki Ayşe her gün babasını yoklu-yor,] sen de annenle daha yakından just.as check-impf ilgilenmelisin. [Nasıl Ayşe her gün babasını yoklu-yor-sa] sen de annenle daha how check-impf-cond.cop yakından ilgilenmelisin. ‘Just as Ayşe checks up on her father every day, you should take a closer interest in your mother.’



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

In the case of both madem(ki) and nasıl ki/nasıl …-(y)sA, one clear advantage that these F-Sub-Initial structures offer to the speaker is pragmatic, similar to that of introducing an optional sanki at the beginning of an F-Sub-Final ‘as if ’ clause (see 4.3). The presence of the subordinator at the very beginning of the sentence conveys to the hearer the earliest possible indication that s/he is to interpret the first clause that comes not as an assertion but as the presupposition on which the main utterance will semantically depend.

5. Concluding remarks It is clear that there is a robust coexistence in Turkish of finite and non-finite subordination strategies. The fact that the finite strategies are encountered mainly in the spoken language might seem to support the claims made by various scholars (see Johanson 1992: 261) of psycholinguistic difficulty involved in both the production and the processing of Turkish NF clauses. The growing body of evidence from the study of language contact phenomena also appears to point in the same direction. By now it is indisputable that wherever Turkish (or another Turkic language) is exposed to prolonged contact with a politically and/or demographically dominant Indo-European language (Iranian, Slavic, Germanic, etc), there is a strong tendency for attrition to occur in the indigenous (left-branching, non-finite) type of subordinate clause in favour of finite right-branching clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction. (For an expert overview and synthesis see Johanson 1992: 259–73.) The fact remains, however, that Turkish NF clauses are very much holding their own in Turkey itself, and that for some important semantic subtypes of all three of the major syntactic categories there is no alternative strategy available. Moreover, while many of the F structures are eschewed in formal writing, the converse is not true. The majority of the native NF structures are regularly encountered in natural conversation. The present survey suggests that one needs to distinguish between the different structural types of finite subordinate clause available in Turkish in order to identify the reasons for their attractiveness in real-life speech situations. In a study published in 1986, Slobin found (a) that acquisition of relative clauses by children took place in Turkish at a later age than in English, and (b) that in naturally occurring conversation Turkish-speaking adults used relative clauses less than half as frequently as English-speakers. He identified (1986: 278–284) the “non-canonical” structure of Turkish relative clauses as a major explanatory factor for these findings, pointing in particular to the following features of Turkish relative clauses as diverging from the morphosyntax of simple sentences: (i) different verbal morphology; (ii) reversal of SV order (where the subject is relativized); and (iii) genitive marking of the subject (where a non-subject constituent is relativized). Let us consider to what extent this analysis helps us to understand the phenomena presented in our survey. We may take (i) and (iii) together. All the F subordinate claus-

 Celia Kerslake

es of Turkish replicate, by definition, the finite predicate morphology of simple sentences. Because of this, there is no need for genitive marking of the subject, which is a feature directly linked to the possessive marking of the nominalized predicates of many types of NF clause.30 The combination of these two major points of resemblance to simple sentences undoubtedly accounts for the fact that all types of F clause have a homely, accessible feel compared with NF clauses in general and those with genitivemarked subjects in particular. As for (ii), it is only the relative clauses of Turkish that violate the SV (or OV) order of simple sentences. NF nominal and adverbial clauses are completely canonical in their internal word order, as can be seen in all the NF/F pairs of examples presented here. So this cannot be a factor in a speaker’s choice of an F strategy in either of these categories. If we turn from the internal ordering of the clause to its position within the sentence as a whole, we find that NF clauses of all types behave exactly like the corresponding non-clausal structures (noun phrases, adjectivals, adverbials). Relative clauses precede the noun phrase that they modify, just like all other adjectival constituents in Turkish. Nominal and adverbial clauses precede the predicate to which they stand as arguments or adjuncts, except that any item that is context-recoverable may be placed after the predicate (‘backgrounded’). There is then, nothing “noncanonical” in the positioning of NF clauses within the sentence. On the contrary, it is in a certain category of F clauses, namely those introduced by ki, that we encounter a clear violation of the left-branching word order of Turkish, in respect both of postnominal and post-predicate placement. It is a commonplace of linguistic typology that left-branching structures require more information to be held in memory than right-branching ones. Hawkins (1994: 321) observes that certain “left-right asymmetries” in word order in languages “are ultimately consequences of the fact that language is produced and comprehended in an item-by-item manner from left to right, i.e. in a temporal sequence”. The ‘relative’ clause usage of ki is the clearest example of Turkish-speakers making compensatory use of a right-branching strategy for ‘on-line’ additions or comments to information that they have already presented. Most other usages of ki, as demonstrated above, can be seen as a deliberate exploitation, for pragmatic or rhetorical purposes, of the prosodic features and non-canonical clause sequence that this imported item offers. Apart from ki-clauses, the regular position for all other finite subordinate clauses (F-Bare, F-Sub-Final and F-Initial) is before the main predicate, exactly as is the case with NF clauses. Like NF clauses, and under the same conditions, they can also be placed after the predicate. (73) is a transformation of (39): (73) a. Üzül-dü-k [sen-in gel-e-me-diğ-in]-e be.sad-pf-1pl you-gen come-possib-neg-vn-2sg.poss-dat b. Üzül-dü-k [sen gel-e-me-di-n diye] come-possib-neg-pf-2sg sub ‘We were sorry you couldn’t come.’



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

Finally, if we consider the ability of a subordinate clause to be made the focus of interrogation by the postposed clitic mI, we find that while this is universal among NF clauses, among the F clauses it is found only in the F-Bare and F-Sub-Final types. (74) is based on (61) above: (74) a. Osman, [Zeliha beğen-me-diğ-i için] mi sakal-ın-ı Osman Zeliha like-neg-vn-3sg.poss for q beard-3sg.poss-acc tıraş et-tir-miş? shave aux-caus-ev/pf b. Osman, [Zeliha beğen-me-di diye] mi sakalını tıraş ettirmiş? -pf sub q ‘Is it because Zeliha didn’t like [it] that Osman has had his beard shaved off?’ By contrast (75), based on (41) above, shows that, while an NF noun clause can be the focus of interrogation like any other NP, this is completely impossible for the corresponding ki-clause: (75) a. [Çevre kirliliğ-i-nin önemli ölçü-de environment pollution-nc-gen important measure-loc azal-dığ-ı] mı iddia ed-il-iyor? decrease-vn-3sg.poss q claim aux-pass-impf b. *İddia edil-iYOR ki, çevre kirliliği önemli ölçüde azal-mış mı? decrease-ev/pf ‘Is it claimed that environmental pollution has substantially decreased?’ This interrogation test demonstrates that, within the finite alternatives available, it is those that conform to the branching order of Turkish that are most fully integrated into the structure of the sentence.

Notes * This is a revised version of a paper presented at the International Colloquium on Connectivity in Multilingual Settings held in Hamburg in November 2004. Thanks are due to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. I take full responsibility for any deficiencies that remain. 1. Finite subordinate clauses in Turkish have not generally been treated collectively. They receive only brief treatment in Kornfilt 1997: 46–47. An early exploration of the topic is that of Johanson 1991 (first published 1975). Subgroups that have received particular attention are (i) clauses introduced by ki (see Haig 1998: 116–128, Schroeder 2002) and (ii) the type of complement clauses displaying Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) (the so-called “small clauses”), for which see note 2 below. An overview of Turkish subordinate clause structures (nominal, adjectival and adverbial) that brings together the finite and non-finite resources available within each

 Celia Kerslake category is given in Göksel and Kerslake (2005), Chapters 24–26; see also the remarks about subordination in general on pp. 135–137. 2. The optional use of accusative marking on the subject of finite complement clauses (mainly of the matrix verb san- ‘think’) has been the subject of much analytical discussion within the generative framework since the 1970s. See, for example, Brendemoen and Csató 1986, Özsoy 2001. 3.

The Persian ki is related to French qui/que, Italian che, etc.

4. For a historical survey of the use of ki in Turkish and the Turkic languages in general see Erguvanlı 1980–1981. 5. Cognates of diye occur as F-Sub-Final subordinators in virtually all the Turkic languages (Johanson 1992: 275–276). 6. For full details of Turkish verbal morphology see Göksel and Kerslake 2005, Chapter 8. 7. For a generative analysis of Turkish non-finite complement clause morphology see Kural 1998. For the criteria determining the choice of one morpheme rather than another see Taylan 1998. 8. In the citation of suffixes, capitals indicate consonants or vowels that are subject to phonological alternation. The K of -mAK is usually deleted in the accusative and dative forms, which surface as -mA-yI and -mA-yA (see examples (17), (18)). 9. The morpho-syntax of Turkish non-finite relative clauses has been a subject of great interest to generative linguists since the 1970s. For a recent contribution by one of the leading participants see Kornfilt 2000. On Turkish relative clauses in general see the comprehensive monograph by Haig (1998), written from a functional-typological standpoint. 10. With the exception of Schroeder’s work on quasi-relative ki-clauses, referred to in section 3, I am not aware of any empirical study on which to support the claims that I make about the stylistic status of particular constructions. Although some quantitative documentation would be desirable, in its absence I remain confident that these claims are non-controversial. 11. -(y)Iş has a much more restricted field of application than -mA. It is used almost exclusively for single or countable instances of actualized events/states, never for those that are merely envisaged. See Erdal 1998. 12. In this and some other examples capitalization is used to indicate the position of focal stress. 13. NF noun clauses functioning as subjects or complements of verbs of emotion may be marked by -mA or -(y)Iş instead of -DIK/-(y)AcAK. See Göksel and Kerslake 2005: 429–30. 14. See Schroeder 2002: 74–75. 15. On non-restrictive relative clauses in Turkish see Johanson 1991: 221, Erkman-Akerson and Ozil 1998: 134–5, Haig 1998: 127 and Schroeder 2002: 80. 16. The Arabo-Persian quantitative metrical system, used in classical Ottoman poetry. 17. The discussion of relative clauses here is confined to those that have an adjectival function; it has not been possible to consider the ‘headless’ or ‘pronominal’ type. 18. There is a marginal and rather literary usage of ki in restrictive relative clauses, which limitations of space did not permit to be discussed in this article; see Göksel and Kerslake 2005: 458–9.



Alternative subordination strategies in Turkish 

19. Cf. Schroeder 2002: 78, where the “antecedent” is conceptualized not as the antecedent of the ki-clause itself but of its “topic”. 20. This phonological distinction between different usages of ki appears to have been first recog­ nized by Bainbridge (1987: 48–54). It is mentioned in Haig 1998: 123–125, and systematized in Schroeder (2002: 74–75). 21. These tentative formulations of an as yet under-researched issue are a further development of Göksel and Kerslake 2005: 458; cf. also Kissling 1960: 145. 22. Or an anaphoric possessive suffix. 23. In this and the other examples borrowed from Schroeder (which are transcripts of naturally occurring speech) the presentation of the Turkish text has been adapted to the conventions of written Turkish, and the translations have undergone some modification. 24. The ‘sentential’ type of relative ki-clause was recognized by Deny (1921: 852). 25. The parenthetical function of ki-clauses is noted by Lewis (2000: 212). 26. The uses of ne zaman ki ‘when’ are in need of research, and it has not been possible to consider this item further here. It seems likely that it plays a ‘forewarning’ role analagous to that of nasıl ki (4.5). 27. On finite clauses with the subordinator gibi see van Schaaik 1998: 443–457. 28. The implication in Göksel and Kerslake 2005:466 that person marking is obligatory in -(y)mIş gibi is erroneous. 29. Internet searches on www.google.com on18.09.2006 of forms such as yapmışçasına versus yapmış gibi, alıyormuşçasına versus alıyormuş gibi yielded results for the constructions with gibi that were markedly greater (often by a factor of 100–3,000) than those for the forms with the converbial suffix. 30. Genitive marking of the subject is required in most NF clauses whose predicate is marked with a possessive suffix attached to -mA, -DIK, -(y)AcAK or -(y)Iş. The main exceptions are noun clauses whose subject denotes unspecified members of a category, and most adverbial clauses marked with -DIK or -(y)AcAK.

References Bainbridge, M. 1987. Loan conjunctions versus native syntax. In Studies on Modern Turkish, H. E. Boeschoten and L. T. Verhoeven (eds), 42–56. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Brendemoen, B. and Csató, É. Á. 1986. The head of S in Turkish: A comparative approach to Turkish syntax. In Proceedings of the Turkish Linguistics Conference, August 9–10 1984, A. Aksu Koç and E. Erguvanlı Taylan (eds), 85–100. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University Publications. Deny, J. 1921. Grammaire de la langue turque (dialecte osmanli). Paris: Leroux. Erdal, M. 1998. On the verbal noun in -(y)Iş. In Doğan Aksan Armağanı, K. İmer and L. Subaşı Uzun (eds), 53–68. Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi. Erguvanlı, E. 1980–1981. A case of syntactic change: ki constructions in Turkish. Boğaziçi University Journal, Humanities 8–9: 111–139. Erkman-Akerson, F. and Ozil, Ş. 1998. Türkçede Niteleme: Sıfat İşlevli Yan Tümceler [Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları Dizisi 22]. Istanbul: Simurg.

 Celia Kerslake Göksel, A. and Kerslake, C. 2005. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar [Routledge Comprehensive Grammars]. London: Routledge. Haig, G. 1998. Relative Constructions in Turkish [Turcologica 33]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Hawkins, J. A. 1994. A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency. Cambridge: CUP. Johanson, L. 1991[1975]. Some remarks on Turkic ‘hypotaxis’. Reprinted in Linguistische Beiträge zur Gesamtturkologie [Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica XXXVII], 210–224. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Johanson, L. 1992. Strukturelle Faktoren in türkischen Sprachkontakten. [Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der J. W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main XXIX 5]. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Kissling, H. J. 1960. Osmanisch-türkische Grammatik [Porta Linguarum, Neue Serie III]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Kornfilt, J. 1997. Turkish [Descriptive Grammars]. London: Routledge. Kornfilt, J. 2000. Some syntactic and morphological properties of relative causes in Turkish. In The Syntax of Relative Clauses [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 32], A. Alexiadou, P. Law, A. Meinunger and C. Wilder (eds), 121–159. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kural, M. 1998. Subordinate Infls and Comp in Turkish. In The Mainz Meeting: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics [Turcologica 32], L. Johanson et al. (eds) 404–421. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Lewis, G. 2000. Turkish Grammar (2nd ed.). Oxford: OUP. Özsoy, A. S. 2001. On ‘small’ clauses, other ‘bare’ verbal complements and feature checking in Turkish. In The Verb in Turkish [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 44], E.Erguvanlı Taylan (ed.), 213–237. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Schaaik, G. van 1998. On the usage of gibi. In The Mainz Meeting: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics [Turcologica 32], L. Johanson et al. (eds) 422–457. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Schroeder, C. 2002. On the structure of spoken Turkish. ELISe (Essener Linguistische Skripte – elektronisch) 2: 73–90. [http://www.elise.uni-essen.de] Slobin, D. I. 1986. The acquisition and use of relative clauses in Turkic and Indo-European languages. In Studies in Turkish Linguistics, D. I. Slobin and K. Zimmer (eds) [Typological Studies in Language 8], 273–294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Song, J. J. 2001. Linguistic Typology: Morphology and Syntax [Longman Linguistics Library]. Harlow: Pearson Education. Taylan, E. E. 1998. What determines the choice of nominalizer in Turkish nominalized complement clauses? In Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Linguists, 20–25 July, 1997, B. Caron (ed.). New York: Elsevier (CD Rom).

Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora Some exemplary analyses from modern and historical, written and spoken corpora Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert University of Hamburg

This paper discusses methodological aspects of the use of electronic language corpora for the study of connectivity. We demonstrate how a corpus-based approach was used to investigate functional characteristics of coordinating elements in sentence- or utterance-initial position across different languages (English, German, Old Swedish and Turkish), across different modalities (written and spoken) and across the diachronic dimension (historic and modern languages). Our focus is on the difficulties we encountered in this study when attempting to transfer corpus-based methods developed for the analysis of corpora of modern, written language to the analysis of corpora of historic or spoken language. We suggest an abstract corpus-linguistic workflow and discuss where and how this workflow differs according to the corpus type, and how well its individual steps are supported by current corpus technology.

1. Introduction The prerequisites for the comparative analysis of language use across different language modes and historical periods are comparable data and a common method in approaching – though not necessarily in analyzing – the data. By the example of language-contrastive and diachronic-contrastive investigations into the use of coordinating elements in sentence- and utterance-initial position, this paper aims at showing how disparate types of data can be aligned within a corpus-driven approach to linguistic research. The paper is structured as follows: First, a brief general account of our interest in macrosyntactic coordination (discourse coordination) will be given and the common method which was eventually applied to the different corpora will be sum-

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

marized. We will then proceed to give detailed descriptions of how the comparatively well-established methods of analysing modern written corpora in text and register linguistics were adapted to the particular conditions determining spoken language corpora and corpora of historical texts. The goal was to make the data comparable without compromising the constitutive formal differences between modern and historical and written and spoken language use, which are necessarily reflected in the corpora compiled for linguistic analysis. The paper concludes with a summary of the first results which we were able to obtain through the application of a common method to diverse corpora.1

1.1

Research question: Coordinating elements and linguistic variation

The idea for the project reported on in this article developed from the shared interest in the emergence of linguistic innovation in situations of language contact, and the wish to compare the diachronic development of the use and function of coordinating conjunctions in sentence- and utterance-initial position. Qualitative analyses of English and German original texts and translations from English into German and bilingual and monolingual spoken Turkish, carried out in different project groups, as well as observations gathered from the investigation of Old and Early Modern Swedish texts from a further project group, seem to suggest that sentence-initial And and Und, the Turkish expression o zaman and the Old Swedish sentence-initial och are all involved in processes of linguistic variation. More detailed accounts of the different kinds of variation observed in the individual corpora will be provided in Sections 2, 4 and 5. The focus of the present article, however, is on the methodological aspects of linguistic ana­ lysis across different types of data as they appear in modern, historical, written and spoken corpora. In the remaining part of this section we will briefly describe the major methodological challenge which hitherto made both the step from qualitative case studies to the analysis of larger corpora and the comparison of results from work on related research questions with different (i.e. non-comparable) corpora difficult. In order to be able to describe the observed variation in the context of the coordinating elements And/Und, o zaman, and och more closely and to assess its validity with respect to a larger amount of data, it was essential to find a way of transferring the results of the analysis of single text and discourse exemplars to the analysis of the corpora as a whole. Because the number of texts and discourses which can be analyzed manually in a reasonable amount of time is limited, it is necessary to formalize the process of analysis such that parameters for the (semi-)automatic search for the relevant linguistic phenomena in the corpora can be deduced. In a simplified manner, such a combined qualitative and quantitative approach involves using the lexical and grammatical features which the qualitative analyses point out as salient in the investigation of a particular linguistic phenomenon to query the corpus as a whole with the help of software tools. The total of the occurrences (usually in the form of concordances) is then subjected to further qualitative and recontextualizing analysis. These analyses establish



Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora 

whether all occurrences of the linguistic phenomenon in the corpus coincide with the analysis deduced from the case studies or whether there is functional or formal variation which was not uncovered by the analysis of single text and discourse exemplars. Although clearly not all corpus-driven linguistic investigations follow such a combined qualitative and quantitative approach, the use of computerized corpora and software search tools has developed into a comparatively established practice in text and register linguistics dealing with modern written texts over the last ten to fifteen years. As will be presented in Section 3 below, the situation is radically different for virtually all other types of linguistic data – e.g. spoken discourse and historical texts. It is this incompatibility of the data which often hinders what otherwise might become a fruitful cooperation and constructive coordination of research efforts. In the following section, the investigation into the function of sentence-initial And and Und in a corpus of English and German popular scientific writing will be presented as an example of a ‘conventional’ corpus-linguistic approach to variation. We will then go on to describe whether and how the method applied to modern texts can be transferred to similar research questions addressed to different – spoken and historical – data.

2. Studying connectivity in a corpus of modern, written language 2.1 Research question: Language contact induced changes in the conventions of use of And and Und in English and German popular scientific texts This investigation into the use and function of sentence-initial And and Und in English texts, German texts and German translations from English was carried out within the project ‘Covert Translation – Verdecktes Übersetzen’ (cf. Baumgarten to appear). The project starts from the hypothesis that English, due to its status as a global lingua franca and prestige language, exerts an influence on those languages with which it is in prolonged contact. In the case of German, in particular, the contact with English seems to result, in certain genres, in an adaptation of German communicative preferences and textual norms to the ones operative in English texts. It is assumed that this influence is initially most marked in German translations from English because translations can be considered as one of the primary interfaces between the English and German language systems; they are the ‘gateways’ through which non-native, i.e. English, source text influenced, uses of certain linguistic elements can enter German language use. The differences between the English and German communicative conventions and stylistic norms can be summarized as follows: Converging evidence from a variety of English-German contrastive pragmatic studies investigating different spoken and written genres points towards a general hypothetical pattern of differences in the communicative behavior of native speakers of both English and German (cf. for example Byrnes 1986; Clyne 1987, 1994; Doherty 1996, 2002; House 1989, 1996, 2004; Kotthoff 1989). This pattern can be displayed along five dimensions of communicative preferences:

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

ENGLISH Indirectness Orientation towards other Orientation towards persons Implicitness Use of verbal routines

GERMAN Directness Orientation towards self Orientation towards content Explicitness Ad-hoc-formulation

Figure 1.  Dimensions of communicative preferences between German and English (House 1996)

These dimensions are clines rather than clear-cut dichotomies with absolute values, reflecting tendencies in language use rather than categorical distinctions. One can say, however, that native speakers of German tend to realize linguistic features which are associated with the values on the right of figure 1. Native speakers of English, in the same situations, prefer to use linguistic structures associated with the values on the left of this figure.2 At the same time, due to language typological reasons, English and German display different patterns of sentence-internal and macrosyntactic cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976). Fabricius-Hansen (1999), for example, describes this difference in terms of differences between conventionalized levels of informational density in the individual languages. She suggests that, in contrast to German, English favors incrementatility of discourse information. That is, in English, an additive organization of discourse information, portioned into smaller chunks in order to reduce informational density, is preferred, whereas in German, informationally dense, hierarchical information packaging is more common. This finds expression in different preferences in the use of connecting devices. Considering the functional descriptions provided for structural coordination with and (e.g. Quirk et al. 1985; Blakemore & Carston 1999) and the use of sentence- and utterance-initial And (cf. Halliday & Hasan 1976; Schiffrin 1986, 1987; Redeker 1990; Biber et al. 1999), And can be described both as a marker of a semantically vague connection between propositions and of the speaker’s interpersonal involvement in the communicative event. Hence, one can conclude that the use of sentence-initial And in English texts coincides with the preference for an all in all more ‘oral’, interpersonallyoriented written style, which arranges discourse information in a linear, additive manner, signaling a connection between the conjuncts but leaving the exact nature of this relation implicit. In contrast, the use of the coordinating conjunction Und, which has a functional profile roughly comparable to that of the English And (Ehlich 2001; Weinrich 2003, Zifonun et al. 1997),3 in sentence-initial position does not coincide with the typical pattern of communicative norms in written genres in German, which demand a lesser extent of interpersonal orientation and greater referential explicitness and precision. The use of Und to express macrosyntactic coordination in written texts would therefore have to be considered as a stylistically marked choice.



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On this basis, one would expect the use of sentence-initial And to be on the whole more frequent in English texts than the use of Und in German texts. With respect to the project’s hypothesis, the use of Und, should, first, be more frequent in German translations from English than in German original texts. Secondly, as evidence for a shift in German communicative preferences in the direction of the English ones, in a diachronic perspective, the use of Und in German translations should catch up with the use of And. These assumptions were investigated in a diachronic English-German translation and parallel text corpus, which will be introduced in the following section.

2.2

Corpus: Diachronic English-German translation and parallel text corpus

The corpus is a diachronic translation and parallel text corpus for the language pair English and German (approx. 800000 words). It consists of texts from popular scientific journals and external business communication (mainly letters to shareholders). The texts cover the years from 1978 to 2002.

Figure 2.  English-German translation and parallel text corpus

The translation part contains English original texts and their translations into German and German original texts and their translations into English.4 It serves to investigate

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

the particular features of the translation relation English-German and German-English. The parallel part contains 1. English original texts and German original texts. They are analyzed with respect to the linguistic realization of language- and genre-specific conventions of text production; 2. German translations from English and German original texts, and English translations from German and English original texts. These are analyzed with respect to the (potentially different) characteristics in the use and combination of lexicogrammatical features in original texts and translations. The frequency and distribution of sentence-initial And and Und was initially investigated in a subset of the popular scientific part of the corpus. The database consists of the following sets of texts covering the time frames 1978–1982 and 1999–2002: 1. English original texts from the years 1999–2002 (122866 words). 2. The German translations of these English texts (113420 words). 3. German original texts from the years 1999–2002 (100648 words). 4. English original texts from the years 1978–1982 (42497 words). 5. The German translations of these English texts (37830 words). 6. German original texts from the years 1978–1982 (82480 words).

2.3

Results

The use of sentence-initial And and Und in English and German popular scientific texts in the two time frames is displayed in tables 1 and 2 below: Table 1.  Occurrences of And and Und (normalized frequencies on the basis of 10000 words)

English (And) German translations (Und) German (Und)

1978-1982

1999-2002

3,1 2,3 0,9

4,5 6,3 3,1

relative increase + 45,2% + 173,9% + 244,4%

Table 2.  Use of And and Und in relation to the total of sentences

English (And) German translations (Und) German (Und)

1978-1982

1999-2002

relative increase

7,4 ‰ 5,1 ‰ 2,0 ‰

9,7 ‰ 11,3 ‰ 5,8 ‰

+ 31,1% + 121,6% + 190,0%

The figures show a diachronic development in the use of And and Und which is equivalent to the starting hypotheses. In both English and German texts the use of mac-



Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora 

rosyntactic coordination by means of And and Und increases. The increase, however, is more pronounced in the German texts with the German translations even surpassing their source texts in the use of the coordinating conjunction in sentence-initial position. It follows that the use of Und in the newer translations cannot be triggered by the presence of a sentence initial And in the source texts alone. This has tentatively been interpreted as a dissociation of the text conventions determining the use of the stylistically marked option of Und as a means of textual cohesion in German translations from those operative in German original texts.5 A difference between the textual function sentence-initial And and Und express in the texts can be observed in the context phenomenon of what can be termed as ‘subject switches’. According to Halliyday & Hasan (1976) sentence-initial And is very often used to facilitate a shift in the participants from one sentence to the next as for instance the shift from “E. coli” to “our defenses” in example 1 below:6 (1) <seg> Conflicts with Other Organisms <seg> Natural selection is unable to provide us with perfect protection against all pathogens, because they tend to evolve much faster than humans do. <seg> E. coli, for example, with its rapid rates of reproduction, has as much opportunity for mutation and selection in one day as humanity gets in a millennium. <seg> And our defenses, whether natural or artificial, make for potent selection forces. Such shifts in the participants in subject position in the context of And often co-occur with changes in the tense or the modality of the sentence as shown in example 2.

(2) <seg> In the absence of medications capable of dependably eliminating the virus, the NIH recently embarked on a study to determine whether long-term administration of alpha interferon can slow liver damage in patients who fail to clear the virus. <seg> And we and other researchers are studying the simple expedient of taking a pint of blood from patients on a regular basis. The distribution of these phenomena in the context of And and Und is displayed in table 3.7 Like the figures for the diachronic development of the use of And/Und, the results for the synchronic distribution of the context phenomena suggest a difference between the conventions of using Und in the German translations and the German original texts. While the frequency counts presented in tables 1 and 2 above describe the diachronic development of the use of And and Und in terms of their occurrence on the linguistic surface of the texts, the proportions presented in table 3, which result from a recontextualizing analysis of the total of occurrences, provide a view on the functional diversification of And and Und in the texts. The German translations in both time frames consistently show more occurrences of Und than the German original texts and an increase in the use of Und which results in a larger number of occurrences of Und

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

than are licensed by the corresponding linguistic structures in their source texts. However, the position of the German translations between the English and the German original texts with respect to the realization of the context phenomena strongly indicates that identical surface forms need not necessarily express the same textual functions. In terms of the introduction of subject, tense and modality switches, the translations show similarities with the English texts, whereas considering the particular phenomenon of combined subject and tense/modality switches, the translations are more similar to the German original texts. In other words, the use of And and Und in English and German texts and German translations may be partly differently motivated. Hence, at least in the case of And/Und an alignment of German text conventions with English ones has to be considered on two levels: first, on the level of the linguistic forms and secondly, on the level of their textual function which derives from the context of their occurrence. In Section 5 below, we will see another particularly striking example for functional diversification behind an apparently identical surface form. In the following part of this section the method of corpus creation and the technology used for its analysis will be presented. Table 3.  Context phenomena in relation to the total of occurrences of And/Und in the time frame 1999-2002

subject switch subject switch + tense/ modality switch tense-/modality switch without subject switch no switch (referential continuity)

2.4

English (And)

German translations (Und)

German (Und)

67,8 % 37,5 %

62,5 % 19,4 %

53,1 % 15,6 %

8,9 %

8,3 %

28,1 %

23,3 %

29,2 %

18,8 %

Method and technology

2.4.1 Corpus creation and processing The corpus consists of published articles from popular scientific journals and texts taken from the external business communication of internationally operating companies. The texts are digitized through scanning, using OCR-software. After manual editing they are saved as text files. The texts are then automatically tokenized and annotated with part-of-speech-tags using the TnT-tagger and the SUSANNE and STTS tagsets for English and German, respectively.8 The translation part is aligned on the basis on translation-equivalent sentences (manual alignment).



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2.4.2 Corpus analysis The corpus analysis is carried out with commercially available ready-to-use corpus software.9 The software allows to search the corpus for strings of characters (i.e. ‘words’), regular expressions and combinations of these. The search results are displayed in the form of KWIC-concordances.

Figure 3.  Screenshot of a query for “And*” in ParaConc. The upper part of the window displays the matches on the query expression, the lower part the translation equivalents

The concordances are manually checked for accuracy and the ensuing frequency counts are normalized on the basis of 10000 words. The normalized frequencies facilitate the comparison of the lexical and grammatical features across different data sets. Each of the occurrences is then subjected to qualitative recontextualizing analyses. This is carried out in order to assess the function of each instance of use of one particular linguistic item in its context of occurrence, i.e. with respect to the information organization on both sentence and textual levels and its contribution to the function of the textual whole. For this purpose, each occurrence and the immediately preceding and following context (5 to 10 orthographic sentences) are extracted into separate text files. These files form a subcorpus of the total of the linguistic items under investigation embedded in their contexts of occurrence. This subcorpus can be annotated with further information which characterizes the use of the linguistic item in question, for example, in terms of patterns of colligation, i.e., the co-occurrence of grammatical choices, and of collocation, i.e., the co-occurrence of lexical choices at clause, sentence and text level. This can be carried out with the help of a coding tool (e.g. Systemic Coder, O’Donnell 2004, figure 4) which furthermore allows to perform some statistical operations on the annotated subcorpora. The goal of this additional analytical step is

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

to provide close linguistic descriptions of each single occurrence in order to detect variation behind identical surface forms.

Figure 4.  Screenshot of the Systemic Coder annotation interface

3. Some methodological and technological issues in the study of computer readable corpora 3.1

Corpus linguistics as a method

The kind of linguistic research outlined in the previous section contains many elements that are typical of “corpus linguistics”. As Leech (1992) points out, “the term ‘corpus linguistics’ does not refer to a domain of study, but rather to a methodological basis for pursuing linguistic research.” – in other words: corpus linguistics is a research method, that is a manner of proceeding which generalizes over the individual case of a scientific investigation in order to provide a guideline for obtaining comparable results for related, but varying research questions or objects of investigation. The study presented here is an instance in which such a common method could be advantageous, seen as the research questions are similar in all three cases: they aim at finding quantitative evidence for language change in the area of coordinating conjunctions. A common research method could therefore help to make the results comparable. The objects of investigation, however, are highly different, not only in terms of the languages



Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora 

(English/German, Old Swedish, Turkish) involved, but also because we are dealing with modern, written language in the first case, with historical, written language in the second case and with spoken language in the third case. This diversity, in turn, makes a method transfer a non-trivial matter. Therefore, the purpose of this section is to identify some salient characteristics of the corpus-linguistic method and to analyze if and how the manner of proceeding outlined above can be successfully transferred to other objects of study, and where and why such a transfer is found to be problematic.

3.2

The workflow of a corpus linguistic study

On a sufficiently abstract level, we can agree that a corpus linguistic study invariantly consists of four distinct phases as displayed in figure 5:

Corpus Processing

Sample Population

Model

Application level Conceptual level Physical level Language

Material

Corpus Annotation

Corpus Analysis

Selection / Query

Corpus Creation

III

IIc

Model

Corpus Design

IIb

Model

IIa

I

Query result 1 Query result 2 Query result 3

Corpus

Quantification Interpretation

IV

Figure 5.  Workflow of a corpus linguistic study

In phase I – corpus design – the researcher defines a population of language material that he wants to make a statement about and picks out a sample that he considers to be representative of that population. In phase II – corpus processing – he then starts by creating a corpus in which the salient information of the sample is represented in a number of digital files. In further processing steps additional structure or information may be added to that digital representation (e.g. tokenization or POS-annotation). When this process is completed, phase III – the actual corpus analysis – can start. Typically, this step consists in querying the corpus for the digital representation of a specific phenomenon, i.e. selecting those parts of the corpus that are relevant to the research question. Finally, in phase IV, this set of query results can then be quantified and interpreted with respect to the original population defined in phase I. The following subsections will discuss two aspects of this workflow which reveal differences with respect to the three corpus types.

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

3.3

The relationship between sample and corpus

One of the most fundamental differences with respect to the three corpus types – modern, written language, historical, written language and spoken language – lies in relationship between the sample and its digital representation. In a corpus of modern, written language, the transition from the former (e.g. a journal article) to the latter (e.g. a text file) is usually a simple mapping of printed symbols to the entries of a character chart (e.g. ASCII or Unicode). Although some abstraction is involved in this process, it is restricted to rather superficial properties (formatting and layout) of the original, and hence hardly requires an elaborate theoretical justification.10 This is different for corpora of historical, written language. In this case, the transition from the original text (e.g. a 16th century handwriting of a Bible text) to its digital representation (e.g. an XML file) will usually mean more than a simple abstraction over physical properties; it will also involve a number of theoretically motivated decisions and interpretations. These decisions – such as the writing out of abbreviations or a segmentation of the text into entities not provided by its author – may have been anticipated by the edition that the corpus is based on, or they may have to be made by the corpus linguist himself. In any case, they make the relationship between sample and corpus more complex than in the case of modern, written language. For corpora of spoken language, finally, it is an uncontested part of linguistic methodology that this relationship can only be characterized with respect to an underlying theory. The sample, in this case, consists of a number of audio recordings, whereas the corpus consists of a set of corresponding transcription files. The transcription process in which these recordings are transformed into a set of computer-readable files is widely acknowledged to be of a highly selective and interpretative nature (see, for instance, Rehbein et al. 2004 or Ochs 1979). Thus, when applying the corpus linguistic method to these different objects of study, one has to take into account that the transition from sample to corpus is a modelling process, determined by different degrees of simplification, abstraction and interpretation (see Schmidt 2005 for a more detailed account of this aspect).

3.4

Data models, file formats and software tools

Besides assessing which parts of the original to leave out, to simplify, to interpret etc, the decision on an adequate digital representation of the sample also involves the choice of an appropriate data model. Since a corpus of modern, written language can be viewed (at least in the corpus creation phase, i.e. before other processing steps are carried out) as a simple sequence of characters, it can be represented with the most straightforward of data models – a flat text. In addition to the explicit linear structure inherent in such a flat text, there is also an implicit hierarchical structure “encoded” in the punctuation marks.



Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora 

For a corpus of historical, written language, this data model will usually not be sufficient: on the one hand, there is a need to represent those pieces of information that have been added to the original text in the editing process – for instance, it may be necessary to have both abbreviated and full forms or orthographic variants and their normalized lemmas side-by-side. On the other hand, a historical text may not have its hierarchical structure implicitly represented in its punctuation, so that boundaries of words, sentences etc. will have to be added explicitly and in a manner that allows the computer to distinguish between them and the alphanumerical characters that represent symbols of the original text. A data model that meets these more advanced requirements is the so-called OHCO (Ordered Hierarchy of Content Objects) model (DeRose et. al 1990). It sets the rules for ordering and markup of the beginning and the end of content objects and is nowadays closely associated with XML-based text processing. Finally, in addition to these requirements, an adequate data model for spoken language also has to provide a means of digitally representing temporally parallel relationships, as can be found, for instance, in overlapping speech or between different modalities. From the data models suggested for this purpose, graph-based frameworks like the AG formalism (Bird & Liberman 2001) or EXMARaLDA seem to be among the most promising at this moment in time.11 For reasons inherent in the various objects of investigation, different corpus types will thus require data models of different complexity. This has significant consequences for the practical conditions under which a corpus linguistic study is carried out: the more complex a data model is, the less support is available for it in terms of standardized data formats and, probably even more important, ready-to-use software for corpus processing and analysis. A linguist dealing with modern, written language can more or less act on the assumption that all the technical tools he might require for creating, processing and analyzing his corpus – such as taggers, tokenizers and concordancers – are readily available in some form or other. Therefore, the main challenge in his work is to put these tools to a meaningful use and to provide an adequate interpretation of the results that the chosen tools lead him to. The situation for a historical linguist is far more complex. Although XML-based data processing is gaining ground also in corpus linguistics, there is – to our knowledge – no integrated set of tools that would adequately support a researcher in all the phases of a corpus linguistic study. The fact that XML is now a widely used standard, supplemented by the TEI guidelines which specifically address linguistic concerns of XML based text encoding, certainly constitutes a solid basis for this technological side of things. Working with an OHCO-based data model, however, still implies that a substantial part of a corpus linguistic study will include finding and implementing appropriate methods of corpus processing and analysis. Finally, in the case of corpora of spoken language, it is debatable whether or not the currently available software allows a successful passage through all the phases of a corpus linguistic study at all. There are, of course, a number of software tools for tran-

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

scribing and annotating spoken language and for querying the resulting corpora. However, since there is as yet no standard that can ensure the same basis to graph based data models as XML and TEI do for the OHCO based one, these partial solutions often lack the inter-operability that would be necessary in order to profitably combine their abilities. The work of a linguist interested in spoken language will therefore be determined by the deficiencies of current corpus technology even more than that of a historical linguist. In the next two sections these considerations will not only be illustrated in more detail, we will also describe two partial solutions to such deficiencies.

4. Studying connectivity in a corpus of historical, written language 4.1 Research question: Functional characterization and diachronic development of word order patterns after sentence-initial conjunctions in Old Swedish The primary research question for the analysis of the Old Swedish text corpus was to investigate the role of contact with foreign languages (Latin, Middle Low German, Early Modern High German) on the diachronic development of syntax in Swedish. This investigation aims both at describing and quantifying the different word order patterns that are found in conjunctional main clauses and at identifying a possible functional distribution and a diachronic development in the use of those patterns. The starting point for this research question is provided by some general statements in the literature on word order in Old Norse: Christoffersen (2002, 2003) describes a difference in word order between main clauses beginning with ok (and) and non-conjunctional main clauses. After the conjunction ok so-called narrative inversion in declarative sentences is very common with the finite verb placed in initial position in front of the subject; the usual order with the subject in the fundamentfield and the finite verb in the first position of the nexusfield is rather rare.12 Some first unsystematic observations on the Old Swedish corpus indeed showed word order variation after ok, and this investigation is aimed at quantifying this variation. Based on the hypothesis of syntactic change through language contact we aim at describing a diachronic development of word order. The first step for such an attempt, which is described in the following, concentrates on developing a suitable method of analysis leading to a quantitative confirmation of our basic assumption. Moreover, by comparing our results with those of the other participating researchers working on different languages and situations of language contact we want to check the plausibility of our findings.



4.2

Studying connectivity with the help of computer-readable corpora 

Corpus: Bible texts and chronicles

The investigation is based on the following corpus of six Old and Early Modern Swedish prose texts altogether containing about 70.000 words: The Revelation of St John and The Gospel according to Mark from the Swedish translation of the New Testament from 1526, The Revelation of St John and The Gospel according to Luke from the Swedish translation of the Bible from 1541 (so called Gustav-Vasa-Bible), the municipal records of Kalmar (Kalmar stads tänkebok, 1381–1560) and the Old Swedish version of the story of Charlemagne (Karl Magnus, ca. 1430).

4.3

Result

As already mentioned in Section 4.1 Old Norse main clauses usually exhibit the word order VS (finite verb before substantial) after the conjunction ok (‘and’),13 whereas in non-conjunctional main clauses the unmarked word order SV (substantial before finite verb) is used. In several publications (Platzack 1985, Halldór 1990, Wessén 1992, Christoffersen 1993), however, it was possible to show differences regarding the frequency of this word order. Therefore, Christoffersen (2002: 185) discusses geographically motivated differences between Old West Norse (Norwegian and Icelandic) and Old East Norse (Old Danish and Old Swedish). The following results shown in table 4 were derived from the investigation of the Old Swedish corpus: Table 4.  Position of finite verb (first or second) in main clauses after och (‘and’) sentences Revelation 1526 Revelation 1541 Kalmar Charlemagne Luke 1541 Mark 1526

840 848 502 864 2302 1354

sentences with initial och 403 (48%) 458 (54%) 95 (19%) 77 (9%) 550 (24%) 366 (27%)

V1 after initial och 9 (2%) 13 (3%) 23 (24%) 26 (34%) 24 (4%) 42 (11%)

V2 after initial och 394 (98%) 445 (97%) 72 (76%) 51 (66%) 526 (96%) 328 (89%)

In addition to this the word order in main clauses after the conjunction men/æn (‘but’) was investigated.14 Eventhough it has to be stated that the frequency of occurrences of this conjunction varied greatly across the different texts, not a single case of a finite verb in first position could be found. A comparison with non-conjunctional main clauses could not be performed at this stage as it would require manual tagging of all finite verbs in the corpus. Hence, this has to be reserved for a later investigation.

 Nicole Baumgarten, Annette Herkenrath, Thomas Schmidt, Kai Wörner and Ludger Zeevaert

A very interesting finding which can be seen in table 4 is that none of our texts show the initial position of the finite verb after the conjunction och (‘and’) to be the most frequent word order. This supports Christoffersen’s claim that East Norse (Swedish in this case) texts exhibit differences compared to West Norse (Icelandic and Norwegian) texts. Moreover this highlights the necessity of a precise quantification of the different word order patterns. Counting the absolute number of main clauses after och (‘and’) with verb initial word order is only of very limited use seen as the sentences in the bible texts in our corpus begin with och in up to 50% percent of the cases. In the story of Charlemagne, however, this only holds true for about 10% of the sentences. At the same time this text reveals the highest frequency of verb initial main clauses after och (34%). In order to confirm the hypothesis indicated in this pilot study, namely that in ochinitiated main clauses a development can be shown from verb-first to verb-second structures, however, this investigation would have to be extended to a more representative corpus.

4.4

Method and technology

4.4.1 Creation To test our hypothesis we investigated the word order in conjunctional main clauses taken from a corpus of texts from the Old Swedish period.15 A digital corpus providing all relevant syntactic information (case, finiteness etc.) would have been the best prerequisite for such a test. However, such a complete part-of-speech-tagging (POS) can not be done automatically for Old Swedish texts. Computer software was developed for tagging languages such as English or German, but not for Old Swedish because for the latter an application e.g. in modules of text processing programs (hyphenation, grammar check) is commercially unat