Information Structure and Language Change
≥
Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 203
Editors
Walter Bisang (main editor for this volume)
Hans Henrich Hock Werner Winter
Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York
Information Structure and Language Change New Approaches to Word Order Variation in Germanic
Edited by
Roland Hinterhölzl Svetlana Petrova
Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Information structure and language change : new approaches to word order variation in Germanic / edited by Roland Hinterhölzl, Svetlana Petrova. p. cm. ⫺ (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 203) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-020591-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Germanic languages ⫺ Word order. 2. Germanic languages ⫺ Syntax. I. Hinterhölzl, Roland. II. Petrova, Svetlana. PD380.I54 2009 4301.45⫺dc22 2009011896
ISBN 978-3-11-020591-6 ISSN 1861-4302 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” Copyright 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Laufen. Printed in Germany.
Table of Contents
Introduction Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova ................................................. 1
The role of information structure in the grammar The verb-second property in Old High German: Different ways of filling the prefield Katrin Axel ............................................................................................... 17 The role of information structure in word order variation and word order change Roland Hinterhölzl ................................................................................... 45 OV languages: Expressions of Cues Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir .............................................................................. 67 Discourse relations and word order change Ans van Kemenade ................................................................................... 91
Methodological problems of the information-structural analysis of data from historical text corpora On the methods of information-structural analysis in historical texts: A case study on Old High German Svetlana Petrova and Michael Solf ........................................................ 121 Paleographic clues to prosody? – Accents, word separation, and related phenomena in Old High German manuscripts Jürg Fleischer ........................................................................................ 161 On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European Thomas Krisch ....................................................................................... 191
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Table of Contents
Information-structural categories in the main texts of the early German inheritance Word order variation and information structure in Old High German: An analysis of subordinate dhazs-clauses in Isidor Eva Schlachter ........................................................................................ 223 Information structure and word order variation in the Old High German Tatian Svetlana Petrova .................................................................................... 251 Verb placement and information structure in the OHG Gospel Harmony by Otfrid von Weissenburg Andreas Lötscher .................................................................................... 281 Translating information structure: A study of Notker’s translation of Boethius’s Latin De Consolatione Philosophiae into Old High German Rosemarie Lühr ...................................................................................... 323 Aspects of word order and information structure in Old Saxon Sonja Linde ............................................................................................. 367 Subject index .......................................................................................... 391
Introduction Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova
1. Motivation The present volume contains papers dedicated to the explanation of word order variation and change in the history of the Germanic languages. It relates to one of the most prominent and widely discussed topics in the syntax of the Germanic languages. In this volume, these classical topics are approached from the perspective of a novel account to grammar change (cf. Lightfoot 1999, Hróarsdóttir 2003, Hinterhölzl 2004) in which slow gradual language change paves the way for abrupt changes in grammar. In particular, Hinterhölzl (2004) proposes that one important link between language use and grammar is constituted by the grammatical means of information packaging or shortly information structure. Since information packaging represents a core means of the speaker to create novel patterns and expressions for rhetoric expressivity and particular communicative needs, it serves as one of the major sources of variation. This approach is further developed in the Research Project B4 which is anchored in the collaborative research center (SFB 632) on Information Structure at Potsdam University and the Humboldt University in Berlin. In a large-scale investigation on the interaction between information-structural and grammatical conditions in the development of word order regularities in the Germanic languages, new explanations for the diverse developments of these languages are sought. The novelty of this approach consists in three main points. First of all, it aims at describing variation in word order not as a result of language contact, as in previous research (cf. Kroch 1989, Pintzuk 1999), but rather as a language-internal phenomenon which is due to stylistic effects related to information packaging and discourse structure. Secondly, bearing in mind that information structure is a completely new field of study in historical linguistics, it develops methods for the analysis of information-structural phenomena in texts from historical corpora that are available only in written form and bear no or little cues to prosody and intonation. Thirdly, the project carries out research on a much larger scale than previous research
2 Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova on the development of Germanic word order, including empirical studies on large corpora of Old High German (OHG), Old Saxon (OS) and Old Icelandic (OI). The present volume features important results of this enterprise as well as a number of selected papers from the international conference on Word order variation and change, organized by Project B4 in October 2005 in Berlin.
2. Word order Variation and Word order Change in Germanic The modern Germanic languages display a great variety of different word orders. In German the object precedes the verb (OV), in English it obligatorily follows the verb, while Icelandic allows for both word orders (OV/VO). In German main clauses, the finite verb appears in second position (V2), Icelandic also shows V2-patterns in embedded clauses, while English did not develop a generalized V2-rule at all. The issue of how it came about that so closely related languages developed such diverse word order patterns was one of the main research questions in Germanic linguistics in the past hundred years. Research in this tradition has focussed on the following issues.
2.1. What is the basic word order in Germanic? One of the central issues was the question of what counts as the base position of the verb in Germanic. In the oldest Germanic texts, the verb appears in a great number of different positions: besides V2 and verb final orders, V1 and medial positions of the verb are quite common as well. Moreover, all these different orders can be found in main as well as in embedded clauses. While Braune (1894) held that verb placement is free in Germanic, Erdmann (1886) and Tomanetz (1879) assumed that due to its high frequency, V2 order must display the base position of the verb. At the end, Delbrück (1911), building on Wackernagel’s (1892) work, succeeded in arguing that the verb-final pattern should be treated as the basic pattern in Germanic. Newer investigations, however, indicate a high proportion of VO orders in the older stages of all Germanic languages (cf. Kavanagh (1970), who claims that 50% of embedded clauses in OHG display VO order). Given hat OV order is to be considered as the basic word order, word orders with
Introduction
3
postposed objects or preposed verbs were treated as marked word orders whose functions were described with the unanalysed notion of emphasis (cf. Näf 1979, Dittmer and Dittmer 1998). According to Fleischmann (1973) preposing of the verb (V1 or V2) in OHG served the purpose of putting the situation described by the verb into the foreground, while postposing of the verb signalled that the situation described by the verb is to be interpreted as part of the background. In this scenario, the differentiation of verb placement in main and embedded clauses in German can be analyzed as the grammaticalisation of different word order patterns that were originally motivated by information structure.
2.2. The development of V2 Following Delbrück, the question arises how V2 orders have developed from original verb final orders in Germanic. The traditional answer is that according to Wackernagel’s law (which has clitics move into second position in Indo-European languages), light finite verbs start to be placed after the accented first constituent in main clauses in Germanic; a movement operation that was later extended to all finite verbs. A very influential proposal about the development of V2 was put forward by Vennemann (1974). He assumes that Germanic had inherited the basic verb final order (SXV) from Indo-European and that the V2 pattern first initiated with the preposing of thematic stressed constituents. In this scenario, TVX (initial V2) constitutes an intermediate stage in the development of OV languages to VO languages. Fourquet (1974) proposes a completely different account of the development of V2. In his treatment, V2 results from a gradual process that places the verb in a sentence-medial position due to postposing of nonpronominal constituents. In his scenario, an intermediate pattern arises in which pronominal elements precede the verb in main clauses that is well documented in Old English (OE) texts of the earlier period. Until recently it was assumed that all Germanic languages, including English, had developed a generalized V2-rule. Newer studies of the development of verb placement in English have shown that OE only displayed a residual V2 pattern: V2 only appears if an operator (wh-word or negation) is preposed, while the preposing of constituents without operator status yields V3 word order. In order to account for residual V2, Kiparsky (1995, 1996) introduced structural positions for Focus and Topic in the C-domain. In his account,
4 Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova only movement of an operator into the Focus position is accompanied by movement of the verb, while with preposed topics, analyzed as occupying adjoined positions to the CP, the verb may stay in a lower position. This account raises the question of why OHG was rather different from Old English in this respect, since already in this stage of German, preposing of a non-operator constituent regularly triggered V2 as well.
2.3. The change from OV to VO in English Most studies about the development of English into a pure VO language assume that OE was an OV language of the modern German type and that VO structures are innovations that came about and spread in the Middle English (ME) period. It is important to note that at the same time in which OV structures disappear, English lost most of its nominal and verbal morphology. Therefore this development was characterized as a process in which due to the loss of morphological distinctions, verb placement serves to distinguish the grammatical functions of subject and objects (cf., among others, Vennemann 1974). Along these lines, Roberts (1997) tries to explain the change in word order with the loss of Case morphology in Early Middle English (EME). Note, however, that this account must remain unsatisfactory under a wider Germanic perspective, since it raises the question why Dutch had not also developed into a VO language. There is a growing number of works that take into account the great variety of word orders in early English. Most prominent among these are the accounts of Kroch (1989) and Pintzuk (1999) which relate the presence of OV and VO word orders to the availability of an OV grammar and a VO grammar (double base hypothesis). According to them the availability of two grammars is due to language contact between Anglo-Saxons (basic OV grammar) and Scandinavian settlers (basic VO grammar) in the 10th century. Also this account remains unsatisfactory since a) one of its presuppositions, namely that the Scandinavian settlers spoke a VO language, cannot be proven and b) it does not take into account that already OE displayed VO word orders. Since VO orders can also be found in OHG and in OI (cf. Hróarsdóttir 2000), it is reasonable to assume that VO orders in English are not due to language contact but are part of the common inheritance of the Germanic languages. So far it has not been investigated whether the availability of OV and VO orders in OE could not be due to information-structural factors and
Introduction
5
there are no comparative investigations of OV and VO orders in the oldest stages of Germanic, that is, in OE, OHG and OI.
2.4. The development of the sentence bracket in German As discussed above, the positioning of arguments and adjuncts after the verb constitutes a common word order pattern in the early stages of the Germanic languages. Given that the basic word order in these languages was verb final, these word orders were analysed as involving exbraciation or extraposition (cf. Behaghel 1932). In the German tradition, the problem of extraposition was discussed under the perspective of the development of the German sentence bracket and constituted the subject of a large number of empirical studies. Considering only the later stage of OHG, there are three studies that note a significant reduction of extraposed direct objects in this period (cf. Bolli 1975, Näf 1979 and Borter 1982). Unfortunately, these studies are purely descriptive and do not take into consideration the information-structural role of extraposed constituents. In general, most of these studies treat the development of the German sentence bracket as a purely stylistic phenomenon that is brought about by socio-cultural factors: the influence of Latin classical writers (Behaghel 1892) or the spreading of the written style of formal bureaucratic language (Ebert 1999). In all these studies, the role of grammar in yielding (different) stylistic preferences is not taken into account. It is remarkable that the development of English has been described as a change in grammar while the development of German has been described as a purely stylistic change in most formal studies, including the approach of Lenerz (1984), which only relates the development of V2 to a change in grammar, namely the introduction of an obligatory C-projection. Formal treatments of the development of word order regularities in Germanic have mostly ignored the role of information structure so far. Traditional and functional accounts of these developments have often pointed out the influence of information-structural parameters on these processes, but failed to show how stylistic change can be related to grammar change. Recent works in generative theory on restrictions on movement as well as on restrictions on word order in the left periphery have proposed to integrate pragmatic notions like topic and focus into the syntax by defining pragmatically determined syntactic nodes in the split C-domain (Müller & Sternefeld 1993, Rizzi 1997). These proposals about the information-struc-
6 Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova tural organisation of the C-domain, as discussed above, has been adopted by Kiparsky (1995, 1996) and applied to the analysis of the left periphery in Indo-European languages. Furthermore, several studies on the representation of focus have shown that focussing of a constituent involves changes in word order in many languages. In the following, Zubizarreta (1998) developed a general theory about the interaction between word order, prosody and information structure. The application of these theories and of insights on the interaction between core grammar and information-structure in the analysis of older stages of Germanic is still wanting. Finally, as already pointed out above, in the new model of change in which variation in language use is crucial in processes of grammar change, information structure acquires a central role in explaining word order variation and change: the expression of IS-categories in terms of different grammatical means and their more pronounced or reduced use by speakers in specific contexts and communicative situations can be taken as a major source of synchronic variation as well as a crucial link between grammatical form and stylistic form. This volume collects a number of papers that – by taking into account information-structural factors – try to relate formal and functional explanations in order to yield a more complete and unified account of the development of word order regularities in Germanic.
3. The structure of the book The volume consists of three sections, each dedicated to different aspects of the complex task of investigating the role of information structure in historic texts. First, there is the question of which information structural notions are relevant for explaining word order variation. Then, the question arises of how to analyse the interaction between core grammar and information-structural conditions. These questions are addressed in the theoretical contributions in Section 2. The authors discuss pertinent theoretical issues concerning word order variation and word order change and review current research on the role of information structure in the grammar. They agree that information structure is a factor responsible for the emergence of new word order patterns and constructions in the early stages of the Germanic languages, which provided the basis for the further development of word order regularities in the individual Germanic languages and their dialects.
Introduction
7
Second, there is the question of how to retrieve IS-categories in texts of historical corpus languages, i.e. in texts available in written form only, with no or very restricted access to prosodic information. It is well-known that the Germanic languages are languages in which information structure is reflected prominently in the intonation of constituents. These issues are addressed in detail in Section 3, where different philological and linguistic methods of finding secure cues to unmarked word order and information structure are presented. Section 4, finally, turns to the information-structural analysis of historical texts proper. The papers present individual analyses of the main texts of the Old German corpus and show to which degree an approach is successful which tries to make sense of word order variation in terms of IScategories and to which degree such an approach allows to make generalisations across different texts and genres.
3.1. Information structure and word order variation The contributions in Section 2 feature individual studies on word order variation in OHG, OE and OI, arguing that the consideration of information structure offers new and interesting ways of explaining the pertinent variation. The contribution by Katrin Axel focuses on word order variation in the left periphery in OHG and investigates the status of V2 in OHG texts from Isidor to Notker. Axel argues that the modern V2-system was already in place in OHG leading to the regular fronting of wh-operators and topics, while CP-expletives were still missing in OHG. According to Axel, this system existed parallel to an older system in which clause type was not signalled via word order but by a limited class of particles. Axel surmises that the older system disappeared when the innovative rule of stylistic fronting was extended, giving rise to a further consolidation of the dominant V2-pattern. The contribution by Roland Hinterhölzl focuses on word order variation in the right periphery in OHG and discusses the factors that led to the establishment of the famous sentence bracket in modern German. Hinterhölzl argues that word order variation within one grammar is due to the expression of different IS-categories and word order change involves a change in the mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structure in which information structure plays a crucial role. The contribution by Thorbjorg Hróarsdóttir discusses aspects of word order variation in the right periphery in OI showing that this variation is
8 Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova due to a complex interaction between prosodic and information-structural factors. Hróarsdóttir also discusses the change to basic VO order in Icelandic, showing that traditional treatments fail to account for the slow gradual loss of OV orders, and instead argues for a change in language use, namely in the expression of IS-categories, which paved the way to the eventual change in grammar. The contribution by Ans van Kemenade addresses aspects of word order variation in the middle field in OE showing that a certain class of short adverbs separates the domain of discourse-given and discourse-new constituents in the clause, pointing out the similarities of these patterns with scrambling in German. Van Kemenade argues that the syntax, though constituting a tightly circumscribed system, offers a limited amount of options which defines the space in which language users can manipulate word order according to information-structural needs. According to van Kemenade, this system of IS-based ordering of constituents disappeared, when a specific type of referring expressions, namely simple demonstratives, were lost in ME.
3.2. How to identify unmarked word order and IS-categories in a corpus language The contributions in Section 3 address various methodological issues concerning a) the identification of the unmarked word order in a corpus language displaying mixed word orders and b) the identification of IScategories in historic texts that provide no or very little clues to prosody. The contribution by Thomas Krisch uses various cross-linguistic generalisations concerning deletions in coordination and in ellipsis to probe the unmarked word order in ancient Indo-European languages like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Hittite. Krisch concludes from evidence for backward gapping that these languages were underlyingly SOV languages, while forward gapping is interpreted as a reflex of V-to-C movement. Furthermore, Krisch argues that deletions in coordination provide insights into the information-structural value of the constituents in the clause. The contribution by Jürg Fleischer constitutes a careful philological study of different palaeographic phenomena, foremost accent diacritics and word separation, as potential clues to prosodic information in different manuscripts of the OHG period. Fleischer addresses the important issue of whether diacritics signal prosodic prominence on a single word in the text. His analysis shows, however, that each of the OHG manuscripts displays
Introduction
9
its own system of accentuation in which diacritics may serve more than one single function. While in Notker’s texts, accents are used to mark vowel quantity, the same diacritics are devices for different types of graphical and phonetic disambiguation in other texts. Nevertheless, Fleischer provides examples in which the use of an accent is related to prosodic prominence in the text. But any conclusion on the role of accentuation as a strategy of marking information structure has to take into account the remaining functions of diacritics in the particular record. This result leaves the historical linguist with a careful and stepwise procedure of text interpretation as the only reliable method of identifying IS-categories in historic texts. The contribution by Svetlana Petrova and Michael Solf addresses the different issues one is confronted with in investigating the role of information structure in word order variation in historic texts. The first issue is how to identify the structures that represent instances of authentic OHG word order, given the fact that the large texts of this period are either poetic or constitute translations from Latin. The second issue concerns the determination of the information-structural role of a constituent in a text and presupposes an analysis that breaks up the rather controversial informationstructural notions, like topic, focus and background, into their constitutive features that can be used to make the assignment of IS-categories in a given text sequence on the basis of contextual interpretation as objective and tractable as possible. The exposition of this methological procedure is embedded in a thorough discussion of the analysis of the basic IS-notions in the literature and concludes with some illustrative examples of how IScategories are to be assigned to a given constituent in the text of the OHG Tatian translation.
3.3. Information structure in texts: five case studies The contributions in Section 4 constitute detailed empirical studies addressing the question of whether the consideration of information-structural aspects can provide us with a deeper and coherent explanation of the great amount of word order variation in the main texts of the German inheritance. Thus, we selected contributions from researchers which combine the theoretical linguistic knowledge with the necessary philological expertise on the individual text. If not indicated by the author itself, the contributions of Section 4 use the same IS-notions as defined by Petrova and Solf in Section 3, in order to guarantee that the individual results in this section can be evaluated and compared with each other.
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Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova
The contribution by Eva Schlachter discusses word order variation in the OHG Isidor translation which is among the earliest texts of the OHG corpus. She examines the position of the finite verb in subordinated clauses introduced by dhazs. She observes that an extraordinarily high percentage of ‘light’ verbs, i.e. copula and auxiliary verbs, end up in a higher clause position yielding structural variation in the right periphery. Schlachter also demonstrates that variation in the positional realisation of main vs. light verbs in the Isidor text is associated with different strategies to highlight new and contrastive information in the clause. The contribution by Svetlana Petrova addresses the role of information structure in word order variation in the right periphery in the largest and oldest prosa text of the German inheritance, namely the Tatian translation. Based on a thorough investigation of word order in embedded clauses, she shows that constituents are mapped according to their informationstructural contribution into three different fields of the clause: a) discourse given nominal constituents are realized adjacent to C, b) constituents that are narrowly (contrastively) focussed are realized left-adjacent to the finite verb, while c) constituents that represent new information focus are realized after the finite verb. While the placement of discourse given material is identical to that in modern German, OHG seems to distinguish two types of focus positions. Petrova proposes that the OHG-system in this way allows to avoid focus ambiguities that pervade the NHG-system: if the most deeply embedded argument is stressed in NHG, this pattern can express either narrow focus (on the argument) or wide focus. Word order and information structure in the Gospel Harmony by Otfrid von Weissenburg are addressed in the contribution by Andreas Lötscher. Lötscher argues that word order in this text is largely determined by the same rules and principles that govern modern German clause structure, rejecting the standard view that word order variation is entirely due to the poetic nature of this text. In particular, Lötscher investigates the placement of constituents within or outside of the sentence bracket formed by the finite and non-finite verb in the clause. Lötscher argues that this major characteristic of German word order is well-established in the syntax of Otfrid, with the distinction that arguments can optionally be placed in the Mittelfeld or in the Nachfeld. Lötscher argues that their distribution is not random but is governed by information-structural factors. The contribution by Rosemarie Lühr examines a late-OHG text, namely the translation of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae from Latin to OHG by Notker of St. Gall. The main issue is to investigate the way in which the OHG translation reflects information-structural phenom-
Introduction
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ena of the Latin original. Lühr’s careful study shows that Notker was aware of the language-specific means to express IS-categories in the original and investigates the means by which these categories are expressed in the OHG text. The most interesting cases are those in which Notker considerably transformed the word order determined by the original, in order to provide a clear identification of the IS-categories in his translation. Lühr also argues that these changes arguably respect the rules of a genuine grammatical system and therefore provide an insight into the effects of information structure on OHG word order, by pointing out that constructions like the Latin hyperbaton, which serve to mark focus but are ungrammatical in Germanic, are translated without splitting up constituents, as it is typical for Latin. The contribution by Sonja Linde addresses word order and information structure in OS, a language that is almost unexplored from a syntactic viewpoint. She argues that the syntactic variation in the left periphery in the poetic text of Heliand, which constitutes the major part of the OS corpus, is best understood if it is regarded as the result of two competing systems, one involving verb fronting to C and optional movement to SpecC, and one representing an archaic stage in which, in line with Kiparsky (1995), the functional category C has not developed yet. Linde shows that in the latter system, the syntactic realisation of sentence constituents with respect to the finite verb was determined by pragmatic, i.e. informationstructural and discourse-related factors.
References Behaghel, Otto 1892 Zur deutschen Wortstellung. Zeitschrift für den deutschen Unterricht 6: 262–267. 1932 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Band IV. Periodenbau. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Bolli, Ernst 1975 Die verbale Klammer bei Notker. Untersuchungen zur Wortstellung in der Boethius-Übersetzung. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Borter, Alfred 1982 Syntaktische Klammerbildung in Notkers Psalter. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
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Braune, Wilhelm 1894 Zur Lehre von der deutschen Wortstellung. In Forschungen zur deutschen Philologie. Festgabe für Rudolf Hildebrand zum 13. März 1894, ed. Rudolf Kögel, 34–51. Leipzig: Veit & Co. Delbrück, Berthold 1911 Germanische Syntax II. Zur Stellung des Verbums. Leipzig: Teubner. Dittmer, Arne and Dittmer, Ernst 1998 Studien zur Wortstellung – Satzgliedstellung in der althochdeutschen Tatianübersetzung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ebert, Robert Peter 1999 Historische Syntax des Deutschen II: 1300–1750. 2d ed. Bern: Lang. Erdmann, Oskar 1886 Grundzüge der deutschen Syntax. Erste Abteilung. Gebrauch der Wortklassen. Die Formationen des Verbums in einfachen Sätzen und in Satzverbindungen. Stuttgart: Cotta. Fleischmann, Klaus 1973 Verbstellung und Relieftheorie. Ein Versuch zur Geschichte des deutschen Nebensatzes. München: Wilhelm Fink. Fourquet, Jean 1974 Genetische Betrachtungen über den deutschen Satzbau. In Studien zur deutschen Literatur und Sprache des Mittelalters. Festschrift für Hugo Moser zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Werner Besch, Günther Jungbluth, Gerhard Meissburger and Eberhard Nellmann, 314–323. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Hinterhölzl, Roland 2004 Language Change versus Grammar Change: What diachronic data reveal about the distinction between core grammar and periphery. In Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, eds. Carola Trips and Eric Fuß, 131–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hróarsdóttir, Þorbjörg 2000 Word Order Change in Icelandic: From OV to VO. Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins. 2003 Language Change and Language Acquisition. Nordlyd 31 (1): 116–131. Kavanagh, Joseph Hayes 1970 The Verb-Final Rule in Old High German: A Diachronic Analysis of Surface Structure Constraints. Dissertation, University of Michigan. Kiparsky, Paul 1995 Indo-European Origins of Germanic Syntax. In Clause Structure and Language Change, eds. Adrian Battye and Ian Roberts, 140–169. New York/Oxford.
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The Shift to Head-Initial VP in Germanic. In Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax, eds. Höskuldur Thráinsson, Samuel David Epstein and Steve Peter, 140–179. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kroch, Anthony 1989 Reflexes of Grammar in Patterns of Language Change. Journal of Language Variation and Change 1 (3): 199–244. Lenerz, Jürgen 1984 Syntaktischer Wandel und Grammatiktheorie. Eine Untersuchung an Beispielen aus der Sprachgeschichte des Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Lightfood, David 1999 The Development of Language. Oxford: Blackwell. Müller, Gereon and Wolfgang Sternefeld 1993 Improper Movement and Unambiguous Binding. Linguistic Inquiry 24: 461–507. Näf, Anton 1979 Die Wortstellung in Notkers Consolatio. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Pintzuk, Susan 1999 Phrase Structures in Competition: Variation and Change in Old English Word Order. New York and London: Garland. Rizzi, Luigi 1997 The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Elements of Grammar. Handbook in Generative Syntax, ed. Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Roberts, Ian 1997 Directionality and word order change in the history of English. In Parameters of morphosyntactic change, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, 398–426. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomanetz, Karl 1879 Die Relativsätze bei den ahd. Uebersetzern des 8. u. 9. Jahrh. Wien: Carl Gerold's Sohn. Vennemann, Theo 1974 Topics, Subjects, and Word Order: From SXV to SVX via TVX. In Historical Linguistics, eds. John M. Anderson and Charles Johns, 339–376. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publ. Co. Wackernagel, Wilhelm 1892 Über ein Gesetz der indogermanischen Wortstellung. Indogermanische Forschungen. Zeitschrift für indogermanische Sprach- und Altertumskunde 1: 333–436. Zubizaretta, Maria Luisa 1998 Prosody, Focus and Word Order. Cambridge: MIT Press.
The role of information structure in the grammar
The verb-second property in Old High German: Different ways of filling the prefield Katrin Axel
1. Introduction* This paper deals with the question of how the prefield was filled in Old High German (OHG). This is an important issue if we want to find out how well the verb-second (= V2) property was already established at this earliest attested stage of the German language (ca. 750–1050 A.D.). Descriptively speaking, the V2 property involves the three components in (1): (1)
a. obligatory placement of some XP in front of the finite verb b. the XP-movement in (a) is restricted to one XP c. obligatory preposing of the finite verb
In this paper, I will only consider the V2 component in (1a). According to standard assumptions in generative syntax, the landing site of obligatory XP-fronting is the specifier position of CP (SpecCP). Regarding V-to-Cmovement (cf. 1c), it may suffice to say that it was already very much generalized in OHG (see Axel 2007: Chapter 2 for details). As for (1b), it should be mentioned that we still find a certain amount of V3 order in the 8th and 9th century prose texts, most notably with personal pronouns and with certain adverbials (Lippert 1974; Tomaselli 1995; Axel 2007: Chapter 4). For the purposes of this paper, we will neglect this issue and simply assume that there was only one specifier position (= SpecC) in front of the preposed finite verb. The present study is based on an investigation of the following texts:1 First, the major prose texts from the 8th and 9th centuries, i.e. the Isidor translation (ca. 790), the so-called Monsee Fragments (ca. 790–800) and the OHG version of Tatian’s Gospel Harmony (ca. 830). Second, the translation of Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiæ by the late OHG writer Notker Labeo (first half 11th century). Unfortunately, all these texts are translations of theological or philosophical works. This means that we have to take into account the word order in the Latin source sentences in order to decide which word order patterns were real reflexes of the native OHG grammar.
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2. The prefield in Old High German: A short overview A typical property of V2 languages is that an XP can be moved to the SpecC position regardless of its syntactic category or syntactic function. This can already be shown to hold for 8th and 9th century OHG. As can be seen in the examples in (2), the clause-initial XP-position is not always occupied by the subject noun phrase as in (2a), but may also host a pronominal, (2b), or full object, a temporal adverb, (2c), an adjectival predicate, (2d), or the infinite part of the verb, such as the past participle in (2e). Note that in (2), as in the following examples, the fronted XP is given in square brackets and the finite verb is underlined. (2)
a. [Druhtin] suuor dauite in uuaarnissu (I 610) in truth Lord swore Daviddat ‘the Lord swore to David in truth’ Iurauit dominus dauid in ueritate thó thie scribara/ 2 (T 227,10) b. / [ín] bihieltun PARTICLE the scribes him watched ‘and the scribes watched him’ /obseruabant autem scribe ݸ/ ein kneht …/ (T 251,7) c. /[hier] ist here is one boy ‘there is one little boy here …’ /est puer unus hic … / her./ (T 313,14) d. /[toot] ist dead is he ‘he is dead’ /quia mortuus est/ e. [Araugit] ist in dhes aldin uuizssodes boohhum dhazs … revealed is in the old testament’s books that ‘it is revealed in the books of the Old Testament that …’ Pateat ueteris testamenti apicibus (I 252)
In the Isidor and Tatian examples (2a) to (2c) the fillings of the first position clearly differ from those in the corresponding Latin sentences, which suggests that these word orders were licensed by the native OHG grammar. In (2d) the relative order of the adjectival phrase and the finite verb is maintained in the OHG translation, but the clause has been converted from a subordinate clause into a main clause and the subject pronoun her has been inserted in postfinite position. In (2e) it can be argued that the word orders are parallel in both languages since the participle araugit is
The verb-second property in Old High German
19
the translation of the sentence-initial finite verb in the Latin source. Note, however, that the example is from the OHG Isidor translation, which is generally considered to be of outstanding quality (e.g. Lippert 1974: 188). So already in the earlier prose texts practically any maximal category is attested in the OHG prefield. The same could, of course, easily be demonstrated with material from late OHG texts (see Näf 1979: 302–313). However, some fillings of the prefield occur much more frequently than others. A subject noun phrase or an adverbial (in the form of an AdvP or PP) is found there more often in SpecC than, for example, a direct-object noun phrase or an infinite verb in sentences which deviate from the Latin.3 For modern German it can easily be shown that even though virtually any constituent can move to the prefield, these different fillings of the prefield have an effect on the information structure of the sentence. Recently, Fanselow (2002, 2003, 2004) and Frey (2004) have put forward syntactic accounts couched in the minimalist framework which distinguish between three ways to fill the prefield: (i) operator movement, (ii) Stylistic Fronting (or Formal Movement), and (iii) Merge of expletive es. In the following, I will discuss which of these different ways of filling the prefield had already developed in OHG. Accordingly this paper is organized as follows: In the next section, I will consider different types of operator movement. Sections 4 and 5 deal with the questions of whether ‘Stylistic Fronting’ and the precursor of our expletive es had already developed in OHG. In these two sections I will also discuss the different types of V1 declaratives that are attested in the OHG prose texts. Finally, in section 6 I will sketch a hypothesis concerning the relation between XPfronting and sentence particles in OHG.
3. Operator movement Operator movement is the type of XP-fronting which arguably has the longest history: It has been shown to even have Proto-Indo-European roots (e.g. Delbrück 1888: 24; Kiparsky 1995). Note also that certain types of operator-initial sentences have been proposed to have played a central role in the development of V-to-C-movement in the early Germanic languages (see Kiparsky 1995 on Old English; and Eythórsson 1995; Ferraresi 1997, 2005 and Roberts 1996 on Gothic). Not surprisingly, already in the 8th and 9th century OHG prose texts, whphrases are positioned at the left sentence periphery in front of the pre-
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posed finite verb, cf. (3a). We even find evidence for long wh-extraction from subordinate thaz-clauses in these early texts, cf. (3b).4 (3)
thú ti héra/ (T 257,12) a. /… [uuanne]i quami when came you here ‘when did you come here?’ /… quando huc uenisti./ ti garauuemes] …/ b. /[uuár]i uuili [CP t'i thaz uuir that we prepare ...? where will2.sg ‘where do you want us to prepare ...?’ /ubi uis paremus … / (T 555,8)
Furthermore, there is evidence that focused constituents could be moved to SpecC in OHG. Behaghel (1932: 51, 255ff.) already observed marked word orders in declarative clauses where the initial position was occupied by constituents that usually occurred postfinitely. If we investigate written corpus data, in particular historical corpus data, it is, of course, difficult to analyse the information-structural or semanto-pragmatic status of the preposed XPs. We do not have direct access to prosodic information and we cannot ask informants which interpretation a particular construction has. The so-called question test is, however, one relatively straightforward way to identify a focused element that can also be applied to corpus data. It is illustrated in (4) with a modern German example from Fanselow (2004: 4–5). According to Fanselow, the fronting of the direct object ein Buch is triggered by a focus feature in C, cf. (4). (4)
a. (– –
Was hat er gelesen? ‘what has he read’?) modern German gelesen [Ein BUCH] hat er a book has he read ‘he has read a book’ Ein BUCH [[C hat] [IP er gelesen ]]] b. [CP [+foc]-feature in C (cf. Fanselow 2004: 5)
In the OHG prose texts we can also find examples with such questionanswer sequences. The Tatian sentences in (5a), for example, constitute a question-answer sequence and we may therefore assume that the pronoun ein in SpecC is focused. Note that ein here is a cataphoric pronoun which denotes the propositional content of the following complex sentence (= /obathu uuolles thuruhthigan uuésan./ fár forcoufi thiu thu habes./ ‘if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have’ [T 357,16f.]).
The verb-second property in Old High German
(5)
21
a. (/uuaz ist mir nohnu uuan./ ‘What do I still lack?’ [T 357,12]) thir uuan./ (T 357,15) /[ein] ist youdat missing onenom is ‘one thing you lack’ /unum tibi deest./ [ thir uuan ]]] b. [CP ein [[C ist ]
We also find cases where the context suggests a contrastive interpretation. So in the second sentence in example (6a) from Tatian, the dative object (i.e. the pronoun anderemo) has been fronted to SpecC and is contrasted with the dative object (thesemo) in the first sentence.5 Similarly, in the late OHG example in (6b) from the Consolatio, the fronted dative object (i.e. the DP herbeste) is contrasted with temo lenzen ‘the spring’ in the following sentence, thus we can suspect that it was contrastively focused. (6)
a. /Inti ih quidu zi thesemo far/… and I say to this.one go (T 181,22) /... [anderemo] quidu quim/ say come otherdat ‘and I say to this one, ‘Go’, … and to another, ‘Come’’ /& dico huic uade . /... & alio ueni./ êrâ . náls temo lénzen b. [Hérbeste]gáb kót tîe not thedat springdat autumndat gave God the honour ‘God has given this award to the autumn, but not to the spring’ (N Boethius I 36,3)
Furthermore, the prefield/SpecC position in V2 languages can, of course, host topicalized XPs. This is illustrated in (7), again with a modern German example adapted from Fanselow (2004: 5). (7)
a. ( – Soll ich was über Ede erzählen?/ ‘do you want me to say something about Ede?’) – Diesen Verbrecher hat man endlich verhaftet criminal has one finally arrested thisacc ‘that criminal has finally been arrested’ b. [CP Diesen Verbrecher [[C hat] [ man endlich verhaftet ]]] [+top]-feature in C (cf. Fanselow 2004: 5)
Many linguists subscribe to the so-called ‘aboutness concept’ of topics, which was proposed by Reinhart (1981). A controversial issue is whether an aboutness topic has to already be given in the preceding context as in example (7) or whether it can denote a new referent (see Frey 2004 for an
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overview of the relevant literature). Here, it may suffice to say that in the OHG texts we find many examples for the uncontroversial case where the fronted XPs denote a given referent. So in the Tatian example in (8) the object pronoun ín, which has an anaphoric antecedent (the noun phrase man) in the preceding sentence, has been fronted to SpecC. In the Isidor example in (9) the preposition phrase umbi dhiz refers back to the content of the dhazs-clause in the preceding sentence. (8)
(/… Inti uuas thár man/ thes zesua hant thurri uuas/ ‘and there was a man whose right hand was withered’ [T 227,8]) thie scribara/ (T 227,10) /[ín] bihieltun thó watched PARTICLE the scribes himacc ‘and the scribes watched him’ /obseruabant autem scribe/ݸ
(9)
(… dhazs dher aerloso man … christ, got endi druhtin uurdi chinemnit ‘that the impious man … was named Christ, God and Lord’ [I 168]) auh so chiscriban (I 171) [Umbi dhiz] nist NEG-is also so written about this in dhero sibunzo tradungum in the Septuagint ‘about this is not written thus in the Septuagint’ Unde et in translatione LXX non habet
Fanselow claims that the fronting of a topic in Present-Day German is an instance of operator/A-bar movement just as the fronting of a focused constituent. Frey (2004) argues that operator movement, i.e. real A-bar movement, always results in a contrastive interpretation. In his approach (noncontrastive) topics as in the modern German example in (7) move to the prefield via A-movement, more precisely via ‘Formal Movement’, which always affects the highest constituent in the middle field just as ‘Stylistic Fronting’ in Fanselow’s account (see section 4.1). This is possible because Frey assumes that there is a topic position at the left edge of the middle field into which topics can be scrambled via A-movement.6 Since it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find out which analysis is more convincing for OHG solely on the basis of written corpus data, I will not try to answer this question. I shall merely draw the descriptive conclusion that constituents functioning as topics are frequently attested in the OHG prefield. To sum up, already in the earlier OHG prose texts we find different types of operators in the SpecC position: wh-phrases and focused XPs. Furthermore, the SpecC position could host topicalized constituents.
The verb-second property in Old High German
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4. Stylistic Fronting 4.1. Stylistic Fronting in Present-Day German In most modern German clauses the element fronted to SpecC is simply the subject. It is clear that subject-initial sentences follow conditions of use other than the sentences discussed above. They can be thetic, uttered in out-of-the-blue contexts or as answers to a question such as ‘what happened?’. However, it has been known for quite some time that there are other elements that can show up in clause-initial position without special pragmatic force. For example, temporal adverbs and sentence level adverbs are like subjects (see Fanselow 2002, 2003, 2004). They can be clauseinitial without being a topic or focus. So the sentences in (10) and (11) would also be perfect answers to the question ‘what happened?’. (10) a. [CP [ Gestern]i [[hat]k [IP ti ein Bär yesterday has anom bear ‘yesterday, a bear attacked a man’ b. dass gestern ein Bär einen that yesterday anom bear aacc ‘that yesterday a bear attacked a man’
einen Mann attackiert tk ]]] aacc man attacked Mann attackiert man attacked
hat has
(11) a. [CP [ Glücklicherweise]i [[ hat]k [ ti Peter angerufen tk ]]] fortunately has Peter called ‘fortunately, Peter has called’ b. dass glücklicherweise Peter angerufen hat that fortunately Peter called has ‘that fortunately Peter has called’ Note that sentence adverbials such as glücklicherweise in (11) cannot by their very nature be topics. The same is true for quantified XPs such as niemand ‘nobody’ in (12). (12) [Niemand] hilft ihnen umzuziehen nobody helps them to.move ‘nobody is helping them move house’ What temporal adverbs and sentential adverbs have in common is that they can be the structurally highest phrases in the middle field of an unmarked subordinate clause. This is illustrated in the b-examples in (10) and (11). When there are no high adverbials present, the highest category in the middle field is usually just the highest argument, which is normally the
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nominative argument (i.e. the subject). It has been pointed out, however, by Lenerz (1977) that there are predicate classes (e.g. unaccusative predicates, psychological predicates, and passives of ditransitive verbs) with which the oblique argument (most often a dative) precedes the nominative one in the middle field of pragmatically unmarked subordinate clauses (DAT > NOM). Accordingly, in the corresponding main clauses these oblique arguments are fronted in the unmarked case: Fahrrad gestohlen (13) a. [Einem Kind] wurde das child became thenom bike stolen adat ‘the bike was stolen from a child’ (cf. Fanselow 2002: 231) der Text entfallen b. [Einem Schauspieler]ist actor is thenom text forgotten adat ‘an actor has forgotten the text’ (cf. Fanselow 2002: 231) Fanselow (2002, 2003, 2004) argues that the phrases in (10), (11), (12) and (13) have been fronted by a German version of Stylistic Fronting at the CPlevel which is reminiscent of Stylistic Fronting in modern Icelandic. In a pragmatically unmarked clause the highest category in the middle field (= IP in Fanselow’s account) is fronted to SpecC. The exact definition is as follows: (14) When C has no semantic or pragmatic feature, its EPP [= Extended Projection Principle, K.A.] feature attracts the closest (= highest) category in IP. (Fanselow 2004: 7) This type of Stylistic Fronting at the CP-level is, of course, an essential ingredient of the V2 property: the SpecC position has to be filled even when there is no semantic or pragmatic trigger.7
4.2.
Stylistic Fronting in Old High German
We have ample evidence that there was already XP-movement which was semanto-pragmatically vacuous in OHG. Already in the prose texts from the 8th and 9th centuries it is easy to find elements in SpecC which are neither focused nor topics. The sentences in (15), for example, arguably have neutral word order, i.e. a broad focus reading. The fronted elements in these sentences can also not be topics: Negative indefinite subjects as in (15a), indefinites with a non-specific interpretation as in (15b), and correlatives of infinitival or gerundival clauses as in (15c) cannot by their very
The verb-second property in Old High German
25
nature be topics. The same is true for sentence adverbials as in (15d). Note that in all these examples – except (15a) – the relevant XPs have been fronted contrary to the Latin. guot nibi ein got./ (T 355,30) (15) a. /[neoman] nist NEG-is good except the.one God no one ‘no one is good except God alone’ /nemo bonus nisi unus deus/ inan …/ b. /uuanta8 [manage diuuala] giengun/ in since many demons went in him ‘since many demons had gone into him …’ /quia intrauerunt demonia multa/ in eum …/ (T 189,31) sus zi uuesanne/ (T 513,5) c. /[iz] gilimpfit it behoves so to be ‘it behoves to be so’ /oport& enim haec fieri/ d. endi [chiuuisso] ist christus in dheru selbun salbidhu and certainly is Christ in this same salve chimeinit meant ‘and certainly Christ is meant in this same salve’ et utique christus ipsa unctione monstratur (I 144) So just like in modern German, the OHG SpecC position had to be filled even when there was no semantic or pragmatic trigger.
4.3.
Stylistic Fronting with non-canonical predicates
As was already mentioned above, in Present-Day German sentences with non-canonical predicates the filling of the SpecC position is somewhat special. With impersonal psych-predicates, for example, it is either the quasiargument es which is fronted to SpecC, (16b), or the (highest ranked) oblique argument, (16a). In the latter case the non-obligatory es may or may not be be present in the middle field. In the former case, however, it is not possible to drop the es, (16b). (16) a. [Dem Jungen] graut boydat terrifies thedat ‘the boy is dreading the exam’
(es) it
vor by
der the
Prüfung exam
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b. *(Es) graut dem Jungen it terrifies thedat boydat ‘the boy is dreading the exam’
vor by
der the
Prüfung exam
The quasi-argument es also occurs with intransitive impersonal verbs (meteorological verbs and the like), cf. (17), but in contrast to the impersonal psych-verbs it cannot be dropped in such cases, cf. (17a).9 (17) a. dass *(es) regnet that it rains ‘that it is raining’ b. *(Es) regnet it rains ‘it is raining’ Similarly, impersonal predicates with sentential complements are often realized with the correlative es, (18a). Again it is only possible to drop the correlative es in the middle field and not in SpecC, (18b). (18) a. weil (es) mich wundert, dass Peter raucht because it meacc astonishes that Peter smokes ‘because I am astonished that Peter smokes’ mich, dass Peter raucht b. *(Es) wundert it astonishes meacc that Peter smokes ‘I am astonished that Peter smokes’ One could argue that in transitive and intransitive impersonal constructions as in (16) and (17) a nominative argument is always present and that there is variation whether it is realized overtly (as es) or whether it is realized as an empty pro (Safir 1985; Cardinaletti 1990; Sternefeld 2006, II: 560). Similarly in the special case of impersonals with sentential complements one could argue that the correlative es, which is coindexed with the extraposed complement clause, can be left out due to pro-drop (Hentschel 2003). The ungrammaticality of V1 declaratives as in (16b), (17b) and in (18b) shows that in contrast to the overt subject pronoun es, pro cannot move to SpecC to fulfil the V2 requirement. The SpecC position has to be filled by overt material. In OHG, neither the quasi-argument iٕ nor the correlative iٕ10 were very common. These elements only began to spread during Middle High German times (Held 1903; Abraham 1993). The only exceptions are intransitive predicates denoting meteorological phenomena. These fall into two groups: Non-complex, i.e. verbal predi-
The verb-second property in Old High German
27
cates such as âbandên ‘to become evening’ or nahtên ‘to become night’, already often occur with iٕ, whereas constructions with nominal, adjectival or adverbial predicates and copula verbs are mostly attested without iٕ (see Held 1903: 28; Haiman 1974: 103; Lenerz 1985a). The latter type of predicates could show surface V1 order in OHG: zit / nah sehsta. .../ (19) a. /... uuas tho time near sixth was PARTICLE ‘it was about the sixth hour’ /... hora erat / quasi sexta; .../ (N Boethius IV 205,10) b. Íst álso chád si. is so said she ‘“so it is,” she said’ Ita est inquit illa.
(T 275,29)
Sentences with transitive impersonal predicates predominantly exhibited V2 order in OHG. It was usually the (highest ranked) oblique argument that was fronted. This argument normally referred to the logical subject (= experiencer). Already Behaghel (1932: 70) observed that the oblique argument (most often a personal pronoun) was generally fronted in order to fulfil the V2 requirement in those cases where the quasi-argument iٕ was not present. The same is true for modern German. Here as well, the oblique arguments of impersonal verbs occur in SpecC in unmarked clauses: (20) /[mih] hungrita …/ meacc hungered ‘I was hungry …’ /esuriui enim …/
(T 543,26)
By contrast, in sentences with impersonal predicates that subcategorize for a propositional argument in the form of a ‘subject’ clause we find V1 order both in the 8th and 9th century texts, cf. the Tatian example in (21), and in the late OHG texts by Notker, cf. (22). thaz arfuoron fon In/ thie engila …/ (21) /uuard thô became PARTICLE that departed from them the angels ‘it came to pass that the angels departed from them’ /& factum ut discesserunt ab eis/ angeli …/ (T 87,17) (22) a. Íst áleuuâr [dáz man chît …] is very.true that one says ‘it is a true sentence that one says …’ Nam uera sententia est .
(N Boethius V 234,4)
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b. Keskíhet óuh ófto . (N Boethius IV 220,10) happens also often [dáz kûotên geuuált ze_hánden chóme] . to hands comes that the.goodpl power ‘it also often happens that the chief command is given to good men’ Fit autem sepe . uti bonis summa rervm regenda deferatur . The V1 pattern is also attested with transitive impersonal predicates that subcategorize both for an accusative or dative experiencer argument and an infinitival/gerundival or finite clause, cf. (23). We also find examples with V2 order where the dative argument has been fronted contrary to the Latin source, cf. (24). As was mentioned above, fronting of the oblique argument was also possible in the case of impersonals without sentential complements, cf. (20). [christinheidi chilaupnissa chihoran] (23) a. lustida sie hear desired themacc Christianity’s belief ‘they wanted to hear the belief of Christianity’ christi fidem delectantur audire (I 693) [uuáz iz méine] b. Íst sie vuúnder what it means is sheacc wonder ‘she wonders what it means’ (N Boethius IV 210,29) [abur (24) /[íu] gilimphit behoves again youdat.pl ‘you must be born again’ /oport& uos nasci denuo/
giboran born
uuerdan]/ become
(T 405,26)
Note that ‘subject’ clauses, in particular finite ‘subject’ clauses, are generally extraposed in OHG as in modern German. This can be seen in (23b), where the clause occurs after the predicate vuúnder. Again, one could argue that all the OHG impersonal constructions without the expletive iٕ involve instead a pro-element which is either an empty quasi-argument or a correlative coindexed with the extraposed clause. For OHG this hypothesis seems to be even better motivated than for modern German since in the earlier OHG texts there is also referential prodrop attested in postfinite environments (Axel 2005, 2007: Chapter 6). This is illustrated in (25).
The verb-second property in Old High German
29
pro in cruci (25) a. [Sume] hahet pro in cross someacc hang2.pl ‘some of them you will crucify’ et ex illis occidetis et crucifigetis (MF XVIII,17 [St. Matthew 23:34]) b. [In dhemu druhtines nemin] archennemes ... pro fater in the Lord’s name recognize1.pl ... pro father ‘in the name of the Lord we recognize ... the Father’ In persona enim domini patrem accipimus (I 279) Given the assumption that there is an expletive pro in OHG impersonal constructions, it could be possible that in sentences as in (19) to (23), pro has been moved to SpecC as indicated in (26) for the sentences (19a) and (22a). The V1 order would then only be a surface phenomenon; the underlying order would be the regular V2 structure. (26) a. [CP proi [[C uuas] [tho ti zit nah sehsta. ...]]] áleuuâr]]] [ dáz man chît]i ] b. [CP proi [[C Íst ] [[ti This analysis, however, faces one serious problem: Also in Present-Day German there are impersonal predicates with which the quasi-argument es or correlative es are not obligatory and it can be argued that in the cases whithout es pro is present. In contrast to OHG, however, sentences with impersonal predicates cannot be realized as V1 sentences in Present-Day German. In other words, we would have to argue that a putative pro-element cannot move to SpecC in modern German to fulfil the V2 requirement (see also Cardinaletti 1990; Sternefeld 2006 I, 170). Viewed from a diachronic perspective it is then very unlikely that pro should have been licensed in SpecC in OHG times. If so, what would account for the diachronic change which resulted in a ban on fronting pro to SpecC? This is why I will stick to the idea that there is a general ban on empty expletives in SpecC in V2 languages. In other words, it may well be that we should analyse impersonal predicates as subcategorizing for pro, but this pro presumably stayed in the middle field and did not move to SpecC via Stylistic Fronting. So we may conclude that in the context of impersonal predicates, Stylistic Fronting had already developed in OHG times: However, there are still some residues where it sometimes failed to take place.11 A further type of non-canonical predicate is the passives of ditransitive verbs. In the last section it was shown that in modern German in the unmarked order the oblique argument precedes the nominative in such cases and consequently it is the oblique argument which is moved to SpecC via
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Stylistic Fronting in main declarative clauses. In the OHG prose texts we find some examples with passivized ditransitives. In contrast to the impersonal psych-predicates, the oblique argument is usually not fronted and we get V1 order: furlazano (27) /sint thir forgiven are youdat.sg ‘your sins are forgiven’ /dimittuntur tibi peccata/
sunta/ sins
(T 193,24)
However, we have to be careful in drawing this conclusion since in all the relevant examples the oblique argument also occurs postverbally in the corresponding Latin sentences. To sum up: Sentences with impersonal predicates fall into two groups: In sentences with transitive impersonals the oblique experiencer was generally fronted to SpecC. Sentences with intransitive impersonals or intransitive sentences with subject clauses, on the other hand, were often realized as V1 sentences. This is presumably due to the fact that there was no overt argument present which could be fronted since the use of the overt quasiargument iٕ or the correlative iٕ was not yet obligatory. So the V1 orders with impersonals constituted exceptions to the Stylistic Fronting Rule in OHG, but they were exceptions that proved the rule. One factor that led to the consolidation of the V2 property in the history of German was the spread of overt quasi-arguments and correlatives.
5. An expletive in SpecC? In Present-Day German there are also constructions where Stylistic Fronting fails to apply and where there are also no fronted focused XPs or topics in SpecC either. In this case, the expletive es is merged in this position. One example would be existential or presentational constructions as in (28). As can be seen in (28b), the expletive es can also occur with definite subjects. This shows that it is different from the subject expletive in languages such as English (there) or Icelandic (það). German es is not a subject expletive, but a placeholder which satisfies the requirement that the SpecC position be filled. (28) a. [Es] braut sich ein Gewitter thunderstorm it brews REFL a ‘a thunderstorm is brewing’
zusammen together
The verb-second property in Old High German
31
Philharmoniker b. [Es] spielen die Wiener the Vienna Philharmonic.Orchestrapl it playpl ‘the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is playing’ In OHG this kind of prefield (or SpecC) expletive had not yet developed. In our corpus there are no such examples. This fits in with observations in the secondary literature (Brugmann 1917; Behaghel 1923: 319–320, 1928: 470–471; Lenerz 1985a; Abraham 1993) that the development of es as a prefield expletive took place in the Middle High German period. Now the question arises of how existential/presentational constructions looked in OHG. The answer is that they were simply realized with V1 order. Like in the modern language, the subject was not fronted but remained in the postfinite domain even in those cases where the corresponding Latin sentence had a preverbal subject, (29). Instead of merging an expletive, the SpecC position remained empty:12 (29) a. See13
quimit der bruti gomo ·(MF XX,8 [St. Matthew 25:6]) comes the bridegroom ‘behold, the bridegroom is coming’ Ecce sponsus uenit, hirta In thero lantskeffi.‘/ b. /uuarun thô PARTICLE shepherds in that country were ‘there were shepherds in the same country’ /Et pastores erant In regione eadem.‘/ (T 85,29) thar ouh sum uuitua/ In thero burgi .../ c. /uuas was there also some widow in that city ‘there was a certain widow in the same city...’ (T 415,2) /vidua autem quædam erat/ In ciuitate illa .../ in/ moises …/ (T 305,21) d. /arougta sih tho appeared REFL PARTICLE them Moses ‘Moses appeared unto them …’ /et ecce apparuit illis/ moises …/ INTERJ
In some examples with presentational constructions and V1 order we have evidence that the subject is not in its base position, but is extraposed. In (30), for example, the subject noun phrase gotes engila is found after the verb particle zuo. In the examples in (29) the so-called right-sentence bracket is not occupied by overt material (i.e. a non-finite verb or verbal particle). This is why the examples are in fact ambiguous with respect to the position of the subjects.
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(30) /giengun thô t i zuo PARTICLE VERB.PART. went ‘there came God’s angels’ /Et ecce angeli accesserunt/
[gotes God’s
engila]i / angels
(T 115,30)
Most examples with existential/presentational constructions contain unaccusative predicates (most notably verbs of existence or appearance). In OHG texts, subject extraposition occurs quite frequently with such predicates not only in main clauses, but also in subordinate clauses.14 The frequent occurrence of ‘subject’ extraposition in unaccusative environments could be related to the fact that the subject is the underlying object in such cases. Again one could speculate that such constructions involve an expletive pro in the canonical subject position which is coindexed with the nominative noun phrase. Like the empty quasi-argument pro in truly subjectless constructions, this expletive pro has a nominative case feature, but in contrast to quasi-argument pro it is not restricted to the third person singular, but must also be able to bear a plural feature (e.g. in (29b) and (30) the associate noun phrase is in the plural). The question as to which position was the subject position in OHG is not really relevant for the issue at hand. We may simply assume that it was SpecVP as argued by e.g. Haider (1997) and Sternefeld (2006, II: 537), who propose a minimal model for modern German sentence structure with no I-projection. Again one could now argue that the V1 orders in (29) and (30) only pertain at the surface and that there are structurally V2 orders where the expletive pro-element has been fronted to SpecC. However, this analysis would face the same diachronic problem as was discussed above: If expletive pro could be moved to SpecC in OHG, why is this no longer possible today? For modern German Sternefeld argues that in sentences where nominative DPs are merged in direct object position there must be a silent category in SpecVP c-commanding the finite verb so that the required checking configuration for subject-verb agreement and the nominative case feature can be established, cf. (31a). This silent category differs from the pro that occurs in truly subjectless sentences in that it is not restricted to the third person singular, but may also bear a plural feature. ereignet] haben]] (31) a. dass sichj [VP Ø [V’ [VP Wunder tj miracles happened have that REFL ‘that miracles have happened’ ereignet b. [Es] haben sich Wunder REFL miracles happened it have ‘miracles have happened’
The verb-second property in Old High German
33
ereignet c. *Haben sich Wunder REFL miracles happened have ‘have miracles happened?’ In contrast to OHG, however, the corresponding main clauses cannot be realized with V1 order as is illustrated in (31b,c). Sternefeld (2006, II: 592) therefore concludes that there must be a general ban on moving invisible material to SpecC. So we may conclude that one factor that led to the consolidation of the V2 property was the development of an expletive element, a placeholder that was merged in the SpecC position when no XP was moved there. This development took place in the Middle High German period. Interestingly, in modern Bavarian the use of es as a prefield expletive is not very common either, at least it is more restricted than in the Standard language. As Weiß (1998: 102–103) shows, the adverb do is often used where es would occur in the Standard: Ungligg (32) [Do] is a there is an accident ‘an accident has happened’
bassierd happened
(Weiß 1998: 102)
One could now hypothesize that the modern and historical dialects in which the pronoun es is not common resort to an adverbial expletive instead. In the OHG Tatian we do indeed find examples where the adverb thô occurs in presentational constructions (see also Brugmann 1917 on Otfrid): uuas man In INTERJ PARTICLE was man in ‘behold, there was a man in Jerusalem’ /& ecce homo erat In hierusalem‘/
(33) /senonu
[tho]
hierusalem.‘/ Jerusalem’ (T 89,23)
We also have some evidence that thô only had a weak semantics in OHG: It is often used as a translation of Latin et ‘and’ or it is simply inserted into the OHG where the Latin does not even have a corresponding element (cf. Ruhfus 1897: 12 et passim; Betten 1987). If thô was really the OHG counterpart of our modern prefield expletive es, it could be speculated that in the presentational/existential constructions with V1 order that we discussed above thô was dropped as the result of topic drop: (34) [CP thô/ø [[C Vi]
[VP ... ti ]]]
The hypothesis of an elliptical thô is, however, not really convincing since this element was overtly present in many examples, albeit in postfinite
34
Katrin Axel
position, cf. (29a, d) and (30). In the following section its role will be discussed in more detail. To sum up: In OHG, the prefield expletive es had not yet developed. Existential/presentational constructions were realized as V1 structures. The hypothesis that there was topic drop of the adverb thô in SpecC in these cases is not convincing.
6. XP-movement to SpecC and the role of particles In the previous sections we discussed V1 order in the context of impersonal predicates and existential/presentational constructions. These are, however, not the only classes of examples with this word order. As (35) shows, we also find V1 order in declaratives with pronominal subjects.15 As was observed already by Erdmann (1886: 167) such examples are clearly not the precursors of our modern German es-V2 sentences since the latter are incompatible with pronoun subjects (see also Brugmann 1917: 35). úf/ (T 183,14) (35) a. /... árstuont siu tho up arose she PARTICLE ‘she rose’ /... & surrexit/ inti gifultun/ beidu thiu skef …/ b. /quamun sie thó both the boats came they PARTICLE and filled ‘they came and filled both of the boats’ /& uenerunt & impleuerunt/ ambas nauiculas .../ (T 125,27) Lenerz (1984: 131–132, 152–153; 1985b) proposes that the OHG V1 declaratives are the precursors of our modern narrative V1 declaratives that occur at the beginning of certain types of narrations, such as jokes (see also Maurer 1924 and Önnerfors 1997: 53ff. for many more examples): (36) Kommt da ein Kerl herein und fragt mich, … comes then a guy in and asks me ‘a guy comes in and asks me …’ (Lenerz 1985b: 104) According to Lenerz, V1 order in declaratives indicates that the sentence does not contain a thematic element, i.e. the whole proposition is rhematic. This also explains, he argues, why this word order often occurs at the beginning of texts or passages, in emphatic narration or where a change of the discourse topic occurs.
The verb-second property in Old High German
35
While it is true that there are many V1 declaratives which only contain rhematic material attested in the OHG prose texts, notably in Tatian, we also find a considerable number of examples where this is not the case: ûz sine scalca/ In uuega .../ (37) a. /giengun thô PARTICLE out his servants in streets went ‘his servants went out into the streets’ /& egressi sunt serui eius/ In uias .../ (T 425,16) thie hirta heimuuartes.‘/ b. /uuvrbun thô turned PARTICLE the shepherds homeward ‘the shepherds returned’ /& reuersi sunt pastores.‘/ (T 89,2) giheilit ther kneht in thero ziti./ c. /uuard tho in that time became PARTICLE healed the servant ‘his servant was healed in that hour’ /& sanatus est puer in illa hora;/ (T 183,7) The V1 declarative in (37a) from Tatian’s Gospel Harmony, for example, occurs in the middle of a bible story (the Parable of the Wedding Banquet [Matthew 22: 1–14]) and its subject sine scalca ‘his servants’ clearly refers to thematic material as the servants have been mentioned several times in the preceding discourse. The same is true for the examples in (35), which have pronoun subjects that are anaphorically linked to a preceding discourse referent. The V1 declaratives in (37b,c) even occur at the absolute end of bible stories (The Shepherds and the Angels [Luke 2: 8–20] from the Christmas Story and The Faith of the Centurion [Matthew 8: 5–13]). Here as well, the respective subjects thie hirta ‘the shepherds’ and ther kneht ‘the servant’ refer to thematic material.16 Note also that we cannot render OHG V1 declaratives as in (37) by our so-called narrative V1 declaratives in modern German.17 For example, it would be impossible to close the Christmas Story by the sentence Kehrten die Hirten um (lit. ‘turned the shepherds back’). This fits in well with claims in the older philological literature (e.g. Maurer 1924; Behaghel 1932: 37) that there is no diachronic connection between the OHG V1 declaratives and the type that arose in the late Middle High German period, which are still common in Present-Day German. If there are V1 declaratives attested which are neither the precursors of the later narrative type nor the historical counterparts of our modern es-V2 construction, what else could account for the fact that there is no XPmovement to SpecC (i.e. no Stylistic Fronting) in these cases? Interestingly, the vast majority of examples contain a characteristic feature: the par-
36
Katrin Axel
ticle thô/tho in postfinite position. As I have shown elsewhere in Axel (2007: Chapter 2), there are residues of a system of sentence particles in the early OHG texts (the interrogative particle inu/eno, the affirmative particle jâ/ja and the imperative particle nû/nu). It may have been the case that thô – besides its use as a normal temporal adverbial – belonged to this system as well and served as a kind of narrative-emphatic marker. Sentence particles encoding sentence-type, mood or aspects of information structure, however, are not really a typical feature of V2 languages. In V2 languages sentence types are primarily signalled by word order (V1 vs. V2). Viewed from this perspective, it would not be surprising that there was no Stylistic Fronting in sentences with postfinite thô. If thô was a narrative-declarative marker, it was not necessary to front an XP via Stylistic Fronting. We may thus hypothesize that it was the loss of sentence particles that contributed to the generalization of XP-fronting, i.e. the development of Stylistic Fronting. The OHG V1 declaratives with thô are probably vestiges of this older system.18
7. Summary In OHG, the SpecC position was already targeted by different types of XPmovement. For example, there are uncontroversial cases of operator movement attested, i.e. fronted wh-phrases and fronted focused XPs. Furthermore, the SpecC position often hosted topicalized constituents. Moreover, we have ample evidence that the phenomenon of Stylistic Fronting had developed as we can easily find XPs in SpecC which cannot be operators. However, there were certain environments where Stylistic Fronting did not yet apply in OHG. For example, in sentences with impersonal constructions, there was often no overt quasi-argument (or correlative) present that could be fronted. Furthermore, there was often no XP-fronting in sentences that contained the particle thô. I suggested that these are residues of an older system where Stylistic Fronting had not developed and sentence type was not signalled by word order but by the use of lexical elements in the form of sentence particles. Finally, the third strategy to fill SpecC – merge of expletive es – was totally absent from OHG. Consequently, existential or presentational constructions usually exhibited V1 order. We may thus conclude that it was a conspiracy of factors that shaped the prefield as we know it today. The rise of overt quasi-arguments and the development of a SpecC expletive were factors that contributed to the further consolidation of V2. One older and much more decisive step towards the development of
The verb-second property in Old High German
37
V2, however, was the innovation of Stylistic Fronting. I hypothesize that the lexical loss of certain particles may eventually be responsible for this innovation. Even though this hypothesis could not be investigated more thoroughly within the scope of this paper, it offers a new perspective for future research.
Notes *
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the SFB 441 ‘Linguistische Datenstrukturen’. Some parts of this paper have been published in Axel (2007: Chapter 4). I would like to thank the audience at the ‘Workshop on Information Structure and Language Change’, an anonymous reviewer and the editors for their helpful comments. The Monsee Fragments are cited by section and line numbers, the Isidor by line numbers and the Tatian by page and line numbers (of the whole edition, not of the manuscript) according to the editions given in the reference section. The line numbers only indicate where the OHG sentence begins. If present, the corresponding Latin sentence is given (without line numbers) in a separate line. In many examples, underlining of the finite verb, boldface and/or bracketing have been added. The Present-Day English translations of the Isidor examples have largely been adopted from Robinson (1997). The slashes in the Tatian examples indicate where the line breaks are. In the Tatian manuscript (Cod. Sang. 56) the bilingual text is presented in two separate columns, Latin on the left and OHG on the right, a feature which has been reproduced in the edition by Masser (1994). The translators tried to achieve a translation which was as loyal as possible to the line breaks in the Latin parts, a technique which could result in non-German word orders (Dittmer & Dittmer 1998: 23). Bernhardt and Davis (1997: 55) observe that in the OHG Tatian, the prefield is most often occupied by the subject or an initial adverbial. Näf (1979: 323) mentions that in Notker’s Consolatio the subject occurs in the prefield in ca. 58% of V2 clauses. Note that also Latin wh-phrases are usually found at the left periphery. This is why there are hardly any OHG examples attested where the wh-phrase is fronted contrary to the Latin in the earlier texts. Näf (1979: 164) mentions, however, that in the late OHG Consolatio almost one-third of the examples with fronted wh-phrases do not have a direct counterpart. It could be objected that the placement of the dative object is parallel to the Latin as here the object alio also appears sentence-initially. Note, however, that the translator has inserted the finite verb (quidu) contrary to the Latin in this case. Instead of putting the verb in front of the dative object (i.e. quidu
38
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. 11.
12.
13.
Katrin Axel anderemo) parallel to the first sentence, the translator has decided to place anderemo in front of the verb. Frey’s account for modern German differs from Fanselow’s not only with respect to the question of how topicalization is analysed. He also assumes that there are different C-projections (FinP, KontrP and CP from right to left) which bear specific types of EPP-features: the EPP-feature in Fin is a ‘bare’ EPP-feature, and the one in Kontr is associated with the feature [KONTRAST]. In C there may be a feature which encodes reference to the discourse structure and is checked by base-generated ‘discourse adverbials’ such as kein Wunder ‘no wonder’. The V2 effect results from the constraint that there can only be one EPP-feature present in the C-domain. Such theoretical details, however, are not essential for the following argumentation, which primarily aims at giving a more descriptive overview of the grammar of the OHG prefield. For the purposes of this paper I have chosen to use Fanselow’s proposal as a theoretical background since it is somewhat simpler. Not surprisingly, this phenomenon is of younger origin than operator movement. It seems to be absent from Gothic, for instance. As Eythórsson (1995: 79–83) and Ferraresi (1997: 132) demonstrate for the Gothic bible translation, all subjects that have been moved to the C-domain are either definite or indefinite with a specific interpretation. The absence of non-specific indefinites comes as no surprise if we assume that in Gothic all XP-movement to the Cdomain had a semanto-pragmatic effect, i.e. all fronted XPs were either topics or focused. This would also explain why there was a fair amount of V1 order in Gothic, as has been observed by Eythórsson (1995: 58). Note that the causal conjunction uuanta is attested both with V2 order (as in the present example) and with verb-final order in OHG. So it could function both as a coordinating and as a subordinating conjunction just as Present-Day German weil ‘because’. The only exceptions are complex time/season expressions consisting of a copular verb and a nominal predicate. In such cases es is not obligatory (Haiman 1974: 103), but again it is only possible to drop the es in the middle field and not in SpecC. But see (15c) for an example with correlative iٕ. This fits in well with observations by Diels (1906: 98), who claimed that originally V1 was the dominant pattern in the context of impersonal constructions in Germanic. A further context where es occurs in modern German is the passives of intransitive verbs (e.g. es wird getanzt, ‘there was dancing (lit.: it was danced)’. In OHG, passives of truly transitive predicates are attested only very rarely (see Bishop 1977). The letters given in roman in the OHG and Latin examples (first and fourth line) indicate material that is unreadible in the manuscript and has been reconstructed by Hench (1890).
The verb-second property in Old High German
39
14. This word order pattern is also realized contrary to the Latin (see Axel 2007: Chapter 2). 15. In the examples in (35a,b) there is an et (&) in the Latin sentence followed by a verb form. Regardless of the question of whether et is a conjunction or an adverb, it cannot simply be argued that the V1 order in OHG is due to the Latin since there are many different translations attested for such et-sentences in Tatian. For example, et is also rendered by thô in prefinite position (Betten 1987). 16. Petrova (2006) also observes that there are V1 declaratives attested in Tatian that contain thematic material. She studies the relationship between word order and discourse relations and points out that V1 order generally occurs in sentences belonging to the main story line of the narrative, which means that they are coordinated in text structure. V2 clauses, on the other hand, can be argued to be subordinated in text structure as they appear in contexts providing additional, for example explanatory or descriptive information on a contextually given entity. 17. Önnerfors (1997: 71–76) argues against the view that V1 declaratives in modern German only contain rhematic material. In his approach the lack of a preverbal position results in a clause which is unpartitioned at the level of topiccomment structure. However, the problem remains that there are many V1 declaratives in OHG which could not be rendered by a narrative V1 declarative in modern German. 18. Note also that the particle thô is also often present in the V1 sentences with different types of impersonal constructions and in the existential/presentational constructions. In these cases the development of V2 was delayed simply because there often was no XP present which could be fronted to or merged in SpecC: The quasi-argument/correlative iٕ was not yet very widespread and the prefield expletive had yet to be ‘innovated’. We could thus hypothesize that thô was retained in these environments where the preconditions for the alternative strategy (i.e. XP-fronting) were not yet fulfilled.
References Primary Sources [I] [MF]
[N]
Der althochdeutsche Isidor. Nach der Pariser Handschrift und den Monseer Fragmenten. Neu hrsg. von H. Eggers. Tübingen, 1964. The Monsee Fragments. Newly collocated text. Introduction, notes, grammatical treatise and exhaustive glossary and a photolithographic fac-simile. Edited by G. A. Hench. Straßburg 1890. Notker der Deutsche. Boethius, »De consolatione Philosophiæ«. Buch I–V. Hrsg. von Petrus W. Tax. Tübingen, 1986, 1988, 1990.
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Katrin Axel Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen Cod. 56. Unter Mitarbeit von Elisabeth De Felip-Jaud hrsg. von Achim Masser. Göttingen, 1994.
Secondary Sources Abraham, Werner 1993 Null subjects in the history of German: From IP to CP. Lingua 89: 117–142. Axel, Katrin 2005 Null subjects and verb placement in Old High German. In Linguistic Evidence: Empirical, Theoretical and Computational Perspectives, eds. Marga Reis and Stephan Kepser, 27–48. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2007 Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement and Verb-Second. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Behaghel, Otto 1923 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Volume 1: Die Wortklassen und Wortformen. Heidelberg: Winter. 1928 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Volume 3: Die Satzgebilde. Heidelberg: Winter. 1932 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Volume IV: Wortstellung, Periodenbau. Heidelberg: Winter. Bernhardt, Karl A. and Graeme Davis 1997 The Word Order of Old High German. Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press. Betten, Anne 1987 Zur Satzverknüpfung im althochdeutschen Tatian. Textsyntaktische Betrachtungen zum Konnektor ‘thô’ und seinen lateinischen Entsprechungen. In Althochdeutsch, Volume I, eds. Rolf Bergmann, Heinrich Tiefenbach and Lothar Voetz, 395–407. Heidelberg: Winter. Bishop, Harry M. 1977 The ‘subjectless’ sentence of Old High German. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Brugmann, Karl 1917 Der Ursprung des Scheinsubjekts ‘es’ in den germanischen und den romanischen Sprachen. (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königl. Sächsischen Gesellschaft für Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 69: 5.) Leipzig: B. G. Treubner. Cardinaletti, Anna 1990 Impersonal Constructions and Sentential Arguments in German. Padova: Padova Unipress.
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Delbrück, Berthold 1968 Reprint. Altindische Syntax. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Original edition, Halle/S.: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1888. Diels, Paul 1906 Die Stellung des Verbums in der älteren althochdeutschen Prosa. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. Dittmer, Arne and Ernst Dittmer 1998 Studien zur Wortstellung – Satzgliedstellung in der althochdeutschen Tatianübersetzung. Für den Druck bearbeitet von M. Flör und J. Klempt. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck und Ruprecht. Erdmann, Oskar 1985 Reprint. Grundzüge der deutschen Syntax nach ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Volume I. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Original edition, Stuttgart: Verlag der J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1886. Eythórsson, Thórhallur 1995 Verbal syntax in the early Germanic languages. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cornell. Fanselow, Gisbert 2002 Quirky ‘subjects’ and other specifiers. In More than Words, eds. Barbara Stiebels and Ingrid Kaufmann, 227–250. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 2003 Münchhausen-style head movement and the analysis of verb-second. In Syntax at Sunset: Head Movement and Syntactic Theory. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 10, ed. Anoop Mahajan, 40–76. 2004 Cyclic phonology-syntax-interaction: Movement to first position in German. In Working Papers of the SFB 632, Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) 1, eds. Shinichiro Ishihara, Michaela Schmitz and Anne Schwarz, 1–42. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag. Ferraresi, Gisella 1997 Word order and phrase structure in Gothic: A comparative study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Stuttgart. 2005 Word and Phrase Structure in Gothic. Leuven: Peeters. Frey, Werner 2004 The grammar-pragmatics interface and the German prefield. Sprache und Pragmatik 52: 1–39. Haider, Hubert 1997 Projective economy: On the minimal functional structure of the German clause. In German: Syntactic Problems – Problematic Syntax, eds. Werner Abraham and Elly van Gelderen, 83–103. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Haiman, John 1974 Targets and Syntactic Change. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
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Held, Karl 1903
Das Verbum ohne pronominales Subjekt in der älteren deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. Hentschel, Elke 2003 Es war einmal ein Subjekt. Linguistik online 13(1). http://www.linguistik-online.de/13_01/hentschel.html Kiparsky, Paul 1995 Indo-European origins of Germanic syntax. In Clause Structure and Language Change, eds. Adrian Battye and Ian Roberts, 140–169. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lenerz, Jürgen 1977 Zur Abfolge nominaler Satzglieder im Deutschen. Tübingen: Narr. 1984 Syntaktischer Wandel und Grammatiktheorie. Eine Untersuchung an Beispielen aus der Sprachgeschichte des Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1985a Zur Theorie des syntaktischen Wandels: Das expletive ‘es’ in der Geschichte des Deutschen. In Erklärende Syntax des Deutschen, ed. Werner Abraham, 99–136. Tübingen: Narr. 1985b Diachronic syntax: Verb position and COMP in German. In Studies in German Grammar, ed. JindӚich Toman, 103–132. Dordrecht: Foris. Lippert, Jörg 1974 Beiträge zur Technik und Syntax althochdeutscher Übersetzungen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Isidorgruppe und des althochdeutschen Tatian. München: Fink. Maurer, Friedrich 1924 Zur Anfangsstellung des Verbs im Deutschen. In Beiträge zur germanischen Sprachwissenschaft. Festschrift für O. Behaghel, ed. Wilhelm Horn, 141–184. Heidelberg: Winter. Näf, Anton 1979 Die Wortstellung in Notkers Consolatio. Untersuchungen zur Syntax und Übersetzungstechnik. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Önnerfors, Olaf 1997 Verb-erst-Deklarativsätze. Grammatik und Pragmatik. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Petrova, Svetlana 2006 A discourse-based approach to verb placement in Early WestGermanic. In Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) 5, eds. Shinichiro Ishihara, Michaela Schmitz and Anne Schwarz, 153–185. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag. Reinhart, Tanya 1981 Pragmatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27: 53–94.
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Roberts, Ian 1996 Remarks on the Old English C-system and the diachrony of V2. In Language Change and Generative Grammar. Special Issue 7 (1995– 96) of Linguistische Berichte, eds. Ellen Brandner and Gisella Ferraresi, 154–167. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Robinson, Orrin W. 1997 Clause Subordination and Verb Placement in the Old High German Isidor Translation. Heidelberg: Winter. Ruhfus, Wilhelm 1897 Die Stellung des Verbums im ahd. Tatian. Doctoral dissertation, University of Heidelberg. Safir, Kenneth 1985 Missing subjects in German. In Studies in German Grammar, ed. JindӚich Toman, 231–287. Dordrecht: Foris. Schrodt, Richard 2004 Althochdeutsche Grammatik II: Syntax. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Sternefeld, Wolfgang 2006 Syntax: Eine merkmalbasierte generative Analyse des Deutschen. Vol. 1–2. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Tomaselli, Alessandra 1995 Cases of verb third in Old High German. In Clause Structure and Language Change, eds. Allan Battye and Ian Roberts, 345–369. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weiß, Helmut 1998 Syntax des Bairischen. Studien zur Grammatik einer natürlichen Sprache. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
The role of information structure in word order variation and word order change Roland Hinterhölzl
1. Introduction In this paper, I propose a novel account of word order variation and word order change in terms of competition between prosodically more or less marked forms within one grammar (contrary to the double base hypothesis). It is argued that variation within one grammar is due to the expression of different information-structural categories and word order change involves a change in the mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structure in which Information Structure (IS) plays a crucial role. 1.1. Word order change in German One of the most intriguing developments in the history of the Germanic languages, next to the grammaticalization of Verb Second (V2), is the change in basic word order in English and Scandinavian. This development involved a change from the presumed Indo-European basic OV order to the basic VO order in these languages. In this scenario, German (and Dutch) retained (modulo some changes in the application of extraposition) the inherited base order. The traditional explanation of this phenomenon is to assume that the loss of Case led to a positional marking of grammatical functions. However, this account faces serious difficulties if we consider the development of Dutch and Icelandic, since Dutch has also lost its Case distinctions but retained OV order, while Icelandic has preserved its rich Case morphology, but nevertheless changed to basic VO order (cf. Hróarsdóttir 1998 for additional discussion of this issue). Recently an alternative approach for the change in word order in English was proposed that assumes that the change from OV to VO is due to language contact and grammar competition in Early Middle English (EME) (cf. Pintzuk 1999, Kroch and Taylor 2000). This approach is based on the so-called double base hypothesis (Pintzuk 1999) according to which word
46
Roland Hinterhölzl
order variation follows from the co-existence of competing grammars that differ with respect to the head parameter of VP and IP. One of the central assumptions of the double hypothesis is that VO orders are an EMEinnovation that was brought about by language contact between AngloSaxons and the Scandinavian settlers in the 10th century. 1.2. Word order variation in Older Germanic If we look at word order regularities in the older stages of the Germanic languages, then we find that both OV- and VO-properties already existed in Old English (OE), rendering the contact scenario from above less plausible. Furthermore, if we look at Old High German (OHG) and Old Icelandic (OI) (cf. Hróarsdóttir 1998), we find a similar kind of variation in word order suggesting that these mixed word order properties should not be treated in terms of language contact but may simply be part of the common Germanic inheritance. In the following I will restrict myself to a discussion of word order variation in OE and OHG. The examples in (1) illustrate typical OV-properties in OE. For example, in (1a) the direct object and the verb particle precede the finite verb in final position within an embedded clause and in (1b) the non-finite verb precedes the finite auxiliary in sentence final position, as is typical in OVlanguages. The same state of affairs, maybe less surprisingly, also holds in OHG, as is illustrated in (2). (1)
a. þæt he his stefne up ahof (Pintzuk 1991:71) that he his voice up raised ‘that he raised up his voice’ b. forþon of Breotone nædran on because from Britain adders on scippe lædde wæron (Pintzuk 1991:117) ships brought were ‘because adders were brought on the ships from Britain’
(2)
a. soso zi In gisprochan uuas how to them spoken was ‘how it was spoken to them’ b. thaz then alton giqu&an what to-the old ones said ‘what was said to the old ones’
(T 37, 5) uúas was
(T 64, 13a)
Information structure, word order and word order change 47
However, in both languages, we also find ample evidence of properties that one would associate with VO-languages, as is illustrated in (3) for OE and in (4) for OHG. For instance in (3a), the direct object follows the selecting verb in an embedded clause and in (3d) the manner adverb follows the verb it modifies. Both properties are typical of VO-languages. (3)
a. þæt ænig mon atellan mæge ealne one demm that any man relate can all the misery (Pintzuk 1991:36) ‘that any man can relate to all the misery’ b. forðam ðe he licettað hi because that they pretended themselves unscyldige (van Kemenade 1987:35) innocent ‘because they themselves pretended to be innocent’ c. he ahof þæt cild up geedcucod and he raised the child up quickened and ansund (van Kemenade 1987:36) healthy ‘he raised the quickened and healthy child up’ d. þæt he þæt unaliefede dod aliefedlice that he the unlawful did lawfully (van Kemenade 1987:36) that he did the unlawful lawfully’
Similar examples can be found in OHG. For example in (4a), the subject follows the selecting verb in an embedded clause and in (4b), the participle follows the selecting auxiliary, an order that is ungrammatical in modern standard German (though there are dialects that allow for right-branching verb clusters), but typical for a VO-language. (4)
a. thaz gibrieuit uuvrdi al these that listed was-SUB all this ‘that all this mankind was listed’ b. thaz sie uuvrdin gitoufit that they were baptized ‘that they were baptized’
umbiuuerft (T 35, 9) mankind (T 46, 25)
While it has been argued for English that the variation illustrated in (3) should not be accounted for in terms of assuming a basic OV-grammar plus extraposition of heavy material and really calls for the assumption of an
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additional VO-grammar (cf. Pintzuk 1999), the case has never been made for OHG. The standard treatment of OHG is that of an OV-language that allowed for a greater amount of extraposition than modern German (cf. Lenerz 1984). In this connection, it is interesting to note that there is convincing evidence that OHG had a right-peripheral focus position, providing an explanation for why and when constituents follow the selecting verb in embedded clauses in OHG. Some examples of this are given in (5)–(7) from the Tatian translation. These examples are of particular interest, since they deviate in word order from the Latin original. Let us have a closer look at (5), which illustrates very well how OHG typically differs from Latin. In (5), the discourse-given DP thin ouga is preposed, while the constituent that carries the new important or relevant information, namely luttar, is put in post-finite position, to occupy the default position for a focussed constituent. (6) illustrates a case of a postverbal nominal predicate that constitutes the new information in the given context, while (7) shows the same property for a direct object. (5)
liohtfaz thes lihhamen ist ouga / oba thin ouga uuirdit luttar / the light of the body is the eye. if your eye becomes light, thanne ist al thin lihhamo liohter (T 69, 21ff.) then is all your body brighter ‘The light of the body is the eye. If your eye becomes light, then all your body is brighter.’ Lucerna corporis. est oculus. / si fuerit oculus tuus simplex. / totum corpus tuum lucidum erit.
(6)
ther giheizan who named ‘who is named Petrus’ qui vocatur p&rus
ist is
p&rus (T 54, 15) Petrus
(7)
Inti bráhtun imo/ alle ubil habante / […]]/ Inti thie thár hab&un and brought him all sick ones and those there had diuual (T 59,1) devil ‘and they brought him all the sick ones and those that had the devil’ &obtulerunt ei/ omnes male habentes/ […]/ &qui demonia habebant
Information structure, word order and word order change 49
Another important aspect of the data in (3) and (4) is that we do find not only sentences with pure OV-properties and sentences with pure VOproperties in these languages, but very often we find sentences with mixed word orders. For instance, in (3a) it can be seen that, while the direct object follows the selecting verb (and the modal), a typical VO-property, the infinitive precedes the selecting modal which is rather typical of an OVlanguage. In (4d), the direct object precedes the selecting verb, a typical property of an OV-language, while the manner adverb follows the verb that it modifies, which is typical of VO-languages and ungrammatical in OVlanguages. Likewise in (4), while the subject follows the selecting verb (and the auxiliary), the participle precedes the auxiliary, as is typical in OV-languages. Given this state of affairs, at least two questions arise at this point. First, we must address the issue of how to account for mixed word orders in the older stages in these languages. This question will be dealt with in the following section. Second, we would like to know which factors led German and English to develop from a common OV/VO basis into pure OV and pure VO languages, respectively. This question will be addressed in section 3.
2. Word order variation and IS Our approach is to assume that OV/VO orders do not signal the presence of two grammars, contrary to the double base hypothesis (cf. Pintzuk 1991), but that the variation illustrated in (1)–(7) is due to the expression of different IS-categories within one grammar. The advantage of this approach is clear when it comes to the characterization of mixed word orders. Proponents of the double base hypothesis not only have to assume that a speaker possesses two grammars or two settings of the head complement parameter, but also that he can switch between the settings of the head complement parameter within one sentence. To give a concrete example, in order to derive the sequence relate can all the misery in (3a) proponents of the double base hypothesis have to assume that the speaker can switch from an OV grammar – in order to derive the verbal complex Infinitive > finite Modal – to a VO grammar, to account for the object in postverbal position. Note specifically, that the assumption of an OV grammar plus extraposition in this case will not be sufficient, since well-behaved OV languages like German and Dutch do not allow for extraposition of DP-arguments.
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I have argued in Hinterhölzl (2004a) that word order change should not be explained as a change in the head complement parameter, since OV and VO languages differ in properties that cannot be subsumed under the head complement parameter. These properties involve the availability of heavy adjuncts in the middle field and the order and the preverbal versus postverbal positioning of event-related adverbs. Instead I have argued that word order properties are defined by prosodic properties, namely the headedness of phonological phrases. Therefore, I will dispense with the head complement parameter and adopt the Universal Base Hypothesis (UBH) (cf. Kayne 1994), according to which all syntactic structure is head-initial. In such an approach, it is necessary to distinguish between the base order, which is universally defined as Specifier – Head – Complement, and the unmarked word order of a language. For instance, the unmarked word order in German (OV) cannot be taken to be basic property (to be identified with the base order) anymore, but has to be derived from other properties in the language. Nespor, Guasti and Christophe (1996) propose that the head complement parameter is determined by the predominant, that is, unmarked prosodic patterns in an early phase during language acquisition (the rhythmic activation principle). More specifically, they argue that the decisive information for the child is the placement of main prominence within the phonological phrase. In Hinterhölzl (2004a), I have adopted this approach and proposed that the unmarked word order in the phrases of a language are determined by the predominant, that is, unmarked prosodic patterns in that language. That a language can have several unmarked prosodic patterns is shown by German. While with DPs and PPs the unmarked prosodic pattern is (weak strong) ((w s)), the unmarked prosodic pattern with VPs is (s w). It is interesting to note that APs show both types of prosodic patterns with a strong preference for the verbal pattern (s w), as is illustrated in (8). (8a) is the neutral order, while (8b) is rather marked and can only be used for specific communicative purposes. (8)
a. weil Hans [[auf die Maria] stolz] ist (unmarked) b. weil Hans [[stolz [auf die Maria]] ist (marked) since Hans (of the Maria) proud (of the Maria) is ‘since Hans is proud of Maria’
In conclusion, I would like to propose that syntactic structures are not marked per se (say, in terms of complexity), but count as marked or un-
Information structure, word order and word order change 51
marked if they realize marked or unmarked prosodic patterns. Since the unmarked word order in a language is defined by the predominant, that is to say, the most frequent prosodic pattern in a language, a change in frequency of use of a prosodic pattern can lead to a change in unmarked word order. This is the approach to word order change that I would like to pursue in the following section. Since the expression of IS-categories influences the default mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structures, as I will show below, IS plays an important role in processes of word order change. But before we take a look at issues of word order change, let me first discuss which factors determine the word order regularities in OE and OHG. There is the observation by Behaghel (1932) that pronouns and unmodified nouns tend to precede the verb, while modified nouns, PPs and other heavy material tend to follow the verb that gave rise to the generalization in (9). The question arises from which principle of grammar this tendency derives from. (9)
Light elements precede heavy elements in OE, OI and OHG. (Behaghel 1932: Das Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder)
There is another generalization that emerged from our IS-analysis of the Tatian translation (to be revised below) that derives (9) as a mere corollary. Given that discourse-given elements are typically realized as light elements, while foccussed constituents may count as prosodically heavy elements, since they receive stress, (10) derives the tendency expressed in (9). (10) C
background
V
focus
The generalisation in (10) allows us to account for word order variation within one grammar by taking into account the information-structural contribution of a constituent in the discourse: for instance, a direct object will precede the verb (in embedded clauses) if it is discourse-given but will follow it, if it is discourse-new. According to the generalisation in (9) a direct object will be placed preverbally if it is realized as a pronoun or single noun, but postverbally if it is made heavy by modification. As I have indicated above, the two conditions are not independent of each other, but it would be interesting to see which one of them is more basic (see also Hroarsdottir this volume for similar observations in OI).
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2.1. Prosodic constraints and word order In this section, I will argue that Behaghel’s law can be derived from a (violable) interface condition that applies in the mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structure. First, however, let us take note of the fact that Behaghel’s law can be overwritten by syntactic requirements. The generalisation in (10) needs to be refined for OHG in as much as contrastive foci are concerned. While new information focus is typically realized in postverbal position, contrastive focus is realized in preverbal position and seems to involve leftward movement of the finite verb, as is illustrated in (11). (11) C
background
contrastive focus
V
presentational focus
In this respect, OHG seems to pattern with Yiddish, which is a West Germanic language that has preserved mixed word orders. According to the description of Diesing (1997), constrastive foci pattern with background elements in occupying a preverbal position. As I have argued in Hinterhölzl (2004a), the pattern in (11) can be derived from the following assumptions about the syntax of focus. Assuming the UBH, arguments move out of the VP to be licensed in (Case-) Agreement positions. A structural focus position is located above these licensing positions. The word order facts in (11) then follow from the following assumptions: A) The verb moves into the Focus head. B) A contrastively focused phrase moves into [Spec,FocP]. C) A constituent that represents new information focus just stays in scope of the Focus head, while D) background elements move out of the scope domain of the Focus head. This is illustrated in (12). (12) Assumptions about the syntax of focus (Hinterhölzl 2004a) [C background [FocP ContrastF V [AgrP PresentationF [VP]]]] Coming back to the placement of constrastive foci, an illustrative example is given in (13). Note that in example (13) – which needs to receive a contrastive interpretation, since the contrast is made explicit in the context – the contrastive element is placed preverbally against the order in the Latin origin, signifying that we are dealing with an independent requirement of OHG.
Information structure, word order and word order change 53
(13) thane thu fastes/ salbo thin houbit/ Inti thin annuzi thuah/ zithiu thaz when you fast, anoint your head, and your face wash, so that thu mannon nisís gisehan/ fastenti. úzouh thimeno fater you men not appear fasting. but to your Father (T 68, 28–32) ‘[When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites…] When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting but to your Father’ tu autem cum ieiunas/ unge caput tuum/ & faciem tuam laua/ ne uideatis hominibus/ ieiunans. Sed patri tuo In this context, it is interesting to note that PPs that are placed predominantly postverbally in accordance to Behaghel’s law (due to their heaviness) appear preverbally when contrastively focussed, as is illustrated in (14). (14) b&onte nicur& filu sprehan/ sósó thie heidanon mán/ sie uuanen Praying be careful not to much speak, as the heathen men. they think thaz sie in iro filusprahhi / sín gihórte (T 67, 23–26) that they in their many words are heard ‘And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words’ orantes autem. nolite multum loqui/ sicut &hnici.’/ putant enim quia in multiloquio/ exaudiantur. The PP in (14) comprising three words is rather heavy but nevertheless appears preverbally to express that the constituent is contrastively focussed. Despite of cases like (14), we can nevertheless assume that the restriction behind Behaghel’s rule is real and we will see that it is still operative in Modern English and Modern German, albeit in different domains, as is shown in the following section. 2.2. Prosodic constraints and phases The first question that arises with Behaghel’s law is the issue of when a constituent counts as heavy. In this paper, I propose that heaviness should be identified with a branching prosodic constituent and that Behaghel’s law should be properly understood as flowing out of a condition that defines the best match between syntactic structure and prosodic structure.
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But first, let us look at some other instances in which heaviness has been argued to play a role in cases of word order differences between languages. I think it was Haider (2000), who first observed that adverbs in the English middle field are subject to conditions which are absent in a typical OV-language like German, as is illustrated in (15) and (16) (cf. also Hinterhölzl 2001). (15) a. John (more) often (* than Peter) read the book b. Hans hat öfter (als der Peter) das Buch gelesen (16) a. John read the book more often than Peter b.* Hans hat das Buch gelesen öfter (als Peter) (15a) shows that the English middle field does not tolerate heavy constituents, while no problem arises in the German middle field (15b). More specifically, we can make the following empirical generalization: the head of the adjunct may not contain material on its right. Such adjuncts must be postponed as in (16a), while heaviness alone does not constitute a license for postposition in German (16b). A prosodic restriction can also be used to account for the difference in the placement of event-related adverbs in German and English in general. While Time, Place and Manner adverbs appear in the order T>P>M preverbally in OV-languages, they appear in the exact mirror order postverbally in VOlanguages (cf. Haider 2000, Hinterhölzl 2002), as is illustrated in (17). (17) a. b.
C C
T P M-V V- M P T
OV-languages VO-languages
In Hinterhölzl (2002; 2004a), I have argued that the order found in German is basic and that the English order is to be derived from the German word order in terms of successive cyclic VP-intrapositon that pied-pipes the adjunct at each step1. Furthermore, I have argued that VP-intraposition came about due to a stylistic rule of light predicate raising that was operative in OE and affected typically event-related adjuncts, since they were primarily realized as rather heavy NPs and PPs. In this respect, it is interesting to note that a similar restriction also applies in German verb clusters. German verb clusters are predominantly leftbranching, but right-branching verb clusters are possible as long as the most deeply embedded cluster is left-branching (cf. Hinterhölzl 1999). A case in question is given in (18a). However, once a right-branching verb cluster is
Information structure, word order and word order change 55
introduced, the verb cluster must be also right-branching at the next level up, as is illustrated by the contrast in (18b) and (18c). (18) a. b.?? c.
weil er den Text muß lesen können since he the text must read can ‘since he must be able to read the text’ weil er den Text [[müssen [lesen können]] wird] since he the text must read can will ‘since he will have to be able to read the text’ weil er den Text [wird [müssen [lesen können]]] since he the text will must read can ‘since he will have to be able to read the text’
The formation of verb clusters is motivated by the following two licensing requirements (cf. Hinterhölzl 2006): dependent verbs move into dedicated positions in the V-domain to be temporally linked and to check the subcategorisation of the selecting verb. F20 is responsible for temporal linking and Asp0, the highest head in the V-domain, is responsible for checking the subcategorisation of the matrix verb. In this approach, left-branching verb clusters are derived if the dependent verbs are spelled out in the highest Specifier, as is illustrated in (19a), while right-branching verb clusters are derived if the dependent verbs are spelled out in the lower Specifier (19b). The only exception to this rule are verb clusters comprising an IPP-infinitive (an infinitive that replaces a part participle). These verb clusters are obligatorily right-branching, since in this case, there is a null morpheme that moves to the highest head in the Vdomain, stranding the dependent verbs in the lower Specifier, as is illustrated in (19c). (19) a. [AspP [lesen können] muss [F2P [lesen können] [VP]]] b. [AspP [lesen können] muss [F2P [lesen können] [VP]]] c. [AspP 0-hat [F2P [lesen können ] [VP ]]] The interesting question now is what the generalisation illustrated in (18bc) results from. In any event, the generalisation cannot be derived from a hard syntactic condition in West Germanic, since we can find many instances that violate it, as is the case with IPP-infinitives in West Flemish. (20) illustrates a right-branching verb cluster headed by willen which itself sits on a left-branch with respect to the selecting auxiliary een.
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(20) dan ze toch kosten [[willen [dienen then they but could want-IPP that boek kuopen]] een] book buy have ‘if they only could have wanted to buy that book’ A possible solution is to relegate the contrast in (18bc) to a violable interface condition that determines the best match between a given syntactic structure and a prosodic output structure. Given that left- and rightbranching verb clusters are mapped onto left- and right-headed phonological phrases, a possible candidate for such an interface condition is (21). (21) Mapping Condition between syntactic structure and prosodic structure: A right-headed phonological phrase (in a verb cluster) must sit on a right branch with respect to the syntactic head that is to become its prosodic sister (21) can probably be formulated in a more elegant way. But it is meant to account for the patterns in (22). The patterns in (22) indicate the deeper reason that probably lies behind the condition in (21): once fixed, stress tends to stay in a peripheral position within a certain domain. (22b) is okay, since stress remains left-peripheral and (22c) is okay, since stress remains right-peripheral, while stress in (22a) is neither leftnor right-peripheral, unless H itself is stressed. (18b) violates the condition in (21). The violation can be circumvented, if the (already) right-branching verb cluster is spelled out in the lower Specifier, as is the case in (18c). (22) a.* 3 b. ok 3 c. ok 3 2 2 2 2 2 ((A B) H) ((A B) H) (H (A B )) Note, however, that condition (21) is a condition that can be taken to apply in the V-domain and in the I-domain (excluding the subject) in VOlanguages. In fact, (21) can be used to rule out (15a), since more often than Peter is a right-headed prosodic constituent that sits on left branch with respect to the verb phrase that is to become its prosodic sister. Since German tolerates heavy adjuncts and arguments in the middle field, this condition cannot be taken to apply in the German middle field, but – as we have seen above – is still active in the German V-domain. Why should that be so?
Information structure, word order and word order change 57
In this respect, it is interesting to note that prosodic constraints can apply phasewise and can thus hold in one phase while not being operative in another phase. The crucial evidence comes from restrictions on VPtopicalization in German. As is illustrated in (23), topicalized rightbranching verb clusters exhibit an interesting contrast. In general, the topicalization of a right-branching verb cluster leads to ungrammaticality, unless it comprises an IPP-infinitive, in which case the topicalization is rather marked but grammatical. (23) a.?* b.?
[müssen [lesen können]] wird er den Text (ok lesen können müssen wird) must read can will he the text [haben [lesen wollen]] wird er den Text (* lesen wollen haben wird) have read want-IPP will he the text ‘he will have wanted to read the text’
The violation in (23a) cannot be accrued in the C-domain, since the Cdomain in German does tolerate right-branching prosodic constituents. Thus the violation must have been induced in the V-domain. A violation of (21) can then be taken to be induced in a phase-based derivation, if we make the assumption that the Aspect phrase (and not the vP as in Chomsky 2001) constitutes the edge of the strong VP-phase. Since we can assume that topicalization involves movement from one strong phase (the VP) into the next strong phase (the CP), it must be taken to be subject to the Phase Impenetrability Condition, given in (24b). Phase Condition (Chomsky 2001) (24) a. Evaluation for a phase is done at the level of the next highest strong phase b. Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) The complement of a strong phase a is not accessible to operations at the level of the next highest strong phase b, but only the head and the edge of a are Given the PIC, extraction of the right-branching verb cluster must take place via the highest Specifier in the V-domain, namely [Spec,AspP]. In this position, however, the verb cluster will induce a violation of the mapping condition in (21), which will result in ungrammaticality if there is an alternative that does not violate it. Since the verb cluster could have been spelled-out as a left-branching verb cluster, (23a) is ungrammatical. Since
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IPP-infinitives only allow for right-branching verb clusters, there is no derivational alternative in the case of (23b), thus the resulting topicalization is prosodically marked but grammatical. This solution, however, is only feasible in a framework in which Spellout applies cyclically, including the cyclic, that is, phasewise application of conditions that map syntactic structure onto prosodic structure. More specifically, we have seen above that interface conditions can apply phasewise in the sense that they may hold in one phase (the V-domain in German) without holding in another phase (the I-domain, or middle field, in German). In conclusion, word order variation can be accounted for by the differential expression of IS-categories within one grammar and word order preferences (Behaghel’s law) are due to violable interface conditions that define the ideal mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structure in the course of the derivation. As we have seen above in the case of contrastive foci, information-structural restrictions play a crucial role in this mapping.
3. Word order change and IS Given the discussion of the previous section, the development of German is to be described as one in which certain factors led to the non-application of the prosodic constraint in the German middle field allowing for the Spellout of branching constituents in the preverbal domain, while the development of English is to be described as one in which certain (other) factors not only led to the retention of the prosodic constraint in the middle field but also caused light (non-branching) constituents like pronouns to be spelled out in the postverbal domain. I will concentrate here on discussing the potential factors that can help us understand the development of German. As far as the development of English is concerned, I will only discuss it in so far as to make plausible why the pertinent factors working in German did not have the same effect in the history of English. Given the presence of both a preverbal and a postverbal focus position, we can assume that OHG had two unmarked word order patters: due to focus restructuring (cf. Hinterhölzl 2004a) preverbal focus will give rise to prosodic phrases of the type (s w) and postverbal focus will give rise to prosodic phrases of the type (w s). Hence, if we can identify a factor that led to the occurrence of more and more focussed (stressed) preverbal constituents, then we can envisage a slow development in which certain word
Information structure, word order and word order change 59
order patterns become more and more marginalized to a point where postverbal stressed constituents are prosodically highly marked such that they can only be used for specific communicative purposes. In the following, I would like to argue that this factor was the grammaticalization of the definite determiner. Following this line, we have to consider a development from the system in (12) above, in which noun phrase interpretation was signalled by syntactic position to a determiner system which signals noun phrase interpretation with morphological means. First, note, that the morphological system that became grammaticalized is not congruent with the distinction between given and new discourse referents (that was embodied in the syntactic system in (12)), since the definite determiner came to signal that the discourse referent – whether given in the discourse or discourse-new – is uniquely identifiable in the context. Thus, the development of this morphological determiner system has blurred the original information-structural distinction of (nominal) arguments. The orginal distinction between definites, however, is still visible in the scrambling rule of modern German. Haider and Rosengren (1998) note that neither definiteness nor specificity can be taken to be triggers of scrambling, citing examples like (25), where a specific indefinite NP in (25a) and a definite NP in (25b) seemingly occur in their base position. (25) a. wenn wer eine rothaarige Frau sucht if someone a red-haired woman seeks dann ist das Maria then is it Maria ‘if someone seeks a red-haired woman, then it is Maria’ b. dass er wem ihr Kleid gezeigt hat, that he someone her dress shown has, Maria nicht gefallen Maria not pleased ‘that he has shown someone her dress, hasn’t pleased Maria’
hat has
Note, however, that their examples only involve NPs that must be characterized as discourse-new. While they are right about definiteness not being a trigger for scrambling, they are wrong about specificity. If specificity is understood as memberhood in a set that is given in the discourse (cf. Enç 1991) it can be taken as a valid trigger of scrambling. In conclusion, only discourse-given DPs may scramble; DPs that are discourse-new, even when
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they are uniquely identifiable (by binding or bridging, for instance) stay in the focus-domain and receive stress (cf. Hinterhölzl 2004b). But why should the grammaticalization of a definite determiner have an influence on the unmarked word order? There are three observations that fit nicely into an explanatory pattern of this kind. First, recent studies of the grammaticialization of the definite determiner (cf. Oubouzar 1992, Leiss 2000, Demske 2001) agree that the definite determiner – derived from the demonstrative pronoun – first appears in contexts with pragmatic definite interpretations in OHG. The pertinent distinction between pragmatic and semantic definites stems from Löbner (1985). While semantic definites are uniquely identifiable on the basis of their lexical meaning (functional concepts), pragmatic definites are uniquely identifiable in the context by being discourse given. The grammaticalization of the definite determiner starts in the earliest OHG-texts and is concluded in Notker (early 11th century), in which text all semantic groups of nouns (including abstract nouns and uniquely referring expressions) appear with the definite determiner. The slow stepwise process of grammaticalization can be examplified by the occurrences of the definite determiner in Otfrid. In this text, the definite determiner regularly appears with pragmatic definites, that is, in discourse-anaphoric uses, as is illustrated in (26), while with semantic definites, the determiner is still missing, as is illustrated in (27). Examples are taken from Demske (2001). (26) a. ein burg ist thar in lante… (O.I.11.23) a town is there in country ‘there is a town in the country’ b. zi theru steti fuart er thia druhtines to this city leads he the Lord’s muater (O.I.11.26) mother ‘he leads the Lord’s mother to this city’ (27) a. tho ward himil offan (O.I.25.15) there became sky open ‘there the sky opened’ b. inti iz hera in worolt sante (O.I.13.5) and it here into world sent ‘and sent it here into the world’ c. in ira barm si sazta [barno bezista] (O.I.13.10) in her lap she placed child most-beloved ‘she placed the most-beloved child in her lap’
Information structure, word order and word order change 61
The second observation concerns another statement by Behaghel (1932), given in (28), who notes that noun phrases with a determiner are introduced preverbally. (28) Behaghel (p. 79): ‘Substantiva mit Pronomen stehen auf der Seite der einfachen Wörter; zum Teil mag das daher rühren, dass ihnen der Artikel früher fehlte.’ Behaghel’s observation is in line with the stepwise grammaticalization from pragmatic definites to semantic definites, since discourse anaphoric NPs are typically realized preverbally in OHG. We now can envisage a development in two phases, as sketched in (29). (29) phase 1: the determiner is introduced preverbally for discourse-given referents phase 2: the use of the determiner is extended to all uniquely identfiable NPs, which are placed according to the pattern in phase 1 preverbally There are two consequences of interest in such a scenario. A) more DPs appear preverbally, which due to focus restructuring strengthen the prosodic pattern (s w) and B) preverbal DPs have a profound effect on the prosodic make-up of the language, since they introduce right-branching constituents on a left branch. We can assume that when the determiner is first introduced in discourse anaphoric contexts, it will carry stress (with the discourse anaphoric noun being destressed), such that the initial introduction of determiners in the preverbal domain does not violate the prosodic condition in (21). However, as the determiner is grammaticalized it becomes deaccented and stress will be placed on the noun per default (on the basis that lexical heads are stronger than functional heads) giving rise to more and more rightbranching constituents in the preverbal domain. The scenario sketched in (29) makes the following prediction: there should be a stage where an increased number of focused DPs appear preverbally but focused predicates (predicative adjective, nouns and participles) still appear predominantly in postverbal position. This prediction is borne out since the verbal cluster including predicative elements predominantly remained right-branching till the Early New High German period (cf. Ebert 1986). The third observation that supports this scenario concerns the time frame of these two developments. Bolli (1975), Borter (1982) and Näf
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(1979), investigating the development of the German sentence bracket, note that in the late OHG Notker text a larger number of Accusative objects start to be placed in preverbal position. This is exactly the same period in which the definite determiner has become fully grammaticalized. If this scenario for German is correct, then the question arises why the grammaticalization of the definite determiner did not have the same effect in the history of English and in the development of the Scandinavian languages. As far as Scandinavian is concerned, Leiss (2000) in her interesting study on the relation between (verbal) aspect and (nominal) definitness notes that in OI the definite determiner first appears with discourse-new NPs that are not to be read as indefinites, hence in postverbal position. Thus we can conclude that – while the introduction of the definite determiner lead to the strengthening of the prosodic pattern (s w) in OHG – the very same process lead to the strengthening of the prosodic pattern (w s) in OI, explaining why the two languages have developed in opposite directions. The case of the development in English is more difficult to deal with. Philippi (1997) notes that the literature on OE suggests that the language did not have a definite or indefinite article, making use of demonstratives and numerals instead. Also van Kemenade (p.c.) reports that the definite determiner was grammaticalized in English at least 100 years later than in German. So, while the grammaticalization of the definite determiner in German was completed at the end of the OHG-period, the grammaticalization of the determiner in English must have started in the beginning of the ME-period. OE had two demonstrative pronouns se (‘that’) and þes (‘this’). Hroarsdottir (2006) reports that the demonstrative se which had different Case forms in OE was split into two invariant forms, the (article) and that (demonstrative) at the turn of the OE to the EME-period. Thus, it is possible that the English definite determiner took a different path of grammaticalization than the German one. We can assume that the was unaccented and therefore was placed with its containing noun phrase postverbally in accordance with the condition in (21). More research on the development of the definite determiner in English is necessary to evaluate the validity of this scenario, but I think it has enough initial plausibility to provide an interesting alternative to the improbable standard scenario that tries to relate word order change with the loss of Case morphology in the history of English. Above, I have provided a plausible scenario for why the prosodic condition in (21) was not restricted to the V-domain in the history of English (as
Information structure, word order and word order change 63
it was in the history of German), but what is still missing at this point is an explanation for why English has also started to postpone light elements, like pronouns. At this point I can only speculate about the origin of this development. But it stands to reason that language contact was at issue in this case, since at the end of the OE-period the Anglo-Saxon pronoun system was partially replaced with Scandinavian pronouns. Weak Scandinavian pronouns (nowadays), as is evidenced by the phenomenon of object shift, are enclitic elements that are spelled out in the smallest domain that contains a suitable host, with a suitable host being the head of the phase that the pronoun belongs to, that is, the verb in the VP and the preposition in the PP (cf. Hinterhölzl (to appear)). This explanation is supported by the fact that V2-second (before its loss) is generalized in the northern contact area in the EME-period in that the pattern Topic pronoun finite verb, in which the Old Saxon pronoun can be analyzed as proclitic element on the verb, is replaced with the pattern Topic finite verb pronoun, in which the EME-pronoun can be analyzsed as enclitic element on the verb (see Kroch and Taylor 2000 for more details on this development).
4. Conclusions The paper presents a number of novel ideas about the relation between grammar and prosody and the role that information-structure plays in language change. First it is argued that unmarked word order is determined by prosodic properties. Since information-structural constraints play a crucial role in the mapping between syntactic structure and prosodic structure, IS can help us to gain new insights into processes of word order change. For instance, we have seen that what counts as unmarked word order in a language may be influenced by focus articulation, since the order focus > verb can strengthen the prosodic pattern (s w) in the middle field. Furthermore, I have argued that interface conditions, like the condition in (21) are violable or best match conditions, leading to marked and unmarked syntactic structures. Since speakers, on the one hand, generally prefer unmarked structures and, on the other hand, tend to use marked structures to achieve particular communicative goals in specific communicative situations, we derive that in most stages there will be some sort of competition of marked and unmarked forms within one grammar.
64
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While the strive towards prosodic unmarkedness might be the source for word order tendencies, the strive towards prosodic markedness might be one explanation for why we find variation in the domain of syntax, particularly in terms of word order and prosodic phrasing. In general, a marked form a will be weeded out by an unmarked form b if it does not give rise to a different interpretation from b. It follows that a marked syntactic form will only be grammaticalized if it can be identified with a distinct pragmatic interpretation. Possibly, this is the reason for why IS-categories are imported into the syntax in grammaticalization processes. In conclusion, if these general observations are on the right track, then the conception of narrow syntax as a computational system that only (or predominantly) operates on formal features (Case and phi-features) seems misguided to me und must be rejected on the basis of the above observations on word order change.
Note 1. In this approach a modern English sentence, like (ia), is derived as is illustrated in (ib-e). (i) a. John visited them in Vienna on Friday b. […[on Friday [in Vienna [John visited them]]]] c. […[on Friday [[John visited them] in Vienna tVP]]] d. […[[John visited them] in Vienna ] on Friday ] e. [IP Johni [[[[VP ti visited them] k in Vienna t k]j on Friday tj]]
References Behaghel, Otto 1932 Deutsche Syntax. Band 4. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung. Bolli, Ernst 1975 Die verbale Klammer bei Notker. Untersuchungen zur Wortstellung in der Boethius-Übersetzung. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Borter, Alfred 1982 Syntaktische Klammerbildung in Notkers Psalter. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Chomsky, Noam 2001 Derivation by Phase. In Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. Micheal J. Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge, M.A.: The MIT Press.
Information structure, word order and word order change 65 Demske, Ulrike 2001 Merkmale und Relationen: Diachrone Studien zur Nominalphrase des Deutschen. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Diesing, Molly 1997 Yiddish VP order and the Typology of Object Movement in Germanic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15: 369–427. Ebert, Rober Peter 1986 Historische Syntax des Deutschen II. 1300–1750. Bern: Peter Lang. Enç, Mürvet 1991 The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22 (1): 1–25. Haider, Hubert 2000 Adverb Placement-Convergence of Structure and Licensing. Theoretical Linguistics 26: 95–134. Haider, Hubert and Inger Rosengren 1998 Scrambling. Sprache & Pragmatik 49. Hinterhölzl, Roland 1999 Restructuring Infinitives and the Theory of Complementation. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California. 2001 Event-related Adjuncts and the OV/VO Distinction. In WCCFL 20 Proceedings, eds. Karine Megerdoomian and Leora Bar-el, 276–289. Somerville: Cascadilla Press. 2002 Parametric Variation and Scrambling in English. In Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax (Proceedings of CGSW 15 in Groningen, May 2000), eds. Werner Abraham and Jan-Wouter Zwart, 131–150. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2004a Language Change versus Grammar Change: What diachronic data reveal about the distinction between core grammar and periphery. In Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, eds. Eric Fuss and Carola Trips, 131–160. (Linguistik Aktuell 72.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2004b Scrambling, Optionality and Non-lexical Triggers. In Triggers, eds. Anne Breitbarth and Henk van Riemsdijk, 173–203. (Studies in Generative Grammar 75.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2006 Scrambling, Remnant Movement and Restructuring. Oxford: Oxford University Press. to appear A phase-based comparative approach to modification and word order in Germanic. To appear in: Syntax. Hroarsdottir, Þorbjörg 1998 Verb Phrase Syntax in the History of Icelandic. Doctoral dissertation, Universitetet i Tromsö. 2006 Loss of OV and the role of morphology. Ms., Universitetet i Tromsö.
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Kayne, Richard 1994 The Antisymmetry of Syntax. (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 25.) Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press. Kemenade, Ans van 1987 Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris. Kroch, Anthony and Ann Taylor 2000 Verb-Object Order in Early Middle English. In Diachronic Syntax. Models and Mechanisms, eds. Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas and Anthony Warner, 132–163. Oxford: University Press. Leiss, Elisabeth 2000 Artikel und Aspekt: die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lenerz, Jürgen 1984 Syntaktischer Wandel und Grammatiktheorie. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Löbner, Sebastian 1985 Definites. Journal of Semantics 4: 279–326. Näf, Anton 1979 Die Wortstellung in Notkers Consolation. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Nespor, Marina, Maria Teresa Guasti and Anne Christophe 1996 Selecting Word Order: The Rhythmic Activation Principle. In Interfaces in Phonology, ed. Ursula Kleinhenz, 1–26. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Oubouzar, Erika 1992 Zur Ausbildung des bestimmten Artikels im Althochdeutschen. In Althochdeutsch: Syntax und Semantik, ed. Yvon Desportes, 71–87. Lyon: Universite Lyon III Jean Molin. Philippi, Julia 1997 The rise of the article in the Germanic languages. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, 62–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pintzuk, Susan 1991 Phrase structures in competition: variation and change in Old English word order. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 1999 Phrase Structures in Competition: variation and change in Old English word order. New York: Garland.
OV languages: Expressions of cues Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir
1. Introduction The aim of this chapter is to argue that the cue for the OV/VO parameter was expressed through information structure in Older Icelandic (OI). I will show how a change in encoding of information structure may lead to a change in the basic order of verb and its complements. The claim is that a gradual change in language use, namely the increased postverbal positioning of focused material led to a sudden change in the grammar, where the option of VP-extraction disappeared. Roberts (1997) argues that English lost overt object-movement due to the loss of morphological case in Middle English (ME). As seen from the English viewpoint, low-level facts of inflectional morphology may express the relevant cue for parameters and so the loss of inflection may (but does not have to) lead to a grammar change. This analysis does not carry over to Icelandic as the loss of OV in Icelandic took place despite rich case morphology. I assume that learners must watch out for a universal cue for the positive value of the OV/VO parameter. However, this cue may be expressed differently among the languages: while it may have been expressed through morphology in Old English (OE), it was expressed through information structure in OI. In both cases, external effects led to fewer expressions of the relevant cue and a grammar change took place. I will illustrate how the grammar change in OI was due to a change in information structure. The loss of OV in the grammar was caused by a prior language change that involved objects that express new information: These objects gradually gained a higher frequency in postverbal position. The OV/VO word order patterns are more or less stable until the seventeenth century where there is a gradual loss of the OV word order patterns, or, a gradual increase in language use, placing focused elements in postverbal (VO) position (a shift in discourse property). Morphological triggers, or the absence thereof, have been related to clustering of syntactic properties in both diachronic change and acquisition. The correlation between overt verb movement and ‘rich’ agreement paradigm has, for instance, been proposed by several researchers in recent
68 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir years (see Kosmeijer 1986; Roberts 1993; Rohrbacher 1999; Holmberg and Platzack 1995; Vikner 1997; Koeneman 2000).1 If I am correct, then the relationship between strong morphology and OV order has been overestimated. I claim that this relation is only onedirectional, in the way that languages that lose strong morphology also tend to lose overt OV order (English), because of structure sandwiching, but not vice versa. Therefore, languages may have overt OV orders despite weak morphology, and languages may lose overt OV structure regardless of whether there have been any changes in the morphology or not (Icelandic). Moreover, many modern languages have rigid word order despite their case morphology, and vice versa (cf. Siewierska 1998).
2. Loss of OV in Icelandic grammar 2.1. Introduction Let us now look at the loss of OV word order in the history of Icelandic. Modern Icelandic has pure VO-order within the VP, as shown in (1). The word order in (1) with auxiliary verb – main verb – object is the only possible order of these elements in Modern Icelandic (abstracting away from topicalization and stylistic fronting). (1)
Þeir munu aldrei hafa lesið bókina they will never have read book.the ‘They will never have read the book’
Unlike in Modern Icelandic, several orders of the VP-internal arguments were possible at earlier stages in the history of Icelandic, including both OV and VO word order patterns (cf. Sigurðsson 1988; Rögnvaldsson 1996; Indriðason 1987; Hróarsdóttir 1996, 2000). The attested OV word order patterns were lost at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two examples of OV word order in OI are shown in (2) below. (2)
Pure OV word order a. að hann hafi hana drepið (Álf) that he had her killed ‘that he had killed her’ b. að þú ... hafir það bréf fengið (letters) that you ... have that letter received ‘that you have received that letter’
OV languages 69
Icelandic has had a rich subject-verb agreement morphology and case morphology throughout its history. It is also generally assumed that both Old and Modern Icelandic have an obligatory overt movement of the finite verb out of the VP (to IP/CP), in both main and subordinate clauses.
2.2. The diachronic aspect Although it has been shown that it is possible to derive all the attested word order patterns in OI by assuming SVO word order base with overt versus covert object movements (cf. Hróarsdóttir 1996; 2000: Ch.5), this hypothesis does not easily handle the diachronic aspect. With regard to the order of objects and non-finite verbs, OI differs from Modern Icelandic in three major aspects, as shown in (3). (3)
a. b. c.
Vfin … object – Vaux – Vmain Vfin … Vaux – object – Vmain Vfin … (object) – Vmain – (*object) – Vaux – (object)
Some OI examples are shown below. (4)
Vfin … object – Vaux – Vmain a. að hon mundi eigi barn mega eiga (Finn) that she would not child may own ‘that she would not be allowed to have a child.’ b. ef hann hefði það viljað fága (Guðm) if he had it wanted clean ‘if he had wanted to clean it.’
(5)
Vfin … Vaux – object – Vmain a. að hann skyldi aldrei mega sól sjá (Árm) that he should never be-allowed sun to.see ‘that he should never be allowed to see the sun’ b. og ekki skal faðir minn geta þér hjálpað (Álf) and not shall father mine can you helped ‘And my father will not be able to help you.’
70 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir (6)
Vfin … Vmain – Vaux – object a. at hann mun raða vilia ferðum sínum (Finn) that he will decide want journeys his ‘that he wants to decide his own journeys’ b. þu munt haft hafa harða landtoku (Finn) you will had have hard landing ‘You have had a rough landing.’
(7)
Vfin … object – Vmain – Vaux a. og enginn þóttist þvílíkan veikleika séð hafa (Álf) and no-one pretended such weakness seen have ‘And no one pretended to have seen such weakness.’ b. að eg mundi hann sigrað geta (Árm) that I would him defeat could ‘that I would be able to defeat him’
All these word order patterns are ungrammatical in Modern Icelandic (abstracting away from negative and quantified phrase constructions), that is, the short object movement (within the VP), the long object movement (scrambling out of the VP, to the left of non-finite auxiliary verbs and sentential adverbs), and the possibility of placing the non-finite main verb to the left of the non-finite auxiliary (V-raising). The striking fact is that all these three leftward movement processes disappeared from the language at the same time in the history of Icelandic. Furthermore, the possibility of placing DPs, on the one hand, and PPs and small clause predicates, on the other hand, to the left of the main verb also seems to have disappeared from the language at the same time.
3. Theoretical implications A central question in the comparison of OV- and VO-languages is whether the difference in word order results from having more object movements in OV-languages, or more verb movements in VO-languages. Here we will argue, following Hróarsdóttir (2000), that although a uniform VO-base hypothesis with overt versus covert leftward movement of objects yields positive results in the synchronic analysis of the Older Icelandic VP, it cannot easily handle the diachronic aspect. Hence, we will agree with the original proposal of Haider (1992) that there are good reasons to assume that the verb moves more in VO-languages. Haider thinks of this verb
OV languages 71
movement as head movement. However, this could also be a VPmovement, provided that the complements have first moved out of this VP. This is the path that Hinterhölzl (2006), Kayne (1998) and Hróarsdóttir (2000) take. They suggest that VO-order might in some cases result from shifting a remnant VP containing the verb across complements extracted from the VP. Hence, the displacement of the verb could be a consequence of either (i) head movement of the verb, or (ii) movement of a larger constituent containing the verb, e.g. VP. We will assume the latter option here. Hróarsdóttir (2000) argues that the morphological features relevant for the triggering of leftward object movements in OI were indeed not weakened. Therefore, the objects still have to move to the left of the main verb (to [Spec, AgrOP]) in overt syntax in Modern Icelandic. Hróarsdóttir (2000) makes use of remnant-movement of various kinds of predicative phrases, and the long movement associated with ‘restructuring’ phenomena, to provide an analysis of OV orders, and correspondingly, a proposal as to which aspect of Icelandic syntax must have changed when VO word order became the norm: the essential change is loss of VP-extraction from VP. The claim is that the crucial difference between OV and VO languages is simply that OV-languages lack the VP-preposing Modern English and other VO languages have. The picture is slightly more complicated for mixed OV/VO languages such as OE, OI, Afrikaans, and Dutch. However, it is possible to construct a theory with a universal base that derives all the attested OV and VO word order patterns, by means of three transformations: – – –
optional extraction of the embedded VP from the matrix VP in Older Icelandic. obligatory and universal movement of the direct object out of the VP (to [SpecAgrOP] in the functional domain). obligatory preposing of the remnant VP, containing the finite auxiliary verb in all VO-languages, including all stages of Icelandic.
The preposing of the remnant VP will always mask the object movement, deriving VO word order only, as long as the option of extracting the embedded VP from the matrix VP has not been chosen. This hypothesis is able to account for all the various attested pure and mixed word order patterns in Icelandic, besides providing an account for the diachronic development; explaining the grammar change in question in terms of a single
72 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir parameter change. Given the remnant VP-hypothesis, all the various OV word order would disappear as soon as the possibility of extracting VPs out of VPs (PredPs into Spec of PredPs) was lost. In other words, the remnant finite VP will always necessarily contain all the non-finite verbs in addition to the finite verb, and the preposing of this remnant VP will always mask the object movement, deriving VO word order only. However, this proposal does not provide an explanation for why the third leftward movement process, the extraction of VPs out of VPs, was lost. The remaining question is what the trigger for VP-extraction was and why it was lost, or became inoperative, in the language. I argue that the strong feature that must have led to the additional (overt) movement of VP-extraction in OI entails a more complex representation for the child-learner, and hence, that it is marked. These conclusions are in accordance with Roberts’ (2001) claim that simplicity is a function of movement relations, since the old language here has an additional movement over the modern language. Hence, the old grammar is more complex for the child-learner than the new grammar not involving this additional movement. At a certain point in the history of Icelandic, the marked value of this parameter, that is, the strong feature leading to the VP-extraction, was no longer expressed (highly enough) in the PLD and the unmarked value became to be triggered by default.
4. Information structure and OV order in Older Icelandic It has been claimed that in various mixed word order languages such as Hungarian, Finnish, Northern Sámi, Russian and Yiddish, the existing OVand VO-orders correlate with properties such as specificity, or ‘familiarity’ of the object, or in other languages, topic-focus structure (see e.g. Holmberg 1998; Kiss 1998; Corver and Delfitto 1995). It has further been proposed that old information tends to precede new information and that light elements precede heavy elements. Hróarsdóttir (2000) studied the various OV and VO word order patterns in OI and argued that there is a parallelism between the factors that have been proposed to derive scrambling, and the factors that induce OV rather than VO word order in OI. The three most important factors are heaviness, definiteness, and information structure. The different behavior of pronouns and full nominal objects within the Germanic languages in particular has also led to a fruitful discussion in recent years, where pronouns in the West Germanic languages (including OE, Early Yiddish, and Early New High German) are assumed not to be
OV languages 73
able to move rightward; “they do not postpone beyond an otherwise final verb in the way that NPs can” (Kroch and Taylor 1994: 8). This is consistent with the prediction of ‘heaviness’; that is, pronouns, especially personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns, have a tendency to occur higher (further to the left) in the sentence than phrases containing longer or heavier words (full DPs). Pintzuk (1996) argues that the position of complements in the history of English (except in the earliest stage) was determined by weight; the heavier the complement, the more likely it was to appear postverbally. Light constituents, particles, pronominal objects, and monosyllabic adverb could appear either before or after the non-finite main verb in OE sentences with the auxiliary verb before the main verb. In sentences with the auxiliary verb after the main verb, however, these light elements, unlike heavier constituents, appeared before the main verb (cf. Pintzuk 1996: 6). Another well-known tendency across languages is that indefinite nominal objects usually do not move to the left (scramble), they are not fronted; thus, they usually do not occur in a high position (cf. e.g. de Hoop 1992; Diesing 1992). It is generally assumed that only definite objects undergo scrambling (movement out of the VP). The division between definite and indefinite objects is consistent with the prediction that old information (definite objects) precede newer information. Indefinite NPs are strongly associated with new information; the occurrence of an indefinite NP indicates that it is introduced into the discourse for the first time. While old (given) information is recoverable from the preceding discourse, new information is unrecoverable or unpredictable from the preceding discourse. However, old information in a broader sense may also include information that has not been mentioned in the preceding discourse, but is inferable from the context or from shared knowledge. Related to the division between new and old information is focus, more exactly, focused (non-presupposed) categories can be fronted in many languages. It has, for instance, been suggested that the VP-internal position of preverbal objects (OV word order to the right of sentential adverbs) is a ‘focus position’ in various languages, such as Hungarian (cf. Horváth 1986; Farkas 1986; Kiss 1987), the Chadic languages (cf. Tuller 1992), and Basque (cf. Laka and Uriagereka 1987; Urbina 1989). Finnish and Russian are among the languages that exhibit very free word order. However, Holmberg (1998, 2000a) has shown that the permitted sequences of the subject, object and the verb in these languages are not in totally free variation, but that each variant is associated with a particular interpretation, such as topic, focus, contrast, specificity, and so forth. Thus, the object in
74 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir SOV constructions is (optionally) focused in Russian and Hungarian. In Finnish and Northern Sámi, on the other hand, the SOV construction has a non-focused object. As Holmberg (1998) notes, Northern Sámi appears to be ‘semi-SOV language’, with short object movement in non-finite VPs, where the movement is sensitive to focus. Let us now turn to the role of information structure as a cue for the OV/VO parameter in Older Icelandic. My basic claim is that the loss of OV word order in the grammar was caused by a prior language change that involved objects expressing new information: These objects gained in frequency in postverbal position. As mentioned, previous studies on the loss of OV word order in the history of Icelandic have focused on the abrupt disappearance of the OV orders in the beginning of the nineteenth century, that is, the grammar change. However, the cause of the grammar change must lie in some alteration to the PLD. Here, I will try to address the variation in the PLD, which led to the parameter change. I will illustrate the gradual loss of the OV word order patterns that took place in the centuries prior to the grammar change, focusing on the changes in the PLD that must have paved the way for the parameter change when OV word order was lost. I propose that the word order patterns in OI were derived by a peripheral rule that applied optionally according to prosodic output conditions at PF, thus accounting for the relatively free word order at that stage of the language. If we now focus only on the nominal objects in pre- and postverbal positions in the attested OI texts, then we see a gradual increase of VO word orders with nominal objects from the 17th century. Examples (8) through (11) show some simple cases of pre- and postverbal nominal objects in OI. (8)
Full DPs: OV word order a. efftir þad þeir høffdu eplid eted (Dín) after that they had apple.the eaten ‘after they had eaten the apple’ b. þä skilldu þeir lijffed missa (Dín) then should they live.the lose ‘Then they should die’
(9)
Full DPs: VO word order a. að hann hefði etið kjötið (Munn) that he had eaten meat.the ‘that he had eaten the meat’
OV languages 75
b.
hvört hann vilji ei kaupa þræla (Árm) whether he wanted not buy slaves ‘whether he didn’t want to buy slaves’
(10) Pronouns: OV word order a. að eg hafi hana beðið (letters) that I have her asked ‘that I have asked her’ b. at hann mundi þat eigi gera (Finn) that he would it not do ‘that he would not do that’ (11) Pronouns: VO word order a. að ég hafi aldrei borgað þér (letters) that I have never paid you ‘that I have never paid you’ b. að guð vilji brúka þig lengi (letters) that God wants use you long ‘that God wants to use you for a long time’ Consider Table 1, illustrating the total frequency for the texts from each century. Pronouns are preferred in preverbal position more often than full DPs in OI. The overall difference is not great, but it is clearest in the earliest texts. Table 1. Full DPs versus pronouns Texts 14th century 15th century 16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century
OV 75 66 69 94 25 99
VO 186 110 112 245 125 1603
Full DPs % OV 28.7% 37.5% 38.1% 27.7% 16.7% 5.8%
OV 92 54 34 162 27 258
VO 33 28 7 120 58 1050
Pronouns % OV 73.6% 75.0% 82.9% 57.4% 31.7% 19.7%
There is also a grammatical ordering with respect to old information preceding new information in the OI texts, as shown in Table 2. This means that objects previously mentioned within the five preceding sentences have a tendency to occur in preverbal position, more than objects introduced for the first time in the context.2
76 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir Table 2. Old versus new information Texts 14th century 15th century 16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century
OV 75 48 50 79 20 84
New information VO % OV 204 26.9% 136 26.1% 132 27.5% 314 20.1% 98 16.9% 1312 6.0%
OV 156 110 77 215 39 261
Old information VO % OV 36 81.3% 24 82.1% 17 82.0% 104 67.4% 43 47.6% 1072 20.0%
The reason for why we do not see a clear rule here, with OV structures always involving old information and VO structures always involving new information, is that the word order is also subject to a stylistic rule in terms of weight. This means that light DPs (including pronouns) are preferred in preverbal position and heavy DPs are preferred in postverbal position. Hence, a relatively heavy DP with old information would normally occur in postverbal position. The heaviness factor is illustrated in Table 3. Table 3. Number of words within full DPs
14th century 15th century 16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century
1 word % OV 72.5% 66.3% 60.0% 46.0% 43.8% 13.7%
2 words % OV 36.8% 32.7% 31.8% 23.5% 20.6% 4.6%
3+ words % OV 10.9% 10.3% 8.0% 2.8% 1.7% 1.6%
Some examples of the division of full DPs according to their heaviness are shown below. Only sentences with OV word order are exemplified. (12) DPs with one word a. Þar er kaleikur sem álfafólk hefur kirkjunni gefið (Álf) there is chalice that elves have church.the given ‘There is a chalice there, that some elves have given to the church’ b. at ek mun sæmd af þier hliota (Vikt) that I will honor of you get ‘that I will get honor from you’
OV languages 77
(13) DPs with two words a. hafer þu þinu lidi jatat þeim (Vikt) have you your assistance promised them ‘if you have promised them your assistance’ b. at hann muni eitthvert ráð til leggja (Guðm) that he would some advice to put ‘that he would offer some advice’ (14) DPs with three words a. að prestur þessi hefði sína fyrri konu misst (Álf) that priest this had his first wife lost ‘that this priest had lost his first wife’ b. því hann vildi þann saklausa mann til dauða dæma (Morð) because he wanted this innocent man to death sentence ‘because he wanted to sentence this innocent man to death’ No preverbal DPs in the corpus contained more than three words. On the other hand, postverbal DPs containing more than three words were common (163 examples found). Some of these examples are shown below. (15) DPs with more than three words: VO word order a. Ungbarna veiki hefur sópað burt miklum þorra þessa ungviðis (letters) baby sickness have swept away big majority these children ‘Diphtheria has taken most of these children’ b. eg heffe feinged eina fräbæra edur faheyrda sött (Dín) I have got one distinguished or outrageous sickness ‘I have got a distinguished or outrageous sickness’ c. Vil eg nú upphéðan heita yður minni fullri og fastri vináttu (Munn) want I now from-now-on promise you my complete and solid friendship ‘From now on I will promise you my complete and con stant friendship’ Single DPs (DPs containing only one word) occurred as frequently in preverbal position as in postverbal position in the earliest texts (dating from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries). In texts dating from the next two centuries (the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries), single DPs started to occur in postverbal position more often, as illustrated in
78 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir Table 3 above. I take this to reflect a language change; that is, change in usage during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, in the nineteenth century texts and letters, preverbal single DPs have become very rare, as a consequence of an abrupt grammar change in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Single DPs thus lost their tendency to occur to the left of the main verb. DPs containing two words clearly are preferred in postverbal position, throughout the period studied. However, these DPs could also occur preverbally. DPs consisting of three or more words were very rare in preverbal position in all the texts and letters studied. It is therefore clear that light DPs more often occurred in preverbal position than heavy DPs in OI. The heaviness factor seems to have been stronger than the information factor: Light objects with old information are always preverbal and heavy objects with new information are always postverbal. Light objects with new information are also usually preverbal, while heavy objects with old information are usually postverbal. DPs with two words seem to have been more or less neutral with regard to the heaviness factor; hence, unfocused (old information) DPs with two words are usually preverbal, while focused (new information) DPs with two words are usually postverbal. Hence, pronouns and other light categories are preferred in preverbal position, while (heavy) full DPs and objects with new information are preferred in postverbal position. In other words, there is a prosodic ordering associated with syntactic positions with respect to: – – – –
full DPs are more likely to occur in VO structures than pronouns new information is more likely to occur in VO structures than old information heavy DPs are more likely to occur in VO structures than light DPs quantified and negated objects occur preverbally (OV) 3
When we take all these prosodic orderings into consideration, we can account for the OV/VO word order pattern in the OI corpus. In other words, it is more or less predictable which objects occur preverbally and which occur postverbally.
OV languages 79
5. Language change leading to grammar change As indicated in the tables in the preceding section, the OV/VO word order patterns are stable until the seventeenth century, where there is a gradual loss of the OV word order patterns for two centuries, or, in other words, a gradual increase in language use to have focused elements in postverbal (VO) position (the signaling of discourse properties). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a gradual change took place in the history of Icelandic, paving the way for the parameter change in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when we have a change from a grammar allowing the variation of both OV and VO word order patterns, to a grammar allowing only (pure) VO word order. Hence, DPs expressing new information were more often put in postverbal position, with the consequences that there was a gradual drop in the frequency of OV word order patterns until OV had dropped below a certain threshold to be useful as cues (Lightfoot 1999). In other words, this increased frequency of focused DPs in postverbal position gradually led to fewer expressions of the relevant cue. Hence, there is a(n abrupt) parameter change within the next generation acquiring the language (in the beginning of the nineteenth century), where this new generation has a new parameter setting that does not allow the variation of both OV and VO word order patterns, and instead only has the pure VO word order setting. In sum, this means that a shift in discourse property, or simply a change in language use, can lead to a grammar change; a change in the basic word order in the I-language. It is often claimed that this is connected with the placement of heavy (old information is light, new information is heavier) and stressed material (an element that is stressed is part of the focus of the clause) (cf. e.g. Hinterhölzl 2006). Of course, it is still unclear what brought about this change in language use. Maybe there is no explanation in structural terms, but only in sociolinguistic terms: a certain type of word order became unfashionable. The eighteenth century marked the most tragic age in Iceland’s history. In 1703, when the first complete census was taken, the population was approximately 50,000. From 1707–1709 the population sank to about 35,000 because of a devastating smallpox epidemic. Twice again the population declined catastropically, both during the years 1752–1757 and 1783–1785, owing to a series of famines and natural disasters. The summer of 1782 marked the beginning of the presumably most tragic period ever, the so-called Móðuharðindi, where a tremendous natural catastrophe took place with a great volcanic eruption that led to increased cold weather and hard times, including starvation and different diseases. It is usually assumed that 1/5 of the
80 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir population, or 10,000 people, died because of the Móðuharðindi. When the population was severely decimated by these epidemics, this placed the surviving population in a new situation. First, the age distribution changed, and the average life expectancy decreased. Second, the language would be more sensitive to other sources of noise, for instance, language contact. Historical/social changes in the form of increased intervention, administration, and the power of the Danish led to an increase in foreign influence in Iceland at a time when the stability of the language was less secure, due to the fact that quite a lot of the older bearers of the language had perished. Note that we expect the child-learner to be sensitive to changes in the surrounding language environment, since that language environment is what she uses as a model. The language environment providing the PLD had changed so that there was more insecurity about the correct word order patterns, due to an increased influence from Danish and a loss of older individuals, followed by an increase in the proportion of children. It is obvious that we can expect the language to change when the transmission of the tradition is disturbed. When a severe plague hits a population causing a sudden death of older speakers, much of the conservatism of the language (use) may be lost. If we take VO word order to be the more innovative structure, it is not surprising that the frequency of the use of the old OV structure drops when the language environment is affected in this way. We can assume that the devastating smallpox epidemics in 1707–1709 and other natural disasters in Iceland throughout the eighteenth century are a plausible example of the kind of population changes that can cause a language change, which may then lead to a parameter change; the loss of OV word order patterns. Hence, the case we are studying here is a language that had a variation (OV and VO word order) before the epidemic, and lost it after the epidemical years during the eighteenth century. As can be seen in the tables in section 4, the proportion of OV word order had remained surprisingly stable from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The first notable drop in frequency takes place during the eighteenth century, during the epidemical period. This reflects a language change, where constructions with OV word order came to be used less and less, until the frequency of OV had dropped below a certain threshold to be useful as cues (Lightfoot 1999). This in turn lead to a parameter change in the beginning of the nineteenth century where OV orders suddenly disappeared. To summarize, after the smallpox epidemics in the very beginning of the eighteenth century and the natural catastrophe Móðuharðindin in the middle of the century, the age distribution became different due to a loss of older individuals, followed by an increase in the proportion of children.
OV languages 81
Hence, the language environment had changed and we assume this to have led to more insecurity about the correct word order patterns. At the same time, there was an increase of foreign influence from Danish, a language that already had pure VO word order at the time. Finally, another social/historical change in Icelandic at the time of the language change supports our findings. Note that the frequency of OV/VO word order patterns showed a remarkable stability from the earliest texts until the eighteenth century. More interestingly, so did the Icelandic society: From the time of the settlement until the eighteenth century, it was a rather stable (old-fashioned) country of farmers, without any important formation of cities or towns. It was a society of big families living together. The elderly were not sent away to old people’s homes and the children were not sent away to nursery schools or kindergartens. The big family stayed together, and worked together, on the farm. Older children took care of their younger siblings, and most noticeable perhaps, the children grew up with their parents and their grandparents and their language (including language use and tradition). It was not until the eighteenth century that we have the formation of big towns. During 1760–1770, a great disease hit the Icelandic livestock and as much as half of the sheep were killed. As a consequence, people had to flee the countryside and move to the seaside to survive. The fishing industry increased and fishing towns thrived. Reykjavík gradually became the capital of Iceland. This also meant that the big families were split up and children went to school with other children and hence their language acquisition was now, to a much greater extent than before, affected by the language of other children. This is another example of a change in language environment that has had consequences for language use, leading to a parameter change. Together these historical/social changes during the eighteenth century in Iceland explain why the language change took place – there was a change in the language environment, affecting the use of the language – paving the way for the grammar change. There is also some direct evidence that OV and VO word order might have correlated with style; the frequency of OV word order can sometimes be associated with a more elevated or formal style (and formal style is typically more conservative). For instance, not only personal letters were studied dating from the nineteenth century, but also letters of a more formal style, written by Icelandic priests at a request from a special committee for archaeology in Copenhagen. When the proportions of OV orders in these two types of letters are compared, it appears that on average, the rate of OV word order is somewhat higher in the more formal letters than in the personal letters.
82 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir 6. Object shift I will conclude by illustrating the difference between OV word order and Modern Icelandic Object Shift. Note that although Modern Icelandic is generally assumed to have SVO surface word order, as already mentioned, there still exist three constructions in Modern Icelandic exhibiting some sort of SOV word order: Negative (and quantified) phrase construction, Object Shift, and Stylistic Fronting. We will leave Stylistic Fronting aside here, and take a look at a correlation between OV word order patterns in OI and Object Shift in the modern language. 4 Consider example (16). (16) Object Shift a. María las ekki bókina Mary read not book.the ‘Mary did not read the book’ b. María las bókina ekki Mary read book.the not ‘Mary did not read the book’ c. *María las ekki hana Mary read not it ‘Mary did not read it’ d. María las hana ekki Mary read it not ‘Mary did not read it’ Object Shift in Icelandic is generally assumed to involve a leftward movement of definite objects and pronouns across a sentence adverb, in clauses containing no non-finite verbs, that is, in sentences where verb movement has occurred (cf. Holmberg’s Generalization 1986). Thus, the employment of Object Shift does not lead to an OV word order, in a strict sense, but a word order where the object has moved out of the VP, since it shows up to the left of the sentence adverb, marking the left periphery of the VP. An important element in connection to OV orders in OI is the analysis of these possible OV orders still found in Modern Icelandic. This has been the subject of much recent work, and it would indeed be interesting to see what the empirical and analytical differences between the earlier stages and the present-day stage are. In particular, it is interesting to compare obligatory Object Shift of pronouns and optional Object Shift of definite DPs in Modern Icelandic. For instance, how did whatever changes that have taken place give rise to the differences between pronouns and non-pronouns that
OV languages 83
we observe today? It is very likely that English has undergone a parallel development; Late Middle English probably had optional Object Shift for non-pronouns and obligatory Object Shift for pronouns, whereas 16th century English was like the Modern Mainland Scandinavian languages; pronouns moved whenever the verb moved but no other complements moved (see Roberts 1995). Bobaljik and Tráinsson (1998) discuss the connection between Object Shift in Modern Icelandic, the remains of OV orders still existing, and information structure, giving independent support to our claim that the cue for OV order in OI indeed was expressed through information structure. They give the following example: (17) a. b.
Ég las þrjár bækur ekki I read three books not Ég las ekki þrjár bækur I read not three books ‘I didn’t read three books’
They claim that the alternation between (a) and (b) here depends on information structure, with a contrast between specific and non-specific, or given versus new information. Hence, in order to be able to shift, the DP object must represent old information, while a DP object representing new information cannot shift and must remain internal to the VP. They conclude that AgrOP has thus nothing to do with case theory, but instead with information structure, the mapping from syntax to semantics. Although the various attested OV orders in OI might at first sight seem to apply to all kinds of nominal objects (both pronouns and full DPs, definite objects as well as indefinite) there was a division or restriction, similar to the one of Object Shift in Modern Icelandic, which only applies to pronominal objects and definite DPs. It is interesting to note that in the OI data, where a sentential adverb intervenes between the preverbal complement and the non-finite main verb, there are no instances of indefinite objects. That is, the pattern [DPindefinite - sentence adverb - Vmain] seems to have been absent. Pronouns also had a much stronger tendency to occur to the left of an adverb than full DPs or other types of arguments, as illustrated in Table 4.
84 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir Table 4. Objects occurring higher than sentence adverbs
All centuries
Pronouns 27
DPs 5
PPs 3
The distinction is very striking: 27 pronouns occurred to the left of the sentence adverb, only 5 full DPs, all definite, and three arguments of another type (PP or a small clause predicate). Some of the OI sentences are shown below. (18) Pronoun to the left of a sentence adverb a. og vér fáum það ei þekkt (Álf) and we get it not recognized ‘And we cannot recognize it’ b. at hann mundi þat eigi gera (Finn) that he would it not do ‘that he wouldn’t do it’ c. að þeir hefðu þau aldrei út gefið (Morð) that they had them never out given ‘that they had never published them’ (19) Full DP to the left of a sentence adverb a. þui ath hann willdi leoninum giarna ekki grand giora (Sig) because that he wanted lion.the readily not damage do ‘because he didn’t want to harm the lion’ b. Enn hier med a ofan hef eg greind Kugillde alldrei teked (Afs) but here with in addition have I mentioned cow-values never taken ‘But, in addition, I have never taken these cows’ c. hefi eg þessa kapla aldri aptur fengið (Skál) have I these cables never back got ‘I haven’t got these cables back’ (20) Complemental adverbial/PP to the left of a sentence adverb a. þegar hann hefur þar ei lengi verið (Álf) when he has there not long been ‘when he hasn’t stayed there for a long time’
OV languages 85
b.
c.
því þeir hafa hér aldrei fyrri komið (Árm) because they have here never before come ‘because they have never been here before’ hefr síðan um þann Haug ekki grenslast verid (letters) has since about that grave-mound not inquired been ‘Since then, no one has inquired about that grave mound’
Furthermore, at most one argument could precede the sentence adverb at a time. In VO word order, on the other hand, two or three arguments frequently followed the sentence adverb. The existence of complements to the left of a sentence adverb, thus, gives strong support to leftward movements of the objects. In the patterns [object – Vaux – Vmain] and [object – Vmain – Vaux], the preverbal argument could either be a DP, a PP or a small clause predicate. However, only the DP occurred with any significant frequency. In almost all the examples found, the DP here is a pronoun. Two examples are shown in (21) and (21). (21) [DP – Vaux – Vmain] ef hann hefði þat viljað fága (Guðm) if he had it wanted clean ‘if he had wanted to clean it’ (22) [DP – Vmain – Vaux] að eg mundi hann sigrað geta (Guðm) that I would him defeat could ‘that I would be able to defeat him’ The pattern [Vmain – Vaux – object], on the other hand, occurred with full DPs only, but never pronouns. The sentences in (23) show some examples of this pattern. (23) [Vmain – Vaux – DP] a. at hann mun raða vilia ferðum sínum (Finn) that he will determine want journeys his ‘that he will want to determine his own journeys’ b. þu munt haft hafa harða landtoku (Finn) you will had have hard landing ‘You have had a rough landing’
86 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir Note also that the construction [Vmain – Vaux – object] is comparable to Object Shift in the modern language; when the main verb moves, the object moves as well, obligatorily if it is an unstressed pronoun. Consequently, we do indeed not expect to find a pronoun in the postverbal position after the main verb has moved in OI. Definite DPs and pronouns do not exit the VP, so that they move along within the preposed VP (containing the finite verb). Indefinite DPs (and CPs), on the other hand, would always have to move out of the VP, to a separate Focus-position, and therefore are stranded by the remnant VP-preposing. This correctly predicts the distinction between [Vmain – Vaux – DP] and *[Vmain – Vaux – pronoun], together with the fact that the object in the word order patterns [object – Vmain – Vaux] and [object – Vaux – Vmain] is usually a personal pronoun or a definite noun. Moreover, heavy XP-shift in general could be seen as an independent dimension, in line with Kayne’s (1998) proposal for Modern English. Here, we arrive at the analytical difference between OV word order and Modern Icelandic Object Shift: Object Shift can now be regarded as a movement of the object along with the VP, in front of the negative adverbial. While full DPs must move out of the VP (to get their case checked in [Spec, AgrOP] in the functional domain), unstressed pronouns do not have to exit the VP (because they do not have strong enough features).5 In terms of focus/heaviness, we claim that focused/heavy objects must move out of the VP, prior to the remnant VP-movement, and hence end up postverbally, while light objects do not have to exit the VP, and therefore they may move along within the preposed VP (containing the finite verb) and thereby end up preverbally.
7. Conclusions In this chapter, we have studied the change from object-verb order to verbobject order. A number of European languages have undergone such a change and we have focused here on the change in Icelandic, arguing that while the structural change was very similar in English and Icelandic, it took place at different times and different ways in the two languages, triggered by different E-language changes. Morphological triggers, or the absence thereof, have often been related to clustering of syntactic properties in both diachronic change and acquisition. As seen from the English viewpoint, low-level facts of inflectional morphology may express the relevant cue for parameters, and hence the loss of inflection may lead to a grammar change. I have shown that this analysis does not carry over to Icelandic, as
OV languages 87
the loss of OV in Icelandic took place despite rich case morphology. Instead, I have argued that the relevant cue may be expressed differently among languages: While it may have been expressed through morphology in English, it was expressed through information structure in Icelandic. In both cases, external effects led to fewer expressions of the relevant (universal) cue and a grammar change took place. I have claimed that the language change in OI reflects an increased frequency of focused elements in postverbal position – in the form of increased number of objects moving out of the VP (to an external Focusposition) prior to the remnant VP-movement – which again increases the overall number of VO word order – with the consequences that there was a gradual drop in the frequency of OV word order during the eighteenth century until the frequency of OV had dropped below a certain threshold to be useful as cues, causing a parameter change in the beginning of the nineteenth century, where the VP-out-of-VP option disappeared. Finally, I have shown how Object Shift in Modern Icelandic supports the claim that the cue for OV in OI was expressed through information structure.
Notes 1.
2. 3.
4.
5.
Hróarsdóttir (2000) studied the frequency of OV and VO patterns in various texts dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, in addition to personal letters dating from throughout the nineteenth century. Here, I have built on this database, making it approximately double in size from that used earlier, based on a wider extraction of the same texts. Objects with old information here mean personal pronouns, and full DPs already mentioned in the preceding sentences. Quantified and negated objects always occurred preverbally in OI, and they still do in the modern language. These are the remaining OV orders in Modern Icelandic. Stylistic Fronting rarely leads to OV orders, but often to an order where a complement, or part of a complement, precedes the finite verb (see Maling 1990 for the first explicit discussion of Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic, together with the discussion in Jónsson 1991, 1996; Holmberg 1997, 2000b, and Hrafnbjargarson 2004). This proposal goes against Cardinaletti and Starke (1999).
88 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir References Bobaljik, Jonathan D. and Höskuldur Thráinsson 1998 Two heads aren’t always better than one. Syntax 1: 37–71. Cardinaletti, Anna and Michal Starke 1999 The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns. In Clitics in the Languages of Europe, ed. Henk van Riemsdijk, 145–233. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Corver, Norbert and Denis Delfitto 1995 Feature primitives and the syntax of specificity. GLOW Newsletter 34, spring 1995. Diesing, Molly 1992 Indefinites. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Farkas, Donka 1986 On the syntactic position of focus in Hungarian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 4 (1): 77–96. Haider, Hubert 1992 Branching and discharge. Arbeitspapiere des Sonderforschungsbereichs 340. Vol. 23. University Stuttgart. Hinterhölzl, Roland 2006 Scrambling, Remnant Movement, and Restructuring in West Germanic. New York: Oxford University Press. Holmberg, Anders 1986 Word Order and Syntactic Feature in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Stockholm. 1997 Scandinavian Stylistic Fronting: Movement of phonological features in the syntax. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 60: 81–124. 1998 Word order variation in some European SVO languages: A parametric approach. In Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, ed. Anna Siewierska, 553–598. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2000a OV in Finnish. In The Derivation of VO and OV, ed. Peter Svenonius, 123–152. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2000b Scandinavian Stylistic Fronting: How any category can become an expletive. Linguistic Inquiry 31 (3): 445–483. Holmberg, Anders and Christer Platzack. 1995 The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoop, Helen de 1992 Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen. Horváth, Julia 1986 Focus in the Theory of Grammar and the Syntax of Hungarian. Dordrecht: Foris.
OV languages 89 Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar Hrafn 2004 Stylistic fronting. Studia Linguistica 58 (2): 88–134. Hróarsdóttir, Þorbjörg 1996 The decline of OV word order in the Icelandic VP: A diachronic study. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 57: 92–141 2000 Word Order Change in Icelandic. From OV to VO. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 35). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Indriðason, Þorsteinn 1987 Skýrsla um orðaröð í sagnlið. Ms., University of Iceland, Reykjavík. Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli 1991 Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 48: 1–43. 1996 Clausal Architecture and Case in Icelandic. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Kayne, Richard S. 1998 Overt vs. covert movement. Syntax 1: 128–191. Kiss, Katalin É. 1987 Configurationality in Hungarian. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1998 Discourse-configurationality in the languages of Europe. In Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, ed. Anna Siewierska, 681– 727. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Koeneman, Olaf 2000 The Flexible Nature of Verb Movement. Doctoral dissertation, University of Utrecht. Kosmeijer, Wim 1986 The status of the finite inflection in Icelandic and Swedish. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 26. Kroch, Anthony S. and Ann Taylor 1994 Remarks on the XV/VX alternation in Early Middle English. Ms., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Laka, Itziar and Juan Uriagereka 1987 Barriers for Basque and vice-versa. NELS 17. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Lightfoot, David W. 1999 The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change, and Evolution. Oxford and Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers. Maling, Joan 1990 Inversion in embedded clauses in Modern Icelandic. In Modern Icelandic Syntax, eds. Joan Maling and Annie Zaenen, 71–91. [Syntax and Semantics 24]. San Diego: Academic Press.
90 Þorbjörg Hróarsdóttir Pintzuk, Susan 1996 From OV to VO in the history of English. Ms., University of York. [Paper presented at the 4th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference, October 31-November 2, 1995. Université du Québec à Montréal] Roberts, Ian G. 1993 Verbs and Diachronic Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1995 Object movement and verb movement in Early Modern English. In Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax, eds. Hubert Haider, Susan Olsen and Sten Vikner, 269–284. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1997 Directionality and word order change in the history of English. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, 396–426. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001 Language change and learnability. In Language Acquisition and Learnability, ed. Stefano Bertolo, 81–125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rohrbacher, Bernhard W. 1999 Morphology-Driven Syntax: A theory of V to I raising and pro-drop. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur 1996 Word order variation in the VP in Old Icelandic. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 58: 55–86. Siewierska, Anna 1998 Variation in major constituent order: A global and a European perspective. In Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, ed. Anna Siewierska, 475–551. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Sigurðsson, Halldór Á. 1988 From OV to VO: Evidence from Old Icelandic. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 34: 1–41. Tuller, Laurice 1992 The syntax of postverbal focus constructions in Chadic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10 (2): 303–334. Urbina, Jon Ortiz de 1989 Parameters in the Grammar of Basque. Dordrecht: Foris. Vikner, Sten 1997 V-to-I movement and inflection for person in all tenses. In The New Comparative Syntax, ed. Liliane Hageman, 189–213. London: Longman.
Discourse relations and word order change Ans van Kemenade
1.
Introduction
I explore, for Old English, against the broader backdrop of Old (West) Germanic, the relation between discourse, clause structure, and inflectional morphology.1 I will address a word order feature that has proved a knotty problem in the syntactic literature on older English, and propose an alternative approach that attempts to integrate the insights from syntactic approaches with those emerging from the literature on discourse. In section 2, I will first position the Old English dataset that prompted the approach developed in this article, and outline the issues it raises for syntactic analyses that have been proposed so far. Then, in section 3, I will present the basic tenets of an approach that attempts to unify insights from discourse analysis and information packaging with a syntactic approach. I start from the assumption that there is such a thing as a tightly circumscribed syntax, which makes available a limited set of options which define the limits to the space that language users have to manipulate word order according to information-structural needs. Specific claims will be: 1. Old English has a class of short adverbs which I will call discourse partitioners as they serve to partition the clause into domains for given information (referring back to a prominent discourse referent) and non-given information. Their use as discourse partitioners was later lost; 2. Old English has a type of referring expression lost in Middle English, the paradigm of simple demonstratives, which allow specific anaphoric reference to a discourse antecedent; this ensures that, in addition to the well-known range of pronouns, DP subjects with a demonstrative pronoun allow reference to a discourse antecedent and can be marked and positioned as given information. 3. the interplay of the first two strategies serves to allow a number of word order options in the higher part of the clause that were later lost. In section 4, I will discuss a number of issues concerning the modelling of these findings.
92
Ans van Kemenade
2.
An analytical problem in Old English
Before going on to discuss an analysis of Old English word order in discourse terms, let’s briefly position the dataset as it has been analysed in the literature so far. Its core consists of arguments that occur in a relatively high position in the clause, and includes personal pronouns (subject or object), but, rather problematically for a purely syntactic account, various other types of NP as well. A well-known feature of Old English word order is that personal pronouns may occur in positions higher than their DP counterparts. This is true almost categorically for subject pronouns, and optionally for object pronouns, as exemplified (1) for main clauses and by (2) for sub-clauses2: (1)
a. Be ðæm we magon suiðe swutule oncnawan ðæt ... By that, we may very clearly perceive that ... CP 26.181.16 ‘By that, we may perceive very clearly that ...’ b. þa axodon hine Pharisei & þa boceras hwi ne gað and then asked him Pharisees and the learned men, why not go þine leorningcnihtas æfter ure yldrena gesetnysse. ac your disciples after our forefathers' law, but besmitenum handum hyra hlaf þicgað with defiled hands their bread eat?
Mk (WSCp) 7.5
‘Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of their elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?’ c. Hwæt tacnað us ðonne Saul buton yfle hlafurdas? What betokens us then Saul except evil lords? CP 28.197.22 ‘What is signified to us by Saul but bad masters?’ (2)
a. Gif hire ðonne se wiðsace, ðonne is cynn ðæt him spiwe if it then he refuse, then is proper that him spits ðæt wif on ðæt nebb the woman in the face
CP 5.45.2
‘But if he refuse it, it is proper for the woman to spit in his face’
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b. gif hine ðonne ðæt fleah mid ealle ofergæð, ðonne ne mæg he if him then the albugo with all covers, then not-can he noht geseon. naught see
CP 11.69.18
‘if it [the pupil of the eye] is entirely covered with albugo, he cannot see anything.’ This fact has been taken to indicate that personal pronouns are syntactically special and exhibit a form of syntactic cliticization (van Kemenade 1987; Pintzuk 1991). Alternative analyses are those in terms of Germanic style weak pronouns in the sense of Cardinaletti and Starke (1996). Cardinaletti and Roberts (2002). The positional evidence was made more precise in Haeberli (1999); van Kemenade (1999; 2000), which is illustrated by the examples (3), reflecting a word order template as in (4): (3)
a. Ne het he us na leornian heofonas to wyrcenne not ordered he us not learn heavens to make ‘He did not bid us learn to make the heavens’
ÆLS.XVI.127
b. Ne sæde na ure Drihten þæt he mid cynehelme oððe mid not said not our Lord that he with diadem or with purple purpuran gescryd, cumin wolde to us clothed, come wanted to us
ÆLS.XXXI.762
‘Our Lord said not that He would come to us with a diadem or clothed with purple’ (4)
personal pronoun – secondary negator – nominal subject
Very similar syntactic analyses of this word order template are Haeberli (1999) and van Kemenade (1999; 2000), following up Bobaljik and Jonas (1996); Bobaljik and Thrainsson (1998) whose structures I adapt for the time being as (5)3: (5)
[CP [XP] C [AgrP PronounSubj/Obj Agr [NegP Neg Adv Neg [TP DPSubj T ... ]]]
Personal pronouns occur in a designated pronoun position on the left of a NegP in Spec,AgrP position, while the position for DP subjects is lower than NegP, in SpecTP. It turns out then, that the secondary negator has
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considerable diagnostic value in pinpointing the position of elements in the higher part of the clause. This is (as) true for a number of other adverbs as well, and is illustrated here for ðonne: (6)
a. Hu mæg he ðonne ðæt lof & ðone gilp fleon how may he then praise and vainglory avoid ‘How can he avoid praise and vainglory...?’
CP. 9.57.18
b. Hu gerades mæg ðonne se biscep brucan ðære hirdelican are. how properly may then the bishop enjoy the pastoral dignity CP. 18.133.3 ‘How, then, can the bishop properly enjoy the pastoral dignity?’ By way of example, findings for root clause questions in Cura Pastoralis, based on a lexical search of the whole text, are as follows: Table 1. Relative position of adverb ðonne and various types of subject in Cura Pastoralis
Nominal subject subject left of ðonne subject right of ðonne
0 17
Personal pronoun subject or object 10 0
This yields a clear picture for main clauses. However, the position is considerably more complicated when we consider sub-clauses. (see also Haeberli and Ingham 2007 for early Middle English4). Examination of all the subclauses containing þa/þonne shows the distribution for subjects in table 2. Throughout the article, the data are based on extensive searches in the York Corpus of Old English (Taylor et al. 2003) and the Penn Helsinki parsed Corpus of Middle English 2 (Taylor 2000). Table 2. Relative position of adverb ðonne and various types of subject in YCOE
Old English subclauses Left of þa/þonne Right of þa/þonne
Pronominal subjects 1250 5
DP subjects 293 419
Table 2 shows that subject pronouns almost categorically occur on the left of the adverb. An example of this, also including object pronouns, is (7).
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on Salomonnes bocum, hit is awrieten ðæt mon ne scyle in Solomon’s books, it is written that that one not shall cweðan to his frind: Ga, cum to morgen, ðonne selle ic ðe say to one’s friend: “Go, come tomorrow, then give I you hwæthwugu, gif he hit him ðonne sellan mæge something, if he it him then give may.”
CP.44.323.24
‘in the books of Solomon, it is written that we are not to say to our friend: “Go, and come tomorrow, then I will give you something,” if we can give it him then.’ However, the figures for DP subjects in table 2 show that we are not dealing merely with a designated position for personal pronouns. The relatively high frequency of DP subjects left of the adverb renders this particularly problematic, and there is no readily discernible generalization with respect to the choice of DP subject on the left or right of the adverb; higher and lower DP subjects, for instance, include definite DP’s, as the following representative examples show: (8)
Forðæm bið se sige micle mara ðe man mid geðylde gewinð, therefore is the victory much greater which one with patience wins, forðæm sio gesceadwisnes ðonne hæfð ofercumen ðæt mod & because this wisdom then has overcome the mind and gewielð, swelce he self hæbbe hiene selfne gewildne, & sio geðyld subdued, as if he self have himself conquered, and the patience hæbbe ðæt mod geðreatod & gecafstrod. have the mind intimidated and curbed.
CP[Cotton]:218.19.42
‘Therefore the victory which is won with patience is much greater, because this wisdom (patience) has overcome and subdued the mind, as if he himself had conquered himself, and patience had intimidated and curbed the mind.’ (9)
Gif ðonne se sacerd bið ungerad ðæs lareowdomes, hwæt forstent If then the teacher is unskilled in instruction, what avails ðonne his gehlyd? then his cry?
CP.15.91.25
‘then if the teacher is unskilled in instruction, what avails his cry?’
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In the next section, I will pursue a different perspective on this problem, incorporating insights from both discourse and syntax.
3.
Information packaging strategies
In this section, I will consider issues pertaining to the relation between discourse and syntax in Old and Middle English. The claim is that, to varying degrees, Old and Middle English syntax allowed the language user greater flexibility to incorporate information structural considerations by allowing a wider range of possibilities for positioning given information before new information. In contrast to present-day English, in which the subject typically marks given information (e.g. Birner and Ward 1998), earlier English differentiates between two positions which may both host various types of subject, or personal pronoun objects, the differentiation being keyed to the distinction ‘given’ vs. ‘new’. Here, I follow up previous work, in particular van Kemenade and Los (2006); van Kemenade and Miliüev (2005). When looking at the literature on information packaging, we usually come across at least five major types of strategies to mark information structure: (10) a. b. c. d. e.
Intonation Ellipsis Particles Types of referring expressions Word order
I will defer from discussing the first two strategies: intonation is a phenomenon which is particularly hard to track in any detail in historical text material; the state of our knowledge of ellipsis in the history of English is as yet limited, and instructive exploration is beyond the scope of this article. In this section, I discuss the interplay of strategies in Old English that mark its more prominent discourse character relative to Middle English and especially Modern English. More particularly, I claim that the Old Germanic languages show evidence for a clausal organization that is defined more clearly in terms of discourse domains. In particular, I claim that there is an area relatively high in the clause whose right edge is marked by a a short adverb that functions as a discourse partitioner. The evidence discussed here is from two such adverbs, þa and þonne, as representatives of a larger set. This area hosts specific types of referring expressions, viz.
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various types of pronouns and definite DP’s containing a demonstrative pronoun. The function of these referring expressions in this area is to refer back to a prominent discourse antecedent. Thus, the conclusion will be that Old English possesses the minimal morphology necessary to partition the clause in terms of an area for given/presupposed information (referring back to a (prominent) discourse antecedent) and non-given information. In the transition to Middle English, this morphology is lost: the paradigm for demonstrative pronouns is levelled to one definite determiner the; discourse partitioners (or perhaps rather the discourse partitioner use of a set of adverbs) are lost, and this leads to a clausal organization that is more rigidly syntactically defined.
3.1. Particles It is well-known that languages whose syntactic organization is more tailored to discourse needs, make use, in varying degrees, of particles that mark discourse-relevant domains in word order. Thus, for instance, Aboh (2004, 2006) shows that the word order of Gungbe, a Kwa language, is determined by Topic and Focus. Topics occur on the immediate left of a topic particle yà as in (11a), focussed NPs on the immediate left of a focus particle wȑ, as in (11b): (11) a. Ùn sè ǚƥ dàn lƥ yà Kòfí hù ì 1sg hear that snake Det Top Kofi kill 3sg ‘I heard that, as for the snake, Kofi killed it’ b. Ùn sè ǚƥ dàn lƥ wȑ Kòfí hù 1sg hear that snake Det Foc Kofi kill ‘I heard that Kofi killed THE SNAKE’ Such particles serve as discourse partitioners then, and require that the relevant NP is on their immediate left. Particles do not need to be designated elements; they can also be adverbs, for instance. Adverbs are routinely used in syntactic work as word order diagnostics, even more particularly in the literature on the Germanic languages. We saw in the previous section that secondary negators (negative adverbs) have strong diagnostic value, and the same goes for adverbs like þa and þonne ‘then’. A similar diagnostic value is ascribed to the interjection la ‘lo’ in Kato (1995). In a very different vein, Brinton (2006) claims that the temporal adverb þa ‘then’ is
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a discourse partitioner. The claim made here follows up van Kemenade and Los (2006) and van Kemenade and Miliüev (2005) and goes a step further: Old English þa and þonne, both literally meaning ‘then’, are prominent members of a set of adverbs and particles that take discourse-linked material on their left. The term ‘discourse-linked’ here corresponds with what is known in the literature as given information. This set of adverbs and particles forms no obvious natural class, as it includes þa and þonne both literally meaning ‘then’; and nu (literally ‘now’); Furthermore, it includes na, whose primary use is that of negator; la ‘lo’, which is an exclamative element; and eac ’also’, which is rather hard to classify. What unites these elements, beside their fixed position, is that they are often used as rhetorical devices, serving to admonish or exhort, and, as claimed, to separate given from non-given material in the clause.5 This is particularly clearly the case when they are used in clause-internal position, as discussed in van Kemenade and Los (2006). I illustrate briefly here with the following examples: (12) a. Hwæt ða la ongunnon þa godes cempan hnexian and what then lo began then God’s champions yield and heora mod awendon to hyre maga sarnysse their mood turn to their kinsmen’s anguish.
ÆLS(Sebastian) 48
‘Well, then, behold! God’s champions began to yield, and to turn their thought on their kinsmen’s anguish.’ b. Hwæt þa se biscop hine bliþelice gefullode, and ealle his What then the bishop him blithely baptized, and all his hiwan on þæs Hælendes naman. household in the Saviour’s name
ÆLS(Basil) 167
‘and indeed the bishop blithely baptized him and all his household in the Saviour’s name.’ In (12), the exclamatory part of the clause in each case primarily serves to draw particular attention to the event following. The temporal effect of þa is minimal at best. This particular use of þa illustrates very well the function of adverbs/particles as viewed here: the focus part of the clause is “introduced” by the particle in the sense that it immediately precedes the focus part. The discussion here is restricted to þa and þonne, as they are the most consistent members of this set.
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3.2. Types of referring expressions A crucial ingredient of the account of Old and Middle English morphology in relation to discourse and syntax here is that Old English had a specific class of discourse-linking expressions that was lost in the later history of English: the weak demonstrative pronouns. This class of pronouns seems to have been one of the properties of Old English that sustained its discourse-configurational character. Before I go on to discuss their properties, let me list the paradigm, found in any grammar of Old English. Table 3. Old English demonstrative pronouns
Nom Acc Gen Dat
singular masculine se þone þæs þĺm
plural feminine sƝo þƗ þĺre þĺre
neuter þæt þæt þæs þĺm
þƗ þƗ þƗra þĺm
The demonstrative pronouns are often called definite determiners, as one of their primary known uses in Old English is to mark definiteness in a DP, thus se monn ‘the man’; þĺre fæmnan fæder; ‘the woman’s father’ and so on, see recently Denison (2006). However, the term ‘determiner’ is, I claim, a singular misnomer, in particular because it is often used when comparing the Old English demonstratives to the present-day English definite determiners, which are clearly morphologically invariant and cannot be used independently. In comparison, Old English demonstratives are a rather versatile class. While they mark definiteness like the present-day English determiners do, they can also be used as independent pronouns: (13) a. Swa fela swa hine underfengon, þam he forgeaf anweald So many so him received, them he gave authority Godes bearn to beonne God’s child to be ÆHom 1.42.26 ‘To all those who received him, he gave authority to be God’s children’ b. Be þam awrat Moyses se mæra heretoga, In principio fecit By them wrote Moses the great general, In principio fecit
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Deus celum et terram Deus celum et terram
ÆHom I, 70, 46
‘About those, Moyses the great general wrote: In principio fecit Deus celum et terram’ This in itself shows that this set of pronouns has independent pronominal function, and serves to mark a type of pronominal reference. This is reinforced by the fact that they are also used as relative pronouns, which are anaphoric elements par excellence, as they must refer back to the antecedent of the relative clause they introduce, under identity of features for number and gender, and, optionally, of case as in (14b). (14) a. Ure Drihten arærde anes ealdormonnes dohtor, seo ðe læg dead Our Lord raised an alderman’s daughter (A), who (N) that lay dead ÆHom, VI, 176 ‘Our Lord brought to life an alderman’s daughter who lay dead’ b. Ic wat witodlice ðæt ge secað ðone hælend ðone ðe on I know truly that you eek the Lord (A) whom (A) that on rode ahangen wæs cross hung was
Mt. 1766
‘I know truly that you seek the Lord, who was hung on the cross’ My claim here is that demonstrative pronouns mark a type of (pronominal) reference that is both definite and specific. I would argue that the paradigm of weak demonstrative pronouns, which carried inflection for case, number and gender and were used as independent demonstratives, relative pronouns and definite “determiners”, provided a versatile extra class of referential expressions that played an important role in discourse reference. The fact that a demonstrative can also be used as definiteness marker on NP, yields a more versatile form of discourse linking, as it allows a definite NP to have specific discourse reference, and to be positioned accordingly: on the left of a discourse partitioner. I will elaborate this in section 4. 3.3. Word order Present-day English is characterized by a rigid SVO syntax. In the unmarked case, the subject corresponds with given information, the object with new information (Birner and Ward 1998). It is well-known that earlier
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English had a larger number of syntactic options available beside SVO word orders. Consider in this respect the vast literature on OV word order and its loss, and on the Old English version of the Verb Second constraint. For summaries of the issues playing a role in the syntactic debate on these word orders, the reader is referred to Fischer et. al (2000) and references cited there, and to Kroch and Taylor (2000), Pintzuk and Taylor (2006), and to the articles in Taylor and van der Wurff (2005). Likewise, there is a considerable literature on Old English word order in discourse terms, including Brinton (2006), Bech (2001), to name but a few. A general point about the literature is that purely syntactic treatments have some difficulty coming to grips with such essentially relational notions as given/new information, discourse reference, closeness of the antecedent and so on, which are all relevant to a proper treatment of Old English word order. The literature so far in terms of discourse, on the other hand, does scant justice to insights emerging from the syntactic literature. As yet, there is little or no literature on the interplay between syntax and discourse. In this article, I start from the assumption that there is such a thing as a tightly circumscribed syntax, which makes available a limited set of options which define the limits to the space that language users have to manipulate word order according to information-structural needs. Viewed from this perspective, Old English syntax allows the language user more leeway than present-day English does. This relative freedom has often been ascribed (exclusively and rather impressionistically) to the presence of inflectional morphology, in particular with respect to the relative positional freedom of NPs. No doubt, the presence of case morphology is important for syntactic purposes in identifying the argument status and grammatical role of NPs; I would argue, however, that it is not only case marking per se that yields word order flexibility, but rather the fact that an inherent part of this case system was the paradigm of weak demonstrative pronouns, which carried inflection for case, number and gender and were used as independent demonstratives, relative pronouns and definite “determiners”.
4.
Discourse and syntax in Old English
4.1. The position of pronouns The focus in this treatment is then the position/area that in more purely syntactic analyses has been associated with high personal pronouns or the Spec,AgrP position in the structure (5) above. We have now seen that it hosts
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a subset of subject DP’s as well. From a syntactic viewpoint, this yields a problem primarily for subclauses as we saw in discussion in section 2. We will therefore first consider sub-clauses, and look at the discourse conditions and syntactic conditions that various types of high elements are subject to. The hypothesis, following van Kemenade and Los (2006) and van Kemenade and Miliüev (2005), is that material appearing on the left of þa/þonne is discourse-linked, i.e. any material occurring there refers specifically to a discourse antecedent. Material in the discourse-linked area in effect comprises continued topics in the discourse sense: subjects and a range of pronouns, essentially given information. At this point, it may be useful to emphasize that this is a notion crucially different from ‘topicalization’ as it is known in the syntactic literature, which involves movement to Spec,CP in root clauses, and whose discourse effect is more typically associated with contrast, comparison and scene-setting. Returning to our discourse-linked area, it should come as no surprise that a range of pronoun types occur here. First and foremost, this applies to personal pronouns. Subject pronouns near-categorically appear in this area, and if they occur in conjunction with object pronoun(s), they always precede the object pronoun(s). (15) illustrates a double object example where all three arguments are pronouns; the order of the pronouns is fixed as in (15): nominative – accusative – dative. This is a crosslinguistically widely attested order. (15) on Salomonnes bocum, hit is awrieten ðæt mon ne scyle cweðan in Solomon’s books, it is written that one not shall say to his frind: Ga,cum to morgen, ðonne selle ic ðe hwæthwugu, to his friend: “Go,come tomorrow, then give I you something, gif he hit him ðonne sellan mæge. if he it him then give may.”
CP.44.323.24
‘in the books of Solomon, it is written that we are not to say to our friend: “Go, and come tomorrow, then I will give you something,” if we can give it him then.’ An object pronoun may appear alone in the high position, as in (16): (16) gif hine ðonne ðæt fleah mid ealle ofergæð, ðonne ne mæg he if him then the albugo with all covers, then not-can he noht geseon. naught see.
CP 11.69.17
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‘if it [the pupil of the eye] is entirely covered with albugo, he can not see anything.’ Object pronouns can occur in lower positions as well. Miliüev (in prep, chapter 2) shows that object pronouns in the high position have a prominent discourse antecedent. DP objects are not attested in the discourse-linked area. There is one substantial set of apparent counterexamples to this: preposed dative experiencers, as illustrated in (17)6. (17) þa þæm hearpere ða ðuhte ðæt hine þa nanes then the harp-player then seemed that him then no þinges ne lyste on ðisse worulde thing not pleased in this world
Bo 35.102.9.1978
‘Then it seemed to the harp-player that nothing in this world pleased him anymore’ We can account for this in terms of Allen (1995), who shows that preposed dative experiencers behave as subjects with respect to coordinate subject deletion. The least we can say is that these constructions involve unaccusative verbs, i.e. verbs without an external argument; the subject position in such clauses can host one of the internal arguments (van Kemenade 1997). The high position optionally hosts a range of indefinite pronoun subjects as well.7 This may well raise a problem for the idea that material in the high position is discourse-linked. However, Miliüev (in prep) shows that, while indefinites in the lower subject position are genuinely indefinite, high indefinites in fact do have a presuppositional reading: choice of referent from a discourse-given set. To illustrate, consider (18) (from Miliüev (in prep)): (18) a. ða gebroþra, þe for hwylcere neode utfarað and þy ilcum the brothers, who for which need go-out and the same daege to mynstre cuman maegen, ne dyrstlaecen hi þaet hy day to monastery come may, not dare they that they ahwaer ut of mynstre etan, þeah hy hwa bidde, anywhere out of monastery eat even-if them anyone invites,
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butan hit him from heora abbode geboden sy unless it them from their abbot allowed be BenR:51.79.15.927 ‘the brothers, who for some reason need to go out and are able to come back to the monastery the same day, they are not allowed to eat anywhere outside the monastery, even if someone invites them, unless it has been allowed by the abbot’ b. Gif hwa hit þonne butan his leafe gedyrstlaece, beo he on if anyone it then out his permission dares, be he in amansumunge excommunication BenR:51.79.18.928 ‘if anyone then dares to ignore his permission, he should be excommunicated’ The relevant hwa is in (18b). (18a) provides the context, which makes it clear that hwa ‘whoever’ in (18b) picks a referent from the set of brothers mentioned in a): those brothers who for some reason need to go out and are able to come back the same day. Miliüev notes that hwa can occur in the lower subject position as well. Interestingly, it occurs there typically when there is no set of possible referents as in (18a), as illustrated in (19): (19) and næfre se læweda man ne healed ealdorscipe ofer gehadodum. and never the lay man not hold eldership over clergy. Gif hit ðonne hwa deð, wite he þæt he deð ongean Cristes gesetnysse If it then anyone does, know he that he does against Christ’s ordinance ÆCHom_II_45:345.308.7714 ‘and a layman should never hold supremacy over clergy. If anyone then does, he should know that he acts against Christ’s ordi nance…’ The potential set of referents in the context is that of laymen, but this is cancelled by the negation. Let’s now turn to non-pronominal subjects in the high position. DP’s in the high position comprise possessive DP’s and DP’s with a definite demonstrative pronoun. In the lower position on the right of þa/þonne, we find proper names, DP’s with a definite demonstrative pronoun, and a range of indefinite and generic expressions. The focus here will be on what determines the choice between higher position and lower subject position.
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Let’s consider here again the examples (8) and (9) above, which are repeated here for convenience as (20) and (21), with some more context for (21): (20) Forðæm bið se sige micle mara ðe man mid geðylde gewinð, therefore is the victory much greater which one with patience wins, forðæm sio gesceadwisnes ðonne hæfð ofercumen ðæt mod & because this wisdom then has overcome the mind and gewielð, swelce he self hæbbe hiene selfne gewildne, & sio geðyld subdued, as if he self have himself conquered, and the patience hæbbe ðæt mod geðreatod & gecafstrod. have the mind intimidated and curbed.
CP[Cotton]:218.19.42
‘Therefore the victory which is won with patience is much greater, because this wisdom (patience) has overcome and subdued the mind, as if he himself had conquered himself, and patience had intimidated and curbed the mind.’ In (20), the DP sio gesceadwisnes lit. ‘the wisdom’, refers back to the PP mid geðylde in the previous clause and should therefore more properly read as ‘this wisdom’. This is a good illustration of the referential properties of the demonstrative pronoun sio: it is this that renders the reference to the antecedent specific.With this in mind let us now look at (21): There are three discourse particles in this text fragment. In the first case, the DP ða sacerdas precedes the particle nu, and has a specific reading, signalling a specific group of priests, those who have undertaken the priesthood and proclaim it loudly. In the next sentence, the subject se sacerd occurs on the right of the particle, and has a generic reading, referring to ‘priest’ in his office of priest. ‘The priest’ here does not refer to a specific person. (21) Forðæm se se ðe ðonne sacerdhad onfehð, he onfehð Because he who that then priesthood undertakes, he undertakes friccan scire & foreryneles ða her iernað beforan kyningum, & herald’s office footmen who here run before kings, & bodigeað hira færelt & hiera willan hlydende. Sua sculun proclaim their journey and their will loudly. So shall ða sacerdas nu faran hlydende & bodiende beforan ðæm the priests now run proclaiming and preaching before the
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egeslican deman ðe him suiðe andrysnlic æfter gæð. Gif awful judge who them very majestically after goes. If ðonne se sacerd bið ðæs ungerad lareowdomes, hwæt forstent then the teacher is unskilled in instruction, what avails ðonne his gehlyd? then his cry?
CP, 15,91,25
‘For he who undertakes the priesthood undertakes the office of herald and footmen who run before kings, loudly proclaiming their journey and will. Thus priests ought to run and proclaim loudly be fore the awful judge, who follows them in great majesty. But if the priest is unskilled in instruction, what avails his cry?’ These examples give us a perspective on the choice between the higher and lower subject position: the higher position is for those definite DP-subjects that refer back specifically to a discourse antecedent. This is possible because the demonstrative pronoun allows specific reference. The lower subject position is for those DP-subjects which are definite but have a generic or otherwise non-specific reading. Van Kemenade, Miliüev and Baayen (2008) offer sophisticated statistical support for the analysis here, in an approach much inspired by Bresnan et.al. (2007). A database was created including all the clauses containing þa/þonne. For the present analysis, it is primarily subclauses that are relevant, as the articulation of the ‘high’ area in main clauses is further complicated by various types of movement to CP. To each NP, numerical values were assigned for discourse-relevant properties, including: NP function (subject, various types of object); NP Type (personal pronoun, weak demonstrative, strong demonstrative, definite NP, indefinite NP etc.); NP position (left periphery, high (left of particle), mid (immediate right of particle), low); specificity (non/specific); distance of antecedent (counted in clauses). The interaction between these factors was calculated in the R open statistical environment (R Development Core team 2004). Summarizing for DP subjects, it is shown that the combination of the four values ‘definite NP’, ‘specific NP’, ‘high position’ and ‘antecedent is present in the discourse’ (less than 3 clauses away) is of the statistically highly significant. Moreover, each of these four values contributes highly significantly to this combination. I take this as strong evidence for the approach outlined here. This allows a number of conclusions. The first and foremost conclusion is that the ‘high’ area, as marked off by the adverb, is reserved for
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discourse-linked material: personal pronouns (subject and object), presuppositional indefinite pronouns, specific definite DP’s. The second conclusion is that this additional layer in the clause is licensed by the presence of the adverb. The third conclusion is that definite DP can establish a discourse link in this high position by virtue of the anaphoric character of the demonstrative pronoun. The final conclusion is that, even in subclauses, the adverb has strong diagnostic value. The general point emerging from this discussion then is that the variety of elements occurring in the high position has been unified under one principled non-syntactically defined term: discourse-linked material. Let us now try to define with some more precision the syntactic properties and structure of this ‘high area’: in particular, let’s consider where we stand now with respect to the partial clausal architecture in (5) above, repeated here for convenience as (22): (22) [CP [XP] C [AgrP PronounSubj/Obj Agr [NegP Neg Adv Neg [TP DPSubj T ... ]]] The discourse-linked domain we have identified here is positionally comparable with AgrP in this structure; the position of the particle þa/þonne corresponds with NegP; the lower subject position corresponds with spec,TP, leaving aside further lower subject positions. I will dub the discourse-linking area ȈP, following Nilsen (2003); van Kemenade and Miliüev (to appear). Ȉ stands for ‘scrambling’, which seems an appropriate characterization of this phenomenon. ȈP then is a high scrambling position, distinct from and higher than the position usually associated with object scrambling in the Germanic languages. Given the generalizations that have been made above concerning discourse linking, the conclusion seems inevitable that the position of þa/þonne is higher than TP: only discourselinked material appears on its left; transitive DP subjects may appear on its right. Next, let’s consider the internal structure of ȈP. It was observed above that up to three personal pronouns may appear here, in a fixed order. A DP subject may also combine with an object pronoun in ȈP, but here, too, the order is: subject DP - object pronoun, as illustrated by (23), showing that within ȈP, the order of subjects and objects is fixed. (23) Gif he wif self hæbbe, gange hio ut mid him. Gif se if he woman self have, go she out with him. If the
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hlaford him þonne wif sealde sie hio & hire bearn þæs hlafordes lord him then woman gave, be she and her children the lord’s. LAW2,28.11.2-3 ‘If he will have the woman himself, she will go with him. Now if the lord gave him the woman, she and her children will belong to the lord.’ If an approach in terms of ‘high’ scrambling is correct, the facts clearly show that it is discourse reference that triggers scrambling. This view is controversial: scrambling is treated by many as syntactic optionality (e.g. Haider 2005). While it is no doubt correct that scrambling is optional in the sense that the syntax allows two positions that can both be chosen, the generalizations about discourse reference here, considered for each example in its broader context, show that scrambling is strongly discoursesensitive. This is in line with Hinterhoelzl (2004) on present-day German. He argues that there are two triggers for scrambling in present-day German: scope and specificity, where specificity is taken to mean that the scrambled constituent is part of a set of referents given in the context. The only circumstance in which an object may appear on the left of a subject then is when an object pronoun is in ȈP, and the (DP)-subject is in a lower position. We have seen several examples of this above, and I repeat (16) here for convenience: (24) gif hine ðonne ðæt fleah mid ealle ofergæð, ðonne ne mæg he noht if him then the albugo with all covers, then not-can he naught geseon. see CP:11.69.17 ‘if it [the pupil of the eye] is entirely covered with albugo, he can not see anything.’ The ordering restrictions summarized here suggest that there are tight syntactic restrictions on movement to ȈP. The fact that a DP-object cannot move to ȈP suggests a minimality effect: movement is blocked by an intervening subject in spec,TP, cf. Miliüev (in prep). This also explains why dative experiencers (as exemplified in (17) above) can prepose to the discourse-linked area: the constructions in which they feature involve unaccusative verbs, so that there is no nominative subject in Spec,TP. This raises the question why an object pronoun can cross a subject in Spec,TP. I assume, following Miliüev (in prep) that object pronouns undergo syntactic
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cliticization (adjunction) to the head of ȈP. This enables us to revise (22) as (25): (25) [ȈP d-linked subject [Ȉ (obj pro) [Ȉ (obj pro) [TP]]] The structure (25) does not specify what the status of the adverb is with respect to ȈP. One possibility here, in line with Aboh’s (2004; 2006) treatment of Gungbe, is to say that the adverb is the head of ȈP, and thus licenses an extra position available for scrambling. Another possibility is that the adverb is itself a scrambled element, moving to ȈP in order to anchor the clause by referring back to a point in time pre-established in the discourse. I would for the moment like to remain neutral on these possibilities, leaving the answer for further research into the discourse context in Old English, and the role of discourse-markers cross-linguistically. 4.2. The position of the finite verb A question left unaddressed so far is how the various positions under discussion here relate to the position of the finite verb in sub-clauses. We can safely say that appearance of the finite verb in ȈP is rare. Starting from table 2 above, repeated here as table 4, occurrence of the finite verb on the left of þa/þonne is given in table 5 (only subject-initial patterns have been included, as the finite verb never appears on the left of the particle when the subject is lower). For the sake of comparison, I provide Table 6 with the same patterns in root clauses (restricting the search to subject-initial root clauses, although the position of the subject in subject-initial root clauses is almost certainly higher than ȈP in at least a number of cases). Table 4. Subject - þa/þonne order in Old English sub-clauses
Old English subclauses Left of þa/þonne Right of þa/þonne
Pronominal subjects 1250 5
DP subjects 293 419
Table 5. Subject - finite verb - þa/þonne order in Old English sub-clauses
Old English subclauses Left of þa/þonne Subject-Vf- þa/þonne
Pronominal subjects 1250 53 (4.2%)
DP subjects 293 46 (15.7%)
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Table 6. Subject - finite verb - þa/þonne order in Old English main clauses
Old English root clauses Left of þa/þonne Subject-Vf- þa/þonne
Pronominal subjects
DP subjects
2533 629 (34.6%)
1817 392 (21.6%)
It should be noted that the numbers for incidence of the finite verb in Ȉ in table 5, low as they are, are still flattered. Many of the examples included in these numbers occur in embedded root environments (complements of bridge verbs, non-restrictive relatives, clauses introduced by ‘because’ as exemplified in (26))8: (26) Ĉæt is swelce he hæbbe befæsð his hond oðrum menn, ðonne that is as if he have committed his hand other men, when he gebint hine selfne to him mid his wordum ðæt he sceal he binds himself to him with his words that he shall niede ða giemenne & ða geornfulnesse ymb ðone habban ðe necessarily the care and the zeal about him have whom he ær ne ðorfte forðæm he hine hæfð ðonne gehæftne he before not needed, because he him has then held mid his agnum wordum with his own words
CP:28.193.7.1283
‘It is like committing his hand to another, when he binds himself to him with his words that he will necessarily be careful and zealous about him for whom it was not necessary before, because he holds him with his own words, … When embedded root environments are left out of account, the figures are very low indeed. Another piece of evidence that the finite verb does not feature in ȈP is that the presence of a high object pronoun is apparently incompatible with finite verb placement. In the 51 cases in which an object pronoun appears on the left of the particle, either alone or in combination with a subject, the finite verb does not occur on the left of the particle. The evidence suggests then that our scrambling area is reserved for arguments. If our scrambling area is for discourse-linked material as demon-
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strated, an interesting way of putting it may be that verbs are not discourselinked. It will be intriguing to pursue this perspective, especially because it potentially provides a novel perspective on the discussion of verb placement, but I will resist that temptation, which would take me far beyond the scope of this article, and will have to be left for further research, including cross-linguistic research. The numbers in tables 5 and 6 also raise interesting questions about finite verb movement in root clauses. Although the incidence of finite verb movement as evident from table 6 is higher than in non-root clauses, the number is not nearly a high as we might expect on the basis of the overall picture we have of finite verb movement in root clauses, suggesting that here, too, it will be highly relevant to consider discourse-linking in more detail. However, our findings for ȈP in sub-clauses cannot be straightforwardly extended to root clauses, as the left periphery of root clauses is obscured by a range of clause typing strategies as in e.g. questions and non-subject-initial clauses, to name but a few. The picture is fraught with evidential problems and this, too, must be left for further research.
5.
Diachronic developments
In this section, I will attempt to put the findings so far in a diachronic perspective. I will first outline this perspective as a hypothesis, and then fill in the evidence as far as it will take us at this stage. The starting point is, on the one hand, the analysis of Old English as presented here, and, on the other hand, a consensus view of present-day English syntax. The latter consists simply of the observation that present-day English is SVO, has a designated functional position for auxiliaries, and shows only some relic features in main clauses of a stage where it had more than one subject position. In discourse terms, the rigid SVO structure of present-day English encodes the subject as the unmarked topic. The evidence presented below shows the following surface changes: (27)
a. b. c. d.
the loss of the discourse partitioning function of þa/þonne the loss of high object pronouns the loss of the demonstrative pronoun paradigm increase of Vf-adverb order
The changes in (27) evidence a loss of the elements that determined the discourse flexibility of Old English. Let’s consider them briefly in turn.
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The loss of the discourse particle function of þa/þonne and the loss of high object pronouns: the transition to Middle English shows a very marked decrease in the use of þa/þonne in absolute numbers. Discounting clauseinitial and conjunction uses of the adverbs, the Old English search file contains some 2.500 instances of þa/þonne in sub-clauses. The Middle English search file has about 180. Given this sharp drop in frequency, it is questionable whether the discourse marker function of the adverb would have been represented in the language environment robustly enough to remain learnable as a discourse marker. Apart from this, as discussed in van Kemenade and Los (2006), the evidence for the empirical generalizations established above for Old English has dwindled in Middle English. There are only two examples of object pronouns on the left of þa/þonne, both in combination with a subject, and both in one of the earliest Middle English texts. These facts seem to warrant the conclusion that, at least in sub-clauses, the subject has become the unmarked topic. Going back from Middle English to Old English, and assuming that object pronouns on the left of the particle are a feature of the discourse organization discussed here for Old English, it is interesting to note that there appears to be some change in the Old English period already. When comparing the corpus of Alfredian texts (9th century) with that of the texts by Ælfric and Wulfstan (10th century), it turns out that of the total number, about 75% of the high object pronouns is in the earlier texts. The loss of the demonstrative pronoun paradigm: as discussed above, Old English demonstrative pronouns were an interclausal tracking device par excellence. They functioned as relative pronouns, had independent pronominal reference, and in their use as definiteness markers also allowed specific reference to a discourse antecedent. Demonstrative pronouns were a relatively early victim of case loss, earliest in the East and North. Smith (1996) discusses the collapse of the paradigm in the first and final continuations of the Peterborough Chronicle (North-east Midlands, 1130– 1154), and notes speakers’ attempts to restructure the system, a certain sign of its demise. The increase of Vf-adverb order: it was noted above that the finite verb is not a welcome guest in ȈP: the numbers of Vf-adverb order in the subclause are quite low. Here again, there is already some development within the Old English period. About two thirds of the Vf/þa/þonne word orders are from 10th century, which means that between the late 9th and late 10th centuries, the incidence of Vf-adverb order has been doubled. This devel-
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opment is continued in the transition to Middle English. In table 7, the figures are presented for Vf-Adverb order with nominal and pronominal subjects, for the first two sub-periods of Middle English, M1 (AD 11501250) and M2 (AD 1250-1350). Given the low numbers for the Middle English variants of þa/þonne, I expanded the search to all temporal adverbs. Table 7. Subject-finite verb-temporal adverb order in early Middle English
ME subclauses M1 M2
S pro-Vf-Adv 121/484 25.5% 42/75 56 %
S DP-Vf-Adv 54/140 38,5 % 14/24 58,3 %
Table 7 shows a very striking fact: by the M2 period, there are no patterns to suggest that nominal and pronominal subjects are different in subclauses (though there still are major asymmetries in main clauses). Put differently: while the evidence for the discourse particle status of þa/þonne had already dwindled in the M1 period, by the M2 period, all evidence for ȈP in sub-clauses had disappeared. On the evidence from sub-clauses, there would be no reason to assume an analysis other than one in which the subject is licensed in Spec, TP, the finite verb in T, with the adverb merged below T. In this respect, the left periphery of sub-clauses is simplified earlier than that of main clauses. I interpret this development as the loss of high scambling, which took place earlier in sub-clauses than in main clauses. The result of this loss is that the adverb comes to be merged below T. Note that this does not require a very drastic reanalysis: the patterns in the Old English discourse-flexible grammar with ȈP on the left of an adverb functioning as a discourse partitioner, are not incompatible with the more rigid syntax of M2, in which the position of subject and verb is well on the way to becoming regulated in TP. The positions for subjects do not change drastically either: in the Old English ȈP, subjects could readily occur as continued topics. What is lost in the transition to Middle English is the ingredients necessary for a discourse-flexible grammar: the discourse partitioning function of a number of adverbs, and the articulate paradigm of demonstrative pronouns which yields an inter-clausal tracking device for a wider range of subjects. Discourse takes what is made available by the syntax.
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Notes 1.
2.
3. 4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
I thank Tanja Miliüev and Elizabeth Traugott for helpful discussion of the issues in this paper. Thanks also to the editors of this volume for their patience, constructive comments, and help. The references follow the system of short titles as employed in Healey and Venezky (1985 [1980]) (in turn based on the system of Mitchell, Ball and Cameron (1975, 1979)) Haeberli (1999) dubs SpecAgrP a subject1 position and Spec,TP a Subject2 position. But the “PronounSubj/Obj” position hosts object pronouns as well. Haeberli and Ingham (2007) rightly draw attention to the problem for subclauses. But most of their analysis is devoted to showing that in early Middle English, the position of the adverb is lower than T, drawing on evidence from the relative positioning of adverb and finite verb. I will refrain from taking their detailed argument into account, first, because their account has nothing to say on the motivation for the choice of subject position, except to stipulate that pronouns are high; second, they ignore the fact that nominal subjects readily appear on the right of the adverb; third, their word order evidence is based broadly on adverbs generally, which renders a comparison with two specific adverbs in Old English problematic; fourth, their word order evidence on finite verb position cannot be replicated for Old English in relation to þa/þonne. Finally, their evidence for early Middle English implies a discontinuity between Old and Middle English that is of a magnitude hard to imagine. Note that the set of elements identified here suggest a considerable overlap with their present-day German cousins, which in the literature are called modal particles. The meanings described in the literature for German (e.g. Thurmair 1991) are in some respects akin. A detailed semantic study of Old English particles is beyond our scope here and is left for further research; note that the claim made here goes no further than to say that these adverbs separate discourse domains. As far as I have been able to trace in the literature, this makes their behaviour different from that of modal particles in present-day German. There is a further and rather intriguing set of counterexamples, all involving the impersonal subject pronoun man. This is discussed in detail in Miliüev (in prep). I refrain here from discussion of the properties of the impersonal pronoun man. The reader is referred to van Kemenade and Miliüev (2005) and Miliüev (in prep). I leave it for further research to work out the precise numbers, which requires hand-correction of the search files from YCOE.
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References Aboh, Enoch Oladé 2004 The Morphosyntax of Complement-head Sequences. Clause structure and word order pattern in Kwa. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006 Complementation in Saramaccan and Gungbe: The case of c-type modal particles. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24 (1): 1– 55. Allen, Cynthia 1995 Case Marking and Reanalysis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bech, Kristin 2001 Word order patterns in Old and Middle English: A syntactic and pragmatic study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Bergen. Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward 1998 Information Status and Canonical Word Order in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Bobaljik, Jonathan and Dianne Jonas 1996 Subject positions and the roles of TP. Linguistic Inquiry 27 (2): 195– 236. Bobaljik, Jonathan, and Höskuldur Thráinsson 1998 Two heads aren’t always better than one. Syntax 1 (1): 37–71. Bresnan, Joan, Anna Cueni, Tatiana Nikitina and Harald Baayen 2007 Predicting the dative alternation. In Cognitive Foundations of Interpretation, eds. Gerlof Bouma, Irene Kraemer and Joost Zwarts, 69– 94. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brinton, Laurel 2006 Pathways in the development of pragmatic markers in English. In The Handbook of the History of English, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, 307–334. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. Cardinaletti, Anna and Ian Roberts 2002 Reprint. Clause structure and X-second. In Functional Structure in DP and IP: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures. Vol. I, ed. Guglielmo Cinque, 123–166. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Original Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Cardinaletti, Anna and Michal Starke 1996 Deficient pronouns: A view from Germanic. A study in the unified description of Germanic and Romance. In Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax. Vol. II, eds. Höskuldur Thráinsson, Samuel David Epstein and Steve Peter, 21–65. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Denison, David 2006 Category change and gradience in the determiner system. In The Handbook of the History of English, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, 279–304. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman and Wim van der Wurff 2000 The Syntax of Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haeberli, Eric 1999 Features, categories and the syntax of A-positions. Synchronic and diachronic variation in the Germanic languages. Doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva. Haeberli, Eric and Richard Ingham 2007 The position of negation and adverbs in Early Middle English. Lingua 117: 1–25. Haider, Hubert 2005 How to turn German into Icelandic – and derive the OV-VO contrasts. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 8 (1-2): 1–53. Healey, Antoinette Dipaolo and Richard Venezky 1985 A Microfiche Concordance to Old English. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. [1980] Hinterhölzl, Roland 2004 Scrambling, optionality and non-lexical triggers. In Triggers, eds. Anne Breitbarth and Henk van Riemsdijk, 173–204. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kato, Kozo 1995 The interjection la and subject pronouns in Old English. Linguistics and Philology 15: 23–40. Kemenade, Ans van 1987 Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris. 1997 V2 and Embedded Topicalization in Old and Middle English. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, 326–352. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999 Sentential negation and clause structure in Old English. In Negation in the History of English, eds. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Gunnel Tottie and Wim van der Wurff, 147–165. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2000 Jespersen’s cycle revisited: Formal properties of grammaticalization. In Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, eds. Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas and Anthony Warner, 51–74. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Kemenade, Ans van and Tanja Miliüev 2005 Syntax and discourse in Old English and Middle English word order. In Articles from the 8th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference, eds. Steven Anderson and Dianne Jonas. To appear with Oxford University Press.
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Kemenade, Ans van and Bettelou Los 2006 Discourse Adverbs and Clausal Syntax in Old and Middle English. In The Handbook of the History of English, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, 224–248. Oxford: Blackwell. Kemenade, Ans van, Tanja Miliüev and R. Harald Baayen 2008 The balance between discourse and syntax in Old and Middle English. In English Historical Linguistics 2006. Vol. I: Syntax and Morphology, eds. Marina Dossena and Maurizio Gotti. 3–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kroch, Anthony and Ann Taylor 2000 Verb-object order in Early Middle English. In Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, eds. Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas and Anthony Warner, 132–163. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Miliüev, Tanja in prep. Discourse linking in Old English. Doctoral dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen. Mitchell, Bruce, Catherine Ball and Angus Cameron (eds.) 1975 Short titles of Old English texts. Anglo-Saxon England 4: 207–221. 1979 Addenda and corrigenda. Anglo-Saxon England 8: 331–333. Nilsen, Øystein 2003 Eliminating Positions: Syntax and Semantics of Sentential Modification. LOT dissertations 73. Pintzuk, Susan 1991 Phrase structures in competition: variation and change in Old English word order. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Pintzuk, Susan and Ann Taylor 2006 The loss of OV order in the history of English. In The Handbook of the History of English, eds. Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, 249–279. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. R Development Core Team 2004 R: a language and environment for statistical computing. http://R-project.org. Rizzi, Luigi 1997 The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax, ed. Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Taylor, Ann 2000 The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English 2. University of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Linguistics.
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Taylor, Ann, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk and Frank Beths 2003 The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. York: Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York. Available through the Oxford Text Archive. Taylor, Ann and Wim van der Wurff (eds.) 2005 Aspects of OV and VO word order in the history of English. English Language and Linguistics 9 (1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thurmair, Maria 1991 Kombinieren Sie doch nur ruhig auch mal Modalpartikeln. Combinatorial regularities for modal particles and their use as an instrument of analysis. Multilingua 10: 19–42.
Methodological problems of the information-structural analysis of data from historical text corpora
On the methods of information-structural analysis in historical texts: A case study on Old High German Svetlana Petrova and Michael Solf
1. Introduction It is an undisputable fact that information-structural research made considerable advance in the past few decades by exploring a wide range of phenomena in the systems of present-day languages spoken worldwide. Historical linguistics has also been interested in the matter of how old languages attempt to achieve the needs of communicative explicitness and stylistic expressivity. Leaving aside a huge variety of accounts within the ancient and medieval grammar tradition, even more recent descriptive works on the grammar of the ancient languages give direct or at least implicit accounts of grammatical phenomena which correlate with properties of contextual reference and pragmatics in these languages. It is most revealing that one of the earliest works that influenced the emergency of what we call ‘Functional Sentence Perspective’ or ‘Information Structure’ today, the seminal work of Henri Weil ([1844] 31879), was dedicated to the sentence structure of ancient Greek and Latin which he regarded as a reflection of the natural flow of thoughts both in conditions of neutral as well as emphatic speech. In more recent times, information-structural features are still a key to the proper understanding of historical text sources. Taking as an example the role of information structure for the interpretation of Biblical Hebrew texts and Old Hebrew narratives, only within a short period of time a series of monographs like those by Disse (1998), Heimerdinger (1999) and Floor (2004) appeared. As for the early Germanic languages, properties of the information-structural organization of the utterance have regularly been addressed in earlier studies aiming at explaining word order variation and verb placement. Accounts like those of Bean (1983) and Stockwell (1984) on Old English syntax have drawn a connection between the pragmatic features of sentence constituents and their placement in the structure of the clause, while in Hopper’s (1979a and b) typological account, different word order patterns in Old English are directly associated with properties of discourse organization, namely with the function of distinguishing parts
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of foregrounding vs. backgrounding in narratives. Similar attempts are found in the syntactic exploration of the remaining early Germanic languages as well. As early as in the accounts on the syntax of Old Saxon by Ries (1880: 1–11) or Old High German (OHG) by Behaghel (1932, IV: 3– 9), among many others, the distribution of different word order patterns involves terms and concepts which from the perspective of modern linguistics clearly pertain to the field of information structure and discourse analysis. Meanwhile, information structure has started to be taken into account as a factor responsible for the emergency of novel word order patterns and constructions and thus introducing variation as a precondition of language change in the course of language development, cf. Hinterhölzl (2004, in this volume). This view opens new perspectives on the explanation of word order variation and syntactic change in language history. Given the considerable advance in recent studies on information structure, there is a demand for a more systematic, large-scale description of the information-structural properties of sentence constituents and their syntactic realization in early Germanic. As promising as it seems, such an enterprise is concerned with a series of methodological problems and questions which have to be addressed prior to any information-structural analysis of a historical text. The present paper aims at providing a method of dealing with information-structural questions on the basis of evidence from OHG and reflects the experience of a research project investigating the role of information structure for the development of the word order regularities in the Germanic languages.1 Problems arising in dealing with information structure in a text from a historic corpus can broadly be classified into two major groups. The first one concerns the quality of the written data available to us, i.e. the reliability of the written text sources as well as the authenticity of the constructions and patterns provided in them. The second problem concerns the information-structural analysis proper, i.e. how to handle the huge variety of theoretical notions and terminological items used in present day’s research and how to apply them to data from historic corpora.
2. The philological issue Any research on syntax and information structure in a historical text has to address the reliability of its data base, i.e. the question whether the word order patterns and syntactic constructions provided in the written texts
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sources are representative for the system of the language under investigation. In this respect, OHG displays an especially difficult ground for any conclusions on syntax, as was also recently shown by Fleischer (2006). The major part of the Old High German corpus is made up by two types of texts: i) vernacular translations of Latin biblical or other religious sources (Isidor (late 8th century), Tatian (9th century), Notker (11th century)) as well as ii) metrical poetry (the poetic Gospel Harmony of Otfrid von Weißenburg, 9th century). In both types of texts, it cannot be excluded that the ordering of sentence constituents is subject to influences imposed either by the syntax of the Latin original or by the properties of the poetic form like rhyme and metre. Therefore, we have to conclude that none of the Old High German sources of a considerable size may be viewed as a good example of authentic prose representative for the system of the dialects spoken at the period of time. For this reason, prior to the syntactic investigation of OHG, some methodological solutions are required. Let us analyse in more detail the specific problems that the individual sources of the Old High German corpus display and consider texts that can be assumed to be more appropriate for the purpose of the intended study than others. E.g., Otfrid’s Gospel harmony, the only poetic record among the more extensive ones, has been viewed to display structures and other grammatical phenomena explainable only with respect to the purposes of end rhyme and metre (cf. Ingenbleek 1880, Fleischer 2006: 35–37). Looking at the translations, there are above all two records of a considerable size: the so called Old High German Tatian and Notker’s extensive work. Both expose the problem of Latin influence, and in addition to that, Notker’s work is simply too young to draw conclusions from it on the earliest stages of the syntax of OHG. The remaining text, the Old High German Tatian translation, is a record of a most disputed quality with respect to syntactic analysis, while in the fields of phonology and morphology, it has helped tremendously to shape our view on OHG. This Gospel harmony, which only survived as one single manuscript (St. Gallen Cod. 56), represents the largest Old High German text written before 850, a translation from the Latin, a bilingual source which provides the original and its translation in two juxtaposed columns. Due to the fact that a comparison of the Old High German text with the Latin source is immediately possible, an overwhelming syntactic similarity between the Latin source and its Old High German translation is visible at once. Consider the example in (1) in which the Old High German sentence follows the structure of its Latin original without any exception:
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Svetlana Petrova and Michael Solf
inti quamun fugala inti frazun thiu (T 108, 2) and came birds and ate them ‘and birds came and ate them’ & uenerunt uolucres & comederunt ea
Given this, many philologists including Sievers (1895:LXX) classified Tatian as a “slavish imitation of the original” which is worthless for any account on syntax. This general skepticism is furthermore fed by the fact that we discover a number of syntactic loan constructions all over the text of Tatian. This becomes particularly clear when it comes to the translation of participial constructions typical for the Latin like the ablativus absolutus. The scribes quite often imitate it by an Old High German dativus absolutus, a construction which is viewed to be a syntactic loan occurring in Old High German translations only, rather than in native writings (cf. Lühr 2005): (2)
fon erdu skeffun / forlazenen Inti árleitten to earthdat shipsdat forsaken and broughtpart allen folg&un imo (T 56, 11–12) all followed him & subductis a terra nauibus / relictis omnibus.’ secuti sunt eum; ‘And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.’
This might sound discouraging for any further work on the syntax of Tatian. However, investigations on other aspects of the language of Tatian, as the use of subject pronouns (cf. Eggenberger 1961) or the rendering of AcI-construction of the Latin original (Dentschewa 1987), show that the Old High German text does not in each case imitate the original but systematically implements different means of expression, therefore displaying some genuine features constitutive for OHG. Accordingly, Eggenberger (1961: 87) classifies the Tatian as a kind of ‘mixed form’ placing it between the type of interlinear translations like the Old High German Benedictine Rule and free translations like Isidor. As far as word order is concerned, as early as in the investigation by Ruhfus (1897) it has been noted, that there are numerous instances in which the Old High German text deviates from the structure of the underlying original. Ruhfus explicitly bases his analysis on such cases pointing out that these are appropriate for research on syntax:
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“dass eine untersuchung der wortstellung des ahd. Tatian […] bei all seiner sklavischen abhängigkeit von der lateinischen vorlage ebenso beachtenswerte ergebnisse liefern muss, wie gleiche untersuchungen an der freien und gewandten übersetzung des Isidor oder an der dichtung Otfrids, wenn man sich nur auf eine zusammenstellung der abweichungen des ahd. vom lat. beschränkt und daraus schlüsse zieht.” ‘that an investigation of the word order of the OHG Tatian [...] despite all his slavish dependency on the Latin original ought to give remarkable results as much as similar investigations of the more free and elegant translation of Isidor or of the poetic work of Otfrid, if one only considers the collection of deviations of the OHG from the Lat. and draws conclusions from it.’ (Ruhfus 1897: 1)
In more recent times, Dittmer and Dittmer (1998) also provide a syntactic analysis of the Old High German Tatian based on instances of word order differences to the original. As a methodological pre-condition, they assume that such instances are to be taken as evidence for authentic Old High German syntax: “In the first place, only those instances which differ from the original can be taken as evidence for genuine Old High German word order.”(“Beweiskräftig für genuin althochdeutsche Wortstellung sind in erster Linie nur die von der Vorlage abweichenden Belege.”) (Dittmer and Dittmer 1998: 36). The idea that research on word order in OHG is possible on the basis of examples showing a word order which differs with respect to the original is supported by new insights into the translation technique of this text provided by Masser (1994). He discovers that each line in the Old High German text translates exactly the same material found in the corresponding Latin line. Among thousands of lines we only find relatively few cases neglecting this principle, and the majority of them are found on the few pages contributed by scribe İ2. Astonishingly, this point seems to have passed unnoticed until recently: the former authoritative edition of Sievers (1892) at least and others did not pay the necessary attention to this. Studies on word order ignoring the role of this translation principle threaten to base their conclusions on false premises. The translation technique implemented in Tatian certainly imposes restrictions on the possibility of rendering a genuine word order pattern to the structures found in the original, cf. Masser (1997a and b). But at the same time, deviations from the word order of the Latin text within a line can be valued as evidence of genuine syntax and thus be made an object of separate investigation. Under these conditions, the text of the Old High German Tatian may be considered as one of the most abundant data collections for research on
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Old High German syntax, as recently shown by Fleischer, Hinterhölzl and Solf (2008). The fact that we can make direct comparison with the Latin part is an especially helpful device to take control over the influence of the Latin structure. These considerations motivate our decision to base our data collection and initial investigations on syntactically deviating structures of Tatian. This should not imply that we simply assume that the remaining texts are unsuitable for an account on syntax. We are aware that data from other sources is needed for comparison, and we strongly appreciate the efforts of other specialists to provide methods of dealing with these texts as well, cf. the contributions by Lühr, Lötscher and Schlachter in this volume. In the following, we want to provide a classification of the different types of deviations encountered in Tatian according to the edition of Masser (1994).3Altogether we find several thousands of relevant instances, an amazingly high number of significant divergences from the word order of the Latin original. We first consider the frequent changes within the boundaries of syntactic constituents and then turn to changes which surpass the constituent boundary.
2.1. Changes within the constituents An outstandingly great number of divergences take place within the boundaries of syntactic constituents. This is the case when different types of modifiers, e.g. adjectives, possessive pronouns or genitive attributes, which are post-nominal in Latin are realized pre-nominally in OHG, cf. (3): (3)
uuard gifullit heilages geistes (T 31, 9–10) was filled holygen spiritgen ‘was filled by the Holy Spirit’ Impl&us est spiritu sancto
Concerning issues of information structure and discourse organization, the regular use of the demonstrative pronoun as an article appears to be a notable feature, cf. (4): (4)
kneht uuvohs (T 32, 6) ther the boy grew ‘the boy grew’ puer autem crescebat
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2.2. Changes involving the order of constituents in the sentence Changes affecting the relative order of sentence constituents are especially important for issues of word order and information structure. Here we can roughly distinguish the following cases: i) a constituent missing in the original is inserted in the translation; ii) the relative order of constituents is changed with respect to the original; iii) the translation differs from the original in providing an idiomatic, more precise expression, or it even provides supplementary information. An important subgroup is constituted by instances of Latin synthetic forms which lack a synthetic counterpart in OHG. Although the process is confined to the verb phrase, and strictly speaking not surpassing the constituent boundary, too, the translator(s) had to dissolve the form into an analytic construction and had to decide on the placement of the finite auxiliary with respect to the non-finite verb. As examples (5) and (6) show, both orders, i.e. Aux – Participle and Participle – Aux, occur in Tatian: (5)
thaz uuari gifullit (T 34, 27) that became fulfilled ‘that it might be fulfilled’ ut adimpler&ur
(6)
thiu dar giquetan ist which there called is ‘which is called Ephrem quæ dicitur ephrem
ephrem (T 234, 27) Ephrem
2.2.1. Insertion Different types of constituents lacking a lexical equivalent in the original are inserted in the vernacular texts, e.g. subject pronouns (7)4, object pronouns (8), adverbials (9), and finite verb forms (10): (7)
hab& giloubon (T 200, 12) oba ir if you have faith ‘if you were true believers’ si habueritis fidem
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(8)
thó antlingota imo then answered him ‘then the Saviour answered’ Respondit ihesus
ther the
heilant (T 52, 30) Saviour
(9)
Inti só sie thó ubar and when they there over ‘and when they crossed there’ Et cum transfr&assent
feritun (T 20, 17) went
(10)
Inti Ira namo uuas elisab&h (T 26, 2) and her name was Elisabeth ‘and her name was Elisabeth’ & nomen eius elisab&h
In addition, we also find instances where Latin constituents, especially particles, are not given an equivalent in the translation, cf. lat. ergo in (11): (11)
thane thú tuos elimosinam (T 66, 29) when you do charity ‘when you do charity’ cum facies elimosinam ergo
2.2.2. Transposition For investigations of the conditions on word order the regular transposition of constituents are of the greatest importance. Foremost, the placement of the finite verb is of special interest in this connection. The finite verb may be shifted to the first (12), second (13) or a later position (14) within the sentence: (12)
hant In then heilant anan (T 297, 20) Inti legitum iro and laid their hands in the Saviour on ‘and laid their hands on the Saviour’ & manus iniecerunt In ihesum
(13)
elisab&h uuas unberenti (T 26, 7) Elisabeth was barren ‘Elisabeth was barren’ ess& elisab&h sterilis
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quamun / zi themo heilante came to the Saviour ‘and when the apostles came to the Saviour’ Et cum uenissent apostoli / ad ihesum (T 102, 29–30)
mitthiu
thie postoli
when
these messengers
Good evidence for authentic structures is especially given in the following two cases. First, multiple changes may indicate that the translator paid more attention to the stylistic quality of his translation. The more is changed, the more we ought to assume, that an authentic structure is expressed. Cf. (15) where the transposition of the copula sint is being accompanied by the insertion of the subject pronoun sie: (15)
sie sint blinte inti blintero they are blind and blind-GenPl ‘They are blind and leaders of the blind’ caeci sunt duces cecorum
leitidon (T 128,14) leaders
The second group contains the cases of transpositions violating the line boundary: (16)
ih ni / haben diuual (T 219, 8–9) I Neg-have devil ‘I don’t have the devil’ ego demonium / non habeo
The authenticity of the transposition in this example is being confirmed by the fact that the scribe neglects the line boundary, which strongly violates the main translational principle of this text. Otherwise, whereas this example prima facie indeed points at a certain freedom in translating the Latin, there are other cases where the violation of the line boundary is not an intended means: it might have been for reasons of space or simple carelessness5 as well. The mere consistency of the translation with respect to the line-for-line principle might lead to the conclusion that every single case of its violation has to be of particular value. However, this is not always the case, for instance, when the Latin word is divided by the line boundary and the scribe was forced to decide where to chain up the translation: (17)
Intj / uûizagon sint ouh and prophets are also ‘and the prophets are dead as well’ & pro / ph&tæ mortui sunt
tote (T 219, 23–24) dead
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A higher degree of certainty is only possible by comparing similar instances.
2.2.3. Free translations Considering the limited freedom of the translation some regularly occurring instances are especially remarkable which show constructions with a sense more or less diverging from the original. We may assume, that the Old High German expression grants a better understanding and is therefore preferred to a word for word translation. As evidence for authentic OHG they are of a particular high value. Example (18) shows, that the range of changes may go as far as to forming of a relative clause without a Latin counterpart: (18)
hiez fon theru burg thiu of the city which is-named ‘out of the city, which was called Nazareth’ de ciuitate nazar&h
nazar&h (T 35, 15) Nazareth
In (19), the subject gotes engil is related to a new finite verb quam, which the translator preferred to the possible literal equivalent inti senonu engil gotes gistuont nah in: (19)
Inti gistuont nâh in quam thara gotes engil came there gods angel and stood near him ‘there the angel of god came and stood near them’ & ecce angelus domini st&it Iuxta illos (T 35, 32)
Finally, example (20) demonstrates a Latin participle construction formed into a temporal subordinate clause: (20)
thaz gihorta herodes ther cuning (T 39, 17) thô when that heard Herod the king ‘when Herod the king heard that’ audiens autem herodes rex
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2.3. Some doubtful cases The different instances of divergences require an interpretation within the respective context. It is sure, for example, that single divergences do not always guarantee the authenticity of the whole sentence. Example (21) provides a transposition of constituents within the absolute construction. As we stated above, this kind of construction represents a syntactic loan, and therefore it is misleading to assume an authentic Old High German example in this case: (21)
In Inti Inphanganemo antuuvrte answerdat in and recieveddat ‘and having received the answer in a dream’ & responso accepto In somnis
troume (T 40, 20) dream
The structure in (22) provides us with another interesting example of the difficult approach to Latin participle constructions. Despite of the transposition of the object pronoun and the dissolution of the Latin passive infinitive the translation here follows the original accusativum cum infinitivo by risking to make the whole sentence incomprehensible: (22)
uuenan her uuolti Inan genemnitan uuesan (T 30, 29) wantedsubj heakk namedakk be whoakk he ‘*whom he would him have called’ / ‘how he would have him called’ quem uell& uocari eum
As a source for Old High German syntax this example is at least of a doubtful quality. It mixes up features of a different origin: while the subject pronoun is being inserted and the object pronoun is being transposed, oddly enough the accusative of the interrogative pronoun is being kept, and the accusativum cum infinitivo that is maintained transpires the character of a Latin sentence. To conclude, superficial decisions about the authenticity of syntactic structures in Old High German sources risk to ignore the multiple problems connected with the way the corpus is handed down to us. As has been demonstrated for the case of the Old High German Tatian, the possibility of comparing the translation with its original definitively supports the search for authentic syntactic structures.
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3. The theoretical issue The second type of methodological problems in need of clarification concerns the information-structural analysis in texts from historical corpora. This question itself involves two aspects to be discussed separately. The first one concerns the conceptual and terminological determination of the information-structural categories. As information structure involves some of the most controversial issues in today’s linguistic research, we have to cope with a number of different notions and terminological expressions for the main categories like topic and focus. Second, we have to look for a way of identifying these categories in texts which are available in written form only, thus offering little clues to the prosodic realization of the utterance.
3.1. The definition of information-structural categories Most researchers agree on the notion that information structure concerns the formal realization of an utterance according to the context as well as to the state of informedness of the interlocutors (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 6). It is also well known that information structure manifests itself in a variety of domains, such as phonology, morphology and syntax, though the utilization of formal means marking information-structural properties strongly differs from language to language. On a par with the great diversity of formal means used to express information-structural properties on different levels of language structure, current research on information structure is characterized by a great number of theoretical approaches to the explanation of the central notions in question which has led to a considerable amount of conceptual and terminological divergence and confusion, cf. Musan (2002: 202–208). Literally every notion or feature that has been proposed as relevant to information structure is subject to debate and exhaustive discussion in the literature, and there is no agreement on the definition of any category that has been proposed to capture information-structural properties in language. In fact, this situation points at the immense complexity of information structure as a linguistic phenomenon. An approach that promises to yield good results in capturing all relevant aspects of information packaging should therefore aim at isolating different functional dimensions of information structure into which a more precisely defined inventory of categories may be applied. Such an approach was proposed by Molnár (1993) and adopted for the information-structural analysis of both modern and extinct
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languages, e.g. by Zybatow (1999) for Russian or by Disse (1998) for Biblical Hebrew. Adopting this approach, we assume that there are at least three functional layers on which properties related to information structure have to be distinguished: i.
ii.
iii.
the pragmatic status of sentence constituents, i.e. the distinction between given vs. new information in discourse as seen in the classical opposition of theme vs. rheme the predicational structure of the utterance allowing for a bipartite division of the sentence into a starting point, or topic of the utterance and a predication, or comment on this topic the distinction of focus vs. background in terms of communicative weight or relevance for the development of the discourse.
These layers of information structure are viewed to function independently in language but to interact with one another thus yielding the full picture of the information-structural shaping of an utterance. Decomposing information structure and creating a multi-layered model in the way proposed by Molnár (1993) and Krifka (2007) bears substantial consequences for the understanding of the information-structural categories and their proper description in theory. First, and contrary to a common assumption in previous literature, topic and focus need not to be mutually exclusive but are allowed to overlap as they pertain to different layers of informationstructural segmentation. Furthermore, a model like this offers a way to avoid the common practice of identifying the topic of an utterance with the contextually given information as well as of restricting focus to new information only. In this sense, the segmental approach provides the basic scheme for a more fine-grained analysis of the information-structural value of individual parts of an utterance. It allows for the assignment of a broad variety of information-structural features as well as for the evaluation of how different combinations of features influence the positioning of constituents in the clause. As shall become clear later, such a cumulative approach is of inestimable value for the information-structural analysis of sentence constituents in text from historical corpora. Nevertheless, the explanation and the catalogue of categories that make up the functional dimensions of information structure in the model given above are far from being unproblematic and unquestionable. The following elaboration gives an overview over the most relevant concepts concerning the information-structural categories as well as over some main points in the discussion on them in current research.
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3.1.1. Given vs. New Starting with the distinction between given vs. new information in a sentence, it may appear that the assignment of these categories is the most unproblematic one in analysing information structure in a running text of the historic corpus of a language. However, the discussion provided in Prince (1981: 225–232), among many others, points at the different aspects these notions have acquired in literature as well as at some considerable problems in applying them to natural data: – given vs. new in the sense of shared knowledge: given is the information that the speaker believes the listener already knows and accepts as true, whereas new is that information which the speaker believes that the listener does not yet know, cf. Clark and Haviland (1977: 4) – given vs. new in the sense of cognitive activation/salience: “Given (or old) information is that knowledge that the speaker assumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the utterance. So-called new information is what the speaker assumes he is introducing into the addressee’s consciousness by what he says.”, cf. Chafe (1976: 30) – given vs. new in the sense of predictability/recoverability: “An element in a sentence represents old, predictable information if it is recoverable from the preceding context; if it is not recoverable, it represents new, unpredictable information.”, cf. Kuno (1978: 282–283) Prince (1981) shows that the definitions of ‘given’ vs. ‘new’ proposed in the literature – though being not completely independent – bear significant differences in various important points. In comparing the concept of Clark and Haviland (1977) with the one of Chafe (1976) it becomes obvious that both notions explain the given/new-distinction in terms of cognition since both ‘activation’ and ‘knowledge’ concern the cognitive state of the interlocutors. Nevertheless, a basic difference appears: an entity that is not explicitly pre-mentioned but inferable from the common knowledge of the interlocutors counts as given in the sense of Clark and Haviland (1977) but as new, i.e. known but not necessarily activated, in the concept of Chafe (1976). Accordingly, this yields two different interpretations of one and the same constituent (your father) in a sentence like (23)6:
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(23) I saw your father yesterday. a. I saw your fathergiv yesterday given=known, i.e. inferable according to Clark and Haviland (1977) b. I saw your fathernew yesterday new=not activated according to Chafe (1976) At the same time, as Prince (1981: 229) also remarks, the expression a twoheaded man in (24) should gain – according to Chafe’s definition – the same status as the expression your father in (23b), a situation that is clearly counter-intuitive: (24) I saw a two-headed mannew yesterday new=not activated according to Chafe (1976) Another problem arises with respect to the uniformity of formal means expressing givenness in language. According to Clark and Haviland (1977) the referent of the definite expression the beer both in (25a) and (26a) is given by virtue of its status as being known via contextual preestablishment in (25) and inferentiality in (26), respectively. Nevertheless, the ‘given’ referent can be pronominalized only in the case of (25b), cf. the ungrammaticality in (26b): (25) a. We got some beer out of the trunk. The beer was warm. b. We got some beer out of the trunk. It was warm. (26) a. We got some picnic supplies out of the trunk. The beer was warm. b. We got some picnic supplies out of the trunk. *It was warm. Following this argumentation, Prince arrives at the conclusion that the traditional dichotomy of ‘given’ vs. ‘new’ is evidently too narrow to capture the fine but nevertheless significant differences regarding the activation state of referential expressions in natural discourse. As a result, she proposes to suspend the old dichotomy and exchange it for a model of a scalar representation of features in which ‘given’ and ‘new’ are only the two endpoints in a wide range of subcategories. Prince’s proposal involves a triple of notions under the core idea of “assumed familiarity”: i) new, ii) inferable and iii) evoked. Each of these pragmatic states is subdivided into deeper categories. So i) the notion of
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‘newness’ falls into the subcategories of i-i) ‘brand-new’ items whose existence in the mental world of the listener is being created at the time of the utterance, and i-ii) ‘unused’ items which are ‘known’ to the hearer but not activated at the time of utterance. The introduction of brand-new referents is itself divided into i-i’) ‘anchored’ vs. i-i’’)‘unanchored’ due to the fact that a brand-new item may be established in the context as linked to another entity – an anchor – that is not brand-new itself. This occurs e.g. in the case of modified NPs like a person I know or a girl I work with. On the other pole of the scale, Prince considers iii) the category of entities already ‘evoked’ in the discourse model. These categories are either iii-i) evoked textually, i.e. they are explicitly mentioned in previous context, or they are iii-ii) evoked situationally, e.g. when they refer to the interlocutors themselves or to referents which are salient in the communicative situation. In between, Prince distinguishes an additional, and more complex, category of ii) ‘inferable’ referents whose mentioning in an utterance may logically be inferred by the listener according to the entities already evoked in the context. Here, one subclass is represented by the so-called ii-i) ‘containing inferables’, i.e. by referents staying in a set-member relationship (picnic supplies-beer), and another one is formed by the so-called ii-ii) ‘noncontaining inferables’, i.e. by referents staying in an analogy relation to one another (bus-driver; party-music etc.). Building upon this new taxonomy of the informational state of referents, Lambrecht (1994: 74–113) accounts for some formal means typically correlating with them: i) presence vs. absence of accent; ii) pronominal vs. lexical coding; ii) definite vs. indefinite marking. According to the different kinds of combination of features in the actual realization of referents of these pragmatic classes, Lambrecht maps these categories onto an ordered relation, a so-called scale of identifiability of referents presented with some supplementary terminology in (27), cf. Lambrecht (1994: 109): (27)
i) ii) iii) iv) v) vi) vii)
unidentifiable/brand-new unindentifiable anchored/brand-new anchored inactive/unused textually accessible situationally accessible inferentially accessible active/given
This scale of identifiability correlates with the formal explicitness of referents in discourse. The lower a referent is to be classified according to the
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scale in (27), the less explicit its formal representation is in real communication. Turned the other way round, the growth of formal explicitness in the representation of a referent points at a higher need to activate or reactivate the identification state of the referent. Furthermore, Lambrecht (1994: 113–115 and 165) refers to a substantial cross-relation between the identification state of a referent and its appropriateness to provide the topic of an utterance. He argues that the lower a referent is mapped on the scale of identification, the more it is likely to act as the topic of an utterance. In doing so, Lambrecht tangles one of the most problematic and difficult questions in information-structural research, the relationship between givenness and topicality in language, a question to be discussed in the following section.
3.1.2. Topic vs. comment According to the multi-layer approach on information structure proposed by Molnár (1993) and advocated in section 3.1 above, the topic vs. comment distinction refers to the possibility to identify a bipartite division of the predication in terms of an item used as the starting point, or topic and another one providing the predication, i.e. the comment on this topic. A classical form of this kind of predicational separation occurs in copular constructions or generic utterances of the kind given in (28) and (29) for which the basic definition provided by Hockett (1958: 201) applies: “the speaker announces a topic and then says something about it”: (28)
[The house]T [is green.]C
(29)
[Trees]T [have green leaves.]C
Apart from this very basic notion originally intended to describe the constituent structure of predicative constructions, a range of competing concepts have been proposed making topic one of the most problematic terms to work with in information-structural analysis. First of all, different syntactic strategies have been discussed as a means of marking the topic of the sentence. Constructions like Left dislocation (Frey 2005), Hanging topic or ‘As for…’ are among these. The Prague School of Functional Sentence Perspective applied a more general view by assuming the topic to be the first element in a sentence (Firbas 1966). This notion was also adopted by Halliday (1967) to cover all sorts of ‘topical-
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ized’ elements in a clause. For German, moving a constituent to the ‘Vorfeld’, i.e. to the single position before the verb in root clauses has also been discussed with respect to topicality. And although this type of dislocation has been shown to apply for other information-structural categories as well (Axel in this volume), studies like Molnár (1993) observe a strong tendency of topical material to appear clause-initally in German. Arguments against this purely configurational account on topics come from alternative approaches to the explanation of this notion, e.g. from the aboutness-concept of Reinhart (1981) which is one of the most widely accepted ones in the literature today. Reinhart (1981) adopts the basic notion of pragmatic ‘aboutness’ as a distinctive feature of topichood and develops tests triggering typical topic readings. According to these, the item identified as the topic of the sentence acts as the referent X to be inserted in a proposition of the kind A says about X that X…or as for X, X is… Analysing the appropriateness of utterances gained from the insertion of different sorts of NPs in these tests, Reinhart shows that e.g. quantified NPs “are often hard, and sometimes impossible, to interpret as topics” (1981: 65). This behaviour she explains by virtue of the fact that the quantified NPs, failing to pass the topic tests, do not allow for an interpretation as referents. This is in clear contrast to universally quantified NPs denoting sets of referents and being available to act as topics. According to this, Reinhart restricts topichood to referentiality, and compares sentence topics with the referents acting as the entries of a subject catalogue in a library under which the propositions made about them are stored. Topics are in the sense of Reinhart “referential entries under which we classify propositions“ (1981: 80). In this way, a sentence topic is allowed to appear anywhere in the sentence. Or put in different terms, a sentence-initial constituent which is not referential fails to classify as a topic. Another widely accepted account on topichood is the one proposed by Gundel (1988) who relates pragmatic ‘aboutness’ to the conditions of givenness and accessibility. Departing from a definition of the topic-comment structure as presented in (30): (30)
Topic definition: An entity, E, is the topic of a sentence, S, if in using S the speaker intends to increase the addressee’s knowledge about, request information about, or otherwise get the addressee to act with respect to E. (1988: 210)
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Comment definition: A predication, P, is the comment of a sentence, S, if in using S the speaker intends P to be assessed relative to the topic of S. Gundel arrives at the conclusion that in terms of felicitous communication, shared familiarity on the topic expression appears to be a necessary precondition of topichood: „An entitiy E can […] serve as a topic […] if, both speaker and addressee have previous knowledge of or familiarity with E“ (1988: 212). According to this definition, new referents are banned from acting as sentence topics, an option held open by Molnár (1993). Furthermore, the concept of Gundel aims at identifying givenness and accessibility with topichood though no identification of newness with comment is implied; cf. Gundel (1988: 212). This simply means that given referents are equally allowed to be part of the topic or the comment of a sentence, while no operational methods are proposed to decide which of more than one given or accessible referents in a clause should be taken as the topic of the sentence. Still another account on topic is promoted by Chafe (1976) who argues for a basic differentiation between topics in topic-prominent languages like Mandarin and topics in languages like English. For the latter, he criticizes the definition of Halliday (1967) by pointing to apparent contrastive effects paired with the function of topicalization in English in sentences of the type This play John saw yesterday (Chafe 1976: 49). Consequently, Chafe proposes to suspend the term topic for such constructions in English. Instead, he pays more attention to the first type of topics, i.e. the so-called Chinese-style topic which he assumes to represent the prototypical case of topichood. However, analysing the interpretation of sentences containing typical Chinese-style topics, as the one in (31): (31)
nèi-xie shùmu shù-shƝn those tree tree-trunk
dà. big (Chafe 1976: 50)
Chafe concludes that the role of the topic is not so much to say what the sentence is about, but to “limit the applicability of the main predication to a certain restricted domain” (Chafe 1976: 50). As not only nominal referents but also adverbials of time and location are allowed in this function, Chafe extends the notion of topic to the overall concept of ‘frame-setting’ used to subsume all sorts of elements providing the “spatial, temporal, or individual framework within which the main predication holds“ (1976, 50).
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Comparing Chafe‘s notion on topic as a set of different frame-setting elements with the aboutness-concept of Reinhart (1981) and the familiarity-concepts of Gundel (1988) described above, the question arises whether both frame-setting topics and aboutness/familiarity-topic represent different parts of one and the same phenomenon or whether these are completely different phenomena to be held apart in information-structural analysis. In current research, the former option seems to prevail. Analysing different aspects of topic-comment constructions in German, Jacobs (2001) promotes the view that frame-setting and ‘usual’ topics might represent “two different but similar prototypes of T[opic]C[omment]” (2001: 658) thus making topicality a polysemous category. In line with this view, Maienborn et al.7 explore aboutness-topics and frame-setting as two different notions of sentence topichood which share some important syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties with respect to the rest of the sentence as well as to the larger discourse.
3.1.3. Focus vs. background The third functional layer within the model of information packaging, the layer of the focus vs. background distinction, is subject to no less controversy than the other two domains discussed above. There is some common agreement on the explanation of focus in terms of informational relevance and emphasis. This consideration implies two main aspects, one related to the contents of the utterance and one related to its formal realization. According to the first one, it is intuitively appealing to suggest that not all parts of the information exchanged between the interlocutors are equally important or relevant with respect to achieving the communicative goals of the utterance. Secondly, the notion of focus in terms of emphasis relates to the formal prominence of certain parts over the rest of the utterance, most commonly manifested in terms of prosodic prominence, e.g. main stress, phrasing and intonation in so-called intonational languages. According to many standard assumptions, the informational weight of focused constituents is explained in terms of the distinction between presupposed, or given vs. newly added, or asserted information in discourse (cf. the overview in SzendrĘi 2004: 230). The difference between the informational relevance of parts of the utterance is best illustrated by question-answer pairs where the newly added, asserted information may be precisely identified as that part of the answer which corresponds to the whphrase in the preceding question. On the formal side, the newly added in-
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formation is marked by means of prosodic prominence illustrated by capitalizing the word carrying sentence stress, cf. (32): (32)
Q: What did John eat? A: John ate PIZZA. (cf. SzendrĘi 2004: 230)
According to the high operational value of question-answer pairs for focus detection, most focus theories stick to exploring this phenomenon on the basis of such discourse examples only. However, it is misleading to identify focus with ‘newness’ in terms of the informational status of the referents. As many examples in previous literature have shown, information provided in the answer to a preceding wh-question prosodically behaves the same way as the new one in (32) even if it refers to entities which are contextually given or inferable, cf. (33): (33)
Q: Who did Felixi praise? A: a. Hei praised HIMSELFi. b. Hei praised YOU. c. Hei praised his BROTHER. (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 260)
With respect to this property, already Halliday (1967) warns against identifying focus with pragmatic newness: “What is focal is “new” information; not in the sense that it cannot have been previously mentioned, although it is often the case that it has not been, but in the sense that the speaker presents it as not being recoverable from the preceding discourse (Halliday 1967: 204). The same kind of correlation between focus and given information regularly emerges in cases of contrastive focus. Here, a part of the utterance gains informational relevance over the rest of the sentence by virtue of the fact that it is placed in a relation of contrast to another item which is either explicitly given or implied as part of the context. Consider (34) in which the answer picks up referents selected from a set of alternatives explicitly mentioned in the question: (34)
Q: Who did she invite to her birthday party, Johni or Peterj? A: She invited JOHNi. PETERj she cannot stand.
Lambrecht (1994: 209–218) provides some more considerations showing that the identification of focus with that portion of the answer which con-
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veys the ‘new information’ is too simplifying and inaccurate. In his analysis of the example in (35): (35)
Q: Where did you go last night? A: I went to the MOVIES. (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 209)
he argues that the new information in the answer is neither identical with the referent of the expression the movies nor to be restricted to any missing referent actually. What is new is in fact the relationship between the denotatum of the expression the movies and the proposition made explicit in an answer of the kind in (35’): (35’)
the place where I went last night was the movies.
Following this argumentation, focus is the device marking the establishment of a new kind of relation between a denotatum and the rest of the proposition, thus creating a “new state of information in the addressee’s mind” cf. Lambrecht (1994: 210). In this sense, a focus relation is guaranteed even in sentences operating with given material only, as is the case in (36c) of the famous syllogism or in (34) above: (36)
a. Every human is mortal. b. Socrates is a human. c. Socrates is mortal.
Another approach avoiding the definition of focus in terms of newness is found in the model of Rooths (1985). His meanwhile broadly accepted method involves a definition of focus in which the assignment of a formal focus feature on a constituent signals that it has been chosen from a set of alternatives and that is inserted in an open proposition.
3.2. Access to prosodic information in OHG? So far, the problems of the overall definition of information-structural categories have been addressed. Relating this issue to the informationstructural analysis of data from the historic corpus of a language, still more difficulties arise. One major problem comes from the fact that we have to deal with a quantitatively restricted amount of data. Accordingly, no additional data elicitation is possible in this case, i.e. no tests for checking the
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appropriateness of sentences as well as no negative evidence is available. This simply means that the information-structural analysis of corpus data has to do without some basic methods most widely applied in synchronic research on information structure. Another problem arises from the fact that the data to be analysed here is attested in written form only and thus provides no reliable access to prosodic information which is crucial to the detection of a number of phenomena related to information packaging as accent/de-accenting, phrasing and intonation. The previous literature gives sporadic accounts on indications drawn from the graphical representation of the manuscripts, though in sum, these basically concern the macro-structural dimension of text organization and episode subdivision, and less the level of prosody. For instance, we have quite reliable access to the separation of chapters (so-called ‘fits’) in some texts of the early Germanic corpus since these are either marked by Roman numbers as in the manuscripts of the Old English Beowulf and the Old Saxon Heliand, cf. Bästlein (1991), or introduced by individual chapter titles as in the Old High German Gospel Harmony by Otfrid. Simmler (1998) also shows that in the Old High German Tatian translation, numerous concordance notes attached to the Latin (and sometimes to the Old High German) part of the text give evidence on text organization and episode-division, next to the use of capital letters at the beginning of new episodes. Such clues are not available on the micro-structural level. In fact, the most representative of the Old High German manuscripts contain a number of accent diacritics. According to recent observations, certain information on prosody can be inferred in the texts of Otfrid and Notker, cf. Kleiber (2004: 119–142) and Fleischer (in this volume). However, the functional explanation of accent placement in Tatian is more than questionable. Analysing the numerous accent diacritics found here, Fleischer (in this volume) arrives at the conclusion that these may be assigned different functions which strongly interfere with each other thus leaving little ground for any substantial conclusions on prosodic prominence. Fleischer (in this volume) also points at spacing between words as another potential clue to prosodic information in Old High German manuscripts. The absence of a blank space between words may be interpreted as a reflection of the fact that these words were pronounced together, without a phonological break between them. Consider the different representation of the personal pronoun in (37):
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eno thu bistu mera / unsaremo fater iacobe father Jacob verily you are-you more ourdat ‘And you, are you more than our father Jacob?’ numquid tu maior es / patre nostro iacob. (T 131, 18–19)
The graphical representation of cases like the second occurrence of the personal pronoun in (37) allows for the conclusion that a functional word is de-accented and cliticized to a main word as well as that no prosodic phrase boundary intervenes between these words. On the contrary, large spaces between words have been analysed as signalling a speech pause or a phrasing boundary, cf. also Masser (1997: 58). However, this is a catalogue of potential indications whose relation to prosody cannot be claimed without any doubt. Moreover, the proper evaluation and systematic analysis of this scattered evidence on the textorganization and the prosodic realization in corpus data depends on the availability of precise diplomatic editions reflecting these properties of the graphical representation of the texts. In numerous cases, a comparison with or an exploration of the manuscripts is necessary. These problems clearly point at the fact that for the proper informationstructural analysis of sentences from historical corpora, context interpretation and discourse organization are the most reliable source to clues for the information-structural value of sentence constituents. These aspects shall be taken as a basis for a model of information-structural analysis on sentences from the Old High German Tatian proposed in the following section.
4. A proposal for the information-structural analysis of corpus data 4.1. The main scheme Due to the lack of a proper definition of the information-structural categories which can be applied to the data immediately, and given the difficulties arising in texts of the historic corpus of a language, we propose a novel approach based on the multi-layered model on information structure presented in section 3.1 above. We maintain the notion that informational status, topic-comment and focus-background are basic distinctions which interact with one another but nevertheless reflect different aspects of information packaging. Therefore, the attributes belonging to these different distinctions have to be kept apart in real data analysis. However, we dispense with the idea of assigning the main categories of topic and focus
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directly; rather, we aim at assigning to the sentence constituents a possibly wide range of features which have been connected with information structurae in the previous literature. In doing so, we are able to draw conclusions about the interdependence between certain features or combinations of features on individual constituents and their positioning in the clause. Departing from the analysis of the basic notions in informationstructural research, we distinguish the following attributes and features considered as constitutive for the main information-structural categories.
4.1.1. Informational status of discourse referents: given, new and accessible Given the argumentation in Prince (1981) discussed in section 3.1.1 above and some further considerations in Dik (1989: 268–270) and Lambrecht (1994), we agree on a scalar representation of features attested to the informational status of discourse referents. The notions ‘given’ and ‘new’ are viewed as the endpoints of the scale. However, for the sake of unambiguous applicability, these two notions are bound to textual pre-establishment: ‘given’ is restricted to expressions referring to explicitly pre-mentioned referents, while ‘new’ covers referents introduced to context for the first time. The anaphoric expressions that serve as linguistic correlates of givenness can be represented on a scale of explicitness starting with zeroanaphors, personal and demonstrative pronouns and ending up with full expressions like full NPs, proper names and epithets. Consider the following text-example adapted from Dik (1989: 271): (38)
Yesterday I got a phone call from the tax inspectori. Hei/ the mani/ the jockeri wanted me to come to hisi office and hei /øi gave me the impression that I was in for some trouble.
Contrary to that, the term ‘new’ covers notions that are not explicitly preestablished in previous context. Typically, a new discourse referent is introduced explicitly following one of the strategies outlined by Dik (1989: 268): – meta-linguistic information: I’m going to tell you a story about X – as an object or second argument in sentences with transitive verbs: In …, we saw X
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– as the subject of an existential or presentation construction of the type Once upon a time, there lived/was … which is typical for textopening sentences – with verbs of motion, denoting “appearing on the scene” (Dik 1989:268): Suddenly, right before our eyes, X appeared … Between the states of ‘given’ and ‘new’ as polar values, a whole range of categories is situated sharing the property of not being previously mentioned but nevertheless staying in a certain relation of relevance either to the communicative situation as a whole or to entities already established in discourse. These categories are subsumed under the label of ‘accessible’ entities due to the fact that they need not be introduced explicitly but are semi-active at the time of the utterance and are thus available for proper reference. We distinguish the following cases of accessibility: – expressions referring to the interlocutors, e.g. the deictic pronouns of the first and second person singular/plural as well as full NP, proper names etc. that are coreferential with them – anchoring: entities that are introduced in a certain relation to already activated referents; a friend of mine …, a person I work with … – bridging: entities which stay in part-whole relationship or in a relation of analogy to an already pre-established referent; John gave a party last week, but the music was awful … – shared familiarity: entities belonging to the common knowledge of the interlocutors like real names, proper names, etc.
4.1.2. Predicational separation: topic vs. comment Bearing in mind the different accounts on topicality and the lack of a commonly accepted definition of this term, we decompose this notion with respect to all features – both conceptual and formal ones – viewed to be constitutive for topicality in language: – givenness/accessibility of referents: to be acquired from the layer of informational status, see above – aboutness: whether or not any constitutent of the sentence fits to replace X in the topic-test A says about X that X … – definiteness: whether the referential expressions involve a definite or indefinite reading
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– syntactic realization in the clause: whether any of the constituents in the sentence is involved in a syntactic construction associated with topicality (e.g. Left dislocation LD, hanging topic HD, ‘As for …’, ‘Vorfeld’ etc.) The co-occurrence of all features on one and the same constituent would yield an optimal topic candidate; the less features apply on a constituent the less it fits to be identified as the topic of the sentence. This method facilitates a clear decision on the assignment of the topic category in examples like the following small discourse: (39)
a. senonu tho uuas behold there was
man man
In hierusalem.’ / in Jerusalem
b. thes namo thisgen name
uuas giheizzan simeon, / c. Inti ther man uuas reht Inti gotforht.’ was named Simon and this man was just and devout ‘a. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem b. whose name was Simeon, c. and this man was just and devout’ (Luke 2, 25) a. & ecce homo erat In hierusalem.’/ b. cui nomen simeon,/ c. & homo iste iustus & timoratus.’ (T 37, 23–25) Here, the expressions thes namo ‘whose name’ in (39b) and ther man ‘this man’ in (39c) refer back to the discourse referent man ‘a man’ introduced in the initial conjunct (39a). The referent namo in (39b) is an instance of anchoring since it is introduced in relation to an already mentioned entity, and ther man in (39c) is a full anaphor to ‘a man’. Both anaphoric expressions are referential, definite and realized clause-initially in the corresponding conjuncts. Therefore, these constituents can be identified as topics, while the remaining part of the utterances provides the comment on these topics, respectively. This interpretation satisfies the intuition that the sentences in (39b–c) predicate on a given entity by saying something about it, e.g. by assigning a property to it. The first conjunct (39a), however, is a case of a presentational construction establishing the topic of the subsequent utterances but displaying no topic-comment structure itself (cf. Sasse 1995: 4–5). Moreover, the referent ‘a man’ in (39a) doesn’t bear any significant topic features: it is referential but new, indefinite and occurs in a late position in the clause. For these reasons, no topic assignment applies to ‘a man’ in (39a). However, the method described above does not allow for an unambiguous solution in each case. Consider instances like (40) in which the criteria
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announced above equally apply to more than one discourse referent in the clause: (40)
quad Iru ther engil (T 28, 3−15) said herdat this angel ‘Then the angel said to her’ (Luke 1, 30) & ait angelus ei
The sentence is nested within a dialogue sequence in which the expressions Iru and the angel relate to explicitly pre-established referents whose relative order in the sentence is shifted in OHG against the Latin original. Although crucial criteria for topicality like givenness and definitness apply for both of the referents involved, it is difficult to decide which of them qualifies as the aboutnesss-topic of the utterance. Broadly speaking, the sentence is about both of them, though in fact the application of the topictest A says about X that X … does not yield a proper paraphrase of the contents of the sentence. A more appealing interpretation is the one considering the sentence to predicate on the event itself, i.e. on the fact that the conversation between the referents is carried further. In this case, the given referents are involved in a new state of affairs but are not the topic of the clause. Consequently, the most decisive issue in assigning the category topic to a constituent bearing any of the features relevant for topics involves the presence of a topic-comment division in the utterance: only if the sentence allows for a categorical reading (Sasse 1995: 4–5), i.e. if it announces a unit as the starting point of an utterance and then makes a statement on this unit, is it reasonable to assign a topic category to any constituent bearing any of the features relevant for topics.
4.1.3. Informational relevance: focus vs. background In section 3.1.3 we argued for a pragmatically rather than prosodically defined notion of focus. Following the discussion in current research, we defined focus as that part of an utterance that provides the most relevant information in a particular context as opposed to the (not so relevant) rest of information making up the background. There are at least two ways for a part of an utterance to gain information-structural relevance over the rest of the sentence:
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– it provides ‘new’ information in the sense that it is either requested in a preceding wh-question or necessary to develop the discourse; or – it stands in a relation of contrast to another constituent in the discourse. According to this, we distinguish the types of new-information focus (nif) and contrastive focus (cf), respectively. We also assume that newinformation focus and contrastive focus are not mutually exclusive but may apply within one and the same domain. As we also referred to in the above discussion, the term ‘new-information focus’ is somewhat misleading as it should not equate focus with ‘newness’ but stand for the new type of relation that emerges when an open proposition is saturated by inserting the missing material out of a set of possible alternatives, regardless of the fact whether this material is known, given, inferable, etc. to the interlocutors. Related to referents, ‘new’ is only a category on the level of informational status and not a constitutive feature of focus. The assignment of the category focus to a particular part of the proposition points to the material which promotes the establishment of this new relation between referents in the addressee’s mind. In this respect, the literature refers to the ‘focus domain’ of a sentence, i.e. to the different extension of the focus material in the utterance. Typically, the following cases are distinguished: – the focus domain spreads over the entire proposition, e.g. in all-new sentences opening a text discourse in so-called thetic sentences as the one in (41), cf. Sasse (1995: 4–7): (41)
Q: What’s that smell? A: [The KITCHEN is burning.]F
– the focus domain comprises the whole VP (42a), a single constituent within the VP (42b), or a part of a constituent (42c) respectively. The following examples show a different assignment of the focus domain for one and the same structure depending on the preceding context: (42)
a. b.
Q: What is Peter doing? A: He [is reading a PAPER.]F Q: What is Peter reading? A: He is reading [a PAPER.]F
VP-focus XP-focus
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c.
Q: What sort of paper is Peter reading? A: He is reading a paper [on SCIENCE]F
focus on a part of XP
– focus spreads over a sub-constituent, i.e. a prefix or a morphological part of a word which is not necessarily identical with the syllable carrying lexical stress, cf. (43): (43)
Q: Is she Chinese? A: No, she is [JA]Fpanese. (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 241)
While contrastive focus is located on the constituent viewed to bear the contrastive relation to another constituent, the determination of the domain of new-information focus reveals to be more problematic in our analysis. As was shown in the discussion on focus in section 3.1.3 as well as in the examples in this section, the identification of the focus domain of the utterance in current literature is based on (constructed) question-answer pairs. In striking contrast to that, no such methods are established for the identification of focus in sentences from natural running discourse as is the one in our analysis on Old High German data. However, we consider it possible to adopt the operational methods of focus detection established for dialogue sequences to texts from narratives, reports, etc. Let us assume that in line with the quaestio-theory by Klein and von Stutterheim (1992) each sentence of a running discourse is the adequate answer to an implicit question. In defining this question on the basis of the preceding discourse, one can identify those parts of the sentence that carry further the discourse and thus constitute the focus domain in sentences of running narrative texts.
4.2. Examples The model proposed to capture the multitude of information-structurally relevant features of sentences constituents in data from the historic corpus of a language is demonstrated on the basis of sentences from the Old High German Tatian translation based on the edition of Masser (1994). For reasons described in section 2.1 above, the investigation primarily addresses sentences in which the Old High German text deviates from the sentence structure of the corresponding Latin original.
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Below, some examples concerning the application of the model proposed as well as some comments to the assignment of features to the constituents are given. Example 1 Lat. Fuit in diebus herodis regis / iudeĊ quidam sacerdos / […] / & uxor illi de filiabus aaron/& nomen eius elisab&h, / erant autem iusti ambo ante deum OHG uuar [sic!] In tagun herodes thes cuninges / Iudeno sumer biscof /[…] / Inti quena Imo fon aarones tohterun / Inti ira namo uuas elisab&h / siu uuarun rehtiu beidu fora gote (T 25, 2) ‘There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest […] and his wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God’ Sentence siu uuarun rehtiu beidu fora gote they were righteous both before God Lat. OHG informational status TCS aboutness definiteness syntactic realization FBS nif cf
siu giv top ab def init bgr
erant uuarun
autem
iusti rehtiu
ambo beidu
ante fora
deum gote acc
comment def noninit focus nif
Analysis: In the OHG sentence, the subject pronoun siu-3pl ‘they’ is added against the Latin original and placed at the beginning of the clause, in front of the finite copula. The added constituent refers to entities already preestablished in the discourse. The application of the topic test A says about X that X… fits well to paraphrase the contents of the sentence and supports the interpretation of the constituent siu as the aboutness-topic of the sentence. All other features of topicality apply for siu as well, and we assign the category topic to it. The focus of the sentence covers the VP as the new information answering the implicit question “What about Zacharias and Elizabeth?”
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Example 2 Lat. Et pastores erant in regione eadem.‘ / uigilantes & custodientes uigilias noctis / supra gregem suum OHG uuarun thô hirta In thero lantskeffi.‘ / uuahhante Inti bihaltante nahtuuahta / ubar ero euuit, (T 35, 29−31) ‘There were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock’ Sentence uuarun thô hirta In thero lantskeffi were then shepherds in that region Lat. OHG informational status TCS aboutness definiteness syntactic realization FBS nif cf
Et uuarun
pastores thô
erant hirta new
in in
indef noninit focus nif
regione thero
eadem landskeffi giv
def nononit
Analysis: The sentence opens a new paragraph marked by concordance notes on the margins of the Latin part of the text as well as by capitalizing of the initial letter, cf. Masser (1994: 85). A new referent hirta ‘shepherds’ is introduced to the context; the expression denoting the new referent is placed in front of the finite copula in the Latin part and shifted after the finite verb in the Old High German sentence. Although the sentence contains the given and definite expression in thero landskeffi ‘in the same country’, the general understanding of the sentence in this context does not support the intuition that it is meant not to provide further information on the region itself. The insertion of this referent into the topic-test A says about X that X … does not yield a proper paraphrase of the sentence either. Following these considerations, we decide not to assign topic to in thero landskeffi. Furthermore, the instance is a typical case of a presentational, all-focus sentence in which no topic-comment division applies. Thus, no topic category is assigned at all. As an introductory sentence of a new sub-episode, the entire sentence is focal.
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Example 3 Lat. Haec locutus sum uobis / ut In me pacem habeatis / In mundo presuram habebitis OHG thisiu sprahih íu / thaz in mir habet sibba / In theru uueralti habet ir thrucnessi (T 290, 7–9) ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have turbulation’ Sentence thaz in mir habet sibba that in me have-2Pl peace Lat. OHG informational status TCS aboutness definiteness syntactic realization FBS nif cf
ut thaz
In in
me mir giv
def
cf_1
pacem habet
habeatis sibba new
def
cf_2
Analysis: In this adverbial clause the direct object sibba ‘peace’ is shifted to the postverbal position in Old High German against the corresponding Latin structure. Two contrastive pairs are involved in this small discourse: one between in me and In theru uueralti, and another one between sibba and thrucnessi. For this reason, in me and sibba are analysed as two different instances of contrastive focus. The precise identification of the new information focus is difficult, though the most general implicit question fitting to the context is “Why have I spoken to you these words?” pointing at the entire subordinate clause as focal. Further subdivisions within this wide focus domain, e.g. taking the role of the finite verb as re-structuring device, are also possible but will be left out here.
5. Summary and further discussion Pursuing the new perspectives which information structure reveals for the explanation of word order variation in early Germanic languages, we face the demand for a precise and systematic description of the informationstructural value of sentence constituents and its impact on the syntactic
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realization of these constituents in texts of the earliest Germanic records. Two main problems connected with this issue have been discussed: the possibility of isolating authentic material allowing for generalizations on true Germanic syntax as well as the methodology of applying criteria for information-structural description to data available in written form only. Concerning the first question in the light of investigating the role of information structure in OHG, it has been proposed to utilize the OHG Tatian translation as one of the earliest and largest data collections from this period and to restrict the analysis to a corpus of sentences deviating from the structure of the Latin original. Thus, the possible influence of the syntax of the Latin original on the structure of the Old High German translation is minimized. Furthermore, we reflected the theoretical difficulties which informationstructural research on historical data involves. We provided an overview of the controversial treatment of any information-structural category in current research and addressed the problems of assigning informationstructural categories in written texts. It turned out that it is impossible to start from a clearly defined notion on the main categories in informationstructural research and that contextual information and discourse organization are the most reliable sources for pragmatic features in historic data. According to these considerations we proposed a model based on the collection of prototypical features relevant for the information-structurally categories as shown on some selected instances of the Old High German Tatian translation. The implementation of this model to a database and its statistical evaluation can help to come to grips with the enormous variation in the domain of word order and verb placement in early Germanic. It also allows for the detection of different combinations of features favoring special word-order patterns, and provides a way of looking for the distribution of patterns according to discourse-structural or other organizational principles. Furthermore, significant differences in the quantitative relations of competing patterns can be revealed, e.g. concerning different dialects, genres, or scribes. In this way, the statistical evaluation of a corpus enriched with the features of the proposed information-structural scheme is of enormous value for detecting some ordering principles in an apparently unordered system and for localizing domains in which the establishment of general rules first applied.
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Acknowledgments The present paper is a revised version of a talk given in the Workshop ‘Information Structure and Language Change’ in Berlin (Germany), September 30th–Oktober 1st, 2005 organized by Project B4 of Collaborate Research Center 632 ‘Information Structure: the linguisitc means for structuring utterances, sentences and texts’ of Potsdam University and Humboldt University Berlin. We thank all participants of the workshop for questions and discussions, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier version of the paper.
Notes 1.
2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
We refer to the work of project B4 (principal investigators Karin Donhauser and Roland Hinterhölzl) as part of Collaborative Research Center 632 “Information Structure” at Humboldt University Berlin launched in July 2003 and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). For a more detailed description on the issues of research see http://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.designato.de/sprachgeschichte/ forschung/ informationsstruktur/index. php or http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/sfb/. Here we find on four pages alone eleven violatons of the translation principle described above. A number of seven instances, as mentioned by Dittmer and Dittmer (1998: 24–25), who did not examine the whole text, is proven to be too low, cf. Fleischer et al. (2008: 220), who account for 46 instances in total. Sonderegger (1965) provides a similar attempt to classify the different kinds of syntactic divergences in Old High German translations. For the distribution of the Old High German subject pronoun cf. Eggenberger (1961). As Masser (1991) seems to suppose for scribe İ. The example is taken from Chafe (1976: 30). Cf. the homepage of Project 9 at the Centre for General Linguistics, Typology and Universals Research (ZAS) Berlin http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de [20.07.2006].
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References Bästlein, Ulf Christian 1991 Gliederungsinitialen in frühmittelalterlichen Epenhandschriften. Studie zur Problematik ihres Auftretens, ihrer Entwicklung und Funktion in lateinischen und volkssprachlichen Texten der Karolinger- und Ottonenzeit. Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe I. Deutsche Sprache und Literatur; 1167. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang. Bean, Marian C. 1983 The Development of Word Order Patterns in Old English. Croom Helm Linguistic Series. London: Croom Helm. Behaghel, Otto 1932 Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Band IV. Wortstellung. Periodenbau. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Chafe, Wallace L. 1976 Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics, and Point of View. In Subject and Topic, ed. Charles N. Li, 25–55. New York: Academic Press. Clark, Herb H. and Haviland, Susan E. 1977 Comprehension and the given-new contrast. In Discourse Production and Comprehension, ed. Roy O. Freedle, 1–40. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dentschewa, Emilia 1987 Zur sprachlichen Eigenständigkeit der althochdeutschen TatianÜbersetzung in bezug auf den Gebrauch des Infinitivs. Beiträge zur Erforschung der deutschen Sprache 7: 207–232. Dik, Simon C. 1989 The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The Structure of the Clause. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Disse, Andreas 1998 Informationsstruktur im biblischen Hebräisch. Sprachwissenschaftliche Grundlagen und exegetische Konsequenzen einer Korpusuntersuchung zu den Büchern Deuteronomium, Richter und 2 Könige. Arbeiten zu Text und Sprache im Alten Testament; 56/Teil 1. St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag. Dittmer, Arne and Dittmer, Ernst 1998 Studien zur Wortstellung – Satzgliedstellung in der althochdeutschen Tatianübersetzung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Eggenberger, Jakob 1961 Das Subjektspronomen im Althochdeutschen. Chur: Sulser.
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On defining the ‘theme’ in functional sentence analysis. In Travaux Linguistiques de Prague, vol. I, 267–280. University of Alabama Press. Fleischer, Jürg 2006 Zur Methodologie althochdeutscher Syntaxforschung. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 128: 25–69. this vol. Paleographic clues to Old High German prosody? – Accents, word separation, and related phenomena in Old High German manuscripts In New Approaches to Word Order Variation and Change in the Germanic Languages, eds. Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fleischer, Jürg, Hinterhölzl, Roland and Solf, Michael 2008 Zum Quellenwert des althochdeutschen Tatian für die Syntaxforschung. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 36: 210–239. Floor, Sebastian Jonathan 2004 From Information Structure, Topic and Focus, to Theme in Biblical Hebrew Narrative. Ph.D. University of Stellenbosch. Frey, Werner 2005 Notes on the syntax and the pragmatics of German Left Dislocation. In The Syntax and the Semantics of the Left Sentence Periphery, eds. Horst Lohnstein and Susanne Trissler, 203–233. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Gundel, Jeanette K. 1988 Universals of topic-comment structure. In Studies in Syntactic Typology, eds. Michael Hammond, Edith A. Moravcsik and Jessica R. Wirth. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Halliday, Michael A. K. 1967 Notes on Transitivity and Theme in English, II. Journal of Linguistics 3: 199–244. Heimerdinger, Jean-Marc 1999 Topic, Focus and Foreground in Ancient Hebrew Narratives. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Hinterhölzl, Roland 2004 Language Change versus Grammar Change: What diachronic data reveal about the distinction between core grammar and periphery. In Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, eds. Eric Fuß and Carola Trips, 131–160. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. this vol. The role of Information Structure in word Order Variation and word Order Change. In New Approaches to Word Order Variation and Change in the Germanic Languages, eds. Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Hockett, Charles F. 1958 A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan. Hopper, Paul J. 1979a Some Observations on the Typology of Focus and Aspect in Narrative Language. Studies in Language 3.1: 37–64. 1979b Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse. In Syntax and Semantics, ed. Talmy Givón, 213–241. San Diego et al.: Academic Press, INC. Ingenbleek, Theodor. 1880 Über den Einfluss des Reimes auf die Sprache Otfrids besonders in Bezug auf die Laut- und Formenlehre. Mit einem Reimlexikon zu Otfrid. Straßburg: Karl J. Trübner. Jacobs, Joachim 2001 The dimensions of topic-comment. Linguistics. An interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences 39/4: 641–681. Kleiber, Wolfgang 2004 Otfrid von Weißenburg. Evangelienbuch. Band I: Edition nach dem Wiener Codex 2687. Teil 2: Einleitung und Apparat. Tübingen: Niemeyer Klein, Wolfgang, and Stutterheim, Christiane von 1992 Textstruktur und referentielle Bewegung. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 86: 67–92. Krifka, Manfred 2007 Basic notions on Information Structure. In The notions of Information Structure, eds. Caroline Féry et al., 13–56. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag. Kuno, Susumo 1972 Functional Sentence Perspective: a Case Study from Japanese and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3: 269–320. 1978 Generative Discourse Analysis in America. In Current Trends in Textlinguistics, ed. Wolfgang U. Dressler, 275–294. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Lambrecht, Knud 1994 Information structure and sentence form:Topic, focus and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lühr, Rosemarie 2005 Der Einfluß der klassischen Sprachen auf die germanische Grammatik. In Sprachkontakt und Sprachwandel. Akten der XI. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, eds. Gerhard Meiser and Olav Hackstein, 341–362. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
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Masser, Achim 1991 Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue des Cod. Sang. 56. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I. Philologisch-historische Klasse, 1991, 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1997a Syntaxprobleme im althochdeutschen Tatian. In Semantik der syntaktischen Beziehungen. Akten des Pariser Kolloquiums zur Erforschung des Althochdeutschen 1994, ed. Yvon Desportes, 123–140. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. 1997b Wege zu gesprochenem Althochdeutsch. In Grammatica Ianua Artium. Festschrift für Rolf Bergmann zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Elvira Glaser and Michael Schlaefer, 49–70. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Masser, Achim ed. 1994 Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen Cod. 56. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Molnár, Valéria 1993 Zur Pragmatik und Grammatik des TOPIK-Begriffs. In Wortstellung und Informationsstruktur, ed. Marga Reis, 155–202. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Musan, Renate 2002 Informationsstrukturelle Dimensionen im Deutschen: Zur Variation der Wortstellung im Mittelfeld. Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 30: 198–221. Prince, Ellen F. 1981 Toward a Taxonomy of Given-New Information. In Radical Pragmatics, ed. Peter Cole, 223–255. New York: Academic Press. Reinhart, Tanya 1981 Pragmatics and Linguistics: An Analysis of Sentence Topics. Philosophica 27: 53–94. Ries, John 1880 Die Stellung von Subject und Prädicatsverbum im Heliand: Nebst einem Anhang metrischer Excurse. Straßburg/London: Karl J. Trübner. Rooth, Mats 1985 Association with Focus. Ph.D. University of Massachusets at Amherst. Ruhfus, Wilhelm 1897 Die Stellung des Verbums im althochdeutschen Tatian. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen 1995 “Theticity” and VS order: a case study. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 48, 3–31.
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Sievers, Eduard 1960 Reprint. Tatian. 2. neubearb. Aufl. Paderborn: Schöningh. Original edition, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1892. Simmler, Franz 1998 Makrostrukturen in der lateinisch-althochdeutschen Tatianbilingue. In Deutsche Grammatik: Thema in Variationen, eds. Karin Donhauser and Ludwig M. Eichinger, 299–335. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Sonderegger, Stefan 1965 Frühe Übersetzungsschichten im Althochdeutschen. In Philologia Deutsch, eds. Werner Kohlschmitt and Paul Zinsli, 101–114. Bern: Francke. Stockwell, Robert P. 1984 On the history of the verb-second rule in English. In Historical Syntax, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 575–592. Berlin / New York / Amsterdam: Mouton. SzendrĘi, Kriszta 2004 Focus and the interaction syntax and pragmatics. Lingua 114: 229– 254. Weil, Henri 1879 L'ordre des mots dans les langues anciennes comparées aux langues modernes. Question de grammaire générale. 3rd edition. Paris: F. Vieweg. [1844] Zybatow, Gerhild 1999 Informationsstruktur im Russischen. In Sprachspezifische Aspekte der Informationsverteilung, ed. Monika Doherty, 61–89. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Paleographic clues to prosody? – Accents, word separation, and other phenomena in Old High German manuscripts Jürg Fleischer
1. Introduction At least since Saussure, language has been viewed as an oral system of communication. Written language is only secondary vis-à-vis the primary system, i.e., spoken language. When we look at historical stages of languages we are normally confined to written records, that is, we are forced to deal with the secondary system. It is only comparatively recently that it has become possible to record sound and to thus gain access to the primary linguistic system of past times. Obviously, only written evidence is extant for Old High German (usually dated c. 750–1050). Old High German texts make use of an alphabetical writing system based on the Latin alphabet. Simplifying considerably, the primary task of Old High German script is to encode the segments of the spoken language using (combinations of) the letters of the Latin alphabet; suprasegmental information is usually not provided in a consistent manner. However, some prosodic information can possibly be deduced from paleographic phenomena such as accents, (absence of) word separation, punctuation, and others. These will be discussed with respect to their potential value for prosodic research. Since most existing work relevant to our purposes deals with accents and since most is probably known about the (different) functions of accents, these are treated most extensively. Word separation and the other paleographic phenomena are discussed in a more synoptic fashion. I will primarily be concerned with Old High German manuscripts; however, as a point of reference I will often refer to (Medieval) Latin. Many phenomena to be observed in Old High German script have parallels in Latin, which is only natural if we consider the situation of Old High German: in Carolingian Europe, vernacular writing had at best a marginal status vis-à-vis Latin literacy (see e.g. McKitterick 1989: 21–22, Green 1994: 270–271).
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2. Written language and reading in the early Middle Ages According to the ancient conception, the written word was a record of and dependent upon the spoken word (this is close to modern structuralist views). This changed in late Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages, when the written word acquired “the position of a medium in its own right, whose function was no longer seen to be wholly dependent upon the spoken word.” (Parkes 1993: 20). The conception of written language as an independent entity fully holds for the Carolingian period: “By the ninth century readers and scribes had come to perceive the written medium as an autonomous manifestation of language, which was apprehended as much by the eye as by the ear.” (Parkes 1993: 34). One of the earliest representatives of the new attitude towards written language is Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636): “Isidore regarded letters of the alphabet as signs without sounds […] Writing was no longer merely the record of the spoken word but could also signal directly to the mind through the eye.” (Parkes 1993: 21). It is for this reason that “Isidore preferred silent reading to ensure better comprehension of the text” (Parkes 1993: 21). However, interestingly, even silent reading is still partially conceived of as a bodily activity (cf. below): Acceptabilior est sensibus lectio tacita quam aperta; amplius enim intellectus instruitur quando uox legentis quiescit et sub silentio lingua mouetur. ‘Silent reading is more acceptable to the senses than reading aloud; for the understanding is instructed more fully when the voice of the reader is silent and the tongue is moved silently.’ (Isidore, Sententiae III, 14, 9 [Cazier 1998 ed.]; translation Parkes 1993: 21 and mine)1
The development of silent reading is to some extent parallel to the changes concerning the concept of the written word just discussed. In the ancient world written texts were mostly read aloud; “a reader always heard the words of a text in his mind” (Parkes 1993: 9). Reading habits began to change in the early Middle Ages. According to Saenger (1997) the development of word separation (see section 4) is closely connected to these changes: “In the West, the ability to read silently and rapidly is a result of the historical evolution of word separation that, beginning in the seventh century, changed the format of the written page […]” (Saenger 1997: 6). As to actual Carolingian reading habits, however, the situation is unclear (this, incidentally, still holds for the high Middle Ages; see Scholz 1980: 103–111). According to many sources, reading aloud was the usual practice. Illich (1993a: 54; see also Illich 1993b, especially 23–24) emphasizes that medieval reading was a bodily activity:
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The reader’s ears pay attention, and strain to catch what the reader’s mouth gives forth. In this manner the sequence of letters translates directly into body movements and patterns nerve impulses. The lines are a sound track picked up by the mouth and voiced by the reader for his own ear. By reading, the page is literally embodied, incorporated.
For this reason, medieval monasteries “are described to us in various sources as the dwelling places of mumblers and munchers.” (Illich 1993a: 54). With respect to devotional reading of private prayer books Saenger (1997: 39) states: The nomenclature for devotional reading in early medieval Continental monastic rules and customaries is too ambiguous for us to be certain that silent reading was in fact practiced by Continental monks of the Carolingian age. However, many literate sources suggest that reading was oral.
Nevertheless, given the emerging concept of written language as an entity in its own right, the question must be asked whether written texts were perceived as having a prosodic structure at all by those who used them. Although there is naturally some uncertainty, this question can be answered positively. As discussed above, if silent reading was practised at all in Carolingian times, it was practised only rarely. On the other hand, there is clear evidence that some texts must have had a prosodic structure, for example, texts that were regularly recited in the liturgy or that were used for semi-liturgical purposes (such as readings at table, etc.). For nonliturgical texts, however, this might not hold: complicated philosophical or theological treatises for instance, which were probably sometimes read silently (see above), may not have been perceived by their users to have had a prosodic structure. The arguments discussed so far apply to written language and its relation to oral language in general. In Carolingian Europe, Latin was, of course, the most commonly written language: as in Antiquity, “the status of Latin as the primary means of communication in writing was maintained” (McKitterick 1989: 21). The written vernacular could at best play a marginal role compared to Latin. On the other hand, Latin was nobody’s native language, at least in the Germanic-speaking parts of the empire.2 To be sure, there was a Latin oral tradition in the early Middle Ages, but in most cases Latin texts were read or recited, as in the liturgy, for instance (see Stotz 2002: 149–153). Although we have records describing certain people freely expressing themselves in spoken Latin, in disputations for example, it is also clear that it could never be taken for granted that people could
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hold conversations in Latin (see Stotz 2002: 152). Although Latin dominated monastic life, for Carolingian monks in the Germanic-speaking lands it was a second language that had to be learned in a process of formal instruction. Compared to the vernacular, Latin must have been perceived as a more abstract entity. Even if Latin texts were possibly read silently on some occasions, this might not have been the case for written vernacular texts. The reception mode of medieval literature has been a stimulating field of debate, following the seminal work of Scholz (1980). Scholz (1980) claims that the primary reception of the “classical” Middle High German literature often happened through individual reading rather than public performances (see also Green 1994). In the case of individual reception, reading might have been silent (although this is by no means sure; see above), but in the case of recital in front of an audience, reading was surely aloud; in that case the texts performed also displayed a prosodic structure. For at least some of the Old High German texts it is clear that they were intended not only for individual reading, but also for recital in front of an audience. In dedicating the Evangelienbuch to King Louis the German, Otfrid expresses his hope that the king would let the work be read out (‘thaz er sa lésan heiziT’, Lud. 88); Green (1994: 181) comments that this expression “generally refers to public recital rather than private reading”. All existing manuscripts of Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch display a system of accentuation that would have been useful for a reciting reader (see section 3.2.). The fact that in one manuscript neumes have been added to a line (see Klaper 2004 and the literature cited there) is clear evidence that this text was also intended to be intoned by at least some of its users. As to another Old High German author Green (1994: 185) convincingly argues that with the translations of Notker (see section 3.1), whose works belong to a school context, at least in some occasions “we have a typical oral situation: a text was made available by the teacher reading it out.” In the remainder of this article, I take it as given that the Old High German texts discussed were at least sometimes read aloud. If this is correct, then looking for clues to prosodic information may not be completely in vain, even though we have to stick to written language. The task then becomes a consideration of whether prosodic information can be inferred from Old High German writing in any systematic way.
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3. Accent diacritics If we disregard some Insular script remnants from the 8th and early 9th century (see Bischoff 1986: 126–128), all (vernacular and Latin) records from before the end of the Old High German period are written in the Carolingian minuscule (see Bischoff 1986: 151–171). Many Old High German manuscripts display diacritic accents, which have been treated to some extent by Sievers (1909) and Gabriel (1969: 44–101); see also the summarizing account by Schneider (2007). Accents in Old (and Middle) High German manuscripts are usually used in an unsystematic way (Schneider 2007: 17), but there are important exceptions. The habit of accentuating texts was doubtlessly taken over from Latin writing; Latin itself had adopted this from Greek. Many Latin grammarians provide a chapter De accentibus (see Sievers 1909: 9–11, Gabriel 1969: 45–49). Unfortunately “the use of accent marks in Northern Europe […] has been almost totally ignored by students of Latin paleography” (Saenger 1990: 59). Bruckner (1980), Bischoff (1986: 226) and Saenger (1997: 68– 69) give only brief accounts. Loew (1914: 274–277) and Newton (1999: 179–181, 193–194) provide some information with respect to the Beneventan script, in use in southern Italy when large parts of continental Europe adhered to the Carolingian minuscule (see Bischoff 1986: 160).3 According to Bruckner (1980: 260), the use of accents spread across the West in the 10th century and became frequent in the 11th. If this is correct, it would seem that accents in Old High German (or other vernacular languages, e.g., Old English) appeared to some extent prior to their appearance in Latin writing. However, according to other sporadic observations, accents were being used in Latin writing earlier than indicated by Bruckner (see, e.g., Gabriel 1969: 49), albeit not yet in a consequent and systematized manner (Bruckner 1980 possibly refers to this). There are two basic accents in Old High German script: the acute (e.g., <á>) and the circumflex (e.g., <â>). The third classic accent, the grave (e.g., <à>), which is used in Greek writing and described by Latin grammarians as well, plays no role in Old High German; some Latin grammarians already judge it superfluous (see Sievers 1909: 10). The two different accent forms are carefully distinguished in the works of Notker, but many manuscripts use only one type of accent (mostly the acute; see Sievers 1909: 123). If the two types of accents are distinguished (and if they are to be interpreted as signs indicating emphasis) there is a tendency for the circumflex to be associated with long vowels. In some cases scribes produce forms of accents not clearly identifiable as either acute or circumflex
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(see Sievers 1909: 5): the acute is usually written as a slash, which may have a downward hook at the upper right. If this hook is relatively prominent, a form not distinguishable from a circumflex may emerge (see, e.g., Masser 1994: 15 or Gabriel 1969: 51 with respect to the St. Gall Tatian manuscript; example (7), rendered as acute in the edition by Masser 1994, provides a relevant example). Regarding their position in script it has often been observed that accents are written before or after the vowel letter that is expected to bear the accent or that the accents take the length of two or even three letters (see Gabriel 1969: 51–52 with respect to the St. Gall Tatian manuscript). In some cases, the fact that the position of an accent cannot be unequivocally ascribed to one letter can lead to multiple interpretations of its function. While accents in Medieval German manuscripts are usually used in an unsystematic way, the works of Otfrid and Notker, both dating from our period of interest, exhibit important attempts to systematize accentuation (see Schneider 2007: 18). However, with the exceptions of Otfrid and Notker, no systematization or consistency in Old High German accentuation can be discerned. These exceptions aside, it is virtually impossible to assign an unequivocal function to Old High German accents; indeed, in many individual cases an accent can be attributed more than one function, as will be illustrated in section 3.3. Ornamental usage of accents and scribal errors cannot be excluded from the discussion either (see Sievers 1909: 121). I will therefore begin my discussion of accents with Notker (section 3.1.) and Otfrid (section 3.2.), the two systems that are most consistent and best understood.4 Only after examining these two cases will I discuss accentuation in the St. Gall Tatian manuscript, where it seems to perform many different functions (section 3.3.). The works discussed represent a sizeable proportion of the Old High German records.
3.1. Accents in the works of Notker of St. Gall The most elaborate Old High German accentuation system can be found in the works of Notker of St. Gall (c. 950–1022). As emphasized by Sonderegger (1970: 54), Notker’s accentuation has some predecessors in St. Gall’s Old High German glosses and, thus, in the St. Gall scriptorium, but Notker is the only one to use accents in a systematic manner. Notker’s system has been described, sometimes with reference to one particular manuscript, by, among others, Fleischer (1882), Sievers (1909: 21–27), Gabriel (1969: 61–81), Zürcher (1978: 30–35, 80–83, 165–169) and King
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(1986). It is briefly discussed by Schneider (1999: 93; 2007: 18–19). We know explicitly from one of Notker’s writings that he attributed great importance to the accents when writing German. In a letter to Hugo Bishop of Sitten we find the following passage, which clearly demonstrates that accents are a matter of pronunciation for Notker: Oportet autem scire quia uerba theutonica sine accentv scribenda non sunt . prĊter articulos ipsi soli sine accentu pronuntiantur acuto et circumflexo ‘One needs to know that the German words must not be written without an accent, with the exception of the articles;5 they alone are pronounced without acute or circumflex accent’ (quoted from Tax 1996: 349; see also King 1986: XXXVIII; translation mine)
There is consensus that of all of the manuscripts that have come down to us the first two books of Notker’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ in Cod. Sang. 825, 4–108 provide the most elaborate and consistent instantiation of Notker’s system (see Fleischer 1882: 130–131, King 1986: XXXVIII, Schneider 2007: 18). I will provide examples exclusively from this passage. The most important feature of Notker’s system is that acute and circumflex are neatly distinguished. According to a somewhat generalizing formula, every stressed long vowel displays a circumflex and every stressed short vowel displays an acute; in addition, long vowels in syllables not bearing primary stress often display a circumflex (see Braune / Reiffenstein 2004: 16). According to King (1986: XXXIX) this might be seen as an indication of secondary stress, whereas others have thought that the circumflex should be solely seen as an indication of vowel length (thus, for Sievers 1909: 27 this is the primary function; on the other hand, for Gabriel 1969: 64 the indication of stress is primary).6 Interestingly, the acute also occurs in such contexts, albeit less often. In the dative plural léidúngôn ‘prosecutions’ (Cod. Sang. 825, 14,26; Notker, Boethius 14,26 ed. Tax) all three vowels display an accent, only the first of which is likely to indicate primary stress; similarly, in the dative plural adjective únzálaháftên ‘countless’ (Cod. Sang. 825, 21,26; Notker, Boethius, 21,26 ed. Tax) not all acute accents can indicate primary stress. In Notker’s system almost every word is accentuated; it is thus obvious that it is based on word accent. The fact that a word displays accent(s) therefore does not mean that the respective item is especially prominent from a sentence prosodic perspective. Given this state of affairs, the fact that some words are not accentuated is much more telling. Since Notker’s accentuation is so consistent we can be quite sure that absence of an accent
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is meaningful; as we have seen above, Notker himself states that some words are pronounced with no accent. For instance, nominative personal pronoun forms may or may not be accentuated, but in sentence-initial position they always display an accent (see Fleischer 1882: 150, King 1986: XL). It thus seems that in Notker’s Old High German unstressed subject pronouns are not possible in sentence-initial position. It would be a natural consequence to postulate that this position is reserved for elements bearing stress. In sentence-internal position, on the other hand, both forms are possible; there is thus a certain “freedom” with respect to accentuation (see Fleischer 1882: 151). This is illustrated by the following example, which displays the personal pronoun ih ‘I’ after the verb in two clauses that are parallel with respect to their construction; only in the second instance does an accent appear: (1)
Énes iího ih · tísses neiího íh· (Cod. Sang. 825, 24,20)7 that confess I this NEG-confess I ‘That I confess; this I do not confess.’8
Illustration 1. Cod. Sang. 825, 24,20; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses9
Notker’s accentuation undoubtedly provides rich prosodic information. At the level of the clause, paradoxical as it may seem, words not displaying accents are most interesting. Since Notker’s translations are prosaic (in contrast to Otfrid’s work; see section 3.2.), there is no interference from a meter. Of all accentuations systems, Notker’s is therefore the most valuable source with respect to Old High German prosody. Unfortunately from the point of view of sentence prosodic research, it primarily allows the identification of unstressed elements. Especially stressed constituents cannot be differentiated from normally stressed elements since both can be equally expected to display an accent in Notker’s system.
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3.2. Accents in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch The Evangelienbuch of Otfrid of Weissenburg (c. 800–c. 870) provides another rather elaborate and quite consistently applied accentuation system, first described by Piper (1882) and Sobel (1882; see also Schneider 2007: 18). There are four different manuscripts extant, of which the Viennese Codex, which was partially written and corrected by Otfrid himself (see e.g. Kleiber 2004b: 53, 55), is undoubtedly the most precious (see Kleiber 2004b: 120). In the Viennese Codex (dated 863–871), as well as two other manuscripts of the Evangelienbuch, two main paleographic shapes of acute accents are carefully distinguished, the “phonetic” and the “rhythmic” accents (see, e.g., Sievers 1909: 7, Kleiber 2004b: 120).10 The phonetic accents are far smaller and often written higher above the letter than the rhythmic accents. They are in a different color of ink than the main text, which suggests that they where added separately, after the main text had been written (see Kleiber 2004b: 131).11 The phonetic accents usually consist of two fine slashes, distributed over two letters, mostly combinations of
or with another vowel grapheme, for instance íó ‘ever; always’, íú ‘you (dat. pl.)’, íámer ‘always’, úáben ‘to arrange’ (see Kleiber 2004b: 131). According to 19th century Otfrid editors, the function of these accents was to avoid the pronunciation of and as semivowels. It has been suggested that the accents in question ensure vocalic realization of and in ambiguous contexts, that is, before a vowel grapheme (see Sievers 1909: 8, especially note 1), which explains the label “phonetic accent”. A few potential minimal pairs exist. For example, can stand for /iu/ ‘you’ or /ju/ ‘already’ (see Kleiber 2004b: 121). Disambiguation by means of accents would be especially useful here. Kleiber (2004b: 131) provides a slightly modified interpretation of Otfrid’s “phonetic accents”. According to him, in most instances they ensure the diphthongal realization of the graphemes accentuated. Indeed, in addition to the examples quoted above, óúgen ‘eyes’, with neither nor as its first letter, also bears phonetic accents, although the initial in can only be interpreted as a vowel. However, ensuring diphthongal realization of the accentuated letters can only be a partial explanation of the observed distribution. In examples such as úúorolt ‘world’ (IV 26,34 ed. Kleiber 2004a) the “phonetic” accents are used in a word that undoubtedly does not display a vowel or diphthong as its initial segment (see Sievers 1909: 8, note 1; Gabriel 1969: 55, note 35). There is thus a paradox: the phonetic accents seem to indicate
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vocalic or diphthongal realization in some contexts, but cannot serve this function in others. Incidentally, there are also cases of possibly incorrect phonetic accents, for example íú standing for /ju/ ‘already’, not /iu/ ‘you (dat. pl.)’ in Sos ér gihiaz íú uuánne · themo drútmanne (I 10,13 ed. Kleiber 2004a). The so-called “rhythmic accents” in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch are attributed a rather different function. They are used to identify the main accented syllables. It is most interesting that Otfrid himself, who, as discussed above, wrote some passages of the Viennese Codex and acted as a corrector of the whole manuscript, corrected many accents. For example the passage quoted below (I 1,111) was originally written with the following accents (see Kleiber 2004b: 123): (2)
a. Gidán ist es nu rédina · thaz síe sind guate thégana done is of_it now speech that they are good heroes ‘It is told now that they are good heroes’
With this accentuation the second hemistich displays exactly the same rhythmic pattern as the first one (namely: ` ^ ` ` ` ^ ` `). Both hemistichs have a very regular rhythmic structure in which the second and the sixth syllable are stressed most. However, it was apparently the author’s intention to emphasize the adjective guate ‘good’; he corrected the accentuation with the following result (see Kleiber 2004b: 123): (2)
b. Gidán ist es nu rédina · thaz sie sind gúate thegana (I 1,111 ed. Kleiber 2004a) done is of_it now speech that they are good heroes ‘It is told now that they are good heroes’
Obviously the adjective good is seen as most important in the dependent clause, and this is expressed through an accentuation that works against an easy but mechanical repetition of the accentuation pattern of the first hemistich. Instances such as this one clearly show the importance of Otfrid’s accents when it comes to questions of prosodic prominence. There can be no doubt that Otfrid’s rhythmic accents mark the words that the author wanted to be most prominent in the recitation of his work. From a sentence prosodic perspective they are therefore more interesting than Notker’s system, since they allow identification of the most emphasized elements. However, we have to keep in mind that we are dealing with a poetic text, whose prosody might differ from natural patterns. This potentially diminishes the value of Otfrid’s accentuation data.
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3.3. Other accentuation usages: Tatian What is so extraordinary about Notker and Otfrid is the consistency and systematicity of their accentuations. If consistency is lacking and a manuscript only displays some scattered instances of accentuation, as is the rule in Old and Middle High German manuscripts (see Schneider 2007: 18), it becomes much more difficult to interpret these instances in a functional light. This will become clear at various instances below when individual instances of accentuation in the St. Gall Tatian manuscript are discussed. The most common and important functions of accents in Old High German manuscripts outside the works of Notker and Otfrid seem to be (1) the indication of the pronunciation of certain letters; (2) the highlighting of monosyllabic words and weakly stressed or unstressed syllables; (3) the indication of special emphasis on the word accentuated. Of these different functions the first and the third are to some extent comparable to the systems encountered in Notker and Otfrid. Only the latter function is interesting from the point of view of prosodic research, but since considerable overlapping of the different functions plays a role in the actual occurrences of accents, the other cases must be looked at as well. The classification of accents advocated here is often blurred and additional criteria might play a role.12 Much room is left for interpretation. A particular danger lies in circular argumentation: if one is inclined to believe that an accent marks stress due to emphasis on the accentuated word, one will opt for an interpretation of the respective passage supporting emphasis of the respective element, referring to the accent supporting this interpretation, etc. An important paleographic problem posed by scattered accents is that in many cases there are doubts about whether they were written by the original scribes or added by later users. Since accents consist of just one or two slashes it is often difficult to identify their paleographic origin. Therefore, in this section I will only discuss data from the St. Gall Tatian manuscript: in this record six individual scribes can easily be differentiated (see Masser 1994: 31). As already noted by Sievers (1909: 14) and confirmed by the discussion in Gabriel (1969: 51–57), these scribes display clear differences in their accentuation patterns. There is, therefore, every reason to assume that the accentuation observable in the St. Gall Tatian manuscript is original. Of course, the possibility that some accents were added by later users cannot be excluded, but statistically this is relatively unlikely: It would be difficult to explain why accents that were added by later users display differences that correspond to those between the well-known portions by the different scribes.
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According to Sievers (1909: 8), one original function of acute accents was to identify is and us in graphical contexts where many vertical strokes come together. In Carolingian minuscule (which has no dot in this script; one could therefore use <ı> in modern printing) and , as well as <m> and , consist of dominating vertical strokes, which makes it difficult in a word like mınımum to identify the end of one letter and the beginning of the next.13 In addition, Carolingian was difficult to differentiate from , even independent of the graphic context (see Sievers 1909: 8). Therefore, acute accents were added to and in certain graphic environments in order to differentiate them from other letters (as a matter of fact, the dot on our modern i, which originated considerably later, seems to have evolved from such usage). It is probably this function of accents which may be seen in the accentuated instances of the prefix int- (New High German ent-), in which the i occurs before an n. Such examples can be observed in scribe ȕ’s portion of the Tatian manuscript, e.g., ínlazu ‘I release’ (55,20) or íntphieng ‘he got’ (57,23). However, since this scribe’s work also displays instances of other accentuated prefixes (not necessarily featuring i or u in a graphically ‘difficult’ environment), the function of these accents can also (or additionally) be to mark an unstressed syllable (see below). It is possible that a usage according to which accents were only written above and gave rise to the “phonetic accents” known from Otfrid, among others (see section 3.2.): the shared element is that only and are accentuated. However, as we have seen in our discussion of Otfrid, it is difficult to pin down the exact function since “phonetic accents” are encountered on diphthongs as well as on semivowels. As discussed in section 3.2., Otfrid’s phonetic accents have two remarkable paleographic properties: they consist of two acute accents, and the phonetic accents are carefully distinguished in script from the “rhythmic” accents. As to the second property, I am not aware of any other Old High German manuscript outside the Otfrid family which distinguishes between two paleographic shapes of acutes. As to the first property, however, “double acutes” are also found in scribe į’s portion of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript, e.g., íú ‘you (dat. pl.)’ (171,29), íúuuariu ‘your’ (173,21), íógilichemo ‘each (dat. sg. m.)’ (177,16), etc. (see Sievers 1909: 19, Gabriel 1969: 55). As one can see from the words quoted, these double acutes seem to perform the same function as Otfrid’s “phonetic accents”. However, in scribe į’s portion we also find singleton acutes in such contexts, e.g., íu ‘you (dat. pl.)’ (183,21) or íuuuer ‘your’ (185,5).
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According to Sievers (1909: 9), the s standing for the velar semivowel (which can be rendered by , , and any combination of these letters in Old High German script, e.g., , , etc.) often display phonetic accents. Many examples can be found in scribe ȕ’s portion of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript, for example uúas ‘was’ (114,32), uúis ‘be!’ (96,1), etc. (see Sievers 1909: 18). This scribe even displays one example of an acute on in íar ‘years’ (114,29), which according to Sievers (1909: 18) ensures semivocalic realization of this letter. This usage can also be found in scribe į’s portion, e.g., in uúilis ‘want (2. sg.)’ (183,2), uúas ‘was (3. sg.)’ (188,1), or úuege ‘way (dat. sg.)’ (190,14) etc. A rather different function of accents seems to be the highlighting of monosyllabic words. This usage is known from Latin script (see Bruckner 1980: 260); according to Loew (1914: 276, note 1), this habit is attested in early Caroline manuscripts (Sievers 1909: 15 maintains the same of 8th/9th century manuscripts). According to Saenger (1990: 57–58, 1997: 54–55) this usage is already attested in ancient Latin books from Egypt. Sievers (1909: 15) states that its function is to highlight the small words, which were often written together with the following word (see section 4.). Scribe ȕ of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript has many acute accents on “small” words such as prepositions, auxiliaries, articles, pronouns etc. Examples are fón ‘from’ (52,16), só ‘so’ (58,1) íz ‘it’ (55,10), tház ‘that’ (54,5) etc. (see Sievers 1909: 15, Gabriel 1969: 53). It is especially interesting that this scribe uses a very similar pattern in the Latin text of his portion. Here it is most often pronouns that display an accent, such as mé ‘me’ (see below), but monosyllabic nouns such as ós ‘mouth’ (74,14),14 verbal forms such as dát ‘gives’ (122,6) and conjunctions such as ác ‘and; too’ (111,30) or án ‘whether’ (89,25) are also accentuated (see Gabriel 1969: 56). Some of these accents could also be interpreted as signs of stress (see below), but this is virtually impossible in the case of some of the conjunctions or prepositions quoted. In the following passage (Cod. Sang. 56, 85,31–32), there are accents on all of the monosyllabic words in the Latin and Old High German texts with the exception of mih ‘me’: (3)
domine.‘ permitte mé primum ire herro láz mih ér faran & sepelire patrem meum; Inti bigraban minan fater Lord let me before go and bury my father ‘Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.’
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Illustration 2. Cod. Sang. 56, 85,31–32; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses15
As can be seen, the accentuation of the Latin and the Old High German texts does not correspond (which makes it unlikely, for example, that mé/mih should be interpreted as emphasized). Monosyllabicity seems to be the only reason for the accentuation. In the following passage, the purpose of the accentuation also seems to be to highlight the monosyllabic words (see Gabriel 1969: 53), i.e., to make them better visible to a reader. It is unlikely that all of the accentuated words are stressed (incidentally, the accents on uúaz and íu are most naturally interpreted as phonetic): (4)
só uúaz só hér íu quede só tuot ír (Cod. Sang. 56, 81,25) so what so he you say so do you ‘Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it’
Illustration 3. Cod. Sang. 56, 81,25; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses
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In addition to monosyllabic words there are examples of obviously unstressed or, at most, secondarily stressed syllables in polysyllabic words displaying an accent. Such cases can be found in scribe ȕ’s portion of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript, e.g., ubár ‘over’ (78,20), odá ‘or’ (71,6), ehír ‘ear (of corn)’ (112,2), the masculine accusative form of the personal pronoun Inán ‘him’ (57,32), or the proper noun genitives andreasés and p&rusés (both 52,1) (see Sievers 1909: 15–18, Gabriel 1969: 53).16 According to Sievers (1909: 18) and Gabriel (1969: 53), syllables that are especially prone to be eroded in the recital are highlighted in such instances. The examples of accentuation just discussed seem to indicate the exact reverse of the usage of accents in the works of Notker or of Otfrid’s rhythmic accents: elements likely to go unnoticed (monosyllabic words, unstressed or weakly stressed syllables) display an accent in order to be made more prominent for the reader, precisely because they are not especially prominent per se. However, the stress-indicating function known from Otfrid and Notker may possibly also be found in the Tatian manuscript. The following passage, from scribe ȕ’s portion, is extraordinary in that the accentuation of the Latin and Old High German texts is parallel (in contrast to the passage quoted above): (5)
ihesus autem ait illi. sequere mé. tho quad imo ther heilant. folge mír (Cod. Sang. 56, 86,1) then said him the savior follow me ‘But Jesus said unto him, Follow me.’
Illustration 4. Cod. Sang. 56, 86,1; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses
This passage corresponds to the beginning of the second sentence in “And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (Matt. 8:21–22 King James Version). Since the command to come with Jesus is opposed to another option, it seems reasonably justified to
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assume contrastive accent on mé/mír and to take the accents as a support for this interpretation. However, given the accentuation habits of this scribe we ought not take the accents as decisive: As discussed above, this scribe very often puts accents on monosyllabic words. Were the accents on mé/mír to be taken as evidence that we are dealing with contrastive stress in this passage, the danger of circular argumentation mentioned above materializes. It is probably impossible to tell which function is being performed by the accents in the passage quoted. An intriguing and probably realistic interpretation would be that the scribe wanted the accents to perform both functions. As a matter of fact, in many instances different functional motivations can be attributed to a single accentuation (as just hypothesized it is even conceivable that a scribe wanted an accent to perform more than one of the possible functions). The “phonetic” function and that of marking monosyllabic words may co-occur, for instance, in examples like íu ‘you (dat. pl.)’, a word that is both diphthongal and monosyllabic; given that there are certain contexts in which this personal pronoun may be especially stressed, even the stress-indicating function could play a role in some instances. There are several passages where the stress-indicating function cannot be distinguished from other functions. Sievers (1909: 20) mentions that scribe ȗ of the Old High German Tatian manuscript has many instances of uú in which the accent is probably phonetic, but that in every instance the accent could also mean that the vowel following uú is stressed. Here, then, it is impossible to tell the “phonetic” from the stress-indicating function. There are other cases in which it is difficult to differentiate between the monosyllabicity-indicating and the stress-indicating function. For example, according to Masser (1997: 60), scribe ȗ of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript uses acute accents in words that are emphasized. He quotes the passage in which “Crucify him, crucify him” is shouted to Pilate. In the Latin text we find crucifige crucifige; in the Old High German text the imperatives have acute accents: háh háh (308,25). It is of course possible that these accents indicate stress. However, the words are monosyllabic, which Masser (1997) does not consider in his discussion. Hence, from a methodological point of view it is not justified to interpret these accents as indications of stress (alone). To conclude this section, it can be seen that accents may perform an array of different functions in the St. Gall Tatian manuscript. They may serve the “phonetic” function known from Otfrid, but they may also highlight monosyllabic words or unstressed syllables, and finally they may indicate stress and thus emphasize the words accentuated. This function is of fun-
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damental interest for prosodic research. What remains intriguing from a modern point of view is the multitude of different functions performed by one symbol, and the fact that it might be intrinsically impossible to tell the different functions apart in individual instances. Apparently, however, this posed no problem for Carolingian scribes.
4. Word separation Roman scribes would usually operate by “copying texts in scriptio continua – that is, without separating words or indicating any pauses within a major section of the text” (Parkes 1993: 10). Separation by spaces17 first appears in the Insular area (see Saenger 1997: 84–99). It is then used in the Carolingian period (see Müller 1964: 35, Bischoff 1986: 229, Saenger 1990); Parkes (1993: 31) discusses several cases in which Carolingian scribes copying older manuscripts introduced separation. However, spaces were not yet used in a consequent manner (see Saenger 1997: 100): in Carolingian minuscule manuscripts “space was present, but not consistently between every word” (Saenger 1997: 32). Saenger (1997: 32) refers to this kind of separation as “aerated script” (as opposed to “word separation” proper). In central and southern Germany “scribes, after the mid-ninth century, began to write Latin in intensely aerated script, sometimes approaching separation, and began to develop modes for writing the vernacular that were clearly stimulated by Anglo-Saxon models.” (Saenger 1997: 102). It is notable that “only at the Abbey of Saint Gall, one of the larger Continental colonies of Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks, did the evolution of text format go so far as to continue consistent emulation of Insular word separation.” (Saenger 1997: 103). The Vocabularius Sancti Galli, a Latin–Old High German dictionary, provides an early example of Continental word separation (see Saenger 1997: 103). If separation is followed in principle in a manuscript, the absence of spaces between units that are words from a syntactic point of view or the presence of unusually large spaces between syntactic words might be interpreted from a prosodic perspective.18 Most Old High German manuscripts display separation between words (or larger or smaller units), although entire lines may still give the impression of scriptio continua (see Nübling 1992: 337). One recurring pattern is that preposed small (usually functional) words are written together with the word that follows, a preposition or the negation particle, for instance (see Voetz 2006: 51, 56; Bischoff 1986: 229 reports the same of prepositions “and other short words”
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in Latin script). Postpositioning of small words is also attested (see for instance Nübling 1992: 339). In some instances, however, units smaller than the word are separated. According to Frey (1988: 140) and Voetz (2006: 59), the syllable (rather than the morpheme) turns out to be the relevant unit in this respect (see also example [7], which features a blank space between two syllables of a word). We cannot find much uniformity with respect to word separation in Old High German manuscripts (Nübling 1993: 338, Voetz 2006: 59). Yet, according to Nübling (1992: 338), in autochthonous texts certain parts of speech are more regularly written together with the preceding or following word than others, namely, subject pronouns following verbs or conjunctions, prepositions directly before a personal pronoun, noun, or article, and the negation particle ni followed by a verb (Nübling 1992: 339–341). Since some of these combinations are known to be hosts and clitics in modern German dialects (Nübling 1993: 342), it seems reasonable to argue that clitic forms might be characterized by a lack of word separation in Old High German script. Absence of word separation might therefore be a valuable criterion by which to identify clitics. The examples discussed so far involve absence of word separation, but the presence of (extra large) spaces also might be interpretable. According to Masser (1997: 57), in scribe ȗ’s portion of the St. Gall Tatian manuscript larger spaces are used when a passage in direct speech is rendered; Masser (1997: 57) interprets the larger space as an indication of a pause before the direct speech begins. One relevant example is the following (Cod. Sang. 56, 274,6); here, a somewhat larger space separates ei/imo from quis/uuer, the first word of the quoted direct speech: (6)
& dicit ei quis est Inti quad imo uuer ist (Masser 1997: 58) and said him who is ‘… and said unto him: “Who is it?”’
Illustration 5. Cod. Sang. 56, 274,6; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses
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According to Masser (1997: 58), it might also be a function of spaces to render special emphasis. In the following example from scribe ȗ’s portion of the Tatian manuscript (Cod. Sang. 56, 224,13), two syllables of one word are separated from each other; additionally, the word also bears an accent: (7)
Iú uuer sunta uuon& (Masser 1997: 61) your sin remains ‘your sin remaineth’
Illustration 6. Cod. Sang. 56, 224,13; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses
According to Masser (1997: 61) Iú uuer is stressed in this passage, which provides the motivation for the accent. Masser explicitly rejects the possibility of a phonetic accent, pointing to the blank space which is seen as an additional element rendering emphasis (see Masser 1997: 61, note 37). As a matter of fact, I think that Masser is indeed right in interpreting Iú uuer as being emphasized in this passage. However, given that many phonetic accents in iu(wer) can be observed elsewhere, from a methodological point of view taking the accent as proof is not warranted. Quite to the contrary, one could just as well argue that the scribe inserted an extra space between the first and second syllables of the word because he did not regard the accent as an indicator of stress or, to put it more cautiously, because he did not think that the accent alone was enough to indicate stress. To sum up, there are clear cases of separation that can be interpreted from a prosodic perspective. However, much more systematic work is needed here. Detailed analyses of manuscripts or facsimile editions are a prerequisite, since editions are extremely unreliable with respect to word separation.19 Finally, one must bear in mind that trivial criteria such as lack of space in a line (possibly due to holes in the parchment or the like) or the desire to fill a line with a relatively small amount of text can lead to extraordinarily spaced units.
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5. Other paleographic phenomena Other paleographic phenomena that might provide information relevant to prosody but which cannot be treated here in due detail, are punctuation, use of initial and capital letters, and certain assimilations. In Antiquity, punctuation symbols functioned to indicate pauses. Punctuation according to this principle is labeled rhetorical (see Müller 1964, Bischoff 1986: 224, Schneider 1999: 89, Simmler 2003: 2473). The period of the Carolingian Renovation is characterized by, among other things, an augmentation of the punctuation symbols used in texts.20 There is, on the one hand, a two-fold system of points that was already in use (see Parkes 1993: 31), but Carolingian scribes “often combined [this] with other marks” (Parkes 1993: 32; see also Bischoff 1986: 224). Alcuin (c. 730– 804), who “settled in Francia to assist Charlemagne in his endeavors to promote liturgical, educational and administrative reforms” (Parkes 1993: 30; see also Simmler 2003: 2473), promoted the use of punctuation (Parkes 1993: 32, Saenger 1997: 36). One invention of this period is the question mark (Bischoff 1986: 225, Saenger 1997: 73-74). Since this punctuation symbol can be traced back to the quilisma neume, indicating “trembling and mounting tone” (Bischoff 1986: 225; see also Kleiber 2004b: 137), it is natural to assume that questions at that time, as in contemporary German, displayed an intonation different to declarative clauses; this symbol therefore provides prosodic information. There are some analyses or at least symbol inventories of individual Old High German manuscripts, for instance that by Masser (1994: 15) on the Tatian, Simmler’s (1997) treatment of two minor texts, or that of Kleiber (2004b: 134–137) with respect to the Viennese Otfrid manuscript. Simmler (2003: 2472–2477) provides a summarizing review of the punctuation of various Old High German texts. In the bilingual Latin–Old High German Tatian manuscript, punctuation symbols are primarily, though not exclusively, encountered in the Latin part. Some Old High German passages also display punctuation, while others completely lack it (see Masser 1994: 15). This indicates that the Old High German text only has a subordinate function vis-à-vis the Latin, as can also be seen with respect to initials (see below). According to Simmler (2003: 2477), Old High German punctuation has to be viewed not as rhetorical, but rather syntactic punctuation, i.e., syntactic units not rhetorical ones are separated by punctuation. If this view is correct, the value of Old High German punctuation with respect to prosody is rather small. Clearly, more work is needed here.
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Capital and initial letters might also provide information relevant to prosody, although they are primarily a device for structuring text: capitals and initials indicating the beginning of a new paragraph might for example correspond to a longer pause in the lecture. Kleiber has shown that initial and capital letters of different heights and scripts play a fundamental role with respect to text structuring in the Viennese and Palatinate codices of Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch (Kleiber 1971: 53–63; see also Bästlein 1991: 233–242, Kleiber 2004b: 67). The same seems to hold for the different manuscripts of the Old Saxon Heliand (see Bästlein 1991: 218–226). In the bilingual Latin–Old High German Tatian manuscript, initials and capitals are only encountered in the Latin part (see Masser 1994: 14); this part clearly dominates in terms of text structuring features, many of which are present only in the Latin portion (see Simmler 1998: 307, 333). Finally, another class of phenomena that might provide information about prosodic properties are assimilations and other phonological processes. For instance, there are different forms of personal pronouns in various Old High German manuscripts, some of which do not form a syllable (e.g., the form ih ‘I’ also appears as a shortened -h). Instances of such forms can be interpreted as unstressed and provide solid evidence for viewing the respective forms as the written expression of clitics (see Nübling 1992: 339). Another potential source of information is Notker’s Anlautgesetz. Simplifying somewhat, according to this allophonic rule, /b/, /d/ < Germanic *þ, and /g/ are realized as , , and respectively if they are at the beginning of a sentence or clause or if the preceding word ends in an obstruent, but otherwise as , , and respectively, i.e. after sonorants (Braune and Reiffenstein 2004: 105; see also Lahiri and Kraehenmann 2004: 3). Thus, if the unexpected grapheme occurs after a sonorant, this might indicate a boundary between two intonation units. Lahiri & Kraehenmann (2004: 11), discussing the St. Gall manuscript of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, observe that in a few instances in which comes after a sonorant instead of , the sonorant is in fact followed by a punctuation sign.
6. Outlook This survey of potential clues to prosodic information in Old High German manuscripts is probably far from complete, and I have not been able to treat all the features exhaustively or in the required depth. Still, I hope to have shown that accents, word separation and other paleographical pheno-
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mena potentially provide an interesting resource for prosodic research. The difficulties in interpreting such paleographic features and the danger of circular argumentation must be emphasized, however. So far very little systematic work exploring the paleographical phenomena discussed here and their potential value for prosodic studies has been carried out. Further research in this area, based on careful analyses of the manuscripts, could lead to interesting new insights. Acknowledgments The problems and ideas discussed in this paper first captivated me in December 2003, when I was invited by the project Die Rolle der Informationsstruktur bei der Herausbildung von Wortstellungsregularitäten im Germanischen (part of the Sonderforschungsbereich 632: Informationsstruktur: Die sprachlichen Mittel der Gliederung von Äußerung, Satz und Text), then in its initial phase, to discuss some of the methodological issues facing the project. Since then, the same questions have kept reappearing and have been discussed intensively on many occasions. For help and suggestions regarding the present paper I am grateful to Brigitte Bulitta, Oliver Ernst, Nikolaus Henkel, Roland Hinterhölzl, Astrid Kraehenmann, Thomas Krisch, Andreas Nievergelt, Svetlana Petrova, Oliver Schallert, Eva Schlachter, and Michael Solf. Needless to say, all remaining errors are my responsibility. Finally, many thanks are due to Mark Pennay for smoothing out my English and to the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen for allowing me to reproduce the illustrations. My work on Old High German syntax was financed by a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PA001--105063), which allowed me to spend a very fruitful time at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; it is herewith gratefully acknowledged. Notes 1.
2.
Part of this passage (namely, amplius enim intellectus instruitur quando uox legentis quiescit) is quoted and translated by Parkes (1993: 21); the translation of this passage is taken from there. This might have been different in the western, Romance-speaking parts of the empire, where Latin, according to McKitterick (1989: 21), “was in no sense a second or foreign language”, but “continued to be understood.” (see also Saenger 1997: 101).
Prosodic information in Old High German manuscripts 3.
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Due to the apparent lack of work relating to accent usage in Carolingian manuscripts I will sometimes refer to the works relating to the Beneventana. Since especially the monastery of Montecassino, one of the leading scriptories using this script, influenced the whole monastic world of its time (Bischoff 1986: 151), this can to some extent be justified, although it must be stressed that most of the evidence quoted is younger than the Old High German records with which we are dealing. Still, some parallels can be observed, which makes comparison worthwhile, its anachronism and geographic distance notwithstanding. 4. Due to space limitations I cannot discuss the (early Middle High German) accentuation system found in the various Williram manuscripts, which seems to be an offspring of Notker’s system (see Kruse 1913: 8, Gärtner 1991: 47, Schneider 2007: 19). For a discussion of this system see Kruse (1913) and Gärtner (1991: 45–55). Most interestingly from a sentence-prosodic perspective, it seems to be clear for this system that monosyllabic function words displaying an accent bear sentence stress (see Gärtner 1991: 49–50). 5. In this passage Notker mentions only articulos, but in his actual usage it is not only articles that do not bear accents. One might wonder whether Notker’s Medieval Latin usage of articulos encompasses other parts of speech in addition to articles. Unfortunately King (1986) and Hellgardt (1979) do not discuss this question; in his New High German translation, Sonderegger (1970: 83) renders articulos as “Artikel”. 6. According to Gabriel (1969: 64–65) Notker in his diphthong accentuations éi, éu, óu and íu as opposed to ûo, îe, îa, and îo also intended to render pitch differences. This view is rejected by King (1986: XLI–XLII). 7. In this article texts are quoted from reliable editions (Otfrid: Kleiber 2004a) or from manuscript sources (Tatian: Cod. Sang. 56; Notker, Boethius: Cod. Sang. 825); in the latter case the page and line of the respective codices is quoted. This information easily allows to find the respective references in the editions by Masser (1994) and King (1986), which are diplomatic; they are therefore not quoted additionally. 8. Since the examples quoted are usually quite long, no gloss indicating the grammatical categories is provided; the only abbreviations used are NEG = “negative particle” and PREF = “verbal prefix”. The meaning of the examples is clarified by more idiomatic translations. If an Old High German example is phrased in close accordance to a biblical passage, the idiomatic translation is taken from the King James Version. 9. The illustrations of this article are all details from manuscripts hosted at St. Gall’s Abbey library (Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen); facsimiles can be accessed via: http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/virt_bib/manuscripts.htm 10. In the youngest Otfrid manuscript the different accents are not distinguished any longer as far as their paleographical shape is concerned (see Sievers 1909: 8). As a matter of fact, in this manuscript the scribe put (rhythmic) ac-
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11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16. 17.
Jürg Fleischer cents nearly randomly, obviously not knowing what he was doing (see Pivernetz 2000: 121). Some systematization can be seen in his use of accents on íá, íó, and íú, however (see Pivernetz 2000: 122); thus, the principles of phonetic accentuation seem to have been followed to some extent. The different accents are distinguished in print in Kleiber’s (2004a) edition by use of two different acute accents symbols. In the present article this cannot be reproduced. In order to distinguish Otfrid’s different types of accents, the “rhythmic accents” (along with the letters above which they are placed) are printed in bold. Incidentally, there is a third type of accent of somewhat unclear function in the Viennese manuscript, disregarded here. It occurs only in a small portion of the text, while the phonetic and rhythmic accents are used throughout the codex (see Kleiber 2004b: 120). For instance, it seems that in direct speech, mentioned by Masser (1997: 60) with respect to scribe ȗ of the Tatian manuscript, more accents are encountered as compared to other passages. The same phenomenon seems to be observed in the Beneventana (see Newton 1999: 181). This example is taken from Loew (1914: 277, note 1), where the same is said with respect to the Beneventana. According to Saenger (1997: 56), this disambiguating function of the accent became especially prominent in the late tenth century; Schneider (1999: 93, 2007: 21), referring to German manuscripts, describes this function for the thirteenth century, too. Incidentally, the accent on ós ‘mouth’ might also be used to distinguish ǀs ‘mouth’ from ǂs ‘bone’; this function of the accent is noticeable in the writings of Isidore (Keller 1908: 103; see also Keller 1908: 106, Gabriel 1969: 49). According to Saenger (1997: 98), who refers to European vernacular languages in general, but particularly also mentions “Old German”, acute accents were employed “to supplement the deficiencies of the Roman alphabet and to avoid homographs for words distinguished by vowel length.” The use of an acutelike symbol (termed apex originally, but eventually lumped together with the acute sign) to avoid confusion with a homograph displaying a short vowel seems to be very old (see Keller 1908: 103–104 and Saenger 1997: 54, who quote a passage by Quintilian, c. 40–c. 118). Newton (1999: 181) mentions a similar function with respect to the Beneventana. Illustrations of text from the Tatian manuscript (Cod. Sang. 56) which contain both Latin and Old High German text (Illustrations 2, 4 and 5) are reproduced with the Latin text before the Old High German text. This differs from the layout in the manuscript, but allows the relevant paleographic details to be shown in a greater magnification. Apart from scribe ȕ this usage can only be found three times in the portion of scribe Ȗ in the St. Gall Tatian manuscript (see Sievers 1909: 15). By “separation” I am referring to separation by spaces only. An alternative and/or supplementary indication of word or syllable separation by points usually called prosodiae (see Saenger 1990: 55–56, 1997: 26, 53–58) is at-
Prosodic information in Old High German manuscripts
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tested in some Old High German records (see Krotz 2002: 119, Voetz 2006: 57). 18. It seems that in glosses and interlinear versions spaces might perform a rather different function, namely, to indicate the morphological structure of the Latin words that were glossed (see Henkel 1996: 59–60). 19. This even holds for the otherwise very faithful edition of the Viennese Otfrid manuscript by Kleiber (2004a; see Voetz 2006: 60). 20. An equivalent to punctuation by means of punctuation symbols is an arrangement principle known as per cola et commata that goes back to Jerome (see Müller 1964: 28, 70, Parkes 1993: 35). It is frequently encountered in Vulgate manuscripts. In this arrangement, every constituent to be separated by pauses from other constituents is written on a new line; the needed information to recite a text with the appropriate pauses is thus easily provided (see Müller 1964: 70–71). Among Old High German records the Tatian manuscript displays this kind of arrangement (see Bischoff 1986: 48).
References Bästlein, Ulf Christian 1991 Gliederungsinitialen in frühmittelalterlichen Epenhandschriften: Studie zur Problematik ihres Auftretens, ihrer Entwicklung und Funktion in lateinischen und volkssprachlichen Texten der Karolinger- und Ottonenzeit. Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang. Bischoff, Bernhard 2004 Reprint. Paläographie des römischen Altertums und das abendländischen Mittelalters. 2., überarbeitete Auflage. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Original edition, Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1986. Braune, Wilhelm and Ingo Reiffenstein 2004 Althochdeutsche Grammatik I: Laut- und Formenlehre. 15. Auflage bearbeitet von Ingo Reiffenstein. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Bruckner, Albert 1980 Akzente. Lexikon des Mittelalters. Vol. 1, 259–260. München/Zürich: Artemis. Fleischer, Oskar 1882 Das accentuationssystem Notkers in seinem Boethius. Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 14: 129–172, 285–300. [also partially published as diss. 1882 Halle: Waisenhaus.] Frey, Evelyn 1988 Wortteilung und Silbenstruktur im Althochdeutschen. Mit einem Anhang zur mittelhochdeutschen „Speculum ecclesiae“-Handschrift. Diss. München: Kopier- und Druckzentrale.
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Gabriel, Eugen 1969 Die Entwicklung der althochdeutschen Vokalquantitäten in den oberdeutschen Mundarten. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Gärtner, Kurt 1991 Die Williram-Überlieferung als Quellengrundlage für eine neue Grammatik des Mittelhochdeutschen. Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 101, Sonderheft: Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik als Aufgabe, ed. Klaus-Peter Wegerea, 23–55. Green, D. H. 1994 Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature 800–1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hellgardt, Ernst 1979 Notkers des Deutschen Brief an Bischof Hugo von Sitten. In Befund und Deutung. Zum Verhältnis von Empirie und Interpretation in Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, eds. Klaus Grubmüller, Ernst Hellgardt, Heinrich Jellissen and Marga Reis, 169–192. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Henkel, Nikolaus 1996 Die althochdeutschen Interlinearversionen: zum sprach- und literaturhistorischen Zeugniswert einer Quellengruppe. In Übersetzen im Mittelalter. Cambridger Kolloquium 1994, eds. Joachim Heinzle, L. Peter Johnson and Gisela Vollmann-Profe, 46–77. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Illich, Ivan 1993a In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. 1993b Lectio Divina. In Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Ursula Schaefer, 19–35. Tübingen: Narr. Keller, Wolfgang 1908 Über die Akzente in den angelsächsischen Handschriften. In Untersuchungen und Quellen zur germanischen und romanischen Philologie. Johann von Kelle dargebracht von seinen Kollegen und Schülern. Erster Teil, 97–120. Prag: Bellmann. King, James C. 1986 Die Akzente bei Notker und in der Fachliteratur, besonders bei Sehrt und Starck. In Notker der Deutsche, Boethius, »De consolatione Philosophiæ«, ed. Petrus W. Tax, XXXVII–XLIII. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Klaper, Michael 2004 Musikhistorische Interpretation. In Kleiber 2004b: 148–153.
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Kleiber, Wolfgang 1971 Otfrid von Weißenburg: Untersuchungen zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung und Studien zum Aufbau des Evangelienbuches. Bern/München: Francke. 2004a Otfrid von Weißenburg: Evangelienbuch. Band I: Edition nach dem Wiener Codex 2687. Herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Wolfgang Kleiber unter Mitarbeit von Rita Heuser. Teil 1: Text. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 2004b Otfrid von Weißenburg: Evangelienbuch. Band I: Edition nach dem Wiener Codex 2687. Herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Wolfgang Kleiber unter Mitarbeit von Rita Heuser. Teil 2: Einleitung und Apparat. Mit Beiträgen von Wolfgang Haubrichs, Norbert Kössinger, Otto Mazal, Norbert H. Ott und Michael Klaper. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Krotz, Elke 2002 Auf den Spuren des althochdeutschen Isidor: Studien zur Pariser Handschrift, den Monseer Fragmenten und zum Codex Junius 25. Mit einer Neuedition des Glossars Jc. Heidelberg: Winter. Kruse, Heinrich 1913 Die Accente in den Handschriften von Willirams Übersetzung und Auslegung des hohen Liedes. Diss. Greifswald: Adler. Lahiri, Aditi and Astrid Kraehenmann 2004 On maintaining and extending contrasts: Notker’s Anlautgesetz. Transactions of the Philological Society 102: 1–55. Loew, Elias A. 1980 Reprint. The Beneventan Script. A History of the South Italian Minuscule. Second edition prepard and enlarged by Virginia Brown. Volume I: Text. Roma: Storia e Letteratura. Original edition, Oxford: Clarendon, 1914. Masser, Achim 1994 Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen Cod. 56. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1997 Wege zu gesprochenem Althochdeutsch. In Grammatica Ianua Artium. Festschrift für Rolf Bergman zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Elvira Glaser and Michael Schlaefer, 49–70. Heidelberg: Winter. McKitterick, Rosamond 1989 The Carolingians and the Written Word. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Müller, Rudolf Wolfgang 1964 Rhetorische und syntaktische Interpunktion. Untersuchung zur Pausenbezeichnung im antiken Latein. Diss. Tübingen.
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Newton, Francis 1999 The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nübling, Damaris 1992 Klitika im Deutschen: Schriftsprache, Umgangssprache, alemannische Dialekte. Tübingen: Narr. Parkes, Malcolm B. 1993 Pause and Effect. An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Piper, Paul 1882 Zu Otfrid: 1. Otfrids accente. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Litteratur 8: 225–244. Pivernetz, Karin 2000 Otfrid von Weißenburg. Das ‘Evangelienbuch’ in der Überlieferung der Freisinger Handschrift (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, cgm. 14). Edition und Untersuchungen. II: Untersuchungen. Göppingen: Kümmerle. Saenger, Paul 1990 The separation of words and the order of words: the genesis of medieval reading. Scrittura e Civilità 14: 49–74. 1997 Space between Word: The Origins of Silent Reading. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Scholz, Manfred Günter 1980 Hören und Lesen. Studien zur primären Rezeption der Literatur im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Schneider, Karin 1999 Paläographie und Handschriftenkunde für Germanisten: eine Einführung. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 2007 Akzentuierung in mittelalterlichen deutschsprachigen Handschriften. In Edition und Sprachgeschichte. Baseler Fachtagung 2.–4. März 2005, eds. Michael Stolz, Robert Schöller and Gabriel Viehhauser, 17–24. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Sievers, Paul 1909 Die Accente in althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Handschriften. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. Simmler, Franz 1997 Interpungierungsmittel und ihre Funktionen in der Lorscher Beichte und im Weißenburger Katechismus des 9. Jahrhunderts. In Grammatica Ianua Artium. Festschrift für Rolf Bergman zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Elvira Glaser and Michael Schlaefer, 93–114. Heidelberg: Winter.
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Makrostrukturen in der lateinisch-althochdeutschen Tatianbilingue. In Deutsche Grammatik – Thema in Variationen. Festschrift für HansWerner Eroms zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Karin Donhauser and Ludwig M. Eichinger, 299–335. Heidelberg: Winter. 2003 Geschichte der Interpunktionssysteme im Deutschen. In Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2., vollständig neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, 3. Teilband, eds. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann and Stefan Sonderegger, 2472–2504. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Sobel, Naphtali 1882 Die Accente in Otfrids Evangelienbuch: eine metrische Untersuchung. Strassburg: Trübner. Sonderegger, Stefan 1970 Althochdeutsch in St. Gallen: Ergebnisse und Probleme der althochdeutschen Sprachüberlieferung in St. Gallen vom 8. bis ins 12. Jahrhundert. St. Gallen: Ostschweiz, Sigmaringen: Thorbecke. Stotz, Peter 2002 Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters. Erster Band: Einleitung, lexikologische Praxis, Wörter und Sachen, Lehnwortgut. München: Beck. Tax, Petrus W. ed. 1986 Notker der Deutsche: Boethius, “De consolatione Philosophiæ” Buch I/II. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1996 Notkers Brief. In Notker der Deutsche: Die kleineren Schriften, herausgegeben von James C. King und Petrus W. Tax, 347–349. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Voetz, Lothar 2006 Einige Beobachtungen zur Getrennt- und Zusammenschreibung im Althochdeutschen. In Neue Perspektiven der Sprachgeschichte: Internationales Kolloquium des Zentrums für Mittelalterstudien der Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg 11. und 12. Februar 2005, eds. Ursula Götz and Stefanie Stricker, 51–64. Heidelberg: Winter. Zürcher, Josef 1978 Graphetik – Graphemik – Graphematik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Notkers Marcianus Capella. Diss. Zürich: akuFotodruck.
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European Thomas Krisch
Abstract Using material from the ancient Indo-European languages Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Hittite and insights of modern linguistic theory, this paper discusses two phenomena of ellipsis: gapping and object ellipsis. Both kinds of ellipsis are shown to be operative in these languages and can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. Gapping appears in the two variants of forward and backward gapping in the languages discussed. In accordance with observations in literature using generative theory, which tell us that backward gapping is only possible in SOV languages, we conclude that backward gapping is a further piece of evidence for an underlying SOV structure of these languages and of Proto-Indo-European. The fact that there exists forward gapping in all of the languages discussed is interpreted as a reflex of a V-to-C movement. Overt V-to-C-movement is only attested in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit and not in Hittite, though. This fact is interpreted as a Hittite innovation, forward gapping being a remnant of Proto-Indo-European V-to-C-movement in this language. Object ellipsis operates in forward direction and depends on factors of functional sentence perspective. 1. Introduction1 This paper deals with some aspects of the “syntax of silence” (ellipsis) in Indo-European. There are not many investigations into this phenomenon for ancient Indo-European languages and also for modern languages there is still much work to be done. During the last decades, Generative Grammar, though, has made some substantial contributions to our understanding of ellipsis where it is syntactically conditioned. The moderate aims of the present paper are to discuss some theoretical issues, to describe some phenomena appearing in ancient Indo-European languages (AIELs) and to reconstruct some elliptical constructions for Proto- Indo-European (PIE).
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In this paper, I leave aside the ubiquitous ellipsis of the verb “to be” in AIELs and refer to Karl Praust’s recent illuminating paper (Praust 2003), where he reconstructs a PIE (phonologically) silent injunctive of the verb “to be”, which he sees reflected in ancient IE verbless nominal sentences. I here also leave aside the question of an ellipsis of the verb in case of verbs of movement with preverbs (cf. e.g. Krisch 1984: 93-94) in AIELs. This paper also does not deal with the well known type of ellipsis in more or less lexicalized NPs of AIELs where the head (the N) is not expressed and an originally attributively used adjective is nominalized.2
2. Ellipses and implicatures Ellipses are a performance factor of natural languages. Speakers and (to a little lesser degree) also writers of texts often use them. Speaker and hearer have the tacit knowledge that certain parts of utterances may remain unexpressed. Modern relevance theory claims that speakers/writers do not express truth values in a direct way but rather suggest truth values (“schematic logical forms” cf. Blakemore 2002: 77) to the hearer/reader who has to complete the utterance by deriving inferences if necessary.3 Speaker and hearer follow the principle of maximal relevance of the utterance in the context and the speaker as well as the hearer expect implicatures. Implicatures are involved even in seemingly complete utterances as in (1): (1)
Mein Schwager wohnt in München, aber seine Tante ist Ärztin in Wien. “My brother-in-law lives in Munich but his aunt is a medical doctor in Vienna”
The meaning of this sentence contains the truth values of both sentences that form part of it. Thus, the sentence is only true iff the speaker’s brotherin-law lives in Munich and iff his aunt is a medical doctor in Vienna. But in addition to that, the hearer/reader can draw the implicature (activated by the conjunctive particle aber “but”) that there is some conflict between the utterance Mein Schwager wohnt in München “my brother-in-law lives in Munich” and seine Tante ist Ärztin in Wien “his aunt is a medical doctor in Vienna”, and the reader/hearer will worry about the reason of this conflict.4 This type of implicature triggered by the semantics of certain elements of speech has been called “conventional implicature” for the last 30 years.5 The other type of implicature (“conversational implicature”) is triggered by the context and by encyclopaedic knowledge. Cf. the much cited sentence in (2):
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 193 (2)
Herr M. beherrscht seine Muttersprache und hat meine Lehrveranstaltungen regelmäßig besucht. “Mr. M. has a command of his mother tongue and regularly attended my lectures”.
If you utter this sentence in the context of an expert opinion to a scholarship this is a negative statement, namely Mr. M. does not have any other merits. If one sees the notions of conventional implicature vs. conversational implicature as poles of a continuum, our paper looks at examples which are nearer to the pole of conventional implicature.
3. Remarks on the history of generative research in ellipsis The most influential researcher in this field has been John Robert (‘Haj’) Ross (e.g. Ross 1970). Among other things he introduced the notion of “gapping” to denote ellipsis of the verb caused by coordinate constructions. I adopt Richards’ definition of gapping here: “Gapping involves ellipsis of a portion of the verb phrase, including the verb but excluding one or more VP-internal constituents” (Richards 1998: 158). The direction of gapping depends on the syntactic type. Backward gapping is only allowed in SOV languages (cf. (3c)), whereas forward gapping may appear in SVO (cf. the English examples in (3a)), SOV (cf. German subordinate clauses in (3b)) or VSO6 languages (cf. the Irish example in (3d)). Only SOV languages allow gapping in both directions (cf. (3b) vs. (3c)). In our examples the element(s) that can be gapped is/are put in deleted capital letters. (3)
a. English (SVO) John likes fish and Peter LIKES meat. Max seemed to be trying to begin to make love to Harriet and Fred SEEMED TO BE TRYING TO BEGIN TO MAKE LOVE to Sue. b. German (SOV) Ich weiß, dass die Kinder Fisch lieben und I know that the children fish love and die Eltern Fleisch LIEBEN the parents meat LOVE “I know that the children love fish and the parents (love) meat.” c. Ich weiß, dass die Kinder Fisch LIEBEN und and I know that the children fish LOVE die Eltern Fleisch lieben. the parents meat love “I know that the children (love) fish and the parents love meat.”
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Thomas Krisch d. Modern Irish (VSO) (cf. Steedman 2000:177) Chonaic Eoghan Siobhán agus CHONAIC Saw Eoghan Siobhán and SAW Ciarán Ciarán “Eoghan saw Siobhán and Eoghnaí (saw) Ciarán”
Eoghnaí Eoghnaí
Gapping thus seems to correlate with the directionality of verbal government. In languages with government to the right (SVO, VSO) only forward gapping is allowed, whereas SOV languages with government to the left show backward gapping. A subclass of SOV languages like German allow a verb before the object in some clause types (in German especially in main declarative clauses), cf. (4): (4)
Die The
Kinder lieben children love
Fisch. fish
In generative grammar, this characteristic has been explained by a movement of the verb from original position after its object inside the verb phrase (VP) into a position called “C(omplementizer) position” (cf. also 4.3). The result may be a structure like (4), which superficially looks like an SVO structure.7 By syntactic analogy (abduction8), then, the same gapping pattern as in SVO languages, namely forward gapping can be applied to these SOV languages if the verb in the first sentence of the conjoined sentences appears in final position (cf. (3b)).
4. Gapping as a phenomenon of Proto-Indo-European syntax 4.1. Examples from ancient Indo-European Languages Gapping is, indeed, a type of ellipsis that can be traced back to the PIE language. Let us first look at some examples from AIELs. A sentence with backward gapping that reoccurs in the Old Hittite9 ritual corpus a number of times is (5a). There likewise exists forward gapping in Hittite (cf. (5b)):
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 195 (5)
Hittite a. (backward ellipsis) StBoT 12 (Neu 1970; Hittite thunderstorm ritual), Rs. III, 21´ G]IŠ DINNANA.GAL.GAL LÚ.MEŠIal-li-ri-e[ i-]Ia-mi-an-zi “The big Itar-instrument [probably a lyra, TK] (resounds), the priest-singers resound” LÚ.MEŠ GIŠ DINNANA GAL.GAL IŠ)AMAI Iallirie Itar-instrument big.big RESOUNDS priest-singer.NOM.PL iIamianzi resound.PRS.3PL b. (forward ellipsis) StBoT 12 (Neu 1970; Hittite thunderstorm ritual), Rs. III, 38´: LUGAL-uš Iu-u-up-pa-ri ši-pa-an-ti MUNUS.LUGAL-ša n[a-at-]ta “The king libates into a tureen, and the queen (does) n[o]t (libate).” LUGAL-uš IVppari šipanti MUNUS.LUGAL-ša king.NOM.SG tureen.LOC.SG libate.3SG.PRS queen-and[CLT.] n[at]ta ŠIPANTI not LIBATES
In Latin, too, one can observe backward and forward ellipses, cf. the examples (6a) and (6b): (6)
Latin a. (backward ellipsis) (cf. Gaeta and Luraghi 2001: 95) Caes. Bell.Gall. 1,40,13 (AcI in indirect speech, a speech of Julius Cesar in a war assembly) suam innocentiam perpetua vita, felicitatem Helvetiorum bello esse perspectam. “(that) his [scil. Ceasar’s TK] selflessness (was to be seen) in (his) whole life, (his) success was to be seen in the war against the Helvetians” suam innocentiam perpetua selflessness.ACC.SG.F. continuous.ABL.SG his.ACC.SG.F.REFL felicitatem vita ESSE PERSPECTAM success.ACC.SG.F life.ABL.SG. TO BE SEEN Helvetiorum bello esse war.ABL.SG be.INF Helvetians.GEN.PL perspectam seen.PTCP.PRF.PASS.ACC.SG.F
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Thomas Krisch b. (forward ellipsis) Plaut. Mil. 990 Viden tu illam oculis venaturam facere atque aucupium auribus? “Do you see her making a hunt with her eyes and (making) a bird-hunt with her ears?” Vide-n tu illam oculis venaturam facere atque eye.ABL.PL hunt.ACC.SG make.INF and See.2SG-Q you her auribus aucupium FACERE ear.ABL.PL bird-catching.ACC.SG. MAKE
Also Ancient Greek provides attestations for both, backward and forward gapping, as the following examples illustrate: (7)
Ancient Greek a. (backward ellipsis) Hdt. 2,56,1 (cf. Gaeta and Luraghi 2001: 105)
Ei alFth‚Ps hoi Phoínikes exÇgagon t…s hir…s gynaĩkas kaì t¼n mèn autéPn es LibýFn, t¼n dè es t¼n Hell@da apédonto, … “If the Phoenicians did in fact carry away the sacred women and (sell) one of them in Libya and sell one in Hellas, …”
Ei alFth‚Ps hoi Phoínikes If
truly
exÇgagon
the Phoenicians they.carried.away
gynaĩkas kaì
t¼n
mèn
autéPn
t…s hir…s the sacred
es
women
and this.ACC.SG.F EMPH of.them [GEN.PL] to APÉDONTO t¼n dè es t¼n Libya.ACC SOLD this.ACC.SG.F but to ART.ACC.SG.F
LibýFn
Hell@da
apédonto
Greece.ACC.SG.F sold.3PL.AOR.MID b. (forward ellipsis) Hdt. 2,180,2 (cf. Gaeta and Luraghi 2001: 100)
… Ámasis mèn gár sphi édPke chília styptFríFs tálanta, hoi dè en AigýptPi oikéontes HéllFnes eíkosi mnéas … for Amasis gave them a thousand talents’ weight of alum, but the Greek settlers in Egypt (gave them) twenty minae (of silver).” Ámasis mèn gár sphi édPke Amasis.NOM.SG EMPH for them.DAT gave.3SG.AOR tálanta hoi dè chília styptFríFs thousand alum.GEN.SG talent.ACC.PL ART.NOM.PL.M but oikéontes HéllFnes en AigýptPi in Egypt.DAT live.PTCP.PRS.NOM.PL.M Greek.NOM.PL.M mnéas SPHI ÉD0SAN eíkosi THEM GAVE twenty minae.ACC.PL.F
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 197
In (7b), one may observe two types of elliptical expressions gapping of the verb édPsan including one of its arguments and also the usual ellipsis of “silver” with the unit of measurement “Mnéa”. Vedic Sanskrit, too, shows gapping in both directions, cf. (8a) and (8b): (8)
Vedic Sanskrit a. (backward ellipsis) (cf. Gaeta and Luraghi 2001: 96) RV 6,75,2 dh@nvanà gx dh@nvanBj¡ê jayema “with the bow (we want to win) the cows with the bow we want to win the battle.”
dh@nvanà
gx
JAYEMA
dh@nvanà
bow.INS.SG cow.ACC.PL.F WE.WANT.TO.WIN bow.INS.SG
Bj¡ê
jayema
battle.ACC.SG win.1PS.PL.OPT.PRS b. (forward ellipsis) RV 10,42,10
g¢bhiù ñaremxmatiê dur‚vàê y@vena kù£dham puruhåta v¡÷vàm “Through cows we want to overcome malignant helplessness, through corn (we want to overcome) all (kinds of) hunger, o much invoked one!”
g¢bhiù
ñarema
@matiê
cow.INS.PL overcome.1PL.OPT.PRS
dur‚vàê
y@vena
helplessness.ACC.SG.F
TAREMA
malignant.ACC.SG.F corn.INS.SG WE.WANT.TO.OVERCOME
kù£dham
puruhåta
hunger.ACC.SG.F
much.invoked.one.VOC.SG all.ACC.SG.F
v¡÷vàm
4.2. Sloppy identity in ancient Indo-European languages The Hittite example (5a) as well the Greek example (7b) show a phenomenon well attested in modern languages: the elliptical form does not need to be completely identical to its model. In (5a), the overt verbal form iIamianzi is a third person plural form but one has to recover a third person singular (išIamai) by conventional and conversational implicature. In (7b), the overt verbal form édPke by (conventional and conversational) implicature triggers a third plural form édPsan to be recovered. This phenomenon of only partial identity of the overt and the recovered element has been termed “sloppy identity” in the literature. (5a) and (7b) show that this property of ellipsis also existed in the AIELs.
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4.3. Backward and forward gapping as a PIE phenomenon and SOV The examples given above all belong to the four ancient Indo-European language families that are the most important ones for the reconstruction of PIE syntax10 (Anatolian, Italic, Greek and Indo-Aryan). They all show the same phenomena: backward and forward gapping. It is therefore safe to reconstruct both possibilities for the Proto-language. The question why PIE and the daughter languages allowed both directions of gapping may be answered by the predominantly SOV character of PIE (cf. also section 3. above)11 and its daughter languages Hittite, Latin, Greek and Vedic Sanskrit and by the fact that there exists V to C movement in all of these languages (as in the German example (4) above) except Hittite, cf. the examples (7b) and (8b) above and the examples in (9) (the moved verb is put in bold letters): (9)12
a. Latin Ter. Ph. 594–596 vixdum dimidium dixeram, intellexerat / gaudebat, me laudabat. quaerebat senem, / dis gratias agebat ... “I scarcely had said half (of it) he had understood. He was glad, praised me, looked for the old man, thanked the gods ...” me laudabat, quaerebat senem look.for.3SG.IPF old.man.ACC.SG me.ACC.SG praise.3SG.IPF b. Greek Il. 18, 476–477 (cf. also Krisch 2001: 169-171) [... th©ken en akmothétᯉ mégan ákmona, génto dè cheirì / raist©ra krater¼n,] hetérēphi dè génto pyrágrēn “[he [scil. Hephaistos, TK] set on the anvil-block a great anvil, he seized a massive hammer with one hand,] but with the other hand he seized the fire-tongs” dè génto pyrágrēn hetérēphi with.the.other but seize.3SG.MID.AOR fire.tongs.ACC.SG.F c. Vedic Sanskrit RV 1,85,7
v¡ùõur y@d dhvad vÆùaõam madacy£taü v@yo n@ sãdann @dhi barh¡ùi priy‚ “when Viùõu supported the bull reeling with excitement [scil. god Indra, TK], they [scil. the Marut, the storm-gods, TK] sat down like birds on the dear Barhis [i.e. the sacrificial grass, TK].”
v¡ùõur
y@d
Viùõu.NOM.SG
when EMPH
dha
vad
vÆùaõam
support.3SG.IPF bull.ACC.SG.M
madacy£taü reeling.with.excitement.ACC.SG.M
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 199
This point becomes clearer when one uses a generative model of description that I have applied to PIE several times in the last years.13 There are two main sentence structures (Figure 1) and (Figure 2) in the SOV-language PIE. If the verb is fronted to C-position (cf. (7b), (8b)) or if it remains in its original sentence final position in the first part of the sentence (cf. examples (5b), (6b)), then forward gapping can be applied in the second part of the coordinate construction. As pointed out in section 3. of this paper, I attribute this Janus-like behaviour of V in sentence final position to analogy (abduction). If the verb remains overt in sentence final position in the second part of the sentence, then only backward gapping can be triggered in coordinate constructions (examples (5a), (6a), (7a), (8a). In Table 1 and Table 2 the arrows indicate the direction(s) of the possible ellipses. CP (=S’) qp XP C’ TOPIC qp W1-W2 C IP (=S) ru XP I’ VP 6
(I)
...........
V
Figure 1. Structure of the PIE sentence with arrows indicating possible directions of ellipses CP (=S’)
CP (=S’) W1 XP TOPIC1 qp XP C’ qp TOPIC2 W2 C IP (=S) ru XP I’ (I)
VP 6 ...........
V
Figure 2. Structure of the PIE sentence with Chomsky adjunction and arrows indicating possible directions of ellipses
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4.4. Reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European situation I propose to reconstruct the situation of Latin, Greek and Vedic Sanskrit as the Proto-Indo-European state: a) PIE was an SOV language which allowed V-to-C-movement. b) PIE thus allowed not only for backward gapping (predicted by the direction of government in an SOV-language) but it allowed also for forward gapping. This peculiarity is reflected in Latin, Greek and Vedic Sanskrit. How does Hittite fit into this picture? I do not know of any good case in Old Hittite which would force us to assume V-to-C movement for this language. Perhaps the possibility of a forward ellipsis (5b) in Hittite represents a last piece of evidence in Hittite that V-to-C-movement once existed also in this branch of Indo-European. If this interpretation is correct, it would provide us with an instance where Hittite, the oldest attested AIEL, exhibits syntactic innovation.14
5. Ellipsis and information structure Apart from structural points of view (cf. sections 3. and 4. above), there exist a number of other approaches to deal with ellipsis in modern linguistic theory. I restrict myself here to approaches that interpret ellipsis as an epiphenomenon of the TOPIC-FOCUS distinction.15 This type of functional explanation in my view does not contradict structural views but supplements them. Kuno emphasizes the importance of TOPIC-FOCUS (/theme-rheme) for ellipsis in his famous “pecking order of deletion” (Kuno 1980:132) “Pecking order of deletion Delete order [sic! correct “older” TK] (less important) information first, and newer (more important) information last”. Klein’s formulation is a bit more precise: (10)
Klein (1993: 791) “Genau jene lexikalischen Einheiten, die eine beibehaltene Topik ausdrücken, können p-reduziert werden” (those and only those elements that express maintained topic/thematic information may be preduced).16
Merchant (2001) starts from a different approach but goes in a direction similar to Klein’s (1993) formulation. Merchant's focus condition on ellipsis (Merchant 2001: 38) reads “A constituent α can be deleted only if α is e-GIVEN” whereby e-GIVEN means (in a slightly simplified way) that
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 201
there is an antecedent for α which entails the deleted constituent by an existentially bound variable and vice versa. If you take the sentence in (11), (11)
Abby sang.
you can abstract an existentially bound variable of the form in (12) (12)
∃x sing (x)
In a sentence like (13) (with VP-ellipsis), (13)
Abby sang because Ben did SING.
one can recover the verb SING because an existentially bound variable like the one in (12) may be abstracted (“∃-type shifting”). This view makes it a bit easier to understand the possibility of “sloppy identity” (as exemplified by the Greek example (7b)). The verbal form édPke “he gave” (3Sg.Aor) appears in the first part of the coordinate construction and thus represents thematic material for the second part of the coordination. An interpretation of édPke analogous to the one in (12) would be something like “there exists an x who gives”. This abstraction of a variable evidently is strong enough to make it possible to interpret the elided form as a plural (perhaps by thinking about the variable x as a collective expression). With an example taken from German, Klein (1993: 774) claims that for forward ellipses only the “lexical content” is important and not morphological marking. For backward ellipsis, Klein (1993: 797) formulates the rule in (14): (14)
“Identisches Endstück in parallelen Konjunkten kann beim ersten Vorkommen p-reduziert werden” (the first instance of an identical piece of the final part in parallel coordinated constructions can be p-reduced).
In other words, Klein claims that there must be complete formal identity of the elided part and the overt part in backward ellipsis (cf. Klein 1993: 773). The ungrammatical German example (15) (Klein 1993: 774) confirms this claim:17 (15)
*weil ich because I trinkst drink.2Sg.Prs
Bier beer
TRINKE DRINK.1Sg.Prs.
und du and you
Wein wine
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Our Vedic example [(8a), repeated as (16)], too, meets Klein's requirement in (14): the verbal form jayema “we want to win” which appears in the second part of the coordinate construction is exactly the form that is missing in the first part of the coordinate construction. (16)
Vedic Sanskrit RV 6,75,2
dh@nvanà gx dh@nvanBj¡ê jayema “with the bow (we want to win) the cows with the bow we want to win the battle.” dh@nvanà
gx
JAYEMA
dh@nvanà
bow.INS.SG cow.ACC.PL.F WE.WANT.TO.WIN
Bj¡ê
jayema
battle.ACC.SG
win.1PS.PL.OPT.PRS
bow.INS.SG
But our Hittite example for backward ellipsis [(5a), repeated as (17)] shows sloppy identity in backward gapping: (17)
Hittite StBoT 12 (Neu 1970; Hittite thunderstorm ritual), Rs. III, 21´ G]IŠ DINNANA.GAL.GAL LÚ.MEŠIal-li-ri-e[ i-]Ia-mi-an-zi “The big Itarinstrument [probably a lyra, TK] (resounds), the priest-singers resound” LÚ.MEŠ GIŠ DINNANA GAL.GAL IŠ)AMAI Iallirie Itar-instrument big.big RESOUNDS priest-singer.NOM.PL iIamianzi resound.PRS.3PL
This means that Klein’s claim in (14) cannot be a universal one. Languages seem to differ in this respect. This can also be shown by the following Russian examples from Philippa Cook, taken from the description of a project of Lang (2006: 4): (18)
(Russian) a a. Ja naunuju sta'tju !ITAJU I scientific article READ.1SG but itaet. read.3SG vodu i b. Ja *PIL / PILA I *DRANK.SG.M / F water and vodku vodka
on he
detektiv detective story
Anna Anna
pila drank.SG.F.
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 203
Russian tolerates differences in person in backward ellipses (18a) but not differences in gender (18b). (18b) is only grammatical if ja “I” refers to a female person. The exact conditions for the appearance of backward gapping in AIELs and in PIE await further investigation. A thorough analysis of a large corpus of several AIELs will be necessary for such a project.
6. Object deletion as a phenomenon of Proto-Indo-European syntax This section deals with deleted objects in AIELs and with the possibility to reconstruct this type of ellipsis for the proto-language.
6.1. Latin data Consider first the Latin example in (19), taken from “Amphitruo”, a comedy by the greatest Roman comic playwright, Titus Maccius Plautus (254184 B.C.): (19)
Plaut. Amph. 387-392 (God Mercurius, having taken the shape of Sosia, a servant of Amphitruo, beats up Sosia, because Sosiaa (rightly) claims that hea is Sosia. Mercurius wants Sosiaa to deny that hea is Sosia ) Merc. Ego sum Sosia ille quem tu dudum esse aiebas mihi. Sos. Obsecro ut per pacem liceat te alloqui, ut ne vapulem. Merc. Immo indutiae parumper fiant, si quid vis loqui. Sos. Non loquar nisi pace facta, quando pugnis plus vales. Merc. Dic si quid vis, non nocebo. Sos. Tuae fide credo? Merc. Meae. Sos. Quid si falles? Merc. Tum Mercurius Sosiae iratus siet. “Merc. I am this Sosia about whom you just told me that you are him. Sos. I implore you that you allow me to speak to you in a friendly way, that you do not beat me up. Merc. Well, there shall be armistice for a short time if you want to say anything. Sos. I shall not speak unless peace has been made because you are the stronger one with your fists. Merc. Say SOMETHING, if you want TO SAY anything, I shall not harm YOU. Sos. May I believe in your honesty? Merc. Yes [lit. mine] Sos. What if you will deceive ME? Merc. Then Mercurius will be angry with Sosia.”
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It is evident from this example (cf. the deleted material in the translation) that the immediate context gives us hints to interpret the elliptical elements. Let us first take a closer look at line 391: (20)
Plaut. Amph. 391 si quid vis Dic (ALIQUID) Say.IMP.2SG (SOMETHING) if anything.ACC.SG want.2SG.PRS LOQUI, non TIBI nocebo YOU.DAT.SG harm.1SG.FUT SAY.INF.PRS not
In (20), the imperative dic is construed without an object, an “ellipsis” provided for by the Latin lexicon (actually changing the semantics of dic to “speak”18), and with the sentential adjunct (a conditional clause) si quid vis. In verse 389 the verbal form loqui (which has to be supplemented in verse 391) appears in the phrase si quid vis loqui uttered by the same speaker (Mercurius). The verb loqui in verse 389 thus represents thematic, already known material and therefore neatly meets Klein’s criterion cited in (10). This type of verbal ellipsis resembles forward gapping in a sense but goes beyond it since the distance between the antecedent and the gap is bigger, there is no coordinate construction involved and the elliptic element is not the finite auxiliary vis but the infinite part of the verbphrase (loqui). The Latin verb nocFre “harm” is normally construed with a direct object in the dative case19 “to harm somebody”. An “unspecific” reading (see also note 15) without the object in the dative case is achieved by using the figurae etymologicae noxam nocFre or noxiam nocFre, which mean something like “to harm a harm”.20 Since this construction is not present in our case (20) we have to assume an ellipsis of the dative object TIBI here. This ellipsis is also based on given thematic material. All of the sentences uttered by Mercurius before our example (20) contain a pronoun of the second person singular either explicitly (cf. (19) verse 387) or implicitely [as “pro” in the verbal form vis in verse 389 and in the verbal forms dic and vis in the immediate context before nocebo, cf. also (19)]. In Latin, the dative object with the verb nocēre behaves like a normal direct object. As a good piece of evidence for that one can show that, in passive constructions, this dative may be changed into a nominative case: (21) Vitr. 2,9,14 Larix ... ab suci vehementi amaritate ab carie aut tinea non nocetur ... “The larch ... is not harmed by decay or by a caterpillar because of the enormous bitterness of its sap ...” Larix .... non nocetur not harm.PRS.PASS.3SG larch.NOM.SG
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 205
In verse 392 of (19), repeated as (22), the object of the verb falles (which normally governs an accusative case) is missing: (22)
Plaut. Amph. 392 Quid si (ME) What if (I.ACC.SG )
falles? deceive.FUT.2SG
Also this object can be easily retrieved by the context of a dialogue situation.21 The omission of direct objects is such a common phenomenon in Latin that quite complex constructions can be found, cf. (23). Here the verbs with missing objects are put in bold letters. The normal valency frames of these verbs are listed in (24). (23)
Tac. Ann. 12,46,18 – 12,47,1 (cf. Luraghi 1997: 250) qua necessitate Mithridates diem locumque foederi accepit castelloque egreditur. (47) Ac primo Radamistus in amplexus eius effusus simulare obsequium, socerum ac parentem appellare; adicit ius iurandum, non ferro, non veneno vim adlaturum; simul in lucum propinquum trahit ... “Under this compulsion, Mithridates accepted a day and a place for the completion of a contract and quitted [lit. “quits”, TK] the fortress. (47) And first, Radamistus threw himself into his embraces, simulated [historical infinitive, TK] respect, called [historical Infinitive, TK] HIM father-in law and father, swore [lit. “swears”, TK] an oath too that he would do no violence TO HIM, neither by sword nor by poison. At the same time he drew [lit. “draws”, TK] HIM into a neighbouring grove ...” appellare... socerum ac parentem EUM father-in-law.ACC.SG and father.ACC.SG HE.ACC.SG.M call.INF vim non ferro non veneno EI not sword.ABL.SG not poison.ABL.SG HE.DAT.SG.M violence.ACC.SG adlaturum ESSE22 bring.ACC.SG.M. PTCP.FUT BE.INF ... in lucum propinquum simul EUM at the same time HE.ACC.SG in grove.ACC.SG nearby.ACC.SG trahit draw.3SG.PRS
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(24)
a. appellare “call, refer to as” (+ acc (someone) + acc (as something/ someone)) Tac. Ann. 4,52,19 Afer primoribus oratorum additus, divulgato ingenio et secuta asseveratione Caesaris qua suo iure disertum eum appellavit. “Afer was ranked among the foremost orators, through his publicly known ability and through the subsequent assertion of the emperor by which he called him ‘eloquent by his own right’”. suo iure disertum eum appellavit own.ABL.SG right.ABL.SG eloquent.ACC.SG him.ACC.SG he.called b. vim afferre “do violence to” ([lit. vim (violence.ACC) afferre (carry.to)] (with dat.)23 Liv. 39,54,6 (an accusativus cum infinitivo construction) oppidum quoque aedificare coepisse, quod indicium esset nec agro nec urbi ulli vim adlaturos venisse. “(they [scil. the Gauls, TK ] said that) they also had started to build a town, and that would be an indication for the fact that they had not come in order to do violence to the country or to any town.” nec agro nec urbi ulli and.not country.DAT.SG and.not town.DAT.SG any.DAT.SG vim adlaturos venisse carry.to.PTCP.FUT.ACC.PL come.INF.PERF violence.ACC.SG c. trahere “draw” + acc. (someone / something) + prepositional phrase (denoting the GOAL) Tac. 4,21,4 Et spreta potentia Augustae trahere in ius Urgulaniam domoque principis excire ausus erat. “He also dared to hand over Urgulania to the courts neglecting the power of Augusta and to summon (her) from the palace of the emperor.” trahere in ius Urgulaniam Urgularia.ACC.SG.F draw into law.ACC.SG.N
Thus, in the case of appellare in (23) a pronoun (3SG.M) in the accusative is missing, in the case of vim afferre in (23) there is an ellipsis of a pronoun (3SG.M) in the dative and in the case of trahit in (23), a pronoun of the accusative (3SG.M) is missing, all of which refer to the same person addressed by the form eius “his” (lit. “of him”, GEN.SG.M of the anaphoric personal pronoun of the third person singular is, ea, id) in the immediate context before. Eius, again, (carrying thematic material, as an “anaphoric” pronoun) refers back to Mithridates in the sentence before. Thus, we have a neat “chain” of thematic material here, first producing an anaphoric element (eius) and then a series of null elements.
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 207
6.2. Greek data The same type of object ellipsis is ubiquitous in Homeric Greek. Consider example (25). The verbs with missing objects are put in bold letters. (25)
Hom. Il 5, 22-24 (Dares, a priest of the god Hephaistos, has two sons, Phegeus and Idaios. In the Troian war, they fight against Diomedes. Diomedes kills Phegeus and would have killed Idaios as well, but Hephaistos rescues Idaios)
oudè gàr oudè ken autòs hypékphyge kËra mélainan, / all’ HÇphaistos éryto, sáPse dè nyktì kalýpsas, / hPs dÇ hoi m¼ págchy gérPn akachÇmenos eíē. “Nay, he [Idaios, TK] would himself not have escaped the black goddess of death, but Hephaistos guarded HIM, rescued HIM, enfolding HIM in darkness so that the aged one [= Dares TK] might not be utterly fordone with grief ”24 all' MIN HÇphaistos éryto, sáPse but HE.3SG.ACC Hephaistos guard.3SG.IPF.MID rescue.3SG.AOR nyktì MIN kalýpsas dè MIN night.LOC.SG HIM hide.PTCP.AOR.NOM.SG.M and HIM
Here, again, we are dealing with a thematic “chain”. The name Idaios is the explicit subject of the sentence before (Hom. Il. 5,20). The anaphoric pronoun autós refers back to this person. The following missing direct objects to the verbal forms éryto, saPse, and kalýpsas all refer back to the same person. The normal valency frames of the verbs with elliptic objects in (25) are exemplified in (26): (26)
a. erý(e)sthai “guard” + acc. (someone) Hom. Il. 13,554–555 péri gár ra PoseidáPn enosíchthPn / Néstoros hyiòn éryto “for mightly did Poseidon, the Shaker of Earth, guard Nestor’s son” péri gár ra PoseidáPn all.around for indeed Poseidon.NOM.SG enosíchtPn Néstoros hyiòn Shaker.of.Earth.NOM.SG Nestor.GEN.SG son.ACC.SG éryto guard.3SG.IPF.MID
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Hom.Il.17,452
óphra kaì Automédonta saÔseton ek polémoio “that you two [scil. two horses TK] will also rescue Automedon out of the war” óphra kaì Automédonta saÔseton that also Automedon.ACC.SG.M rescue.2DU.FUT ek polémoio out.of war.GEN.SG c. kalýptein “hide” + acc. (someone/something) Hom. Il. 4,461 tòn dè skótos ósse kalypse “and darkness enfolded his eyes” (lit. and darkness enfolded him, the eyes”25) tòn dè skótos ósse kalýpse he.ACC.SG.M and darkness.NOM.SG eye.ACC.DU hide.3SG.AOR
The null object construction is not allowed in the languages continuing Latin and Ancient Greek, viz. the Romance languages and Modern Greek.26 On the other hand, the attestation of the “null object” type of ellipsis in Ancient Greek and in Latin make this construction a candidate for PIE reconstruction.
6.3. Vedic data The data from Vedic Sanskrit fit in with what was just said about Latin (6.1.) and Greek (6.2.), cf. (27). The verbs with missing objects are put in bold letters. (27)
RV 2,35,1 ( cf. van der Wurff 1997: 345)
£pem asçkùi vàjay£r vacasyxê c@no dadhãta nàdy¢ g¡ro me | apxê n@pàd à÷uh‚mà kuv¡t s@ sup‚÷asas karati j¢ùiùad dh¡ || “Eager for reward I have poured out (my) eloquence. The child of the river may accept my songs [gíro] with favour. Will he, the rapidly rushing Apàm Napàt [name of a god in the waters, lit. “offspring of the waters” TK], make THEM [scil. the songs, TK] well adorned? Will he enjoy THEM [scil. the songs, TK]?” 27
apxê
n@pàd
à÷uh‚mà
water.GEN.PL offspring.NOM.SG.M rapidly.rushing.NOM.SG.M
T ᘇS
kuv¡t
s@
sup‚÷asas
INTERR
he.NOM.SG.M
well.adorned.ACC.PL.F THEY.ACC.PL.F28
karati
T ᘇS
j¢ùiùad
dh¡
make 3SG.AOR.SBJV THEY.ACC.PL.F enjoy.3SG.AOR.SBJV EMPH
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 209
There is thematic continuity of the elided null objects with the word for “songs” (gíro) in the first line of our example (27). The thematic “chain” is not as “dense” as it was in the Latin and the Greek examples (23) and (25). There is no “intermediate” stage with an overt pronoun in (27). The normal valency frames of the verbs with elliptic objects in (27) are exemplified in (28): (28)
a. kar- “make” + acc. (someone/something) + secondary predicate (adjective) RV 10,18,6 ih@ tv@ùñà suj@nimà saj¢ùà dãrgh@m xyuþ karati jãv@se vaþ “May Tv@ùñç [Indian god of creation, TK], giver of good birth, being gracious, make long the life-span for your life here.”
ih@ tv@ùñà
suj@nimà
here Tv@ùñç.NOM.SG.M
giving.good.birth.NOM.SG.M
saj¢ùà
dãrgh@m
xyuþ
gracious.NOM.SG.M
long.ACC.SG.N
life.span.ACC.SG.N
karati
jãv@se
vaþ
life.DAT.SG. you.GEN./DAT.PL.CLIT make 3SG.AOR.SBJV b. joù - “enjoy” + acc. (something)29 RV 1,25,18 etx juùata me g¡raþ “He shall enjoy these songs from me”
etx
juùata
me
this.ACC.PL.F
enjoy.3SG.INJ.MID
I.GEN / DAT. SG (CLT)
g¡raþ song.ACC.PL.F
6.4. Hittite data In Hittite, there are not many examples for null objects. The specialist for Hittite syntax, Silvia Luraghi (2005: 244) remarks “Transitive verbs ... only very infrequently occur with N[ull] O[bject]s”. She brings an example from the relatively young (Neo-Hittite) Annals of Mursilis for this phenomenon (Luraghi 2005: 244) and mentions the Old Hittite law texts (Luraghi 2005: 242), where null objects occur. In addition to that I have found several attestations for this construction in the Old Hittite thunderstorm ritual. Three examples are cited in (29). The verbs with missing objects are marked with bold letters.
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(29) StBot 12 (Neu 1970, Hittite thunderstorm ritual) RS. III, 44'–46' LÚ SÌLA.ŠU.DU8 NINDAIar-ši-in EM-A GE6 / LUGAL-i pa-a-i ta p@r-ši-K[a LÚ ] SÌLA.ŠU.DU8 e-ip-zi ta LÚ GIŠBANŠUR pa-a-i .... “The cupbearer gives sour dark bread to the king and he cuts IT. The cupbearer takes IT and he gives IT to the table servant ...” LÚ SÌLA.ŠU.DU8 NINDAIarši-n EMA GE6 30 Cupbearer bread-ACC.SG.COMM sour.ACC black AN LUGAL-i pài ta king-DAT.SG give.3SG.PRS and IT-ACC.COMM. (CLT) LÚ SÌLA.ŠU.DU8 AN paršiKa cut.3SG.PRS.MID cupbearer IT.ACC.SG.COMM. (CLT) ēpzi ta (AŠ)31 take.3SG.PRS and (HE.NOM.SG.COMM. (CLT)) LÚ GIŠBANŠUR pài AN give.3SG.PRS IT.ACC.SG.COMM. (CLT) table.servant32
The first sentence of (29) shows the full valency of the verb “to give”, piKe-IIi (appearing in the form pài).33 The last part of the cited text exhibits ellipsis of the accusative object with the same verb. In between these two sentences there are two further examples of null objects (elliptical accusative objects). In all of these cases there is thematic continuity with the word for “bread” in the first line of the cited text. Like the ègvedic example (27), the Hittite example in (29) does not show “intermediate” pronominalization. In (30) one can find examples for the normal valencies of the verbs paršKe-a “cut” and ēpp/ app- “take, seize” in Old Hittite: (30) a. paršKe-a “cut” + acc. (something) StBoT 12, (Neu 1970; Hittite thunderstorm ritual) RS IV 25' NINDA Iar-ši-in-na pár-ši-Ka “and he cuts bread” NINDA Iaršinn-a páršiKa bread-ACC-and cut.3SG.PRS.MID b. ēpp/ app- “take, seize” StBoT 8 (Otten / Souek 1969; Old Hittite ritual for the royal couple) Vs. II 19 ma-a-an MUŠENIa-a-ra-na-an Iu-š[(u-Wa-an-da-an ap-pa-an-zi)] ...“if one seizes [lit. “they seize”, TK] a living eagle ...” màn MUŠENIàrana-n IušuWanda-n app-anzi if eagle-ACC.SG.COMM living-ACC.SG.COMM seize-3PL.PRS
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 211
6.5. Germanic data (?) Like the modern Romance languages (cf. section 6.2. above), the modern Germanic languages are said to lack clear instances of object ellipsis, whereas this phenomenon is claimed to exist in older Germanic dialects.34 But there are many questions open here. We can cite one instance from Old High German which suggests, in our view erroneously, that this older state of German could have been more permissive in this respect than modern German, namely the Straßburg oaths: (31)
Old High German Straßburg oaths (Steinmeyer 1916=1971: 82) Oba Karl then eid, then er sinemo bruodher Ludhuuige gesuor, gileistit, indi Ludhuuuig, min herro, then er imo gesuor, forbrihchit, ob ih inan es iruuenden nemag ... “If Charles keeps the oath which he swore to his brother Ludwig, and Ludwig, my lord, (on his part) breaks THE OATH / IT which he swore to him, if I cannot prevent him from it, ....”
In Modern German the corresponding sentence with ellipsis would be ungrammatical: (32)
Modern German *... und (wenn) Ludwig, mein Herr, DEN EID/den, den er ihm schwor, bricht,
A grammatical rendering of (32) in Modern German would be .... und (wenn) Ludwig, mein Herr, den (Eid), den er ihm schwor, bricht (with an overt correlative pronoun (den) as head of the relative clause). The Romance text of the oath shows an overt pronoun in the accusative (lo) in the corresponding construction.35 In my opinion, the lack of a (correlative) pronoun as head of a relative construction in the Old High German text (32) [Ludhuuuig, min herro, then (relative pronoun) er imo gesuor] could have been immediately influenced by Latin which showed such constructions.36
6.6. Reconstruction The examples taken from AIELs and discussed in sections 6.1–6.4. showed deletion of the object. This leads us to the conclusion that PIE had a rule that allowed deleting objects which refer back to already mentioned “thematic” material. This “null object” type of ellipsis thus is operating in a
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forward direction and meets Klein’s criterion cited in (10). Modern IndoEuropean languages like the Romance languages, the Germanic languages (also partly in their old attestations) and Modern Greek do not permit null objects any more (cf. sections 6.2. and 6.5).
7. Conclusions a)
b)
Gapping was possible in the ancient Indo-European languages and can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. It operates backwards and forwards in these languages and in the protolanguage and it is determined by syntactic (basic word order) factors and by factors of functional sentence perspective. Object ellipsis was possible in the ancient Indo-European languages and in Proto-Indo-European. It operates in forward direction in these languages and in the protolanguage and it is determined by factors of functional sentence perspective.
Appendix: Abbreviations AIEL=Ancient Indo-European Language; Amph.=Amphitruo; Ann.=Annales; AOR=Aorist; Ar.=Aristophanes; Bell. Gall.=De Bello Gallico; C=position of the “Complementizers”; Caes.=Caesar; CLT=clitic; COMM=genus commune; CP=Complementizer Phrase; EMPH=emphasizing particle; Hdt.=Herodotos; Hom.=Homeros; Il.=Ilias; INJ=injunctive; INTERR=interrogative particle; IP=Inflection Phrase; IPF=imperfect; Liv.= Livius; MID=middle voice; OPT=optative. Mil.=Miles Gloriosus; PERF=perfect; Ph.=Phormio; PIE=Proto-Indo-European; Plaut.=Plautus; preduced=phonologically reduced; Ra.=Ranae; RV=ègveda; StBoT=Studien zu den Bo÷azköy–Texten; Tac.=Tacitus; Ter.=Terentius; TK=Thomas Krisch; TOPIC=Topic or contrastive focus position; TOPIC1=topic position; TOPIC2=focus-position; Vitr.=Vitruvius; VP=verbal phrase; W=Wackernagel particle (W1= enclitical sentence connectors; W2= other enclitics); XP=any phrase
On the “syntax of silence” in Proto-Indo-European 213
Notes 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. 7.
8.
Interlinear glosses of examples follow the Leipzig glossing rules to be found at the following URL: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossingrules.php (April 2, 2008). Additional abbreviations used in this article are listed as an appendix before the notes. Many thanks go to Jürg Fleischer for numerous suggestions, to Thomas Lindner for helping the author with the Straßburg oaths, to Hermann Bieder for confirming the Russian data in example (18), to an anonymous reviewer of this article for some useful hints and to Christina Katsikadeli and Stefan Niederreiter for proofreading the text. All remaining shortcomings remain in the responsibility of the author, of course. Cf. e.g. the following examples for the “right hand” which show nominalization of the word for “right” and do not express the (feminine) word for “hand” (put in parentheses) lat. dext(e)ra f. (scil. manus), germ. die Rechte f. (scil. Hand), gr. dexia/ f. (scil. cheír); ved. d@kùiõa- m. (scil. hásta-). A similar case is the ellipsis of the head noun in the following ancient Greek syntagm és Haidou “to the (houses of) Hades” (e.g. Ar. Ra. 69). Blakemore (2002: 71): “Pragmatics does not simply enter when linguistic decoding fails; on the contrary, the linguistic system is subservient to pragmatic inference in the sense that it functions as an aid to the inferential system.” Of course, I am aware of the fact that the exact semantic interpretation of English but and German aber is more complex, as is clear from the analyses of Abraham (1979: e.g. 92) and Lang (1977: e.g. 168). As is well known, the term “implicature” has been made popular in linguistics by Grice (1975). The concept of conventional implicature is viewed upon in a critical way by Bach (2006; in press), especially p. 14 (cited after http//userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/TopTen.pdf (seen April 2, 2008)). Bach wants to get rid of the notion of “conventional implicature” which is “counterintuitive” for him because to his opinion the conjunction but states something rather than implicates something. I cannot follow this way of argumentation, though. By hearing aber “but” the hearer starts worrying and expects additional information. Cf. also Maling (1972: 103). Of course, not every case of V-to-C movement looks like an SVO structure. Consider the following German coordinate sentences where the first position in the sentences is occupied by an adverb: Gestern liebten die Kinder Fisch, aber heute lieben sie Yesterd
