Null referential subjects in the history of Swedish

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Håkansson
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Movement Strategies ◽  
Old Swedish ◽  
History Of ◽  
Striking Change ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Person Agreement

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

Information Structure: The final hurdle?

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieke Verheijen ◽  
Bettelou Los ◽  
Pieter de Haan
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Structural Function ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
The Subject

Although texts produced by (very) advanced Dutch learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) may be perfectly grammatical, they often feel distinctly non-native. Dutch, as a verb-second language, makes separate positions available for discourse linking and aboutness-topics. Although the English sentences of these advanced learners conform to the subject-verb-object order of English, the pre-subject adverbial position in English is made to perform the information-structural function of the verb-second discourse-linking position, producing texts that are perceived as non-native, without being ungrammatical. A side-effect of this L1 interference is the underuse of special focusing constructions in English, like the stressed-focus it-cleft. This paper investigates the progress of Dutch writers towards a more native-like use of the pre-subject position and the it-cleft in a longitudinal corpus of 137 writings of Dutch university students of English. We conclude that information-structural differences present the final hurdle for advanced Dutch EFL writers.

scholarly journals Hun hebben de taal verkwanseld en hun hadden gelijk — over het gebruik van hun als onderwerp in het hedendaagse Nederlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (5 Zeszyt specjalny) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Kamila Tomaka
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Striking Change ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Dutch Language ◽  
Critical Overview

A striking change has recently occurred in the Dutch language, namely, that we are increasingly confronted with a sharp expansion of the use of hun in the subject position. The use of hun instead of ze or zij as the subject of the sentence is considered ungrammatical and a form of language degradation. This contribution discusses the origin of this phenomenon, its characteristics and possible explanations for its use. It also presents a critical overview of statements given by authoritative bodies, such as the Dutch Language Union, about the use of hun. The issue of hun in the practice of NT2 education is also discussed, and the question is asked whether this language change has a negative impact on Dutch. Is it acceptable? Where is the limit for tolerance?

scholarly journals Subjektsegenskaper i förändring: Indefinita subjekt i fornsvenskt lagspråk

2019 ◽  
Vol NF 28 (2018) ◽  
pp. 112-141
Author(s):  
Minna Sandelin
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Old Swedish ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
The Law

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

The finite clause

2019 ◽  
pp. 155-208
Author(s):  
Jan Terje Faarlund
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Shift ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
T Domain ◽  
Subject Role ◽  
Finite Clause ◽  
Finite Verb

The topic of this chapter is the T-domain. The specifier of TP is the subject position. The finite verb never appears in T on the surface. In subordinate clauses it remains in V; in main clauses it moves on to C. There is an obligatory subject requirement for all finite, non-imperative clauses. In cases where no argument raises to SpecTP, a non-referential element is used to fill the subject role. There are two kinds of passives, a periphrastic one with an auxiliary and the perfect participle, or one derived from the reflexive form of the verb. The passive subject may be any nominal complement, including the complement of some prepositions, stranding the preposition. Sentence adverbials are left-adjoined to VP. By object shift an unstressed pronoun is shifted across the sentence adverbial if no other material intervenes. Negated objects cannot occur in VP, and have to be replaced by the negation above VP.

South Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sharrad
Keyword(s):  
South Pacific ◽  
Pacific Islanders ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Communal Identity ◽  
Western Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Village Life ◽  
History Of The South

This chapter focuses on the history of the South Pacific novel as a post-1950s phenomenon. Many Pacific writings from the early phase of literary production came in the form of ‘auto-ethnographic’ accounts of village life or the transcription of oral stories in which the separation of the writer is indicated often implicitly in the external viewpoint of the narrative and its use of formal English to depict a clearly non-Anglo world. To become a writer, one had to enter school, where he/she had to be acquainted not only with maths tables and alphabets but also new patterns of behaviour fitted to the subject position of ‘student’, disruptive of a traditional sense of communal identity. The chapter examines how literacy, with its ties to Western education, allowed Pacific Islanders to correct false representations of themselves in colonial adventure stories. It also shows that South Pacific fiction is imbued from the start with the vision of flux and fragmentation that is modernity, while contemporary shifts in Pacific identities due to the pan-Pacific diaspora and transnational networks have encouraged novelistic innovation in the increasingly pervasive print culture of a globalized Pacific.

scholarly journals Ultimate attainment of anaphora resolution in L2 Chinese

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Xia Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Null Element ◽  
External Interface ◽  
Discourse Interface

The current study tests the Interface Hypothesis through forward and backward anaphora in complex sentences with temporal subordinate clauses in highly proficient English-speaking learners’ second-language (L2) Chinese. Forward anaphora is involved when the overt pronoun ta ‘he/she’ or a null element appears in the subject position of the main clause, whereas backward anaphora is involved when it is in the subject position of the temporal clause, because the main clause always follows the temporal clause in Chinese. Specifically, the article tests the syntactic and discourse constraints in the interpretation and representation of ta and the null element in complex sentences. Ta is constrained by the syntactic cyclic-c-command condition. Thus it is possible for ta to refer to the other sentential subject in forward anaphora, but not in backward anaphora in Chinese. Unlike English, Chinese allows a null element in subject positions of finite subordinate and main clauses. It is proposed in the article that the null element in these positions is a Øtopic, a syntax–discourse interface category. Results from an acceptability judgement task and a picture judgment task indicate that Øtopic at the external interface has been acquired, whereas the cyclic-c-command condition within narrow syntax is fossilized in L2 Chinese.

On the loss of copy-raising and the development of infinitive complements

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-109
Author(s):  
Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Old High German ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Copy Raising ◽  
Matrix Subject ◽  
Dependent Clause

This article deals with (non‑)finite complement clauses embedded under the inceptive phase predicate beginnen ‘begin’ in the history of German and illustrates how infinitives replaced finite clauses headed by the complementizer dass ‘that’. The main objective is to show that it was possible in Old High German (750–1050) to raise the subject from the embedded clause into the matrix subject position, crossing a CP boundary and leaving a pronominal copy in the dependent clause (copy-raising). Moreover, it is claimed that beginnen in its function as a subject control verb instantiates a recent development in the history of German and that this use developed out of a raising structure.

scholarly journals Uso de se com infinitivo do português clássico ao português europeu e brasileiro modernos (The usage of se in infinitival clauses from Classical to European and Brazilian Portuguese)

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Silvia Regina De Oliveira Cavalcante
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
De Se ◽  
Infinitival Clauses ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
The 19Th Century

Este artigo traz uma análise diacrônica das construções com SE e verbo no infinitivo associando-a a mudanças paramétricas que ocorreram ao longo da história do português: as mudanças na posição do sujeito e no tipo de SE. O fenômeno, que foi considerado típico de uma gramática brasileira, é na verdade uma construção da gramática do Português Clássico (séculos 16 e 17). As diferenças encontradas entre o comportamento do fenômeno no Português Clássico, Português Europeu (a partir do século 18) e Português Brasileiro (textos de autores brasileiros nascidos a partir do século 19) foram analisadas como resultados de diferentes gramáticas.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Construções com SE. Mudança linguística. Português Europeu. Português Brasileiro. Português Clássico.ABSTRACT This paper brings a diachronic analysis of SE constructions in infinitival clauses, as a result of parametric changes that occurred throughout the history of Portuguese: changes in the subject position and type of SE. The phenomenon, which was considered typical of a Brazilian Grammar, appears as a construction of Classical Portuguese (between 16th and 17th centuries). The observed different patterns of the phenomenon in Classical Portuguese, European Portuguese (from 18th century on) and Brazilian Portuguese (texts written by Brazilian born from the 19th century on) were analyzed as result of different grammars.KEYWORDS: SE-constructions. Diachronic syntax. Classical Portuguese. European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese.

Notes on the history of reciprocal NP-strategies in Semitic languages in a typological perspective

Diachronica ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

Among Semitic reciprocal constructions, a division is seen between two types: 1) two-unit constructions, with two components, each filling a different argument position of the verb, and 2) one-unit constructions, with an anaphora that co-refers with the subject (that must be plural) and occupies only the non-subject position required by the verb. The goal of this paper is to explain how these constructions developed, specifically: 1) how did the various types of two-unit constructions evolve? and 2) could diachronic chains be identified in order to explain the development of the one-unit constructions from the two-unit constructions? Previous work on question (1) focuses on the range of phrases that tend to develop into reciprocal markers. Such accounts, however, do not explain how these constructions developed the specific meanings they have. I argue that consideration of the semantics of these constructions is crucial for understanding their evolution. Instead of ‘reciprocal constructions’ it is better to see them as denoting ‘unspecified relations’. As for (2), various attempts have been made to explain such processes focusing on Indo-European languages, which do not capture the Semitic developments; therefore I propose an alternative hypothesis, according to which the one-unit constructions result from a reanalysis of the two-unit constructions.

The relationship of the scleractinian corals to the rugose corals

Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Critical Points ◽  
Scleractinian Corals ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Early Triassic ◽  
Rugose Corals ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Biologic Factors

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.

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