Verb-initial declaratives in Old High German and in later German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This chapter investigates the syntactic properties and the pragmatic behaviour of verb-initial declarative clauses in the history of German. The focus is on OHG because in this period, verb-initial declaratives represent a frequent, well-known alternative to canonical verb-second main clauses. It is argued that verb-initial declaratives are native in origin, and that they are derivable under a special interpretation of the verb-second rule. The main part of the chapter deals with the pragmatic properties of verb-initial declaratives in OHG, summarizing the various attempts at explaining the distribution of these orders and showing that further research is needed to arrive at a more adequate understanding of their function in the discourse. The chapter closes up with the discussion of the later development of verb-initial declaratives in German, sketching the controversial treatments of this question in the literature on German diachronic syntax.

scholarly journals Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Insight Into

This volume contains sixteen chapters addressing the process of syntactic change at different granularities. The language-particular component of a grammar is now usually assumed to be nothing more than the specification of the grammatical properties of a set of lexical items. Accordingly, grammar change must reduce to lexical change. And yet these micro-changes can cumulatively alter the typological character of a language (a macro-change). A central puzzle in diachronic syntax is how to relate macro-changes to micro-changes. Several chapters in this volume describe specific micro-changes: changes in the syntactic properties of a particular lexical item or class of lexical items. Other chapters explore links between micro-change and macro-change, using devices such as grammar competition at the individual and population level, recurring diachronic pathways, and links between acquisition biases and diachronic processes. This book is therefore a great companion to the recent literature on micro- versus macro-approaches to parameters in synchronic syntax. One of its important contributions is the demonstration that we can learn a great deal about synchronic linguistics through the way languages change: the case studies included provide diachronic insight into many syntactic constructions that have been the target of extensive recent synchronic research, including tense, aspect, relative clauses, stylistic fronting, verb second, demonstratives, and negation. Languages discussed include several archaic and contemporary Romance and Germanic varieties, as well as Greek, Hungarian, and Chinese, among many others.

Historische Syntax des Deutschen aus generativer Perspektive

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Axel-Tober
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
The Core ◽  
First Case ◽  
Core Property ◽  
Syntactic Representation

AbstractThis paper summarizes recent advances in research on the diachronic syntax of German from a generative perspective on the basis of three case studies. The first case study focuses on the sentence grammar of early German and argues that generalized V(erb)-to-C(omp)-movement, the core property of the verb-second phenomenon, goes back to Old High German times. In contrast to English, German has thus not been subject to a resetting of the verb-second parameter. Two further case studies deal with null subjects in Old High German and the diachrony of sentence negation, thereby addressing the issues of change in surface manifestations in relation to the underlying syntactic representation and the relation between historical syntax and dialect syntax.

Embedded Verb Second in the history of German

2020 ◽  
pp. 555-572
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

This chapter is a corpus study investigating the presence and the distribution of asyndetic (complementizerless) V2 complement clauses in Old High German. In modern German, such clauses represent well-known semantically restricted variants of canonical that-complements, but their existence in the earliest attestation is disputed. The present investigation argues that there is evidence for verb movement to C in asyndetic complement clauses in Old High German, and that the typology of V2-embedding predicates is stable over time. At the same time, it is shown that some additional conditions that limit the availability of V2 in the complements of individual classes of matrix predicates obviously emerge only after the Old High German period.

Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Right ◽  
Theoretical Analyses

Over roughly the last decade, there has been a notable rise in new research on historical German syntax in a generative perspective. This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of this thriving new line of research by leading scholars in the field, combining it with new insights into the syntax of historical German. It is the first comprehensive and concise generative historical syntax of German covering numerous central aspects of clause structure and word order, tracing them throughout various historical stages. Each chapter combines a solid empirical basis and valid descriptive generalizations with reference also to the more traditional topological model of the German clause with a detailed discussion of theoretical analyses couched in the generative framework. The volume is divided into three parts according to the main parts of the clause: the left periphery dealing with verbal placement and the filling of the prefield (verb second, verb first, verb third orders) as well as adverbial connectives; the middle field including discussion of pronominal syntax, order of full NPs and the history of negation; and the right periphery with chapters on basic word order (OV/VO), prosodic and information-structural factors, and the verbal complex including the development of periphrastic verb forms and the phenomena of IPP (infinitivus pro participio) and ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo). This book thus provides a convenient overview of current research on the major issues concerning historical German clause structure both for scholars interested in more traditional description and for those interested in formal accounts of diachronic syntax.

Word-order change in progress: the case of Slovene and Serbo-Croat and its relevance for Germanic

1987 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Related Language ◽  
Slavonic Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Order Change ◽  
The One ◽  
Word Order Change ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Fresh Insight

It will be suggested in this article that Slovene, a South Slavonic language, is on the way to acquiring verb-second (V2) word order. In providing evidence in support of this view I shall compare Slovene, on the one hand, with the closely related language Serbo-Croat and, on the other hand, with relevant details from the history of the Germanic languages. The point of comparing it with Serbo-Croat is to discover the respects in which the word order of these two languages has diverged. Taken together with what is known about the word order of Common Slavonic, the facts emerging from this comparison allow us to identify one major respect in which Slovene has changed and two respects in which it is still changing. At the same time, they reveal a major respect in which Serbo-Croat word order is also changing. The point of comparing Slovene with the Germanic languages is twofold. First, since all the present-day Germanic languages either have or have had V2 word order (Haiman, 1974), it is possible that their history can help us to understand the changes currently taking place in Slovene and to predict how Slovene might change in the future. Secondly, where details of the history of the Germanic languages are poorly understood, the possibility exists of gaining fresh insight into them in the light of the changes that have taken place more recently, or indeed are still taking place, in Slovene. In this connection we shall assess the plausibility of two theories concerning the adoption of V2 word order by the Germanic languages, those of Vennemann (1975) and Wackernagel (1892).

The Burial of Alexander Nevsky in Vladimir: the Archaeology of the Veneration

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-107
Author(s):  
Л.А. Беляев ◽  
П.Л. Зыков ◽  
О.М. Иоаннисян ◽  
А.В. Сиренов
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

В статье публикуются материалы по истории некрополя при главном храме монастыря Рождества Богородицы во Владимире, где в 1263 г. был погребен князь Александр Ярославич Невский. Основная часть сведений получена в 1997–2000 гг. при раскопках остатков собора (снесен в 1930 г.). Это белокаменные саркофаги и могилы, а также остатки самого собора, построенного в 1198 г. из белого камня, и его галереи, целиком перестроенной из кирпича в XVII в. В кладке галереи была обнаружена ниша с нижней частью саркофага, возможно, служившей одной из реликвий князя после переноса его мощей в Санкт-Петербург (1722–1724). Традиционные источники, рассказывающие о судьбе погребения князя Александра в XIV—XVIII вв., рассматриваются в свете археологических данных и новых архивных документов и фотографий (в том числе - о каменных гробах, найденных при сносе собора в 1930 г.). Materials on the history of the necropolis near the principal church of the monastery of Nativity of Blessed Virgin where Prince Alexander Nevsky was buried in 1263 are published in the article. The main part of information was obtained during the excavation of the church remnants (excavations were performed in 1997-2000). The church was demolished in 1930. Archeologists discovered sarcophagi and tombs made of white stone and remnants of the very church built in 1198 of white stone and of its gallery that was rebuilt completely of bricks in the 17th century. A niche was discovered in the brickwork and contained a lower part of a sarcophagus. That served (probably) as a relic of Alexander upon his remnants transfer to Saint-Petersburg. Traditional sources telling the fate of Prince Alexander's internment are considered in light of archeological data and new archive documents and photos including photos of stone sarcophagi found during the demolition of the church in 1930.

scholarly journals The astronomer - N. N. Donitch

2003 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
A.A. Baikov ◽  
A. Gaina
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Main Part ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imperial Academy ◽  
Solar Eclipses ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

This paper describes a history of friendship and collaboration between the astronomers N. Donitch and A.A. Baikov. Information on other astronomers L.V. Okulitch and E.A. Von der Pahlen, and meteorologists V.H. Dubinskii and Nina Gouma, can also be found. Details on the expeditions aimed at observing the total solar eclipses on 30 August 1905 (organized by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Sankt-Petersburg) and 19 June 1936 (organized by the Romanian Royal Cultural foundation) are given. The main part represents the first English translation of the paper by Baikov, published earlier in Russian and Romanian, with a new preface, annotations, and comments.

scholarly journals Sacral rulers in pre-Christian Scandinavia: The possibilities of typological comparisons within the paradigm of cultural evolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-35
Author(s):  
Simon Nygaard
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Societal Structure ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

This article offers a new perspective on the century-old discussion of sacral rulers in the history of religions generally, and pre-Christian Scandinavian religions specifically, namely the application of a cultural evolutionary theoretical framework based on the work of Robert N. Bellah. In doing this, the article opens the possibility of wider typological comparisons within this paradigm and suggests a nuancing of Bellah’s typology with the addition of the category of ‘chiefdom religion’. This is utilised in the main part of the article, which features a comparison between the figure of the sacral ruler in pre-Christian Scandinavian and pre-Christian Hawaiian religions through an analysis of: 1) the position of the ruler in society, cult, and ideology; 2) the societal structure in which these religions are found; 3) the idea of a ruler sacrifice; 4) incestuous relationships and their ideological implications; and, finally, 5) the idea of a double rulership. Following this comparison, the perspectives in and the usefulness of cultural evolutionary theories in the history of religions are briefly evaluated.

scholarly journals Empty verbs in Chinese predicatives and complex predicates

1999 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 147-163
Author(s):  
Niina Ning Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Verb Second ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Secondary Predication

This paper investigates syntactic properties of verbless constructions in Chinese. Verbless constructions differ from constructions with overt verbs in three major respects. First, there is a VP-internal nominal raising in Chinese, which is optional if an overt verb shows up, and obligatory if there is no overt verb. Second, while an overt verb can select various kinds of argument, the internal argument of a verbless construction cannot be indefinite. Third, there are two types of object depictive secondary predication constructions, and only one of them allows for a null verb.  

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