Referential null subjects in German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Weiß ◽  
Anna Volodina
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Early New High German

Null subjects (NSs) have been a central research topic in generative syntax ever since the 1980s. This chapter considers the situation of German NSs both from a dialectological and from a diachronic perspective and attempts to reconstruct a direct line concerning the licensing conditions of pro-drop from Old High German (OHG) through Middle High German (MHG) and Early New High German (ENHG) to current dialects of New High German (NHG). Particularly, we will argue that German changed from a consistent, yet asymmetric pro-drop language to a partial, but symmetric one. In order to demonstrate that this development took place and the steps involved, we survey the existing empirical evidence and introduce new data.

The History of the Third Nasal Phoneme of Modern German

PMLA ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Penzl
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Old High German ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Phonemic Status

The distributional environment of the nasal phoneme /ŋ/, compared to those of /n/ /m/, is restricted in Modem German but reflects its origin from an allophone (variant) of /n/ before velar consonants. The phoneme developed first in medial position through the loss of /g/ in the cluster /ng/; in final position the frequent replacement of /g/ by its fortis counterpart /k/ largely prevented this loss. Late Old High German n-spellings (e.g., sinen), particularly in the 11th-century Physiologus, are the first evidence for the /ŋ/-phoneme, which generally continues, however, to be written ng (singeri). Middle High German assonances made medial/ŋŋ/ likely, which is still found in some Swiss dialects. Descriptive statements by Early New High German grammarians clearly reveal the phonemic status of /ŋ/.

scholarly journals Testing the suffixoidization of German -mann '-man'

Linguistica ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-283
Author(s):  
Douglas Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Historical Data ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Indefinite Pronoun ◽  
High Degree

Throughout its history in Old High German (OHG), Middle High German, Early New High German, and Modern German (ModG), the word Mann "man" has exhibited a high degree of productivity and linguistic flexibility. It has ranged morphosyntactically from a full noun (OHG man "man"), compounded noun (OHG werolt.man "human, mortal"), affixoid (ModG Sports.mann "athlete"), indefinite pronoun (ModG man "one"), to something approaching zero (undergoing demorphologization in the OHG compound gom.man "husband, man"). The affixoid notion and its usefulness in morphology have been controversial in the literature (e.g., Schmidt 1987). Relatively recently, Stevens (2005) proposed criteria for the category affixoid, and a number of standard German grammatical and etymological references (e.g., Duden 1995) have been utilizing this term. This study involves examining modern usage of the form -mann as found in the online Spiegel newsmagazine's database, as well as the collection of historical data primarily on the forms of German -mann from the robust Titus database in Frankfurt. Stevens' (2005) criteria are evaluated and used to measure the validity of German -mann's membership in the category of suffixoid.

scholarly journals Pro-drop in interrogatives and declaratives.

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (7) ◽  
pp. 95-140
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola ◽  
George Walkden
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
The Asymmetry

While there has been a substantial body of research on the asymmetry between main and subordinate clauses in terms of the licensing of pro-drop, potential differences between types of unembedded clause have received much less attention – despite the fact that competing theories of pro-drop make strong, clear predictions about the distribution of null subjects across clause types, especially with regard to interrogatives. This paper presents the first in-depth comparative study of pro-drop in both declaratives and interrogatives in two asymmetric pro-drop languages: Old High German and Old Italian. Based on a parallel corpus study using two translations of Tatian’s Diatessaron, we show that there is a clear difference in distribution between interrogatives and declaratives: null subjects are more frequent in declarative clauses than in interrogatives, and these also differ in terms of the persons in which pro-drop is licensed. Our results speak against the V-in-C licensing theory of asymmetric pro-drop of Benincà (1984) and Adams (1987), and in favour of an account based on an Agree relation with left-peripheral operators in the sense of Frascarelli (2007, 2018).

scholarly journals Diachronic complexification and isolation

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Raffaela Baechler
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Isolated Communities ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Morphological System ◽  
Over Time

Abstract One may hear that over time languages tend to simplify their grammar and notably their morphological system. This intuition, probably based on linguists’ knowledge of the rich inflectional systems of older Indo-European languages, has been challenged, particularly by sociolinguistic typologists (e.g. Trudgill 2011; Braunmuller 1984, 2003; Nichols 1992). They hypothesise that languages spoken by small and isolated communities with a dense network may complexify their grammar (Trudgill 2011: 146-147). The present article investigates the nominal inflection systems of 14 varieties of German in order to survey whether there is any such diachronic tendency towards simplification and whether instances of complexification can be observed, too. The varieties under analysis include present-day Standard German, Old High German and Middle High German (two older stages of German) and eleven present-day non-standard varieties which make part of the Alemannic dialect group. First, it will be shown that there is a diachronic tendency towards simplification if we consider the total complexity of nominal inflection. Second, however, we can identify instances of diachronic complexification too if we take a closer look at single categories. Interestingly, diachronic complexification appears only in the non-standard varieties, not so in the standard variety. This may support the hypothesis that isolated varieties are more complex than non-isolated ones.

scholarly journals Deutsche Teil- und Regrammatikalisierung

2018 ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
John Ole Askedal
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
The Way

The present paper deals with some putative cases of so-called ‘halted’ or ‘arrested grammaticalization’ in the history of German. The following phenomena are discussed: Old High German perfect auxiliaries; the modals ‘shall’, ‘will’ and the transformative copula werden as sources of future auxiliaries in Old, Middle and New High German; some shortened verb forms in Middle High German; the Old High German etc. pronoun of identity der selbo used as a demonstrative or personal pronoun; the inflection of determiners, quantifiers and adjectives in New High German; Old High German thô, dô and Middle High German ez as syntactic ‘place-holders’ in sentence-initial position; the syntactic status of the German so-called ‘ethical dative’; and the demise of Old High German -lîhho, Middle High German -lîche as an adverb-forming suffix. It is claimed that certain general language-specific, ‘characterological’ patterns influence the way in which the grammaticalization developments in question are halted or, sometimes, given another direction by way of regrammaticalization.

scholarly journals THE ORDER OF STUDY OF VOWEL SOUNDS IN INTRODUCTORY AND PHONETIC COURSES IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE (ON THE MATERIAL OF STATISTICAL AND DIACHRONIC STUDIES)

2018 ◽  
pp. 183-188
Author(s):  
Igor Peresada
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
German Language ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Single Root ◽  
German Word ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Statistical Frequency

Most ancient vowels in the period of the birth of the German language are revealed. The phonetic structure of a single-root German word in the Old High German and Middle High German periods of the development of the German language is described. The statistical frequency of using vowels in the above periods has been determined. Key words: vowels and consonants, Old High German and Middle High German periods, frequency of use

Three diachronic sources for the development of -erei-based synthetic compounds in German

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-370
Author(s):  
Martina Werner
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
German Language ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Free Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Sources

This article investigates the historical development of synthetic compounds with the suffix -erei, such as German Buchleserei ‘book reading’. Synthetic compounding has been attested in older language stages of German, as in Old High German kirihwihî ‘church consecration’ or Middle High German bluotspîunge ‘blood spitting’. In the history of the German language, synthetic compounds are the last step in the development of a nominalizing suffix. Suffixes attach first to simplex bases (such as German Leserei ‘reading’), and only afterwards can they form synthetic compounds with a compound base (such as Bücherleserei ‘reading of books’). The development of verbal synthetic compounding results from three different sources: a) a suffixal pattern based on compound nominals (such as exocentric Freigeist ‘free spirit’ becomes Freigeisterei ‘free spiritedness’), where the pattern develops the ability to nominalize VPs (such as Nichtstuerei ‘doing nothing’); b) root compounds which develop the ability to take a deverbal head suffixed by -erei (such as Venus–Nascherey ‘Venusian nibbling’); and c) low-frequency - erei-compounds which originate from inherited idiomatic compound verbs (such as Ehebrecherei ‘adultery’, lit. ‘marriage-breakery’ > ehebrechen (V) ‘to commit adultery’, lit. ‘to marriage-break’). The paper delineates the three developments for different word formation types which lead to the morphological distribution of present-day German.

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