Null Subjects and Verb Placement in Old High German

2005 ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Axel
Keyword(s):  
Old High German ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Verb Placement

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).

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.

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.

Old High German -it- in French

Romania ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 95 (380) ◽  
pp. 543-553
Author(s):  
Paul Brosman
Keyword(s):  
Old High German

Other Romance varieties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Schifano
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Subjunctive Conditional ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
Selection Of

Chapter 3 extends the investigation of verb placement to other Romance varieties, in order to expand the macro- and micro-typologies identified in Chapter 2. It starts with a description of the placement of the present indicative verb across a selection of varieties of French, Romanian, Spanish, Catalan, European Portuguese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Following the methodology of Chapter 2, the remainder of the discussion is devoted to the description of cases of microvariation attested across the varieties above, which emerge once a selection of structural and interpretative distinctions are considered, such as lexical and auxiliary verbs, ‘have’ and ‘be’ auxiliaries, finite and non-finite verbs (cf. participle and infinitive), as well as a selection of modally, temporally, and aspectually marked forms (e.g. subjunctive, conditional, past, future, imperfect).

Romance varieties of the Italian peninsula

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Schifano
Keyword(s):  
Subjunctive Conditional ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
Southern Regional ◽  
Selection Of

Chapter 2 investigates the differing patterns of verb placement attested across a selection of varieties of the Italian peninsula. After a description of the placement of the present indicative verb in the northern, central, and southern regional varieties of Italian, as well as in a selection of northern, central, upper southern, extreme southern, and Sardinian dialects, a macro-typology of verb placement in the Italian peninsula is drawn. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the description of the microvariation attested across the above varieties which emerges once different verb typologies are considered, such as lexical and auxiliary verbs, ‘have’ and ‘be’ auxiliaries, finite and non-finite verbs (cf. participle and infinitive), as well as a selection of modally, temporally, and aspectually marked forms (e.g. subjunctive, conditional, past, future, imperfect).

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