Ian Roberts u. Anna Roussou, Syntactic change. A minimalist approach to grammaticalization

2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susann Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Minimalist Approach

Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization (review)

Language ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 428-434
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Longobardi ◽  
Gabriele Rigon
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Minimalist Approach

A minimalist approach to the emergence of ergativity in Austronesian languages

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Aldridge
Keyword(s):  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Morphological Comparison ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Light Verb ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Minimalist Approach

AbstractThis paper proposes a novel reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian as a language with accusative alignment, in contrast to previous analyses, which have reconstructed PAn with some type of ergative system. The methodology employed in this paper also departs from previous work in basing the proposal on syntactic change rather than on phonological or morphological comparison. In the account of argument licensing in the Minimalist Program, nominative subjects are licensed by a higher functional head T than accusative objects, which value their case with the light verb

scholarly journals Pathways of Grammaticalisation in Italo-Romance

Probus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-366
Author(s):  
Luigi Andriani ◽  
Kim A. Groothuis ◽  
Giuseppina Silvestri
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
First Case ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
Principled Explanation ◽  
The Rich

AbstractThe aim of this contribution is to discuss three possible theoretical interpretations of grammaticalised structures in present-day Italo-Romance varieties. In particular, we discuss and analyse three diachronic case studies in relation to the generative view of grammaticalisation. The first case-study revolves around the expression of future tense and modality. This is discussed in the light of the assumption according to which grammaticalised elements result from merging elements in higher positions than their original merge positions within the lexical domain, giving rise to the upward directionality of the grammaticalisation process within the clause (Roberts, Ian G. and Anna Roussou, 2003, Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The second case study challenges this view, by discussing irrealis complementisers as a case of a downward pathway of grammaticalization at the CP level. For our third case study, namely the development of (discontinuous) demonstrative structures from Latin to Romance, the rich Italo-Romance empirical evidence is analysed through the lens of a parametric account (Longobardi, Giuseppe, Cristina Guardiano, Giuseppina Silvestri, Alessio Boattini, and Andrea Ceolin, 2013, Toward a syntactic phylogeny of modern Indo-European languages, Journal of Historical Linguistics 3(1), 122-152), in order to capture the role of the relevant semantic and syntactic features within the fine-grained architecture of the DP. It will be observed that the diachronic development of some functional categories in (Italo-)Romance results from cyclic pathways of grammaticalisation, as the same category might cyclically change from more synthetic to more analytic, and vice-versa. Moreover, it will also be shown how the two theoretical approaches adopted, i.e. the cartographic model (adopted in Roberts, Ian G. and Anna Roussou, 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), and the parametric accounts (Longobardi, Giuseppe, Cristina Guardiano, Giuseppina Silvestri, Alessio Boattini and Andrea Ceolin, 2013, Toward a syntactic phylogeny of modern Indo-European languages, Journal of Historical Linguistics 3(1), 122-152), are able to provide a principled explanation of the structural correlates of grammaticalisation at the sentential, clausal and nominal level of investigation.

The Gender Troubles of Feofan Prokopovich

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 198-228
Author(s):  
Gary Marker
Keyword(s):  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Dual Codes ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
Holy Women ◽  
Gender Trouble

Abstract This essay constitutes a close reading of the works of Feofan Prokopovich that touch upon gender and womanhood. Interpretively it is informed by Judith Butler’s book Gender Trouble, specifically by her model of gender-as-performance. Prokopovich’s writings conveyed a negative characterization of holy women and Russian women of power, a combination of glaring silences and Scholastic dual codes that in toto denied the association of womanhood with glory or wisdom. In this he stood apart from other East Slavic Orthodox homilists of his day, even though they too invariably associated virtue with masculinity (muzhestvo). For Prokopovich, wisdom, strength, constancy, etc., were innately masculine. Women, by contrast, were weak, inconstant, non-rational, and guided by emotion. His sermons nominally in praise of Catherine I and Anna Ioannovna were suffused with narrative gestures that, to those attuned to the nuances of Scholastic rhetoric, ran entirely counter to their nominal message. Several panegyrics to Anna, for example, made no mention of her at all, a practice in sharp contrast to his sermons to male rulers, which typically placed the honoree firmly in the foreground. Even more startling is his singularly minimalist approach to Mary, for whom he composed almost no sermons and whose presence he barely mentioned in tracts where one would have expected otherwise. This essay concludes that this attitude reflected both his personal preferences and influence that Protestant Pietism had on his thinking.

Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Chatzopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Inertial Forces ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Polarity Item ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Diachronic Development

This study is an investigation of the expression of negation in the history of Greek, through quantitative data from representative texts from three major stages of vernacular Greek (Attic Greek, Koine, Late Medieval Greek), and qualitative data from Homeric Greek until Standard Modern. The contrast between two complementary negators, NEG1 and NEG2, is explained in terms of sensitivity of NEG2 μη‎ to nonveridicality: NEG2 is a polarity item in all stages of the Greek language, an item licensed by nonveridicality. The asymmetry in the diachronic development of the Greek negator system (the replacement of NEG1 and the preservation of NEG2) is explained with reference to the particulars of the uses of NEG2, specifically the inertial forces drawn by the nonnegative uses of NEG2, which being nonnegative did not experience the renewal pressures predicted by the Jespersen’s Cycle. These are its complementizer uses: (i) as a question particle, and (ii) in introducing verbs of fear complements. A viewpoint for Jespersen’s Cycle is proposed that abstracts away from the morphosyntactic and phonological particulars of the phenomenon and explicitly places its regularities in the semantics, accommodating not only for Greek, but for numerous other languages that deviate in different ways from the traditional description of Jespersen’s Cycle. The developments observed in the history of the Greek negator system agree with current generative theories of syntactic change, regarding the notions of up-the-tree movement.

The prefield after the Old High German period

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Speyer ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
The One ◽  
Split Cp

The filling of the prefield in Modern German is determined by information-structural constraints such as scene-setting, contrastiveness, and topichood. While OHG does not yet show competition between these constraints, competition arises from MHG onward. This has to do with the generalization of the V2 constraint (i.e. the one-constituent property of the prefield) for declarative clauses, in which context the information-structural constraints are loosened. The syntactic change whose result eventually was the loss of multiple XP fronting comprised a change of the feature endowment of C because the fronting of expletive thô (roughly in the OHG of the ninth century) led to the reanalysis of XP fronting as a semantically vacuous movement whose only function is to check the EPP feature of C. Data from doubly filled prefields in ENHG and post-initial connectives indicate that an articulated split CP-structure, as proposed within the cartographic approach, is also at play in German.

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