scholarly journals WORD ORDER IN THE LOWER CHULYM DIALECT OF CHULYM-TURKIC: A DIACHRONIC ASPECT

Author(s):  
Валерия Михайловна Лемская

В статье анализируется динамика изменения порядка слов в ныне исчезнувшем малочисленном бесписьменном нижнечулымском диалекте чулымско-тюркского языка. Рассматриваются тексты, собранные в XIX–XXI вв., в т. ч. из полевых записей автора. Для обеспечения принципа репрезентативности отобранного материала и в условиях скудости собранных на разных этапах нижнечулымских текстов, анализ был проведен на выборке в 20 предложений с глагольным сказуемым для каждого временного отрезка (всего 80 предложений). В ходе исследования делается вывод, что тенденция к сохранению типичного тюркского базового порядка слов в простом предложении с глагольным скзазуемым (SOV) характерна для текстов, собранных в XIX и XXI вв. (в т. ч. в переводных текстах раннего периода). Наметившаяся с середины XX в. тенденция к изменению базового порядка слов в сторону характерного для русского языка (SVO) несколько сохраняется в XXI в., однако подавляющее большинство моделей простого предложения текстов этого периода являются разновидностями типичного тюркского базового порядка слов SOV. Это иллюстрирует тезис о том, что даже в условиях языковых контактов, активного двуязычия и сильного влияния языка большинства миноритарный язык (в данном случае — нижнечулымский диалект) вполне может сохранять свою синтаксическую структуру. The article analyzes the dynamics of word order change in the now extinct moribund non-written Lower Chulym dialect of the Chulym-Turkic language. The article deals with texts collected in the 19–21 centuries, including those recorded by the author. To ensure the representativeness principle for the selected material and in terms of the Lower Chulym text scarcity at different stages, the analysis was carried out on a sample of 20 sentences with a verb predicate for each time period (80 sentences in total). The study concludes that the tendency to preserve the typical Turkic basic word order in a simple sentence with a verb predicate (SOV) is characteristic of texts collected in the 19th and 21st centuries (including translated texts of the early period). The tendency from the middle of the 20th century to change the basic word order towards the one characteristic for Russian (SVO) persisted in the 21st century to a certain extent, however, the overwhelming majority of the simple sentence models in the texts of this period are varieties of the typical Turkic basic word order, SOV. This illustrates the point that even in the conditions of linguistic contacts, active bilingualism and strong influence of the major language, the minority language (in this case, the Lower Chulym dialect) may well retain its syntactic structure.

1987 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Bennett

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).


Diachronica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katalin É. Kiss

This paper argues that Hungarian underwent a word order change from SOV to Top Foc V X* prior to its documented history beginning in 1192. Proto-Hungarian SOV is reconstructed primarily on the basis of shared constructions of archaic Old Hungarian, and Khanty and Mansi, the sister languages of Hungarian. The most likely scenario of the change from head-final to head-initial was the spreading of right dislocation, and the reanalysis of right dislocated elements by new generations of speakers as arguments in situ. In Hungarian — as opposed to Khanty and Mansi — right dislocation was facilitated by the extension of differential object marking to all direct objects. The change in basic word order initiated the restructuring of other parts of Hungarian grammar as well, which is a still ongoing process. [As of June 2015, this article is available as Open Access under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 license.]


Author(s):  
Veronika Hegedűs

This chapter examines the distribution of verbal particles in Old Hungarian, and argues that despite the word order change from SOV to SVO in Hungarian, the particle-verb order did not change because the previous pre-verbal argument position was reanalysed as a pre-verbal predicative position where complex predicates are formed in overt syntax. Predicative constituents other than particles show significant word order variation in Old Hungarian, apparently due to optionality in predicate movement (while variation found with particle-verb orderings can be attributed to independent factors). It is proposed that after the basic word order was reanalysed as VO, internal arguments and secondary predicates could appear post-verbally and it was the still obligatory movement of particles that triggered the generalization of predicate movement, making all predicates pre-verbal in neutral sentences at later stages. This process involves a period of word order variation as predicate movement gradually generalizes to different types of predicates.


Author(s):  
Lieven Danckaert

This chapter analyzes the puzzling word order behavior of be-auxiliaries in the history of Latin. Corpus data show that in Late Latin, periphrastic verb forms consisting of a past participle and a form of esse ‘be’ strongly prefer the head-final order ‘PaPa - be’, which – as is well known – does not survive in Romance. This generalization does not however hold in all syntactic environments: most notably, negated be-periphrases with a monosyllabic form of esse actually prefer the order ‘be - PaPa’. An account is developed which evaluates the status of Late Latin be-auxiliaries at the syntax-prosody interface. The core proposal is that Late Latin has two distinct lexical items esse, viz. ‘strong be’ and ‘weak be’. The lexical entry of the latter variant (which is the one most commonly used in verbal periphrases) specifies that weak be is phonologically deficient, in the sense that it can fail to project a prosodic word, in which case it has to occur in an extrametrical position at the right edge of a phonological phrase. The effect of negation on word order is explained in prosodic terms too: being proclitic, the Late Latin negator non forms a complex head together with weak be, and this whole complex is automatically mapped onto an independent prosodic word. At a general level, the chapter argues that at least in some cases, it is necessary to take into account prosodic considerations to correctly understand word order change.


Lingua ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.B. Harris

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document