Word order and closest-conjunct agreement in the Greek Septuagint: On the position of a biblical translation in the diachrony of a syntactic correlation

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-90
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Lavidas
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Neutral Word ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Closest Conjunct Agreement ◽  
T Domain ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
Koine Greek

Abstract Clauses can show closest-conjunct agreement, where the verb agrees only with one conjunct of a conjoined subject, and not with the full conjoined subject. The aim of this study is to examine the properties of word order and closest-conjunct agreement in the Greek Septuagint to distinguish which of them are due to the native syntax of Koiné Greek, possibly influenced by contact with Hebrew, and which of them are the result of a biblical translation effect. Both VSO and closest-conjunct agreement in the case of postverbal subjects have been considered characteristics of Biblical Hebrew. VSO becomes a neutral word order for Koiné Greek, and Koiné Greek exhibits examples of closest-conjunct agreement as well. The present study shows that VSO is the neutral word order for various types of texts of Koiné Greek (biblical and non-biblical, translations and non-translations) and that closest-conjunct agreement is also present with similar characteristics in pre-Koiné Greek. All relevant characteristics reflect a type of a syntactic change in Greek related to the properties of the T domain, and evidenced not only in translations or Biblical Greek. However, the frequencies of word orders are indeed affected by the source language, and indirect translation effects are evident in the Greek Septuagint.

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Hierarchical Structures ◽  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
T Domain

This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters address a central theoretical issue in diachronic syntax: whether syntactic variation can always be attributed to differences in the features of items in the lexicon, as the Borer-Chomsky conjecture proposes. In answering this question, all the chapters develop analyses of syntactic change couched within a formalist framework in which rich hierarchical structures and abstract features of various kinds play an important role. The first three parts of the volume explore the different domains of the clause, namely the C-domain, the T-domain and the ν‎P/VP-domain respectively, while chapters in the final part are concerned with establishing methodology in diachronic syntax and modelling linguistic correspondences. The contributors draw on extensive data from a large number of languages and dialects, including several that have received little attention in the literature on diachronic syntax, such as Romeyka, a Greek variety spoken in Turkey, and Middle Low German, previously spoken in northern Germany. Other languages are explored from a fresh theoretical perspective, including Hungarian, Icelandic, and Austronesian languages. The volume sheds light not only on specific syntactic changes from a cross-linguistic perspective but also on broader issues in language change and linguistic theory.

Diachronic features of Romanian in a broader comparative setting

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-222
Author(s):  
Alexandru Nicolae
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Development

Chapter 6 highlights the novel theoretical and empirical facts brought about by the word order changes that occurring in the passage from old to modern Romanian, showing how the diachrony of Romanian may contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Romance languages and of the Balkan Sprachbund, as well as to syntactic theory and syntactic change in general. One important dimension of diachronic variation and change is the height of nouns and verbs along their extended projections (lower vs higher V- and N-movement). The two perspectives from which language contact proves relevant in the diachronic development of word order in Romanian, language contact by means of translation and areal language contact, are discussed. The chapter also addresses the issue of surface analogy vs deep structural properties; once again, Romanian emerges as a Romance language in a Balkan suit, as Romance deep structural properties are instantiated by means of Balkan word order patterns.

Word Order and Time in Biblical Hebrew Narrative (review)

2000 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 234-236
Author(s):  
Kirk E. Lowery
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Biblical Hebrew

Biblical Gothic and the configurationality parameter

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Berard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Fundamental Function ◽  
Consistent Variation ◽  
General Methodology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Grammatical Relations ◽  
Original Application ◽  
Koine Greek

ABSTRACTThis article proposes a configurationality parameter based solely on the issue of criteriality for fulfillment of the fundamental function of syntax, which is the establishment of linkage between lexemes and their grammatical relations. The two alternative linking systems discussed here are structural and morphological (S-systems and M-systems). S-systems are found in all language, whereas M-systems are found only in certain languages, and there only in isolated pockets which co-occur with specificity gaps in the respective S-system. In the past, observations about the authenticity and idiomaticness of the language of the Gothic Bible have been based on the examination of very limited phenomena as well as on subjective impressions. A general methodology is suggested here for thorough comparison of the Gothic with the Greek original. Application of this methodology to four sample chapters reveals significant and consistent variation in certain areas, although very little variation is found in the area of word order. The latter fact, along with some other considerations, suggests that Gothic had an M-system somewhat comparable to that of Koine Greek.

Diachronic interpretations of word order parameter cohesion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Whitman ◽  
Yohei Ono
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Order Parameter ◽  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Statistical Tools ◽  
Cluster Analyses ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Language Sample ◽  
Head Parameter

This chapter uses statistical tools to investigate the interrelationship between typological features in the World Atlas of Language Structures Online (Dryer and Haspelmath 2013) in the WALS 201 language sample, with the objective of determining how crosscategorial word order generalizations might emerge as the result of syntactic change. Multiple Correspondence Analysis and a variety of cluster analyses show that word order features tend to group along the familiar lines of the Head Parameter. But there is an important caveat to this, previously noticed by Albu (2006): word order features in NP (e.g. [Order of noun and determiner], [Order of noun and adjective]) group separately from word order features in VP and PP, with the exception of [Order of noun and genitive]. We provide a diachronic explanation for this fact: nouns and their arguments may be reanalysed as PPs, or in the case of reanalysed nominalizations, clauses.

Micro-change and macro-change in diachronic syntax

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éric Mathieu ◽  
Robert Truswell
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Complementizer Agreement ◽  
Viewpoint Aspect ◽  
And Control

This introduction discusses current trends in diachronic linguistics with a focus on syntactic change and reviews the fifteen other chapters included in the volume. In the spirit of modern diachronic syntax, the selected articles show that very general patterns of change, emergent, multigenerational diachronic phenomena, interact with small, discrete, local, intergenerational changes in the lexical specification of grammatical features. General topics include acquisition biases, cross-categorial word order generalizations, typological particularities and universals, language contact, and transitional changes, while specific linguistic topics include tense and viewpoint aspect, directional/aspectual affixes, V2, V3, Stylistic Fronting, directional/aspectual prefixes, negation, accusative and dative marking, analytic passives, complementizer agreement, and control and raising verbs.

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