scholarly journals Resilient Subject Agreement Morpho-Syntax in the Germanic Romance Contact Area

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Cecilia Poletto ◽  
Alessandra Tomaselli
Keyword(s):  
Contact Area ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Italian Dialects

In this work, we intend to investigate one fundamental aspect of language contact by comparing the distribution of subjects in German, Northern Italian dialects and Cimbrian. Here, we show that purely syntactic order phenomena are more prone to convergence, i.e., less resilient, while phenomena that have a clearly identifiable morphological counterpart are more resilient. The empirical domain of investigation for our analysis is the morphosyntax of both nominal and pronominal subjects, the agreement pattern and their position in Cimbrian grammar. While agreement patterns display a highly conservative paradigm, the syntax of nominal (vP-peripheral and topicalized) subjects is innovative and mimics the Italian linear word order.

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.

Syntactic variation in the history of Norwegian and the decline of XV word order

Diachronica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Sundquist
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Case Morphology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Exogenous Factors ◽  
Subsequent Loss

This essay examines syntactic variation between Complement–Verb (XV) and Verb–Complement (VX) order in a corpus of Middle Norwegian texts written between 1250 and 1525. In comparison to traditional studies which relate word order variation and the subsequent loss of XV word order to overt case morphology, this analysis proposes that information structure and variation in the underlying structure of the VP play a significant role. Empirical data point to the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors, including language contact between Norwegian and Danish, which ultimately brings about the decline of XV word order in 15th-century Norwegian.

Grammar, Contact and Time

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Mithun
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Striking Parallelism

AbstractA continuing issue in work on language contact has been determining the relative borrowability of various structural features. It is easy to imagine, for example, how a tendency to use particular word order patterns in one language might be replicated by bilinguals in another, but difficult to understand how abstract morphological structures could be transferred. When we look at linguistic areas, however, we often find grammatical features shared by genetically unrelated languages that seem unborrowable. Here we consider the importance of adding the dimension of time to investigations into the potential effects of contact. As a point of departure we examine a relatively straightforward example from western North America, a striking parallelism in verbal structure among large numbers of languages indigenous to California. The example illustrates the fact that parallel grammatical structures in neighboring languages need not have been borrowed in their current form. They might instead be the result of an earlier transfer of patterns of expression that set the stage for subsequent parallel developments.

scholarly journals Stylistic Fronting in the Ormulum - Scandinavian Syntactic Phenomena in Early Middle English Texts

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.15 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Trips
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
Metrical Pattern ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Word Order Change

This paper deals with Scandinavian influence in Early Middle English texts and especially with one syntactic phenomenon, stylistic fronting. It is claimed here that the OV/VO word order change in Early Middle English was triggered by language contact with Scandinavian (Kroch & Taylor, 1997) and that the occurrence of syntactic phenomena like stylistic fronting are taken to be evidence for the heavy impact on the English language that led to this change. The focus of the paper lies on the findings from one Early Middle English poetic text, the <em>Ormulum</em>, which shows non-syntactic as well as syntactic evidence for Scandinavian influence. It is shown that the orders that seem to reflect the fronting operation are indeed true instantiations of stylistic fronting. Moreover, in this text stylistic fronting is a phonological phenomenon, because it is used by Orm, its author, whenever the metrical pattern would otherwise be violated. Thus, it was part of Orm's grammar and he could use it for phonological reasons. The fact that the fronting operation is metrically driven supports Holmberg's (2000) analysis of stylistic fronting as a PF-operation.

scholarly journals Cultural and linguistic affinities amongst Meitei-Sizang-Thadou

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Bobita Sarangthem ◽  
Lhingneilam Lhouvum
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Field Works

This paper attempts to highlight the cultural and linguistic affinities amongst Meitei, Sizang and Thadou people. The data are collected from the field works in Imphal (Manipur, India), Tamu (Sagaing division of Myanmar) and Diphu (KarbiAnglong of Assam, India) for Meitei, Sizang, and Thadou respectively. Linguistically, Meitei, Sizang and Thadou share common Tibeto- Burman feature of SOV word order, agglutinative forms, sharing lexical cognates due to language contact. Culturally, these languages show some similarities; however, Thadou and Sizang are more similar. Nonetheless, languages have been a reflection of those cultural distinctions as well as their identities.

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.

Developing pro-drop

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ermenegildo Bidese ◽  
Alessandra Tomaselli
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Linear Restriction ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
System P ◽  
Feature Sharing ◽  
Traditional Assumption ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
The One

The syntax of Cimbrian, a Germanic heritage language, is at a peculiar developmental stage: on the one hand it has lost the V2 linear restriction, but still maintains both pronominal subject inversion and a residual root-embedded word order asymmetry; on the other, it is characterized by both ‘free’ subject inversion (VP DP) and the systematic violation of the ‘that-trace’ filter, but does not allow null subjects (NSs). This specific mixture of both V2- and pro-drop properties gives us an opportunity to revisit the traditional assumption that Germanic V2 is incompatible with full pro-drop. In this work, we propose that the development of pro-drop crucially depends on the loss of V-to-Fin movement and, consequently, on the lowering of structural subject agreement within TP so that the whole complex process of feature sharing (KEEP, SHARE, DONATE) between C and I is restructured, changing from a C-dominant system to an I-dominant system.

The Syntax of Arabic From A Generative Perspective

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elabbas Benmamoun ◽  
Lina Choueiri
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Generative Linguistics ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Linguistic Categories

Research on Arabic varieties within modern syntactic approaches has tracked the debates that have preoccupied the field of generative linguistics in its different incarnations throughout the last six decades. The debates centered on the nature of linguistic categories, syntactic configurations and their constituents, syntactic alternations and processes that alter the order of constituents, and dependencies between members of the syntactic representations. This article considers the main issues within Arabic syntax and the influential approaches that have been advanced. It focuses on debates surrounding phrase structure and word order, the syntax of the noun phrase, subjects and subject agreement, negation, long A’-dependencies, and wh-in situ constructions.

Numeral base, numeral classifier, and noun

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-556
Author(s):  
Marc Allassonnière-Tang ◽  
One-Soon Her
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Classifier Languages ◽  
Detailed Statistical Analysis ◽  
Numeral Classifier ◽  
Main Factor

Abstract Greenberg (1990a: 292) suggests that classifiers (clf) and numeral bases tend to harmonize in word order, i.e. a numeral (Num) with a base-final [n base] order appears in a clf-final [Num clf] order, e.g. in Mandarin Chinese, san1-bai3 (three hundred) ‘300’ and san1 zhi1 gou3 (three clf animal dog) ‘three dogs’, and a base-initial [base n] Num appears in a clf-initial [clf Num] order, e.g. in Kilivila (Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic), akatu-tolu (hundred three) ‘300’ and na-tolu yena (clf animal-three fish) ‘three fish’. In non-classifier languages, base and noun (N) tend to harmonize in word order. We propose that harmonization between clf and N should also obtain. A detailed statistical analysis of a geographically and phylogenetically weighted set of 400 languages shows that the harmonization of word order between numeral bases, classifiers, and nouns is statistically highly significant, as only 8.25% (33/400) of the languages display violations, which are mostly located at the meeting points between head-final and head-initial languages, indicating that language contact is the main factor in the violations to the probabilistic universals.

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