SLIDE 1
Anthony Kroch University of Pennsylvania June 2013
Was Old English a V2 language?
SLIDE 2
- Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor. Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of
Middle English, second edition. CD-ROM, second edition, 2000.
- Ann Taylor, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths.
York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2003.
- Anthony Kroch, Beatrice Santorini, and Lauren Delfs. Penn-
Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English. CD-ROM, first edition, 2004.
- Ann Taylor, Arja Nurmi, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and
Terttu Nevalainen. Parsed Corpus of Early English
- Correspondence. Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2006.
English Data Sources
SLIDE 3
The V2 constraint in Old English: the pronoun exception (1) Þæt hus hæfdon Romane to ðæm anum tacne geworht. (2) Ælc yfel he mæg don. (3) Þin agen geleafa þe hæfþ gehæledne. (4) & seofon ærendracan he him hæfde to asend.
SLIDE 4
The V2 constraint in Old English: the exception to the exception (5) Hwi sceole we oþres mannes niman? (6) Þa ge-mette he sceaðan. (7) Ne mihton hi næ nigne fultum æt him begitan. (8) Hæfdon hi hiora onfangen ær Hæsten to Beamfleote come.
SLIDE 5
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English (9) ...ðeah hit ær upahæfen wære. (10) Se manfulla gast þa Martine gehyrsumode. (11) ac he heora onfon nolde. (12) and Dryhten soðlice heofonas geworhte.
SLIDE 6
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English II (13) Eac þis land wæs swiðe afylled mid munecan. (14) Þeahhweðer his hiredmen ferdon ut mid feawe mannan of þam castele.
SLIDE 7
Verb-first subjunctive clauses in Old English (15) Cume se blinda to me. (16) Stande þin word, cyning. (17) Ne wille ðu swa sprecan; (18) Write he þa fæstnunge mid his agenre handa.
SLIDE 8 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht DP Romane CP DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
SLIDE 9 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht DP Romane CP DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
SLIDE 10 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
SLIDE 11 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
SLIDE 12 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
SLIDE 13 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht T0
hæfdon
CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
SLIDE 14 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht T0
hæfdon
CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
SLIDE 15 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht T0
hæfdon
CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
SLIDE 16 C' TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 v0 V0 hæfdon geworht T0
hæfdon
CP DP hi DP hi DP þæt hus DP þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon C0
SLIDE 17
Quantitative Evidence for V-to-T and V- to-C in Old and Early Middle English
SLIDE 18 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1000 1200 1400 1600
date inverted/total
subject.type noun pronoun total^0.5 10 20 30
Sentences with topicalized direct objects: Frequency of V2 by subject type
SLIDE 19 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1000 1200 1400 1600
date inverted/total
total^0.5 20 40 60 subject.type noun pronoun
Sentences with topicalized PPs: Frequency of V2 by subject type
SLIDE 20 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1000 1200 1400 1600
date inverted/total
total^0.5 20 40 60 subject.type noun pronoun
Sentences with topicalized adverbs: Frequency of V2 by subject type
SLIDE 21 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1000 1200 1400 1600
date inverted/total
total^0.5 20 40 60 subject.type noun pronoun
Sentences with topicalized þa: Frequency of V2 by subject type
SLIDE 22 subject DP subject pronoun SV VS 238 1382 338 29
Inversion in positive sentences with topicalized objects
.02 .59
SLIDE 23 subject DP subject pronoun SV VS 12 52 22 37
Inversion in negative sentences with topicalized objects
.65 .42
SLIDE 24 subject DP subject pronoun SV VS 3245 4253 9063 2727
Inversion in indicative sentences with a topicalized constituent
.74 .39
SLIDE 25 subject DP subject pronoun SV VS 143 80 308 162
Inversion in subjunctive sentences with a topicalized constituent
.68 .67
SLIDE 26
Low subjects in Old English $(9)$ac mycel geþolode ðurh his mildheortnes se Crist $ for ure þearfe. $(10)$in þa tid wæs in Mercna mægðe Wulfhere cyning.
SLIDE 27
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002) $(11) $Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen. $(12)$ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen. $(13)$*Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen.
SLIDE 28
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002) $(11) $Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen. $(12)$ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen. $(13)$*Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen. $(14)$ Dieses Haus wird Hans später für die Familie kaufen.
SLIDE 29 C' CP TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 DPj v0 XPi V0 XPi DPj Romane hæfdon geworht þæt hus þæt hus Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
SLIDE 30 C' CP TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 DPj v0 XPi V0 XPi DPj Romane hæfdon geworht þæt hus þæt hus Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
SLIDE 31 C' CP TP VP vP T' v' C0 T0 DPj v0 XPi V0 XPi DPj Romane hæfdon geworht þæt hus þæt hus Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
SLIDE 32 CP XPi þone fleam TP C0 C' DPj Þurcytel T0 XPi þone fleam T' v0 v' Vk astealde VP vP DPj Þurcytel Vk astealde T0 T' ærest ADVP
A V3 example or an Infl-final one?
SLIDE 33 CP XPi þone fleam TP C0 C' DPj Þurcytel T0 XPi þone fleam T' v0 v' Vk astealde VP vP DPj Þurcytel Vk astealde T0 T' ærest ADVP
A V3 example or an Infl-final one?
SLIDE 34
(2) and him se innoþ eac geopenode ongean and him the heart also opened again (coælive, +ALS_[Vincent]:170.7907) (1) þæne se geatweard$ let in that-one the doorkeeper$ let in (cowsgosp, Jn_[WSCp]:10.3.6596)
Unambiguous V3 clauses with topicalized objects
SLIDE 35 full DP subjects pronoun subjects V2 cases
74
74
6
6 V3 cases
20
20
45
45 frequency V3
.21
0.21
.88
0.88
Frequency of unambiguous V3 clauses against all particle verb cases
SLIDE 36
(1) ac þone yfelan fæstrædan willan folneah nan wind ne mæg but the evil constant will almost no storm not may awecggean awaken (cocuraC,CP_[Cotton]:33.224.4.85f.)
V3 clauses with topicalized objects ambiguous due to West Germanic verb raising
SLIDE 37
number SOVI main clauses with full noun phrase subjects ratio of SOIV to SOVI in unambiguous verb-raising environments rate of object topicalization in verb-final clauses predicted number of OSIV cases due to verb-raising with topicalization actual number of OSIV cases 20 0.7 0.2 2.8 22
Expected versus observed number of V3 clauses with topicalized objects given verb raising
SLIDE 38 2 4 6 8 10 12 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% Topicalized Date
Decline of direct object topicalization in English
SLIDE 39 Prop est (%) pt 69.7 70.1 70.4 13.9 14.3 14.8 3.2 4.5 T a b l e 4 . 2 : S u m m a r y
V
f e l d
c u p a t i
a r g u m e n t s . V
f e l d A r g u m e n t y e s n
u b j e c t 4 3 5 2 3 1 8 5 9 7 d i r e c t
j e c t 3 4 1 8 2 4 3 2 i n d i r e c t
j e c t 3 8 8 1 5
Frequency of direct object topicalization in modern spoken Dutch (Bouma 2008)
SLIDE 40 Evolution of PP preposing in English
10 20 30 40 50 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% Preposed Date
SLIDE 41 15 30 45 60 75 90 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% Preposed Date
Evolution of adverb fronting in English
locative adverbs temporal adverbs
SLIDE 42 The history of topicalization in English (Speyer 2008)
- Why does topicalization decline in Middle English
but not disappear? If the change a parametric one, it should go to completion. Otherwise, topicalization, a clear case of stylistic variation might be expected to be stable in frequency over time.
- This question has answer in the specific interaction
between parametric settings and stylistic variation in the history of English.
SLIDE 43 5 10 15 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% V2 Date
Decline of direct object topicalization by subject type
full DP subjects pronoun subjects
SLIDE 44 Correlation between frequencies of object topicalization and of V2 in Middle English texts (Wallenberg 2007)
edvern 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 5 10 15 20 25 % Full DP Topicalization % V2
SLIDE 45 Subject type in sentences with topicalized objects Subject type in sentences with in situ objects
personal pronoun demonstrative pronoun full noun phrase 181 2 17 90.5% 1% 8.5 % personal pronoun demonstrative pronoun full noun phrase 140 20 142 46.4 6.6 47.0
Distribution of subject types in a corpus
- f topicalized and non-topicalized
sentences in natural speech
SLIDE 46 Clash avoidance
- The type of topicalization that declines:
(1) The nèwspaper Jóhn read; the nòvel Máry did.
- The type of topicalization that doesn’t:
(2) The nèwspaper I réad; the nòvel I dídn’t.
(Compare: The nèwspaper read Jóhn.)
SLIDE 47
Translating German topicalized arguments into English in three modern German novels [by Böll, Dürrenmatt and Grass]
Topicalized to topicalized: G: Mahlkes Haupt bedeckte dieser Hut besonders peinlich. E: On Mahlke’s head this hat made a particularly painful impression. Topicalized to non-topicalized: G: Zu den sechs kamen noch drei weitere. E: Three others joined these six in the afternoon.
SLIDE 48
2nd accent on the German subject accent elsewhere topicalization in the English translation 31 31 no topicalization in the English 25 25 100 100
Accent placement and topicalization frequencies in translating German topicalized arguments into English
SLIDE 49
Finis
