Carola Trips

From OV to VO in Early Middle English

This monograph answers the question of why English changed from an OV to a VO language on the assumption that this change is due to intensive language contact with Scandinavian. It shows for the first time that the English language was much more heavily influenced by Scandinavian than assumed before, i.e., northern Early Middle English texts clearly show Scandinavian syntactic patterns like stylistic fronting that can only be found today in the Modern Scandinavian languages. Thus, it sheds new light on the force of language contact in that it shows that a language can be heavily influenced through contact with another language in such a way that it affects deeper levels of language. It further gives an introduction to working with the Penn-Helsinki-Parsed Corpus of Middle English II (PPCMEII). It discusses the texts included in the corpus, it describes the format of the texts, and it explains how to search the corpus with the tool called Corpus Search. The book targets researchers in diachronic syntax, comparative syntax and in general linguists working in the field of generative syntax. It can further be used as an introduction to working with the PPCMEII.

Variation and change in Old and Middle English — on the validity of the Double Base Hypothesis

This paper investigates the role of Grammar Competition (Kroch 1989) in explaining word order variation in embedded clauses of Old and Early Middle English. It is argued that heretofore unnoticed distributional properties of adverbs point to the conclusion that the finite verb does not leave the extended verbal projection (i.e., νP/VP) in embedded clauses of Old English. Therefore, we claim that in these contexts, variation in the placement of the finite verb has to be attributed to competing grammars that differ with respect to parameter settings associated with the functional head ν (contra the Double Base Hypothesis, Pintzuk 1999). Moreover, the proposed analysis provides a principled account for the intriguing fact that a certain serialisation pattern (S-V-O-Vfin) is absent from the variety of ordering possibilities encountered in Old English. It is further argued that our account opens up a new perspective on a set of syntactic factors which can be shown to have a statistically significant influence on the position of the finite verb in embedded clauses.

Lexical semantics and diachronic morphology : the development of -hood, -dom and -ship in the history of English

This book is the most comprehensive study to date of the development of the three suffixes -hood, -dom and -ship in the history of English. An in depth investigation from Old English to Modern English based on data from annotated corpora reveals that all three suffixes developed from nouns into todays suffixes building abstract nouns. It is shown that the rise of suffixes is triggered by semantic change. The findings are analysed in a current model of lexical semantics of word formation (Lieber 2004). The book includes an index with all formations with the three suffixes from Old English to Modern English.

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

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 Ormulum , 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 Orms grammar and he could use it for phonological reasons. The fact that the fronting operation is metrically driven supports Holmbergs (2000) analysis of stylistic fronting as a PF-operation.

English syntax in three dimensions : history - synchrony - diachrony

This book deals with syntax in three dimensions: in part I with the history of grammatical theory, in part II with synchronic aspects of Present-Day English, and in part III with diachronic aspects of English. The most prominent linguistic terms and phenomena are discussed in their historical context and are taken up again in the synchronic and diachronic parts. In this way they can be viewed from different perspectives. At the end of each chapter a summary and recommendations for further reading is provided as well as exercises in parts II and III. There is also a webpage for this book with more material, a glossary, and model answers of the exercises. The aims of the book are 1) to provide an introduction to the history of grammatical theory in order to show how and why generative grammar evolved (alongside other theories); in this way, generative grammar is presented in its historical context, and the motivation for the ideas and assumptions of this theory becomes clear; 2) to show that the terms and phenomena discussed are still applicable and interesting today; 3) to investigate phenomena of Present-Day English and their development in the history of English by means of authentic data, and to find explanations for the developmental paths they took by applying theory. This book primarily aims at undergraduate students of English or linguistics who have already acquired some knowledge of syntax and generative syntactic theory. It is also well suited for students specialising in syntax, syntactic theory, and language change. It can further be used as a study aid for final exams.

The position proper of the adjective in Middle English: A result of language contact

This paper discusses grammatical replication as a possible explanation for the rise of postposed rhematic adjectives in Middle English (ME) times. It will be shown that this phenomenon, which is described by Fischer (2006) as a violation of the Old English pattern, has the potential to have been borrowed from Old French (OF) during the time when language contact between the two languages was most intense. A corpus-based study of OF will confirm that rhematic post-posed adjectives were the marked option and occurred in distinctive and highlighting contexts. This finding will be compared with findings from a corpus-based study of ME. It will reveal that the same pattern suddenly increases between 1250 and 1350, and that the postposition of adjectives correlates with the so-called French plural (marking) in texts which are based on Latin and/or French. Other sources like full texts of direct translations of French texts and mixed texts will be integrated into the study to provide as comprehensive a picture as possible about the contact situation. Although the results cannot be conclusive at present, this investigation shows that grammatical replication cannot be excluded as an explanation of the rise of this (and other) grammatical patterns during ME times.

Typological aspects of phrasal compounds in English, German, Turkish and Turkic

Abstract This paper discusses the properties of phrasal compounds in English, German, Turkish and Sakha, a Turkic language. Two questions are addressed: 1. What is the formal status of elements building (phrasal) compounds? 2. How can we distinguish compounds from phrasal forms? A number of traditional definitions and criteria are discussed, and the result is that they do not suffice to properly account for compounds, let alone phrasal compounds. The languages under discussion are investigated and compared. The result is that in English, German and Turkish tight semantic relations exist between the phrasal non-head and head, but in Turkish additional structural restrictions apply, (especially in reference to the (non)-argument status of the head) which may be due to the rich morphology of this language. The study on Sakha reveals that some phrasal compound types are similar to the Turkish types, without being identical to them.