Svetlana Petrova

Information structure and language change : new approaches to word order variation in Germanic

The book addresses one of the most prominent and widely discussed topics in diachronic syntax, namely, word order variation and change in older Germanic. It presents a novel approach that explains these issues not in terms of parameters and parameter change or in terms of competition between two grammars, but in terms of competition between information-structurally marked and unmarked forms within one grammar.

Zur Entwicklung von Verbzweit im Fragesatz: die Evidenz im Althochdeutschen

The paper explores the syntax of direct questions in Old High German (OHG) with particular reference to the placement of the finite verb and the interrogative element. It evaluates the complete OHG corpus and analyses the word order patterns taking into account the relevant loan-syntactic or metrical factors. The study shows that there is secure evidence allowing to retrace the emergence of V1 and V2 as the core patterns in alternative and constituent questions in modern German. In addition, the relation between the establishment of the V2-pattern in interrogatives and the consolidation of the V2-rule in main declarative clauses is discussed.

Mood Alternations in Old High German Subordinate Clauses

In this paper, Old High German mood alternations in the different types of subordinate clauses (complement, adverbial and relative clauses) are discussed. The use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses is notoriously more frequent than in Modern German and has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Based on a comprehensive corpus study, the paper will show that the licensing conditions for the subjunctive in Old High German are determined by notions such as veridicality and – in relative contexts – specificity. These conditions are thus similar (but not always identical) to those observed for Modern Greek and Romance languages. Furthermore, a syntactic analysis is provided in order to account for the licensing of the subjunctive in each type of subordinate clause. Summary