Arrested development
Case attraction as a transitional stage from Old Icelandic demonstrative to relative sá
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11118072 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher D Sapp (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | e1-e40 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/lan.2019.0007 |
| OpenAlex | W2922090233 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
Old Icelandic relative clauses are frequently preceded by the pronoun sá , considered by most grammars to be a demonstrative. Using a large corpus of Old Icelandic prose, I show that when sá precedes relative clauses, it is often ambiguous between a cataphoric demonstrative (referring ahead to a relative clause) and relative pronoun (part of the relative clause). Syntactic and prosodic evidence indicates that, at least in some instances, sá is unambiguously a relative pronoun, used in tandem with the particle er ; thus Old Icelandic relative clauses seem to have doubly filled COMP. A notable characteristic of relative sá is its pervasive attraction to the case of the matrix antecedent. I argue that case attraction represents an intermediate stage in the reanalysis of sá from a demonstrative to a true relative pronoun. Structurally, case-attracting relative pronouns and true relative pronouns occupy different functional positions within a split-CP system. Sá achieved the final stage of the development in the seventeenth century, but rapidly declined under competition with the complementizer sem , thus leaving the false impression that sá never developed beyond the case-attraction stage
Demonstrative · Icelandic · Linguistics · Personal pronoun · Pronoun · Relative clause · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Grammaticalization as Economy
Demonstratives
Syntactic Change
World Lexicon of Grammaticalization
The Germanic Languages
The Syntax of Icelandic
Old English Syntax
The Syntax of Old Norse
On Germanic Linguistics
The Development of Old English
The Inner Makeup of Definite Determiners
The Case of German relatives
Comp in Bavarian Syntax
Patterns of relative clauses
Now I’m a Phase, Now I’m Not a Phase
Phase theory and prosodic spellout
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |