On the syntax of object pronouns in Old English and Early Middle English
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22130246 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chiara De Bastiani (0000-0002-3625-2643, University of Verona), Roland Hinterhölzl (0000-0001-7423-8888, Ca' Foscari University of Venice) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-05 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Glossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835 |
| Publisher | Open Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5334/gjgl.890 |
| OpenAlex | W3020937637 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
The paper investigates the conditions that determine the distribution of object pronouns in the period before the latter become fixed to the post-verbal position. In the transition between Old English and Early Middle English (henceforth OE and EME), object pronouns surface to the left of T, to the left of V and to the right of V. It will be shown that the distribution in the pre-T and post-V positions in OE is due to information structural and prosodic interface conditions, whereas the position at the left of V is analysed as unmarked.In EME, the pre-T position continues to be linked to topicalization, whereas the pre-V position shows a progressively less frequent distribution. The post-verbal mapping of object pronouns can still be linked to prosodic1 and information structural (IS) mapping conditions, but the data show that the post-verbal position was on the way to being reanalysed as the unmarked position.The change will be attributed to two factors: a) the new option of de-accentuation in situ, leading pronouns to choose the non-finite verb as their phonological host, and b) the grammaticalization of the definite determiner that renders light (non-branching and left-branching) objects into right-branching, heavy objects at the end of the OE period. We will provide evidence that it is the latter factor that leads to the new option of de-accenting pronouns in situ (cf. Hinterhölzl 2017)
Grammaticalization · Linguistics · Middle English · Object pronoun · Pronoun · Syntax · Topicalization · Verb · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Chapter 2. From OV to VO in English
On Information Structure, Meaning and Form
Information Structure and Sentence Form
Topic Continuity in Discourse
Information Structure and Language Change
Old English Syntax
Identifying reference and truth‐values
The Representation of (In)Definiteness
Focus movement and focus interpretation in Old English
Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English
Pragmatics and Linguistics
| Highly cited | No |
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