Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics)

This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters address a central theoretical issue in diachronic syntax: whether syntactic variation can always be attributed to differences in the features of items in the lexicon, as the Borer-Chomsky conjecture proposes. In answering this question, all the chapters develop analyses of syntactic change couched within a formalist framework in which rich hierarchical structures and abstract features of various kinds play an important role. The first three parts of the volume explore the different domains of the clause, namely the C-domain, the T-domain and the ?P/VP-domain respectively, while chapters in the final part are concerned with establishing methodology in diachronic syntax and modelling linguistic correspondences. The contributors draw on extensive data from a large number of languages and dialects, including several that have received little attention in the literature on diachronic syntax, such as Romeyka, a Greek variety spoken in Turkey, and Middle Low German, previously spoken in northern Germany. Other languages are explored from a fresh theoretical perspective, including Hungarian, Icelandic, and Austronesian languages. The volume sheds light not only on specific syntactic changes from a cross-linguistic perspective but also on broader issues in language change and linguistic theory. Cover Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change Copyright Contents Series Preface List of abbreviations The contributors Chapter 1: Introduction: Syntactic features and the limits of syntactic change 1.1 Generative syntax: theory and diachrony 1.2 Individual chapters 1.3 Summary Acknowledgements Part I: The Left Periphery Chapter 2: Degree semantics, polarity, and the grammaticalization of comparative operators into complementizers 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Comparative and equative complementizers in German 2.3 Diachronic developments in Hungarian 2.4 Degree semantics, negative polarity, and feature changes 2.5 Conclusion Acknowledgements Chapter 3: Cyclic changes in Hungarian relative clauses 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Changes in Hungarian relative clauses: The data 3.2.1 Stage 1: The starting point 3.2.2 Stage 2: Syntactic change 3.2.3 Stage 3: Morphophonological change 3.3 Feature changes on wh-REL and the demonstrative 3.3.1 No loss of lexical features on wh-REL 3.3.2 The loss of the [+def ] feature on the demonstrative 3.4 Conclusion Acknowledgements Primary sources Chapter 4: Diachronic change and feature instability: The cycles of Fin in Romanian obligatory control 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Data and questions 4.3 Cartography and Minimalism 4.4 OC in Romanian and beyond 4.4.1 OC theory 4.4.2 Old Romanian 4.4.3 Balkan OC: the derivational mechanism 4.5 Variation and change in the mapping and spelling of Fin features 4.5.1 Historical overview: Free alternation of clause types 4.5.2 Split and remerged/syncretic Fin 4.5.3 Motivating the Fin split 4.5.4 Motivating complementizer renewal 4.6 Conclusions Chapter 5: Null subjects in Middle Low German: Diachronic stability and change 5.1 Introduction 5.1.1 Background 5.1.2 Overview 5.2 Methods and background assumptions 5.2.1 The corpus 5.2.2 MLG syntax 5.3 Referential null subjects in MLG 5.3.1 Factors influencing the occurrence of RNS 5.3.1.1 Clause type 5.3.1.2 Person 5.3.1.3 Extralinguistic factors 5.3.2 Syntactic distribution of RNS in MLG 5.3.2.1 The position of the RNS 5.3.2.2 Person and number according to syntactic position of the RNS 5.3.2.3 Additional observations regarding the positions of MLG null pronominal subjects 5.3.2.4 RNS and their antecedents 5.3.2.4.1 Structurally non-parallel antecedent 5.3.2.4.2 RNS in main clause, antecedent in preceding adjunct clause 5.3.2.4.3 Discourse antecedent more generally 5.3.3 Summary 5.4 Analysis 5.4.1 Partial pro-drop: Walkden (2014) 5.4.2 Partial pro-drop in MLG: Only partially 5.4.3 Diachronic development and the role of the syntactic feature 5.5 Conclusion Sources Part II: The T-Domain Chapter 6: Feature reanalysis and the Latin origin of Romance Negative Concord 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Semantic and formal features in negation systems 6.2.1 A restrictive featural typology for negation systems 6.2.2 Diachronic consequences 6.3 Feature reanalysis from Classical to Late Latin 6.3.1 The Double Negation system of Classical Latin 6.3.2 Feature reanalysis in Late Latin 6.4 The nec-words: grammaticalization and feature reanalysis 6.4.1 Morphosyntactic redundancy and Latin negation 6.4.2 The nec-words 6.5 Conclusions Chapter 7: Degrammaticalization of pronominal clitics in Slavic 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Theoretical preliminaries 7.2.1 Degrammaticalization 7.2.1.1 Grammaticalization as an XP-to-X0 shift 7.2.1.2 Against unidirectionality: Degrammaticalization as an X0-to-XP change 7.2.2 Pronoun typology 7.2.2.1 Deficiency hierarchy 7.2.2.2 Syntactic properties of weak pronouns 7.2.3 Tense and clitic typology 7.2.3.1 Tense typology 7.2.3.2 Clitic typology 7.3 Clitics and tense in Slavic diachronically 7.3.1 South and West Slavic 7.3.1.1 The Old South and West Slavic clitic system 7.3.1.2 Degrammaticalization of pronominal clitics into weak pronouns in South and West Slavic 7.3.1.2.1 Old Polish 7.3.1.2.2 Contemporary Macedonian 7.3.2 East Slavic (Old Russian) 7.3.2.1 The Old Russian clitic system 7.3.2.2 The loss of TP in Old Russian 7.3.2.3 The l-perfect auxiliary as a subject pronoun 7.4 Conclusions Chapter 8: (In)vulnerable inflected infinitives as complements to modals: Evidence from Galician and Romeyka 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The puzzle with the Graeco-Romance inflected infinitives as modal and volitional complements 8.3 Inflected infinitives with modals: Ornamental morphology and monoclausality 8.4. Analogical emergence of the Romeyka (Sürmene) inflected infinitives 8.5 Diachronic volatility: The rise and fall of inflected infinitives with modals 8.5.1 Another case where morphology does not impact on syntax: The loss of subjunctive in Brazilian Portuguese 8.6 Conclusion Chapter 9: Assessing phonological correlates of syntactic change: The case of Late Latin weak BE 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Word order in the Latin clause: Some basic generalizations 9.2.1 The very basic picture 9.2.2 The effect of negation 9.3 The role of prosodic factors 9.3.1 Syllable count 9.3.2 Evidence from prose rhythm 9.4 Some background assumptions 9.4.1 Late Latin clause structure 9.4.2 From syntax to prosody 9.5 A lexical split: Strong and weak BE 9.6. Weak BE at the syntax–prosody interface 9.6.1 ✓PaPa–weak BE (- XP) 9.6.2 * Weak BE–PaPa 9.6.3 ✓ Neg–Weak BE–PaPa 9.6.4 Polysyllabic weak BE? 9.7 Conclusion Chapter 10: Investigating the past of the futurate present 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Methodology 10.2.1 The empirical challenge 10.2.2 The texts 10.2.3 The database 10.3 Results and discussion 10.3.1 Overview of results 10.3.2 The initial state: Old English 10.3.3 The end state: Modern English 10.3.4 Interim summary 10.3.5 The transitional stage: Middle English 10.3.6 Shall as a matter of editorial policy 10.3.7 Absence of translation effects in ASG and KJV 10.3.8 The grammar in transition 10.3.9 A possible path of change 10.4 A new transitional stage? Present-Day English 10.5 Conclusions Acknowledgements Part III: Case Making Chapter 11: From lexical to dependent: The case of the Greek dative 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Classical Greek datives and genitives 11.3 Standard Modern Greek genitives 11.4 PPs vs DPs 11.5 On the history of Greek cases and prepositions 11.5.1 Loss of dative case 11.5.2 Changes in the prepositional system 11.6 Summary and outlook 11.7 Acknowledgements Chapter 12: The nature and origin of syntactic ergativity in Austronesian languages 12.1 Introduction 12.2 C–T Inheritance 12.3 Synchronic support 12.3.1 Extraction restriction 12.3.2 Lack of wh-movement 12.3.3 Lack of wh-features 12.3.4 Lack of superiority effects 12.3.5 Long-distance movement 12.3.6 Raising 12.3.7 Topic and focus 12.4 Diachronic origin of the extraction restriction 12.4.1 Nominalized relative clauses 12.4.2 Proto-Austronesian alignment 12.5 Extensions and conclusion Acknowledgements Chapter 13: Featural dynamics in morphosyntactic change 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Dative Substitution 13.2.1 Empirical overview 13.2.2 Variable PF realization of grammatical features 13.3 Formal features and the side effects of linguistic change 13.3.1 Person-Specific Retention 13.3.2 Elsewhere Condition Death Rattle 13.3.3 A model of featural constraints 13.4 Implications for theories of variation and change 13.4.1 Realizational morphology and the Borer–Chomsky Conjecture 13.4.2 Conditioning and specialization 13.5 Conclusion Part IV: Syntactic Reconstruction Chapter 14: Syntactic reconstruction basedon linguistic fossils: Object marking in Uralic 14.1 Introduction 14.2 Object–verb agreement 14.2.1 Object–verb agreement in Hungarian 14.2.2 Object–verb agreement in Ob-Ugric 14.2.3 Object–verb agreement in Tundra Nenets 14.3 The Inverse Agreement Constraint 14.3.1 The Inverse Agreement Constraint in Hungarian 14.3.2 The Inverse Agreement Constraint in the Ob-Ugric languages 14.3.3 The Inverse Agreement Constraint in Tundra Nenets 14.4 Accusative marking 14.4.1 Accusative marking in Hungarian 14.4.2 Accusative marking in Ob-Ugric 14.4.3 Accusative marking in Udmurt 14.5 The Inverse Accusative-Marking Constraint (Person–Case Constraint) 14.5.1 The Inverse Accusative-Marking Constraint in Eastern Mansi 14.5.2 The Inverse Accusative-Marking Constraint in Hungarian 14.6 The correspondence sets 14.7 Conclusion Chapter 15; Regular syntactic change and syntactic reconstruction 15.1 Introduction 15.2 Background assumptions 15.3 Syntax vs phonology 15.3.1 Features 15.3.2 Computational system properties 15.3.3 Lexicon and computation 15.4 Three aspects of the lexicon 15.4.1 Lexicon optimization 15.4.2 Linearity in the lexicon 15.4.3 Feature deactivation 15.4.4 Sources of observed regular syntactic change 15.4.5 Lexicon building and change 15.5 Reconstructing syntactic features 15.6 ‘Syntactic’ correspondence 15.7 Conclusion Acknowledgements References Index of Languages Index of Subjects Back Matter Series Pages