Information structure and OV word order in Old and Middle English: a phase-based approach

Struik, T.; Kemenade, Ans van

doi:10.1007/s10828-022-09131-1

Cited by 6 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…After collecting relevant clauses, each object was manually annotated for information status . Our annotation is based on a simplified version of the Pentaset (Komen 2013) and follows the methodology in Struik & Van Kemenade (2020, 2022). The annotation is based on the referentiality and anaphoricity of each individual object in the discourse, and, crucially, not on the morphosyntactic properties of the object (e.g.…”

Section: Materials and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…OV/VO variation is one of the main syntactic characteristics of older (West) Germanic language varieties and sparked a vigorous debate on word order typology as well as on the analysis of individual languages (see e.g. Van Kemenade 1987; Pintzuk 1999; Taylor & Pintzuk 2012; De Bastiani 2019; Struik & Van Kemenade 2020, 2022 on Old English; Petrova 2009; Sapp 2016 on Old High German; Sapp 2014 on Middle High German; Walkden 2014; Struik 2022b on Old Saxon and Middle Low German). This is also the case for historical Dutch, although traditional analyses often (implicitly) assume historical Dutch to be an OV language.…”

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The hypothesis that preverbal objects convey given information and postverbal objects new information has been explored for many (West) Germanic language varieties (see e.g. Burridge 1993; Bech 2001; Blom 2002; Coussé 2009; Petrova 2009, 2012; Petrova & Speyer 2011; Taylor & Pintzuk 2012; Walkden 2014; De Bastiani 2019; Struik & Van Kemenade 2020, 2022). Understanding the nature of the variation helps to inform the syntactic analysis of a language.…”

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding the nature of the variation helps to inform the syntactic analysis of a language. Struik & Van Kemenade (2020, 2022), for instance, show for historical English that objects in preverbal position predominantly express given information, while objects in postverbal position can be given or new. They take this as evidence for an analysis of historical English as a VO language, with leftward object movement that is driven by information structure.…”

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, although they do operate within the same syntactic model independently of information status(Van der Wurff 1997;Ingham 2007;Struik & Van Kemenade 2022).…”

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confidence: 99%

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When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch

Struik¹,

Schoenmakers²

2022

J. Ling.

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This paper addresses the relation between two types of word order variation in two stages of Dutch: OV/VO variation in historical Dutch and scrambling in present-day Dutch. Information structural considerations influence both types of word order variation, and we demonstrate by means of a comprehensive corpus study that they have a comparable pattern: given objects tend to appear earlier in the sentence than new objects. We infer from this that the two types of word order variation are diachronically related. Our findings support an analysis of scrambling as object movement from a uniformly head-initial base via the specifier of VP to the specifier of vP. We argue that historical Dutch allows spell out of the object in its postverbal base position, but that this possibility was eventually lost. Consequently, the boundary between the given and new domains shifts from the verb to the adverbial.

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Section: Materials and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Variation In Dutch Object Placementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, although they do operate within the same syntactic model independently of information status(Van der Wurff 1997;Ingham 2007;Struik & Van Kemenade 2022).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch

Struik¹,

Schoenmakers²

2022

J. Ling.

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Deux déterminismes du déclin des objets antéposés dans l’histoire du français

Larrivée

2024

SHS Web of Conf.

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Clitiques exceptés, la position de l’objet direct est résolument post-verbale en français actuel, l’antéposition qui était possible dans un certain nombre de cas en français ancien ayant subi un déclin graduel. A partir de deux corpus de données diachroniques calibrées pour la région et le type de texte, on montre que ce déclin est influencé par deux dimensions, la configuration verbale et le type d’objet. D’une part, c’est d’abord avec le verbe conjugué simple que se perd l’antéposition de l’objet, pour se réduire ensuite avec le verbe composé, et se maintenir avec les verbes non-conjugués. D’autre part, l’antéposition cesse de se manifester avec les groupes nominaux, puis avec les déictiques courts, pour se limiter à un petit nombre de quantifieurs. Le parcours identifié ouvre les perspectives des rapports entre syntaxe et prosodie.

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VO or OV

Broekhuis

2022

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This article sketches a new analysis of the diachronic development found in many West Germanic languages from a hybrid VO-OV order to a rigid OV or VO order. The discussion departs from the discussions in Struik & Van Kemenade (2020/2022) and Struik & Schoenmakers (to appear) on the diachronic development of English/Dutch, which focus on the role of object shift and information structure. My interpretation of their data will be based on an earlier analysis of the Germanic OV and VO languages in Broekhuis (2008: § 2.4; 2011). The main conclusions are the following. First, the change from the historical hybrid VO-OV systems to the rigid OV and VO systems of the present-day languages is due to changing the “setting” [±V‑to‑v] to the more categorical ones [−V-to-v] or [+V-to-v]. Second, the role of object shift in the diachronic development is modest; it is not involved in the development of the OV-languages at all and involves only the (partial) loss of object shift in the VO-languages (contra Struik et al.). Third, the encoding of the information-structural new-given distinction remains constant in that the interpretation of (un)scrambled nominal objects does not change over time (contra Struik & Schoenmakers).

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Information structure and OV word order in Old and Middle English: a phase-based approach

Cited by 6 publications

References 64 publications

When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch

When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch

Deux déterminismes du déclin des objets antéposés dans l’histoire du français

VO or OV

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