The Loss of Grammatical Gender and Case Features Between Old and Early Middle English: Its Impact on Simple Demonstratives and Topic Shift

Abstract

In this paper we examine the relation between the loss of formal gender and Case features on simple demonstratives and the topic shifting property they manifest. The examination period spans between Old English and Early Middle English. While we argue that this loss has important discourse-pragmatic and derivational effects on demonstratives, we also employ the Strong Minimalist Hypothesis approach (Chomsky 2001) and feature valuation, as defined in Pesetsky & Torrego (2007), to display how their syntactic computation and pragmatic properties have come about. To account for the above innovations yielding the Early Middle English ϸe ('the'), we first discuss the formal properties of the Old English demonstratives which distinguish number, gender, and Case features. This inflectional variety of forms allows the Old English demonstratives to be used independently and to show the anaphoric and discourse-linking properties of topics. Crucially, the same properties characterise also German and Dutch demonstratives that manifest Case and/or gender morphology overtly, which shows that the syntactic distribution of LIs and their morphological richness should be considered as intertwined. The above properties are then confronted with the determiner system in Early Middle English, whose forms undergo inflectional levelling producing the invariant ϸe/ðe form that loses its distributional independence and acquires the article status. The levelling process in question is argued to stimulate the shift of the [+ref/spec] feature from the formal to the semantic pole. This suggests that the Early Middle English ϸe form no longer counts as an appropriate anaphor in topic shift contexts owing to its indeterminacy of Case, gender, and φ-features, which means that it cannot satisfy the Full Interpretation requirement at the interfaces.

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

“…OE se-forms are thus ambiguous between a demonstrative pronoun and a determiner. Jurczyk (2017) argues that it is this visible pronominal inflection (i.e., case and gender marking) that gives the demonstrative its anaphoric and discourse-linking properties in the syntax. In Jurczyk's (2017) proposal, referentiality 'piggy-backs' on the existence and interpretability of these φ-features; that is, if they are complete and interpretable on the demonstrative, we can establish the referentiality of the object.…”

“…Jurczyk (2017) argues that it is this visible pronominal inflection (i.e., case and gender marking) that gives the demonstrative its anaphoric and discourse-linking properties in the syntax. In Jurczyk's (2017) proposal, referentiality 'piggy-backs' on the existence and interpretability of these φ-features; that is, if they are complete and interpretable on the demonstrative, we can establish the referentiality of the object. This is illustrated in ( 14), in which the demonstrative se 'that' is d-linked to the antecedent anne scop 'a poet' by virtue of its gender marking.…”

“…We remain neutral as to the precise nature of this extra feature, assuming that it facilitates anaphoric reference (i.e., φ-features; see Biberauer and van Kemenade 2011 for a similar proposal and discussion). For ease of exposition, we will here label the feature [Ref] and follow Jurczyk (2017) in locating it between DP and NP, as it is impossible to probe the NP and the demonstrative separately (in contrast to clitic doubling languages, where the clitic can incorporate into the verbal complex).…”