The Mixed OV/VO Syntax of Mòcheno Main Clauses: On the Interaction between High and Low Left Periphery

Cognola, Federica

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684359.003.0004

Cited by 81 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…13. See Casalicchio and Cognola (in press) for similar V2 patterns in Raeto-Romance varieties and in Mòcheno (Cognola 2013a). It is also interesting to observe that the unaccusative structures listed by Väänänen under (2) are also the same class that resisted the loss of V2 longest in the history of English.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Late Latin Verb Second: The Sentential Word Order of the “Itinerarium Egeriae”

Ledgeway

2017

catjl

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article we undertake a systematic study of the Itinerarium Egeriae, one of the best known late Latin texts, to determine the proper characterization of the word order of the text and to consider in particular whether the Itinerarium Egeriae can legitimately be considered to present a verb-second (V2) grammar on the par with the well-studied grammars of medieval Romance. The results, based on detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses of the text and, where relevant, appropriate comparisons with medieval Romance, confirm the innovative nature of the syntax of the Itinerarium Egeriae whose word order patterns are shown to follow an asymmetric V2 constraint. The article therefore offers valuable original evidence for the often claimed, but hitherto unproven, hypothesis that the V2 syntax of medieval Romance represents the continuation of a parametric setting already well established in the grammar of late Latin. En aquest article duem a terme un estudi sistemàtic de l'Itinerarium Egeriae, un dels textos del llatí tardà més ben coneguts, per tal de determinar la caracterització adequada de l'ordre de mots del text i veure, en particular, si l'Itinerarium Egeriae es pot considerar legítimament que presenta una gramàtica de verb segon (V2) de manera semblant a les gramàtiques ben estudiades del romànic medieval. Els resultats, basats en detallades anàlisis quantitatives i qualitatives del text i, on és pertinent, en comparacions adequades amb el romànic medieval, confirmen la naturalesa innovadora de la sintaxi de l'Itinerarium Egeriae, els patrons d'ordre de mots de la qual es demostra que segueixen una restricció asimètrica de V2. L'article, per tant, ofereix evidència original i valuosa a favor de la hipòtesi sovint proposada però fins ara no demostrada que la sintaxi V2 del romànic medieval representa la continuació d'una fixació paramètrica ja ben establerta en la gramàtica del llatí tardà.Paraules clau: Verb segon (V2); llatí tardà; ordre de paraules; perifèria esquerra; romànic medieval; Tobler-Mussafia * I thank two anonymous reviewers and Jim Adams, Paola Benincà, Theresa Biberauer, Federica Cognola and Nigel Vincent for their valuable comments and observations on a previous version of this article.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Presumably the interaction between the two positions can be accounted for in terms of the interaction of the high and low peripheries; cf. Cognola (2013a) for similar arguments in relation to Raeto-Romance varieties…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Late Latin Verb Second: The Sentential Word Order of the “Itinerarium Egeriae”

Ledgeway

2017

catjl

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whether the correlation between the ability of a constituent to appear in the Satzklammer and its information status also holds for sentences featuring a modal verb was not discussed by Cognola (2013b) or Cognola and Moroni (2018).…”

Section: The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another way of looking at intra-speaker variation is to consider that the two orders are not a conservative and an innovative option, respectively, but coexist within a single grammar where they have specialized for the realization of different discourse functions, as Cognola (2013a,b, 2014) shows for OV/VO word orders, pro-drop (asymmetric pro-drop) and the Verb Second (V2) rule. According to these studies, which rely on fine-grained theory-informed descriptions of the facts, variation does not follow from the availability of two competing systems, but from rules internal to a single grammar.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we show that the acceptance of German word orders across speakers varies according to the phenomenon investigated: German word orders are more likely to be accepted in sentences featuring a negation, whereas German word orders are more likely to be rejected in embedded clauses. Based on this fine-grained description of the distribution of OV/VO word orders across different contexts and groups and the available theoretical account for the derivation of OV word order given by Cognola (2013b), we propose that the observed variation can be parametrized along the lines of recent developments of Parameter Theory (Roberts, 2012; Biberauer et al, 2014 a.o.). More specifically, we propose that the movement of the non-finite verb form to lowForce°, which is responsible for OV in Mòcheno, can be captured in terms of a parametric hierarchy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Inter- vs. Intra-Speaker Variation in Mixed Heritage Syntax: A Statistical Analysis

2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Based on the novel data pertaining to five syntactic phenomena (the position of the finite verb in embedded clauses, in sentences with a modal verb, negative concord, the position of focused light/heavy objects in main clauses with a complex tense and scrambling) in the heritage language Mòcheno collected via original fieldwork, we show that there are two populations – one exhibiting intra-speaker variation between German and Italian word orders, and one lacking it; and these two populations are the result of diatopic variation and, to a lesser extent, of diastratic variation. The results achieved using quantitative statistical analysis are partially convergent with those arrived at via the traditional theoretical syntax for Mòcheno, but our analysis has allowed us to shed new light on a series of phenomena that have been neglected or poorly understood thus far. More specifically, and for the first time, we discovered that there is a micro-variation resulting from diastratic (age) variation within the Roveda variety, which represents the only case in Mòcheno in which age is a relevant factor in determining variation. We also show that the traditional claim that the Palù variety is ‘more German’ than is the other Mòcheno variety is to be confirmed; however, we could refine it by showing that German word orders are also accepted by speakers of other varieties and that the acceptability of these word orders in competition with the Italian syntax is not due to their age (no diastratic variation). Finally, we show that the acceptance of German word orders across speakers varies according to the phenomenon investigated: German word orders are more likely to be accepted in sentences featuring a negation, whereas German word orders are more likely to be rejected in embedded clauses. Based on this fine-grained description of the distribution of OV/VO word orders across different contexts and groups and the available theoretical account for the derivation of OV word order given by Cognola (2013b) , we propose that the observed variation can be parametrized along the lines of recent developments of Parameter Theory ( Roberts, 2012 ; Biberauer et al., 2014 a.o.). More specifically, we propose that the movement of the non-finite verb form to lowForce°, which is responsible for OV in Mòcheno, can be captured in terms of a parametric hierarchy. When verb movement takes place in all syntactic conditions, including with all non-finite verb forms and when the auxiliary has not moved out of v° to Spec, CP, a macroparametric effect obtains which corresponds to the system instantiated by the Palù variety. The mesoparameter corresponds to a system in which the movement to the non-finite verb form can only be found when v° is empty, i.e., in main declarative clauses. The fact that for a subgroup of speakers from Fierozzo and Roveda OV word order is accepted with modal verbs follows from a microparamter: the movement of the non-finite verb form to lowFocus° can o...

show abstract