Download - Was Old English a V2 language?
Anthony KrochUniversity of Pennsylvania
June 2013
Was Old English a V2 language?
• Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor. Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition. CD-ROM, second edition, 2000.
• Ann Taylor, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths. York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2003.
• Anthony Kroch, Beatrice Santorini, and Lauren Delfs. Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English. CD-ROM, first edition, 2004.
• Ann Taylor, Arja Nurmi, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Terttu Nevalainen. Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2006.
English Data Sources
The V2 constraint in Old English:the pronoun exception
(1) Þæt hus hæfdon Romane to ðæm anum tacne geworht.
(2) Ælc yfel he mæg don.
(3) Þin agen geleafa þe hæfþ gehæledne.
(4) & seofon ærendracan he him hæfde to asend.
The V2 constraint in Old English:the exception to the exception
(5) Hwi sceole we oþres mannes niman?
(6) Þa ge-mette he sceaðan.
(7) Ne mihton hi næ nigne fultum æt him begitan.
(8) Hæfdon hi hiora onfangen ær Hæsten to Beamfleote come.
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English
(9) ...ðeah hit ær upahæfen wære.
(10) Se manfulla gast þa Martine gehyrsumode.
(11) ac he heora onfon nolde.
(12) and Dryhten soðlice heofonas geworhte.
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English II
(13) Eac þis land wæs swiðe afylled mid munecan.
(14) Þeahhweðer his hiredmen ferdon ut mid feawe mannan of þam castele.
Verb-first subjunctive clauses in Old English
(15) Cume se blinda to me.
(16) Stande þin word, cyning.
(17) Ne wille ðu swa sprecan;
(18) Write he þa fæstnunge mid his agenre handa.
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
DP
Romane
CP
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
DP
Romane
CP
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
T0
hæfdon
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
T0
hæfdon
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
T0
hæfdon
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
C'
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
v0
V0
hæfdon
geworht
T0
hæfdon
CP
DP
hi
DP
hi
DP
þæt hus
DP
þæt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause
T0
hæfdon
C0
Quantitative Evidence for V-to-T and V-to-C in Old and Early Middle English
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
1000 1200 1400 1600date
inve
rted/
tota
l
subject.type
noun
pronoun
total^0.5
10
20
30
Sentences with topicalized direct objects: Frequency of V2 by subject type
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1000 1200 1400 1600date
inve
rted/
tota
l
total^0.5
20
40
60
subject.type
noun
pronoun
Sentences with topicalized PPs: Frequency of V2 by subject type
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1000 1200 1400 1600date
inve
rted/
tota
l
total^0.5
20
40
60
subject.type
noun
pronoun
Sentences with topicalized adverbs: Frequency of V2 by subject type
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
1000 1200 1400 1600date
inve
rted/
tota
l
total^0.5
20
40
60
subject.type
noun
pronoun
Sentences with topicalized þa: Frequency of V2 by subject type
subjectDP
subject pronoun
SV
VS
238 1382
338 29
Inversion in positive sentences with topicalized objects
.02.59
subjectDP
subject pronoun
SV
VS
12 52
22 37
Inversion in negative sentences with topicalized objects
.65 .42
subjectDP
subject pronoun
SV
VS
3245 4253
9063 2727
Inversion in indicative sentences with a topicalized constituent
.74 .39
subjectDP
subject pronoun
SV
VS
143 80
308 162
Inversion in subjunctive sentences with a topicalized constituent
.68 .67
Low subjects in Old English
$(9)$ac mycel geþolode ðurh his mildheortnes se Crist$ for ure þearfe.
$ (10)$in þa tid wæs in Mercna mægðe Wulfhere cyning.
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002)
$ (11) $Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen.
$ (12)$ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen.
$ (13)$*Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen.
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002)
$ (11) $Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen.
$ (12)$ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen.
$ (13)$*Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen.
$(14)$ Dieses Haus wird Hans später für die Familie kaufen.
C'
CP
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
DPj
v0
XPi V0
XPi
DPj
Romane
hæfdon
geworhtþæt hus
þæt hus
Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
C'
CP
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
DPj
v0
XPi V0
XPi
DPj
Romane
hæfdon
geworhtþæt hus
þæt hus
Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
C'
CP
TP
VP
vP
T'
v'
C0
T0
DPj
v0
XPi V0
XPi
DPj
Romane
hæfdon
geworhtþæt hus
þæt hus
Romane
Why not verb-third sentences?
CP
XPi
þone fleam TPC0
C'
DPj
Þurcytel
T0
XPi
þone fleam
T'
v0
v'
Vk0
astealde
VP
vP
DPj
Þurcytel
Vk0
astealde
T0
T'
ærest
ADVP
A V3 example or an Infl-final one?
CP
XPi
þone fleam TPC0
C'
DPj
Þurcytel
T0
XPi
þone fleam
T'
v0
v'
Vk0
astealde
VP
vP
DPj
Þurcytel
Vk0
astealde
T0
T'
ærest
ADVP
A V3 example or an Infl-final one?
(2) and him se innoþ eac geopenode ongean and him the heart also opened again
(coælive, +ALS_[Vincent]:170.7907)
(1) þæne se geatweard$ let in that-one the doorkeeper$ let in
(cowsgosp, Jn_[WSCp]:10.3.6596)
Unambiguous V3 clauses with topicalized objects
full DP subjects pronoun subjects
V2 cases74
746
6
V3 cases20
2045
45
frequency V3.21
0.21.88
0.88
Frequency of unambiguous V3 clausesagainst all particle verb cases
(1) ac þone yfelan fæstrædan willan folneah nan wind ne mæg but the evil constant will almost no storm not may
awecggean awaken
(cocuraC,CP_[Cotton]:33.224.4.85f.)
V3 clauses with topicalized objects ambiguous due to West Germanic verb raising
number SOVI main clauses with full noun phrase subjects
ratio of SOIV to SOVI in unambiguous verb-raising environments
rate of object topicalization in verb-final clauses
predicted number of OSIV cases due to verb-raising with topicalization
actual number of OSIV cases
20
0.7
0.2
2.8
22
Expected versus observed number of V3 clauses with topicalized objects given verb raising
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% T
opic
aliz
ed
Date
Decline of direct object topicalization in English
96 A CORPUS STUDY OF THE VORFELD
Table 4.2: Summary of Vorfeld occupation of arguments.
Vorfeld Prop est (%)
Argument yes no lo pt hi
subject 43 523 18 597 69.7 70.1 70.4direct object 3 418 20 432 13.9 14.3 14.8indirect object 38 815 3.2 4.5 6.1
Note: subject = SU, direct object = OBJ1 + OBJ1 VC, indirect object = OBJ2 + OBJ2 VC.
Table 4.3: Classification after part-of-speech and syntactic category.
Category CGN labels
nominal NP, N, VNW, MWU (when proper names)prepositional PP, VZverbal TI, OTI, AHI, INF, WW, PPARTclausal CP, WHSUB, WHQ, WHREL, REL, SVAN, SMAIN, SSUB, SV1
Note: See Appendix A for explanation of the CGN POS/Cat-labels. Conjunctions/lists of onecategory are also assigned that category. Other POS-types (notably adjectives and adverbs) wereassigned to a rest category.
other things questionnaire data. We will see in later sections that there is more to thedifference between direct and indirect objects than meets the eye, however. If we take theeffect of definiteness on Vorfeld occupation into account, the difference between directobjects and indirect objects is not as big as Table 4.2 suggests.
Subjects and objects can be a of a wide variety of categories. We can divide the dataof Table 4.2 into four main categories: nominal, prepositional, verbal and clausal. Thetranslation between CGN-tags and the four categories is given in Table 4.3. The categoriesnominal and prepositional should be self-explanatory. The difference between verbaland clausal is that clausal constituents are finite, and contain all arguments of the verb,whereas verbal constituents are non-finite or do not contain all arguments of the verb.Tables 4.4–4.6 show how each of the grammatical functions breaks down into thesecategories. Below, I will illustrate the data with some examples for each grammaticalfunction. The nominal data will considered in more detail in the section on definiteness(Section 4.3).
Subjects Vorfeld occupation of subjects per category is detailed in Table 4.4. Theproportion of subjects in the Vorfeld is high in each category, although clausal subjectsappear to have a slightly reduced chance of appearing in the Vorfeld.
96 A CORPUS STUDY OF THE VORFELD
Table 4.2: Summary of Vorfeld occupation of arguments.
Vorfeld Prop est (%)
Argument yes no lo pt hi
subject 43 523 18 597 69.7 70.1 70.4direct object 3 418 20 432 13.9 14.3 14.8indirect object 38 815 3.2 4.5 6.1
Note: subject = SU, direct object = OBJ1 + OBJ1 VC, indirect object = OBJ2 + OBJ2 VC.
Table 4.3: Classification after part-of-speech and syntactic category.
Category CGN labels
nominal NP, N, VNW, MWU (when proper names)prepositional PP, VZ
verbal TI, OTI, AHI, INF, WW, PPART
clausal CP, WHSUB, WHQ, WHREL, REL, SVAN, SMAIN, SSUB, SV1
Note: See Appendix A for explanation of the CGN POS/Cat-labels. Conjunctions/lists of onecategory are also assigned that category. Other POS-types (notably adjectives and adverbs) wereassigned to a rest category.
other things questionnaire data. We will see in later sections that there is more to thedifference between direct and indirect objects than meets the eye, however. If we take theeffect of definiteness on Vorfeld occupation into account, the difference between directobjects and indirect objects is not as big as Table 4.2 suggests.
Subjects and objects can be a of a wide variety of categories. We can divide the dataof Table 4.2 into four main categories: nominal, prepositional, verbal and clausal. Thetranslation between CGN-tags and the four categories is given in Table 4.3. The categoriesnominal and prepositional should be self-explanatory. The difference between verbaland clausal is that clausal constituents are finite, and contain all arguments of the verb,whereas verbal constituents are non-finite or do not contain all arguments of the verb.Tables 4.4–4.6 show how each of the grammatical functions breaks down into thesecategories. Below, I will illustrate the data with some examples for each grammaticalfunction. The nominal data will considered in more detail in the section on definiteness(Section 4.3).
Subjects Vorfeld occupation of subjects per category is detailed in Table 4.4. Theproportion of subjects in the Vorfeld is high in each category, although clausal subjectsappear to have a slightly reduced chance of appearing in the Vorfeld.
Frequency of direct object topicalization in modern spoken Dutch (Bouma 2008)
Evolution of PP preposing in English
0
10
20
30
40
50
OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% P
repo
sed
Date
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% P
repo
sed
Date
Evolution of adverb fronting in English
locative adverbs
temporal adverbs
The history of topicalization in English (Speyer 2008)
• Why does topicalization decline in Middle English but not disappear? If the change a parametric one, it should go to completion. Otherwise, topicalization, a clear case of stylistic variation might be expected to be stable in frequency over time.
• This question has answer in the specific interactionbetween parametric settings and stylistic variation in the history of English.
0
5
10
15
OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710
% V
2
Date
Decline of direct object topicalizationby subject type
full DP subjects
pronoun subjects
Correlation between frequencies of object topicalizationand of V2 in Middle English texts (Wallenberg 2007)
edvern
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 5 10 15 20 25
% Full DP Topicalization
% V
2
Subject type in sentences with topicalized objects
Subject type in sentences with in situ objects
personal pronoun demonstrative pronoun full noun phrase181 2 1790.5% 1% 8.5 %
personal pronoun demonstrative pronoun full noun phrase140 20 14246.4 6.6 47.0
Distribution of subject types in a corpusof topicalized and non-topicalized
sentences in natural speech
Clash avoidance
• The type of topicalization that declines:
(1) The nèwspaper Jóhn read; the nòvel Máry did.
• The type of topicalization that doesn’t:
(2) The nèwspaper I réad; the nòvel I dídn’t.
(Compare: The nèwspaper read Jóhn.)
Translating German topicalized arguments intoEnglish in three modern German novels
[by Böll, Dürrenmatt and Grass]
Topicalized to topicalized:
G: Mahlkes Haupt bedeckte dieser Hut besonders peinlich.E: On Mahlke’s head this hat made a particularly painful impression.
Topicalized to non-topicalized:
G: Zu den sechs kamen noch drei weitere.E: Three others joined these six in the afternoon.
2nd accent on the German
subjectaccent elsewhere
topicalization in the English translation
00
3131
no topicalization in the English
2525
100100
Accent placement and topicalization frequencies in translating German topicalized arguments into English
Finis