An asymmetric view on stage II in Jespersen’s cycle in the West Germanic languages
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Anne Breitbarth
Abstract
Irrespective of the directionality they postulate for the loss of the preverbal marker, most approaches to Jespersen’s cycle assume a “symmetric” bipartite negation in stage II, in which both the old and the new marker participate in the expression of negation, be it as parts of one discontinuous construction, or be it because one is licensed by the other in some way. The current paper discusses problems with this from a perspective of the West Germanic languages and argues that the two markers must be functionally differentiated at stage II in these languages and therefore proposes an “asymmetric” interpretation of stage II. Rather than assuming that both parts of the bipartite construction express negation, it is argued that the preverbal marker undergoes a morphosyntactic change by which it is reanalysed as the lexicalisation of the head of a high polarity projection.
Abstract
Irrespective of the directionality they postulate for the loss of the preverbal marker, most approaches to Jespersen’s cycle assume a “symmetric” bipartite negation in stage II, in which both the old and the new marker participate in the expression of negation, be it as parts of one discontinuous construction, or be it because one is licensed by the other in some way. The current paper discusses problems with this from a perspective of the West Germanic languages and argues that the two markers must be functionally differentiated at stage II in these languages and therefore proposes an “asymmetric” interpretation of stage II. Rather than assuming that both parts of the bipartite construction express negation, it is argued that the preverbal marker undergoes a morphosyntactic change by which it is reanalysed as the lexicalisation of the head of a high polarity projection.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgements ix
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Phonology
- Middle English vowel length in French loanwords 9
- Dental fricatives and stops in Germanic 19
- Dialect variation and the Dutch diminutive 37
-
Part II. Morphology, syntax and semantics
- On the disappearance of genitive types in Middle English 49
- An asymmetric view on stage II in Jespersen’s cycle in the West Germanic languages 61
- Temporal reference and grammaticalization in the Spanish perfect(ive) 73
- (Un)-interpretable features and grammaticalization 83
- Imperative morphology in diachrony evidence from the Romance languages 99
- VO vs V(…)O en Français 109
- On the development of Recipient passives in DO languages 123
- The emergence of DP in the history of English 135
- A diachronic view of Psychological verbs with Dative Experiencers in Spanish and Romanian 149
- On the loss of the masculine genitive plural in Cypriot Greek 161
- The rise of peripheral modifiers in the noun phrase 175
- Wild variation, random patterns, and uncertain data* 185
-
Part III. Sociolinguistics and dialectology
- Le changement linguistique dans la langue orale selon deux recherches sur le terrain séparées d’un siècle 197
- Patrons sociolinguistiques chez trois générations de locuteurs acadiens 211
- Change of functions of the first person pronouns in Chinese 223
- Vinderup in real time 233
- Variation in real time 245
-
Part IV. Tools and methodology
- UNIDIA 259
- Visualization, validation and seriation 269
- Quantifying linguistic changes 285
- Historical core vocabulary: Spring and/or anchor 295
- Index of languages and terms 307
- Index of subjects and terms 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgements ix
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Phonology
- Middle English vowel length in French loanwords 9
- Dental fricatives and stops in Germanic 19
- Dialect variation and the Dutch diminutive 37
-
Part II. Morphology, syntax and semantics
- On the disappearance of genitive types in Middle English 49
- An asymmetric view on stage II in Jespersen’s cycle in the West Germanic languages 61
- Temporal reference and grammaticalization in the Spanish perfect(ive) 73
- (Un)-interpretable features and grammaticalization 83
- Imperative morphology in diachrony evidence from the Romance languages 99
- VO vs V(…)O en Français 109
- On the development of Recipient passives in DO languages 123
- The emergence of DP in the history of English 135
- A diachronic view of Psychological verbs with Dative Experiencers in Spanish and Romanian 149
- On the loss of the masculine genitive plural in Cypriot Greek 161
- The rise of peripheral modifiers in the noun phrase 175
- Wild variation, random patterns, and uncertain data* 185
-
Part III. Sociolinguistics and dialectology
- Le changement linguistique dans la langue orale selon deux recherches sur le terrain séparées d’un siècle 197
- Patrons sociolinguistiques chez trois générations de locuteurs acadiens 211
- Change of functions of the first person pronouns in Chinese 223
- Vinderup in real time 233
- Variation in real time 245
-
Part IV. Tools and methodology
- UNIDIA 259
- Visualization, validation and seriation 269
- Quantifying linguistic changes 285
- Historical core vocabulary: Spring and/or anchor 295
- Index of languages and terms 307
- Index of subjects and terms 309
