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The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order

The case of Old Japanese

Abstract

Old Japanese (OJ, 8th century) had split alignment, with nominative-accusative alignment in main clauses and active alignment in nominalized clauses. A number of linguists have proposed nominalization structures as a diachronic source for variation in alignment and word order, particularly for languages that show syncretism of agent and genitive marking, like OJ. This paper applies the so-called ‘nominalist hypothesis’ (cf. Kaufman 2009) to OJ alignment and word order, taking as its main model Gildea’s (1998, 2000) reconstruction of Proto-Carib syntax. The paper shows that the two major OJ clause types fit into a larger cross-linguistic pattern: specifically, the main and nominalized clause types originate as two distinct nominal constructions selected by a copular verb. Main clauses originate as an action nominalization pattern, while the OJ adnominal (and related [+N]) patterns with genitive subjects originate as object nominalizations. These biclausal source structures were reanalyzed prior to OJ as monoclausal, following the process of ‘clausal simplification’ outlined by Harris and Campbell (1995).

Abstract

Old Japanese (OJ, 8th century) had split alignment, with nominative-accusative alignment in main clauses and active alignment in nominalized clauses. A number of linguists have proposed nominalization structures as a diachronic source for variation in alignment and word order, particularly for languages that show syncretism of agent and genitive marking, like OJ. This paper applies the so-called ‘nominalist hypothesis’ (cf. Kaufman 2009) to OJ alignment and word order, taking as its main model Gildea’s (1998, 2000) reconstruction of Proto-Carib syntax. The paper shows that the two major OJ clause types fit into a larger cross-linguistic pattern: specifically, the main and nominalized clause types originate as two distinct nominal constructions selected by a copular verb. Main clauses originate as an action nominalization pattern, while the OJ adnominal (and related [+N]) patterns with genitive subjects originate as object nominalizations. These biclausal source structures were reanalyzed prior to OJ as monoclausal, following the process of ‘clausal simplification’ outlined by Harris and Campbell (1995).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
  4. Editors’ introduction ix
  5. Part I. General and specific issues of language change
  6. Competing reinforcements 3
  7. On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
  8. Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
  9. Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
  10. How different is prototype change? 89
  11. The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
  12. Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
  13. The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
  14. Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
  15. Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
  16. On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
  17. OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
  18. Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
  19. The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
  20. Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
  21. Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
  22. Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
  23. Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
  24. The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
  25. The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
  26. Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
  27. The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
  28. Index 399
Historical Linguistics 2009
This chapter is in the book Historical Linguistics 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.320.06yan

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
  4. Editors’ introduction ix
  5. Part I. General and specific issues of language change
  6. Competing reinforcements 3
  7. On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
  8. Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
  9. Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
  10. How different is prototype change? 89
  11. The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
  12. Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
  13. The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
  14. Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
  15. Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
  16. On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
  17. OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
  18. Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
  19. The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
  20. Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
  21. Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
  22. Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
  23. Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
  24. The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
  25. The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
  26. Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
  27. The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
  28. Index 399
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