Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions
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Allison Kirk
Abstract
In this paper I address the syntax of direct object and adjunct questions in New Testament Greek from a comparative perspective. I show that direct object questions involve a two-step derivation. First, the questioned object is moved to the Specifier position of a designated Focus projection in the clausal Left Periphery. In this position it is interpreted as a question. The second step is the movement of the finite verb to the Focus head, which is reminiscent of residual Verb Second in languages like English. In contrast to direct object questions, cause/reason questions do not involve wh-movement at all, but are base-generated in the Int(errogative) projection of the updated Rizzian (2001) Left Periphery. I furthermore show that the IntP hosts non-focused adjunct wh-phrases.
Abstract
In this paper I address the syntax of direct object and adjunct questions in New Testament Greek from a comparative perspective. I show that direct object questions involve a two-step derivation. First, the questioned object is moved to the Specifier position of a designated Focus projection in the clausal Left Periphery. In this position it is interpreted as a question. The second step is the movement of the finite verb to the Focus head, which is reminiscent of residual Verb Second in languages like English. In contrast to direct object questions, cause/reason questions do not involve wh-movement at all, but are base-generated in the Int(errogative) projection of the updated Rizzian (2001) Left Periphery. I furthermore show that the IntP hosts non-focused adjunct wh-phrases.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
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Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
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Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
-
Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
-
Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
-
Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
-
Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
