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Subject-verb inversion in 13th century German and French

A comparative view

Abstract

The present study examines whether subject-verb inversion in Old French is similarly conditioned to its counterpart in Middle High German. In the generative literature, inversion in Old French has often been ascribed to a verb second (V2) property, possibly as a result of language contact with Germanic. Using corpus data from the 13th century, this study compared the most and the least favorable contexts for inversion in Old French and Middle High German. A variable rule analysis of the data reveals some important differences between the two languages. This challenges the view that inversion in Old French is generated by the same grammatical system as inversion in V2 languages.

Abstract

The present study examines whether subject-verb inversion in Old French is similarly conditioned to its counterpart in Middle High German. In the generative literature, inversion in Old French has often been ascribed to a verb second (V2) property, possibly as a result of language contact with Germanic. Using corpus data from the 13th century, this study compared the most and the least favorable contexts for inversion in Old French and Middle High German. A variable rule analysis of the data reveals some important differences between the two languages. This challenges the view that inversion in Old French is generated by the same grammatical system as inversion in V2 languages.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Foreword xi
  4. Part I. How language is acquired and lost in multilingual settings
  5. Case marking in child L1 and early child L2 German 3
  6. First exposure learners make use of top-down lexical knowledge when learning words 23
  7. Wh -questions in Dutch 47
  8. The emergence of a new variety of Russian in a language contact situation 63
  9. The acquisition of gender agreement marking in Polish 81
  10. Discourse cohesion in the elicited narratives of early Russian-German sequential bilinguals 101
  11. German segments in the speech of German-Spanish bilingual children 121
  12. Agreement within early mixed DP 137
  13. Gender marking in L2 learners and Italian-German bilinguals with German as the weaker language 153
  14. A bidirectional study of object omissions in French-English bilinguals 171
  15. Foreign language reforms in Swiss primary schools 189
  16. “Multilingual brains” 207
  17. Part II. How language changes in multilingual settings
  18. Subject-verb inversion in 13th century German and French 223
  19. Multilingual constructions 241
  20. Pseudo-coordinations in Faroese 259
  21. Toward a fused lect 281
  22. The formation and distribution of the analytic future tense in Polish-German bilinguals 297
  23. Changing conventions in English-German translations of popular scientific texts 315
  24. Perception and interpretation of intonational prominence in varieties of South African English 335
  25. The prosody of Occitan-French bilinguals 349
  26. Diachronic prosody of a contact variety 365
  27. Devoicing of sibilants as a segmental cue to the influence of Spanish onto current Catalan phonology 391
  28. Part III. How language is used in multilingual settings
  29. Explaining the interpreter’s unease 407
  30. Measuring bilingual accommodation in Welsh rural pharmacies 419
  31. Becoming bilingual in a multilingual context 437
  32. List of contributors 457
  33. Name index 461
  34. Subject index 469
Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies
This chapter is in the book Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsm.13.16els

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Foreword xi
  4. Part I. How language is acquired and lost in multilingual settings
  5. Case marking in child L1 and early child L2 German 3
  6. First exposure learners make use of top-down lexical knowledge when learning words 23
  7. Wh -questions in Dutch 47
  8. The emergence of a new variety of Russian in a language contact situation 63
  9. The acquisition of gender agreement marking in Polish 81
  10. Discourse cohesion in the elicited narratives of early Russian-German sequential bilinguals 101
  11. German segments in the speech of German-Spanish bilingual children 121
  12. Agreement within early mixed DP 137
  13. Gender marking in L2 learners and Italian-German bilinguals with German as the weaker language 153
  14. A bidirectional study of object omissions in French-English bilinguals 171
  15. Foreign language reforms in Swiss primary schools 189
  16. “Multilingual brains” 207
  17. Part II. How language changes in multilingual settings
  18. Subject-verb inversion in 13th century German and French 223
  19. Multilingual constructions 241
  20. Pseudo-coordinations in Faroese 259
  21. Toward a fused lect 281
  22. The formation and distribution of the analytic future tense in Polish-German bilinguals 297
  23. Changing conventions in English-German translations of popular scientific texts 315
  24. Perception and interpretation of intonational prominence in varieties of South African English 335
  25. The prosody of Occitan-French bilinguals 349
  26. Diachronic prosody of a contact variety 365
  27. Devoicing of sibilants as a segmental cue to the influence of Spanish onto current Catalan phonology 391
  28. Part III. How language is used in multilingual settings
  29. Explaining the interpreter’s unease 407
  30. Measuring bilingual accommodation in Welsh rural pharmacies 419
  31. Becoming bilingual in a multilingual context 437
  32. List of contributors 457
  33. Name index 461
  34. Subject index 469
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