Crossing the lake
-
Ellen Brandner
Abstract
The Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in south-western Germany are structurally very similar. This seems to extend to the motion verb construction where the motion verb is obligatorily followed by an element gi/go followed by an infinitive. Upon closer inspection, however, intriguing asymmetries emerge. We account for these differences by treating gi/go as belonging to different syntactic categories. This synchronic difference in categorization can be related to different historical developments, as proposed by Lötscher (1993): both elements go back to the preposition gen ‘towards’ and developed into a functional head with purpose/goal semantics that combines with a non-finite verbal projection. We will show that while gi in Bodensee-Alemannic still heads this functional projection, go in Swiss German has been reanalyzed as a verbal element and is now integrated into the Verb Raising and Verb Projection Raising system.
Abstract
The Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in south-western Germany are structurally very similar. This seems to extend to the motion verb construction where the motion verb is obligatorily followed by an element gi/go followed by an infinitive. Upon closer inspection, however, intriguing asymmetries emerge. We account for these differences by treating gi/go as belonging to different syntactic categories. This synchronic difference in categorization can be related to different historical developments, as proposed by Lötscher (1993): both elements go back to the preposition gen ‘towards’ and developed into a functional head with purpose/goal semantics that combines with a non-finite verbal projection. We will show that while gi in Bodensee-Alemannic still heads this functional projection, go in Swiss German has been reanalyzed as a verbal element and is now integrated into the Verb Raising and Verb Projection Raising system.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Comparative Germanic Syntax ix
- Modal complement ellipsis 1
- On the adverbial reading of infrequency adjectives and the structure of the DP 35
- Crossing the lake 67
- Preposition-determiner amalgams in German and French at the syntax-morphology interface 99
- Conditional clauses, Main Clause Phenomena and the syntax of polarity emphasis 133
- Cross-Germanic variation in binding Condition B 169
- Development of sentential negation in the history of German 199
- Contact, animacy, and affectedness in Germanic 223
- Syntactic change in progress 249
- Cross Germanic variation in the realm of support verbs 279
- The shift to strict VO in English at the PF-interface 311
- Deriving reconstruction asymmetries in Across The Board by means of asymmetric extraction + ellipsis 353
- A morphologically guided matching approach to German(ic) relative constructions 387
- Index 415
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Comparative Germanic Syntax ix
- Modal complement ellipsis 1
- On the adverbial reading of infrequency adjectives and the structure of the DP 35
- Crossing the lake 67
- Preposition-determiner amalgams in German and French at the syntax-morphology interface 99
- Conditional clauses, Main Clause Phenomena and the syntax of polarity emphasis 133
- Cross-Germanic variation in binding Condition B 169
- Development of sentential negation in the history of German 199
- Contact, animacy, and affectedness in Germanic 223
- Syntactic change in progress 249
- Cross Germanic variation in the realm of support verbs 279
- The shift to strict VO in English at the PF-interface 311
- Deriving reconstruction asymmetries in Across The Board by means of asymmetric extraction + ellipsis 353
- A morphologically guided matching approach to German(ic) relative constructions 387
- Index 415
