Syntactic change in progress
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Joan Maling
Abstract
A new impersonal construction is developing in Icelandic. The New Construction (NC) appears to have passive morphology but differs from canonical passives in that the verbal object remains in situ and gets assigned accusative case. Scholars differ in their assessment of whether the NC is a passive or an active impersonal construction. Sigurjónsdóttir & Maling (2001) and Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002) argued that the NC is a syntactically active impersonal which has its roots in the reanalysis and gradual extension of the traditional impersonal passive of intransitive verbs. In this paper we expand that argument, focusing on the occurrence of bound anaphors, and respond to recent papers by Eythórsson (2008) and Jónsson (2009), who challenge the active analysis of the NC. We also highlight the significant age-related variation observed in adults, which is exactly what would be expected during a period of syntactic change.
Abstract
A new impersonal construction is developing in Icelandic. The New Construction (NC) appears to have passive morphology but differs from canonical passives in that the verbal object remains in situ and gets assigned accusative case. Scholars differ in their assessment of whether the NC is a passive or an active impersonal construction. Sigurjónsdóttir & Maling (2001) and Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002) argued that the NC is a syntactically active impersonal which has its roots in the reanalysis and gradual extension of the traditional impersonal passive of intransitive verbs. In this paper we expand that argument, focusing on the occurrence of bound anaphors, and respond to recent papers by Eythórsson (2008) and Jónsson (2009), who challenge the active analysis of the NC. We also highlight the significant age-related variation observed in adults, which is exactly what would be expected during a period of syntactic change.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
