John Benjamins Publishing Company
Contrastivity and information structure in the old Ibero-Romance languages
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Abstract
In this article, we discuss how contrastivity can be identified in historical texts where we have no direct access to prosodic features such as stress and intonation. We depart from our knowledge of contrastivity in the modern languages and their exponence in Modern Spanish and Portuguese, where both word order and prosody play a role in expressing contrast, and compare the analysis of the modern languages to our data of Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. Our findings indicate that very little has changed with regard to the expression of contrastivity through word order. Therefore, any word order changes should be attributed to other changes in syntax and information structure, in particular changes along the given-new axis, such as the loss of preverbal information focus in Old Spanish, the loss of IP scrambling in Portuguese and the fact that, unlike today, the SV order was linked to the topicality of the subject.
Abstract
In this article, we discuss how contrastivity can be identified in historical texts where we have no direct access to prosodic features such as stress and intonation. We depart from our knowledge of contrastivity in the modern languages and their exponence in Modern Spanish and Portuguese, where both word order and prosody play a role in expressing contrast, and compare the analysis of the modern languages to our data of Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. Our findings indicate that very little has changed with regard to the expression of contrastivity through word order. Therefore, any word order changes should be attributed to other changes in syntax and information structure, in particular changes along the given-new axis, such as the loss of preverbal information focus in Old Spanish, the loss of IP scrambling in Portuguese and the fact that, unlike today, the SV order was linked to the topicality of the subject.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Information structure and syntax in old Germanic and Romance languages 1
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Part I. Information-structural categories and corpus annotation
- The theoretical foundations of givenness annotation 17
- Testing the theory 53
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Part II. Changes on the interface between syntax and information structure
- Quantifying information structure change in English 81
- Tracing overlap in function in historical corpora 111
- Referential properties of the full and reduced forms of the definite article in German 141
- The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts 173
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Part III. Comparisons on the interface between syntax and information structure
- Word order variation in late Middle English 203
- Preverbal word order in Old English and Old French 233
- Formal properties of event-reporting sentences in Old High German and Old French 271
- Subjects and objects in Germanic and Romance 295
- Object position and Heavy NP Shift in Old Saxon and beyond 313
- On the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure 341
- Contrastivity and information structure in the old Ibero-Romance languages 377
- Index of languages 413
- Databases and annotation schemes 415
- Word index 417
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Information structure and syntax in old Germanic and Romance languages 1
-
Part I. Information-structural categories and corpus annotation
- The theoretical foundations of givenness annotation 17
- Testing the theory 53
-
Part II. Changes on the interface between syntax and information structure
- Quantifying information structure change in English 81
- Tracing overlap in function in historical corpora 111
- Referential properties of the full and reduced forms of the definite article in German 141
- The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts 173
-
Part III. Comparisons on the interface between syntax and information structure
- Word order variation in late Middle English 203
- Preverbal word order in Old English and Old French 233
- Formal properties of event-reporting sentences in Old High German and Old French 271
- Subjects and objects in Germanic and Romance 295
- Object position and Heavy NP Shift in Old Saxon and beyond 313
- On the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure 341
- Contrastivity and information structure in the old Ibero-Romance languages 377
- Index of languages 413
- Databases and annotation schemes 415
- Word index 417
