The loss of inflectional case marking in the passage from Latin to the Romance languages was accompanied by a profusion of analytic strategies of argument marking in Romance. The phenomenon of analytic marking of grammatical dependencies of arguments on their head is not limited to the usage of functional prepositions but also involves the emergence of non-prepositional freestanding markers (some of which take part in mixed, analytic and synthetic, marking). Furthermore, Romance languages display complex alternative strategies of encoding grammatical relations (differential object marking and clitic doubling), the emergence of which is unquestionably related to the changes in the system of case marking and to the subtle move away from dependent marking to head marking.
This article represents an extensive survey of the non-inflectional markers (prepositional constructions marking genitive, partitive, and dative relations; non-prepositional freestanding markers; mixed marking) as well as of some more complex alternative strategies of encoding grammatical relations (differential object marking and clitic doubling), placing emphasis on the markers themselves and on their distribution. From a broader historical perspective, the emergence and consolidation of the non-inflectional strategies of marking grammatical dependencies are reflexes of the change in the head-directionality parameter (head-final in Latin to head-initial in Romance), besides the transition from dependent-marking to head-marking.
The article looks both at standard Romance varieties and at dialects and places emphasis on issues less explored in the reference literature (e.g., the non-prepositional freestanding markers found in the historical dialects of Romanian or the phenomenon of mixed marking, where inflectional and non-inflectional markers co-occur within the same construction).
Article
Argument Marking in Romance
Alexandru Nicolae
Article
Object-Fronting in Archaic Chinese
Victor Junnan Pan and Yihe Jiao
The SOV order is very productive in Archaic Chinese. Most scholars believe that Archaic Chinese has SVO as basic word order and that SOV is derived by fronting the direct object from the postverbal position to a preverbal position. The most frequent cases involving object fronting in Archaic Chinese are those with pronominal objects. For instance, when the direct object is an interrogative pronoun, a demonstrative, or an ordinary personal pronoun appearing in a negative sentence, it is usually fronted to a preverbal position. Historically, object fronting has already been observed in oracle bone script, and gradually disappeared in the Han dynasty (202 bce–220 ce). After the Wei and Jin dynasties (220–420 ce), object fronting was extremely rare, and it only occurred in fixed expressions, which even stay in Modern Chinese in the early 21st century. Object fronting in Archaic Chinese can be roughly classified into two categories: unmarked object fronting and marked object fronting. The former category includes cases in which the object is positioned in a preverbal position or a pre-prepositional position without any morphosyntactic marking devices, while the latter category includes cases in which the fronted object can be either preceded or followed by some morphosyntactic markers. For instance, a fronted object can be followed by shì (是) or zhī (之), both of which are the most frequent markers co-occurring with a fronted object in Archaic Chinese. Given that both zhī (之) and shì (是) were used as pronouns and demonstratives in Archaic Chinese, when they appear in sentences involving object fronting, some scholars treat them as resumptive pronouns referring to the object NP. Due to the presence of the resumptive pronoun, object NP is allowed to be fronted in a preverbal position. In fact, there is no fixed position as a landing site for fronted objects in Archaic Chinese; instead, different preverbal positions exist. Fronted objects can be followed by functional elements of different categories: negative elements such as bù (不), wèi (未), mò (莫), and wú (无); ordinary adverbs such as qián (前) ‘before’ and jūn (均) ‘all’; modal verbs such as néng (能) ‘be able to’, dé (得) ‘be able to’, gǎn (敢) ‘dare’, and kěn (肯) ‘be willing to’; control verbs such as rěn (忍) ‘bear’ and zhī (知) ‘know’; conjunctions such as yì (亦) ‘and’, yòu (又) ‘and, as well as’, and shàng (尚) ‘yet’; and modal adverbs such as qí (其) indicating a rhetorical meaning, jiāng (将) ‘will, would’ and qiě (且) ‘will, would’. Object fronting in Archaic Chinese is closely linked to information structure. For instance, when the focalized element in a negative sentence is the direct object, then such an object will be fronted.
Article
Peculiarities of Raeto-Romance Word Formation
Matthias Grünert
Raeto-Romance (RaeR.) word formation shows considerable differences between the three main varieties: Romansh of Grisons, Dolomitic Ladin, and Friulian. Although numerous processes of word formation are common to these varieties, being inherited from identical bases, their vitality differs. This is due to the detached developments in the individual areas and to different influences from the dominant neighboring languages, German and Italian, leading to numerous replications of patterns in the RaeR. varieties.
Article
Reconstructing Proto-Germanic
Martin Joachim Kümmel
In this article, the methodology of protolanguage reconstruction and its application to Proto-Germanic (PG) are discussed, with emphasis on the special case of an intermediate protolanguage and the problem of parallel changes in daughter languages. Then, a short description of PG and its reconstruction is given. The main focus is on phonology (section 2). Section 2.1 is a description of PG phonology as it can be reconstructed: first the segmental inventory (vowels and consonants), then suprasegmentals (accent, quantity, and syllables) and morphophonology. In section 2.2, the most important phonological changes relevant for PG are given, including some common post-PG developments. Section 3 treats PG inflectional morphology: After a short general characterization, section 3.1 describes nominal morphology, discussing inflectional categories and special features of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, including some example paradigms of nouns. Section 3.2 deals with verbal morphology: After a discussion of the inflectional categories, the main features of morphological classes are described—mainly the characteristics of “strong” and “weak” verbs and their subclasses, followed by so-called preterite-presents and further irregular verbs, with example paradigms of one strong and one weak verb. In section 4, some short remarks on syntax follow. Section 5 discusses lexical reconstruction, especially cases of limited distribution in the daughter branches, showing that the availability of Indo-European comparanda often helps. It also treats language contact and borrowing relations of PG, both into PG (from Celtic or possible substrates) and from PG (into Saamic, Finnic, and Slavonic), as well as the hypothesis of Semitic influence.
Article
Southern Gallo-Romance: Occitan and Gascon
Andres M. Kristol
Occitan, a language of high medieval literary culture, historically occupies the southern third of France. Today it is dialectalized and highly endangered, like all the regional languages of France. Its main linguistic regions are Languedocien, Provençal, Limousin, Auvergnat, Vivaro-dauphinois (Alpine Provençal) and, linguistically on the fringes of the domain, Gascon. Despite its dialectalization, its typological unity and the profound difference that separates it from Northern Galloroman (Oïl dialects, Francoprovençal) and Gallo-Italian remain clearly perceptible. Its history is characterised by several ruptures (the Crusade against the Albigensians, the French Revolution) and several attempts at "rebirth" (the Baroque period, the Felibrige movement in the second half of the 19th century, the Occitanist movement of the 20th century). Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the Occitan koinè, a literary and administrative language integrating the main dialectal characteristics of all regions, was lost and replaced by makeshift regional spellings based on the French spelling. The modern Occitanist orthography tries to overcome these divisions by coming as close as possible to the medieval, "classical" written tradition, while respecting the main regional characteristics. Being a bridge language between northern Galloroman (Oïl varieties and Francoprovençal), Italy and Iberoromania, Occitan is a relatively conservative language in terms of its phonetic evolution from the popular spoken Latin of western Romania, its morphology and syntax (absence of subject clitics in the verbal system, conservation of a fully functional simple past tense). Only Gascon, which was already considered a specific language in the Middle Ages, presents particular structures that make it unique among Romance languages (development of a system of enunciative particles).
Article
(Non-)Local Dependencies in Germanic
Augustin Speyer
Dependencies in the Germanic languages are usually established by local configurations in which one element is in the sphere of influence of another. Non-local dependencies are defined as dependencies holding between elements that are not in such a configuration that one element is in the sphere of influence of the other, at least not on the surface. Non-local dependencies can arise as a result of movement, and mostly do so, but there are counterexamples. This article reviews some common non-local dependency phenomena found in the Germanic languages, namely, extraposed relative clauses, predicative adjectives, split topicalization, preposition stranding, long-distance reflexivization, and long wh-movement. For each phenomenon, hints to the analysis are given, and it is checked in which Germanic languages the phenomenon occurs. The focus is on modern Germanic languages, although occasionally the perspective is widened to older stages of Germanic languages. For all cited phenomena with exception of predicative adjectives and long-distance reflexivization, it can be shown that the non-locality of the dependence arises as a result of movement. It is thus spurious non-locality. Predicative adjectives receive their inflectional features by control, whereas for long-distance reflexivization, explanations have been brought forward that center on the question of whether anaphoricity is a sufficient condition on the use of a reflexive pronoun.
Article
Norwegian
Agnete Nesse
Norwegian is mainly spoken in Norway and is represented in writing by two written languages, Bokmål (90%) and Nynorsk (10%). Both would work well as a written standard for the whole country but are to some extent regionally distributed. The distribution is partly based on the dialects and their likeness to one of the two written standards, and partly on tradition and ideology. There is no codified standard spoken Norwegian, so in formal settings the choice is either to approximate to one of the written standards, or to simply use dialect, which is most often the case.
Norwegian is part of the Scandinavian dialect continuum. Due to geography and historical developments in the region, most Norwegians easily understand spoken Swedish but sometimes struggle with written Swedish. Conversely, they easily understand written Danish but sometimes struggle with spoken Danish. Einar Haugen pinned the term Semi Communication to the almost mutual understanding between speakers of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. Between Norwegian and the insular Nordic varieties Icelandic and Faroese, there is no mutual intelligibility.
Norwegian has both synthetic and analytic language characteristics. Grammatical meaning is partly conveyed morphologically by endings and partly syntactically through word order. The vocabulary is, apart from a group of loanwords from Greek and Latin, almost solely Germanic. Due to the influence from German (Low and High), Danish, and English, parts of Norwegian vocabulary will be recognizable to speakers of other Germanic varieties. The influence caused by the century-long language contact between Sami, Finnish, and Norwegian has not led to great changes in the vocabulary, but, regionally, dialects have changed due to this contact. The part of Norwegian vocabulary that has been retained from Old Norse is to some degree recognizable to modern speakers, but Old Norse as such is not comprehensible to a modern Norwegian reader.
Typical grammatical features of Norwegian are
1. A relatively homogenous vowel inventory of nine vowels, and a heterogenous consonant system in which the dialects differ between 17 and more than 25 different phonemes.
2. Two distinctive tonemes in most dialects.
3. Suffixed definite article.
4. V2 word order
Article
Etymology and the Lexical Core of Germanic
Robert Mailhammer
Etymologies are statements about the origin and history of linguistic items (words and structures). Typically, an etymology gives information about what historical period of a language a word or a structure was created and what kinds of processes were involved, as well as about its subsequent history. Usually, etymologies involve the reconstruction of parts or all of an item’s history including the original formation. A reconstruction is a hypothesis about the form and meaning of an ancestral form and the changes it has undergone to yield the oldest attested form. This hypothesis is based on language-internal data and data from related languages as well as our knowledge about language change. The use of comparative data is key for determining and reconstructing the ancestral form of a linguistic item. One important property of reconstructions, and hence of etymologies, is that they are probabilistic; that is, they are hypotheses that are more or less likely to be correct. Etymologies of high quality have a high level of reliability or confidence, whereas etymologies of low quality are generally only weakly supported. There is a range of factors influencing the quality of an etymology, and it is important to make clear how well-supported etymologies are when considering the etymological situation of the whole or a part of the vocabulary of a language. Two pivotal factors are the degree to which sound correspondences and related changes are regular and the strength of the correspondence pattern in terms of correspondence sets and equations.
There is a significant body of work of etymological research on Germanic. This work can be broadly categorized into studies that etymologize words in a given daughter language and studies that take a more comparative approach. The focus of the literature has been on finding connections within the Indo-European family and explaining Germanic and its lexicon in terms of their development from Proto-Indo-European. Nonetheless, it is well known that the Germanic lexicon contains loans from other Indo-European languages, especially from Celtic and Latin, such as PGmc. *tūna- ‘fence’ (e.g., OHG zūn ‘fence’) borrowed from Proto-Celtic *dūno ‘fort, rampart’. It is also common knowledge that a substantial part of the Germanic vocabulary is of unclear origin. The exact amount of non-etymologized vocabulary in the Germanic lexicon is unknown, but existing quantitative data suggest that the standard figure quoted in the literature of one third is too low. However, mainstream literature has not systematically investigated Germanic words of unknown origin with the aim of finding contact etymologies that satisfy the standard requirements of contact linguistics. Since the second half of the 20th century, non-Indo-European elements in the Germanic lexicon have received more attention. The majority of hypotheses involves substratum languages. By contrast, one key observation based on what is known about outcomes of language contact, supported by well-studied cases, is that it is quite likely that some of these non-etymologized words were borrowed from non-Indo-European languages, and it is also likely that at least some of these words are from a superstratum rather than a substratum. Relevant lexical items belong to semantic domains such as warfare, the legal system, and administration, for example, PGmc. *fulka- ‘divison’ (of an army), *sibjō ‘family, clan’, *aþal-/*aþil-/*aþil- ‘nobility, noble’. Moreover, non-etymologized words relating to superior cultural innovations, for example, terms of coins (PGmc. *skellingaz/*skillinaz ‘shilling’ and PGmc. *pan(n)(d)ing ‘penny’) and agricultural innovations (PGmc. *plōg- ‘(wheel) plough’) also fit better with superstratum influence than with substratum influence. Furthermore, it is also important to highlight that words of unknown origin form part of the lexical core of Germanic, for example, *erþō ‘earth’, *handuz ‘hand’, *stainaz ‘stone’, *drinkanan ‘drink’. Whatever the origin of the hitherto non-etymologized words in the PGmc. lexicon, it is to be expected that a sizable part of them are of non-Indo-European origin. Given the significant implications for the cultural history of the people who spoke Proto-Germanic and their contemporaries, it seems well worth investigating the extra-Indo-European connections of Proto-Germanic in spite of the challenges.
Article
Swedish
Erik M. Petzell
Swedish is a V2 language, like all Germanic except English, with a basic VO word order and a suffixed definite article, like all North Germanic. Swedish is the largest of the North Germanic languages, and the official language of both Sweden and Finland, in the latter case alongside the majority language Finnish. Worldwide, there are about 10.5 million first-language (L1) speakers. The extent of L2 Swedish speakers is unclear: In Sweden and Finland alone, there are at least 3 million L2 speakers. Genealogically, Swedish is closest to Danish. Together, they formed the eastern branch of North Germanic during the Viking age. Today, this unity of old is often obscured by later developments. Typologically, in the early 21st century, Swedish is closer to Norwegian than to Danish.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was great dialectal variation across the Swedish-speaking area. Very few of the traditional dialects have survived into the present, however. In the early 21st century, there are only some isolated areas, where spoken standard Swedish has not completely taken over, for example, northwestern Dalecarlia. Spoken standard Swedish is quite close to the written language. This written-like speech was promoted by primary school teachers from the late 19th century onward. In the 21st century, it comes in various regional guises, which differ from each other prosodically and display some allophonic variation, for example, in the realization of /r/.
During the late Middle Ages, Swedish was in close contact with Middle Low German. This had a massive impact on the lexicon, leading to loans in both the open and closed classes and even import of derivational morphology. Structurally, Swedish lost case and verbal agreement morphology, developed mandatory expletive subjects, and changed its word order in subordinate clauses. Swedish shares much of this development with Danish and Norwegian.
In the course of the early modern era, Swedish and Norwegian converged further, developing very similar phonological systems. The more conspicuous of the shared traits include two different rounded high front vowels, front /y/ and front-central /ʉ/, palatalization of initial /k/ and /g/ before front vowels, and a preserved phonemic tonal distinction.
As for morphosyntax, however, Swedish has sometimes gone its own way, distancing itself from both Norwegian and Danish. For instance, Swedish has a distinct non-agreeing active participle (supine), and it makes use of the morphological s-passive in a wider variety of contexts than Danish and Norwegian. Moreover, verbal particles always precede even light objects in Swedish, for example, ta upp den, literally ‘take up it’, while Danish and Norwegian patterns with, for example, English: tag den op/ta den opp, literally ‘take it up’. Furthermore, finite forms of auxiliary have may be deleted in subordinate clauses in Swedish but never in Danish/Norwegian.
Article
Negation in Germanic
Johan Brandtler and Anne Breitbarth
This article focuses on the formal expression of sentential negation in the Germanic languages and its diachronic development.
Not surprisingly, the Germanic languages share a number of characteristics with regard to negation.
1. With the exception of English, the Germanic languages use symmetric strategies of negating a clause: negative clauses are distinguished from affirmative clauses only by the presence of a negative marker.
2. In the historical development of the Germanic languages, standard negation has undergone a general change from preverbal particle to post-verbal adverb.
3. The standard varieties of the modern Germanic languages lack negative concord (NC), that is, the possibility of having two negative elements jointly expressing sentential negation.
In this article, each of these three aspects is discussed in more detail. It is shown that the historical changes leading up to the present set of standard negators in the extant Germanic languages can be subsumed under the more general principle known as Jespersen’s Cycle: the original expression of negation is first joined and later replaced by a new expression. In the second part of the article, we discuss the diachronic development of different types of negative concord in the Germanic languages.
