Synopsis:

This book presents a new methodology for the study of historical varieties, particularly a language’s early history. Using the German language’s first attestations as a case study, it offers an alternative to structuralist approaches to historical syntax, with their emphasis on delineating the shapes and mechanisms of early grammars. This focus has prompted Germanists to treat the data from the eighth- and ninth-century corpus with suspicion in that its texts are either poetic or translational. That is, if the unquestioned object of inquiry is a historical cognitive grammar, one ought to isolate – and perhaps discount entirely – data that are the product of confounding factors, like a poetic meter or a Latin source text. Otherwise, these competence-obscuring examples risk undermining scholars’ understanding of a genuine early German grammar.

Rather than this “deficit approach,” the current volume proposes that scholars treat each early attestation as an artifact of “literization,” the process through which people transform their exclusively oral varieties into a written variety. Each historical text features a scriptus, that is, an ad hoc, idiosyncratic, and localized literization created by a person (or team of people) for a particular purpose. The challenge of understanding texts in this way lies in the fact that there is little to no direct evidence pointing to the specific identities of early medieval literizers, their motivations, and the nature of the multiple spoken competencies that fed into their scripti.

In order to conceptualize early medieval German and the syntactic variation it exhibits as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, this book details the linguistic resources that were available to the literizer and are, happily, accessible to the modern researcher. First, there is Latin. Though illiterate in their own multilectal vernacular in the sense that no German scriptus existed until they developed it, literizers were educated in this highly literized language and the classical metalinguistic discourse, known as grammatica, that was associated with it. Second, there are the linguistic patterns of elaborated orality, that is, the varieties that are characteristic of public life and the oral tradition in exclusively oral communities. Though the patterns of a peculiarly German elaborated orality are lost to history, those of other traditions and cultures are attested and should also inform how scholars conceive of a multilectal early German.

Synopsis: On the premise that syntactic variation is constrained by factors that may not always be immediately obvious, this volume explores various perspectives on the nominal syntax in the early Germanic languages and the syntactic diversity they display. The fact that these languages are relatively well attested and documented allows for individual cases studies as well as comparative studies. Due to their well-observable common ancestry at the time of their earliest attestations, they moreover permit close-up comparative investigations into closely related languages. Besides the purely empirical aspects, the volume also explores the methodological side of diagnosing, classifying and documenting the details of syntactic diversity. The volume starts with a description by Alexander Pfaff and Gerlof Bouma of the principles underlying the Noun Phrases in Early Germanic Languages (NPEGL) database, before Alexander Pfaff presents the Patternization method for measuring syntactic diversity. Kristin Bech, Hannah Booth, Kersti Börjars, Tine Breban, Svetlana Petrova, and George Walkden carry out a pilot study of noun phrase variation in Old English, Old High German, Old Icelandic, and Old Saxon. Kristin Bech then considers the development of Old English noun phrases with quantifiers meaning ‘many’. Alexandra Rehn’s study is concerned with the inflection of stacked adjectives in Old High German and Alemannic. Old High German is also the topic of Svetlana Petrova’s study, which looks at inflectional patterns of attributive adjectives. With Hannah Booth’s contribution we move to Old Icelandic and the use of the proprial article as a topic management device. Juliane Tiemann investigates adjective position in Old Norwegian. Alexander Pfaff and George Walkden then take a broader view of adjectival articles in early Germanic, before Alexander Pfaff rounds off the volume with a study of a peculiar class of adjectives, the so-called positional

Synopsis: Die Arbeit entwickelt ein gebrauchsbasiertes Modell zur Entstehung grammatischer Varianten. Dieses wird auf drei Variationsphänomene angewandt: Variation in der Konjugation (geglimmt/geglommen), Variation in der Deklination (des Bären/Bärs) und Variation in der Selektion zwischen haben und sein im Perfekt (ich bin/habe Auto gefahren). Zudem wird das Modell psycholinguistisch überprüft. Das Modell greift auf den gebrauchsbasierten Ansatz der Kognitionslinguistik zurück und erarbeitet Frequenz, Prototyp und Schema als grundlegende Einflussfaktoren darauf, wie wahrscheinlich Variation und Stabilität in einem Sprachsystem sind: Bei allen Variationsphänomenen sind neben der Variation auch stabile Verwendungen zu beobachten (geflogen/*gefliegt, des Matrosen/*des Matroses, ich bin gegangen/*ich habe gegangen).

Im theoretischen Teil der Arbeit werden Frequenz, Protoyp und Schema als kognitive Einflussfaktoren auf Variation und Stabilität modelliert und anschließend ihr Einfluss auf die drei Variationsphänomene theoretisch beleuchtet. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit wird der Einfluss der Faktoren Frequenz, Prototyp und Schema anhand von Reaktionszeitmessungen überprüft.

Das in der Arbeit entwickelte Modell fasst Variation und Stabilität von Sprache probabilistisch und prognostiziert auf diese Weise Variation. Der Rückgriff auf Reaktionszeiten erlaubt es, in der Sprachverarbeitung Variationspotential zu erkennen, das noch nicht im Sprachgebrauch sichtbar ist. Die Arbeit verdeutlicht damit den zentralen Stellenwert, den Variation in der Sprache einnimmt, erweitert mit der Verbindung aus Kognitions- und Psycholinguistik bestehende Forschung und ermöglicht einen systematischen, empirisch überprüfbaren Zugang zu Variation.

This book provides a novel analysis for the syntax of the clausal left periphery, focusing on various finite clause types and especially on embedded clauses. It investigates how the appearance of multiple projections interacts with economy principles and with the need for marking syntactic information overtly. In particular, the proposed account shows that a flexible approach assuming only a minimal number of projections is altogether favourable to cartographic approaches. The main focus of the book is on West Germanic, in particular on English and German, yet other Germanic and non-Germanic languages are also discussed for comparative purposes.

Synopsis:

Diathesis ("valency alternation") is a sentence structure that reshapes the roles of a verb. The prototypical example of such a diathesis is the well-known passive. However, there are very many other such role-remappings, like antipassives, applicatives, causatives, etc.

This book presents an encyclopaedic survey of diathesis in German. The objective is to catalogue all diatheses that exist in this language. Currently almost 250 different German diatheses are described in this book, some highly productive, some only attested for a handful of verbs. The main goal of this book is to present this wealth of grammatical possibility in a unified manner, while at the same time attempting to classify and organise this diversity. A summary of the about 80 most prominent diatheses is also provided, including many newly-minted German names, because most these diatheses did not have a German name yet.

It might come as a surprise that there are so many different diatheses in German, but my impression is that in this respect German is no exception among the world's languages. I expect that all languages have a similar abundance of different ways in which to construe a sentence around a lexical predicate. In a sense, a diathesis allows for the expression of a distinct perspective on the event described, something that is arguably a common desire of any language user.

Except for diathesis this book also aims to completely catalogue its counterpart: epithesis. An epithesis is a derived sentence structure in which the marking of the verb roles remains constant. Basically, these are the grammaticalised constructions expressing tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality in German. The list of major epitheses is also quite long (about 40 constructions), but it is quite a bit smaller than the list of major diatheses (about 80 constructions). This indicates that from a purely grammatical perspective, diathesis ("grammatical voice") is about a two-times more elaborate topic than epithesis ("tense-aspect-mood marking") in German.

Synopsis: Velar Fronting (VF) is the name for any synchronic or diachronic phonological process shifting the velar place of articulation to the palatal region of the vocal tract. A well-known case of VF in Standard German is the rule specifying that the fricative [x] assimilates to [ç] after front segments. VF also refers to the change from velar sounds like [ɣ k g ŋ] to palatals ([ʝ c ɟ ɲ]). The book provides a thorough investigation of VF in German dialects: Data are drawn from over 300 original sources for varieties that are (or were) spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other countries.

VF differs geographically along three parameters: (A) triggers, (B) targets, and (C) outputs. VF triggers (=A) are typically defined according to vowel height: In some systems VF is induced only by high front vowels, in others by high and mid front vowels, and in yet others by high, mid, and low front vowels. Some varieties treat consonants ([r l n]) as triggers, while others do not. VF can be nonassimilatory, in which case the rule applies even in the context of back segments. In many varieties of German, VF targets (=B) consist of the two fricatives [x ɣ], but in other dialects the targets comprise [x] but not [ɣ]. In some places, VF affects not only [x ɣ], but also velar stops and the velar nasal. The output of VF (=C) is typically palatal [ç] (given the input [x]), but in many other places it is the alveolopalatal [ɕ].

A major theme is the way in which VF interacts with synchronic and diachronic changes creating or eliminating structures which can potentially undergo it or trigger it. In many dialects the relationship between velars ([x]) and palatals ([ҫ]) is transparent because velars only occur in the back vowel context and palatals only when adjacent to front sounds. In that type of system, independent processes can either feed VF (by creating additional structures which the latter can undergo), or they can bleed it (by eliminating potential structures to which VF could apply).

In other dialects, VF is opaque. In one opaque system, both velars ([x]) and palatals ([ҫ]) surface in the context of front segments. Thus, in addition to expected front vowel plus palatal sequences ([…iç…]), there are also unexpected ones consisting of front vowel plus velar ([…ix…]). In a second type of opaque system, velars and palatals are found in the context of back segments; hence, expected sequences such as […iç…] occur in addition to unexpected ones like […ɑç…].

This volume explores morphosyntactic change in the Late Modern Swedish period from the 18th century and onwards. This period is interesting, for a number of reasons. This is when Swedish is established as a national standard language. New genres emerge, and the written language becomes more generally available to all speakers. We also sometimes find diverging developments in the different North Germanic languages, and some of the much-discussed differences between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are established during this period. In addition, during the 19th and 20th centuries, the traditional dialects undergo more dramatic changes than ever. Yet, the Late Modern Swedish period has previously received fairly little attention in the syntactic literature. This volume aims to remedy this, with studies that cover several different grammatical domains, including case and verbal syntax, word order and agreement, and grammaticalization in the nominal domain. The study by Cecilia Falk investigates the possibility of promoting an indirect object to subject in a passive, that emerges during the period. A chapter by Fredrik Valdeson studies change in the use of ditransitive verbs, from a constructional perspective. Three chapters are concerned with word order change. The study by Ida Larsson and Björn Lundquist investigates the development of a strict word order in particle constructions. Adrian Sangfelt studies the possibility of having adverbials (and other constituents) between the separate verbal heads in complex VPs in the final stages of the shift from OV to VO order. Erik M. Petzell investigates embedded verb placement and agreement morphology in the Viskadalian dialect, which on the surface seems to contradict the Rich Agreement Hypothesis. Mikael Kalm discusses the emergence of different kinds of adverbial infinitival clauses in the standard written language compared to Övdalian. Finally, the study by Lars-Olof Delsing is concerned with a case of grammaticalization in the nominal domain, specifically the development of the gradable adjectives mycket ‘much’ and lite ‘little’ into quantifiers.

This book investigates the syntax and usage of fragments (Morgan 1973), apparently subsentential utterances like "A coffee, please!" which fulfill the same communicative function as the corresponding full sentence "I'd like to have a coffee, please!". Even though such utterances are frequently used, they challenge the central role that has been attributed to the notion of sentence in linguistic theory, particularly from a semantic perspective.

The first part of the book is dedicated to the syntactic analysis of fragments, which is investigated with experimental methods. Currently there are several competing theoretical analyses of fragments, which rely almost only on introspective data. The experiments presented in this book constitute a first systematic evaluation of some of their crucial predictions and, taken together, support an in situ ellipsis account of fragments, as has been suggested by Reich (2007).

The second part of the book addresses the questions of why fragments are used at all, and under which circumstances they are preferred over complete sentences. Syntactic accounts impose licensing conditions on fragments, but they do not explain, why fragments are sometimes (dis)preferred provided that their usage is licensed. This book proposes an information-theoretic account of fragments, which predicts that the usage of fragments in constrained by a general tendency to distribute processing effort uniformly across the utterance. With respect to fragments, this leads to two predictions, which are empirically confirmed: Speakers tend towards omitting predictable words and they insert additional redundancy before unpredictable words.