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Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clause word order

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Abstract

Early Yiddish exhibited a root-subordinate asymmetry with respect to the verb-second (V2) phenomenon, whereas modern Yiddish does so no longer. A quantitative investigation of early and modern Yiddish texts reveals that the generalization of the V2 phenomenon in the history of Yiddish can be described as the result of two syntactic changes: (1) a change from INFL-final to INFL-medial phrase structure, and (2) a change in the locus of the finiteness operator [+F] that affects nominative case assignment and allows non-subjects as well as subjects to occupy the clause-initial position Spec(IP). Specifically, the quantitative investigation provides evidence that the phrase structure change progressed via synchronic grammatical variation in the usage of individual speakers. It is further proposed that modern Icelandic, like early Yiddish, exhibits synchronic variation with respect to the locus of [+F].

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  1. Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 60208-4090, Evanston, IL

    Beatrice Santorini

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In writing this paper, which is based in part on results reported in my thesis, I have relied on a great many people in many different ways, and it is a privilege and a pleasure to acknowledge their help. A number of linguists have responded to previous versions with valuable comments for which I am grateful: the members of my thesis committee — Anthony Kroch, Ellen Prince and Jack Hoeksema — as well as Molly Diesing, Robert Frank, Tilman Höhle, Joan Maling, David Pesetsky, Susan Pintzuk, Christer Platzack, Raffaella Zanuttini, and audiences at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Association québécoise de linguistique, the First Generative Diachronic Syntax Conference, the Jersey Syntax Circle, Brown University, Cornell University, the University of Delaware and the University of Lund. A special thank-you to Caroline Heycock for much helpful discussion concerning nominative case assignment, to Jim McCloskey for encouragement at just the right moment, and to three anonymous NLLT reviewers, whose detailed comments have substantially improved the exposition and contents of the paper. Mascha Benya-Matz, David Braun and Itsik Gotesman kindly provided native speaker judgments for modern Yiddish. The work on early Yiddish could not have been carried out without the assistance of the staff of the Oriental Reading Room at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University (Yasuko Hatcher, Shu-ching Naughton, Stella Newman, Angela Stimpson and Margaret Tippett), the staff of the Oriental Reading Room at the British Library (Mr. M. Nolan, Miss G. Rawlings, Mr. P. Stocks and Miss N. Vail), and Dina Abramowitz and Zachary Baker of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Finally, Erika Timm and Walter Röll of the University of Trier generously shared with me their philological expertise on early Yiddish. The responsibility for all remaining errors and shortcomings rests with me.

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Santorini, B. Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clause word order. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 10, 595–640 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133331

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