Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to show how the verb-second (V2) pattern of Old English (OE), despite certain striking differences from the usual West Germanic pattern, fits with a general characterisation of the V2 phenomenon developed primarily for the analysis of German. A second goal is to reflect on how V2 may have arisen in the prehistory of English (and other Germanic languages), making inferences on the basis of work on Gothic by Ferraresi (1991), Longobardi (1994) and Kiparsky (1994). The OE data support the general approach to V2 outlined in Roberts & Roussou (1996), as well as a version of the “split-Comp” hypothesis developed by Rizzi (1995). The diachronic discussion extends ideas put forward in Longobardi (1994). A general conclusion of the paper is that the distinction between “residual V2” and “full V2” is a structural one, and an ancient one; as Kiparsky (1994: 162) says “In this respect at least, English is syntactically the most conservative of all the modern Germanic languages”.
Notes
This paper forms part of a joint research project with Anna Roussou on “The Synchrony and Diachrony of Second-Position Effects”, funded by the British Academy (Grant No. APN 2989).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abraham, W., ed. (1983): On the Formal Syntax of the Westgermania. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Battye, A. & I. Roberts, eds. (1994): Clause Structure and Language Change. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bean, M. (1983): The Development of Word Order Patterns in Old English. London: Croom Helm.
den Besten, H. (1983): “On the Interaction of Root Transformations and Lexical Deletive Rules”. In: W. Abraham, ed. (1983), On the Formal Syntax of the Westgermania. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Belletti, A. & L. Rizzi, eds. (1996): Parameters and Functional Heads. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brody, M. (1995): Lexico-Logical Form. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Cardinaletti, A., G. Cinque & G. Giusti, eds. (1988): Constituent Structure: Papers from the 1987 GLOW Conference. Dordrecht: Foris.
Cardinaletti, A. & M. Starke (1994): “The Typology of Structural Deficiency”. Ms. Universities of Geneva and Venice.
Carnie, A., E. Pyatt & H. Harley (1994): “The Resurrection? Raising to Comp: Some Evidence from Old Irish”. FLSMS.
Chomsky, N. (1986): Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1995): The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Ferraresi, G. (1991): Die Stellung des gotischen Verbs im Licht eines Vergleichs mit dem Althochdeutschen. Tesi di Laurea, University of Venice.
Grohmann, K.K. (1995): “Some Remarks on Verb Second and Old English Word Order”. Ms. University of Wales, Bangor.
Grohmann, K.K. (1996): “Pronominalisation in the German Mittelfeld: Scrambling and Cliticization?”. BA Dissertation, University of Wales, Bangor.
Haider, H. (1988): “Matching Projections”. In: A. Cardinaletti, G. Cinque & G. Giusti, eds. (1988). Hale, K. & S.J. Keyser, eds. (1993): The view from Building 20: Essays in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Halle, M. & A. Marantz (1993): “Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection”. In: K. Hale & S.J. Keyser, eds. (1993), 111 —177.
Holmberg, A. & C. Platzack (1995): Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jarad, N., ed. (1996): Bangor Research Papers in Linguistics, 7.
Kayne, R. (1994): The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
van Kemenade, A. (1987): Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris.
van Kemenade, A. & N. Vincent, eds. (to appear): Inflection and Syntactic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kiparsky, P. (1994): “Indo-European Origins of Germanic Syntax”. In: A. Battye & I. Roberts, eds. (1994), 140 —170.
Lehmann, W. (1993): Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics. London: Routledge. Longobardi, G. ( 1978 ): Problemi di sintassi gotica. Aspetti teorici e descrittivi. MA Dissertation, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa.
Longobardi, G. (1994): “La posizione del verbo gotico”. In: Miscellanea di studi linguistici in onore di Walter Belardi, Rome.
Lunt, H.G., ed. (1964): Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton.
Manzini, M.-R. (1996): “From Merge and Move to Form Dependency”. Talk given at the 19th GLOW Colloquium, Athens.
Pintzuk, S. (1992): Phrase Structures in Competition: Variation and Change in Old English Word Order. PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Platzack, C. (1987): “The Scandinavian Languages and the Null-Subject Parameter”. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 5, 377 — 401.
Pollock, J.-Y. (1989): “Verb Movement, Universal Grammar and the Structure of IP”. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 365 — 424.
Rivero, M.-L. (to appear): In: A. van Kemenade & N. Vincent, eds. (to appear).
Rizzi, L. (1995): “The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery”. Ms. University of Geneva.
Rizzi, L. (1996): “Residual Verb Second and the WH-Criterion”. In: A. Belletti & L. Rizzi, eds.
— 90.Originally published as University of Geneva Technical Reports in Formal and Computational Linguistics, 2, 1991].
Rizzi, L. & I. Roberts (1996): “Complex Inversion in French”. In: A. Belletti & L. Rizzi, eds. (1996), 91 — 116. [Originally published in Probus 1, 1 — 39].
Roberts, I. (1992): Verbs and Diachronic Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Roberts, I. (in progress): “VSO and the Licensing of Subjects”. Ms. University of Wales, Bangor. Roberts, I. & A. Roussou (1996): “Speculations on V2”. In: N. Jarad, ed. (1996), Bangor Research Papers in Linguistics, 7, 48 — 61.
Rohrbacher, B. (1994): The Germanic VO Languages and the Full Paradigm: A Theory of V to I Raising. PhD Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Schwartz, B. & S. Vikner (1996) “The Verb Always Leaves IP in V2 Clauses”. In: A. Belletti & L. Rizzi, eds. (1996), 11 — 62.
Thiersch, C. (1978): Topics in German Syntax. PhD Dissertation, MIT.
Tomaselli, A. (1989): La sintassi del verbo finito nelle lingue germaniche. PhD Dissertation, University of Pavia.
Tomaselli, A. (1994): “Cases of V3 in Old High German”. In: A. Battye & I. Roberts, eds. (1994), 345 – 369.
Travis, L. (1984): Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation. PhD Dissertation, MIT. Vikner, S. ( 1994 ): Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Vikner, S. (1995): “V-to-I Movement and Inflection for Person in all Tenses”. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, 55, 1 – 27.
Watkins, C. (1963): “Preliminaries to the Historical and Comparative Analysis of the Syntax of the Old Irish Verb”. Celtica 6, 11 – 49.
Watkins, C. (1964): “Preliminiaries to the Reconstruction of the Indo-European Sentence Structure”. In: H.G. Lunt, ed. (1964), 1035 – 1042.
Zwart, J.-W. (1993): Dutch Syntax: A Minimalist Approach. PhD Dissertation, University of Groningen.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH, Opladen
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roberts, I. (1996). Remarks on the Old English C-system and the Diachrony of V2. In: Brandner, E., Ferraresi, G. (eds) Language Change and Generative Grammar. Linguistische Berichte, vol 7. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-90776-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-90776-9_6
Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
Print ISBN: 978-3-531-12857-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-322-90776-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive