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Constructions that question kinds have been discussed widely in Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic, but English and earlier stages of English have mostly been overlooked. This paper presents data on kind questioning constructions in English, followed by an analysis of these constructions. The Old English what followed by a partitive genitive noun, labeled the ‘what partitive construction’ (WPC), questions the kind and, unlike in other languages, it also questions the number of the noun. I analyze the WPC as including an unpronounced noun that heads the DP, as is evident from the agreement on the verb. In Middle English, an overt light noun (e.g., kind and number) replaces the WPC which initially functions as the head of the entire DP but later grammaticalizes into a higher functional category. There is also a stage with a ‘what for construction’ (WFC) but, unlike in the history of German, the English WFC appears a few centuries after the loss of the WPC, seems unrelated to the WPC, and is not long-lived. The analysis of the English WFC involves a PredP, adapting ideas from earlier proposals. The main contribution of the paper is to present a new set of data and a synchronic analysis for them.

A new set of modals is appearing in contemporary English. The epistemic modals with perfect have are forming a new class including mighta, coulda, woulda, shoulda, and musta, when they are used with an additional have and without a (present) perfect meaning. I look at their structure and examine possible determinacy violations when they (and the core modals) move to C. The data come from corpus and internet sources; the study is not a quantitative one because the change is not yet particularly frequent.

Old English uses personal pronouns, demonstratives, and limited null subject for reference to previously mentioned nouns. It uses personal pronouns reflexively and pronouns modified by ‘self’ identical in form with an intensive. This use of a pronoun modified byselfhas been attributed to British Celtic influence. Other changes in the pronominal system have been attributed to Scandinavian influence, e.g. the introduction of the third person plural pronounthey.This paper looks at the use of the specially marked reflexives in the glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels, a northern text where both British Celtic and Scandinavian influence may be relevant. It provides lists of all of theself-marked forms and shows, for instance, that Matthew and Mark have reflexives based on an accusative/dative pronoun followed byselfand they don’t have this form as an intensifier. British Celtic of this period has an intensifier but has no special reflexives and has lost case endings, so the Lindisfarne language is unlike British Celtic. Luke and John have intensives and reflexives, with ‘self’ modifying case-marked pronouns, again unlike British Celtic. In addition to contributing to the debate on external origins, the paper adds to the authorship debate by comparing the use of reflexives in the different gospels.

The articles in this volume contribute to our understanding of Northumbrian Old English of the 10th century, of the nature of external influence, and of the authorship of the glosses. This introduction provides a background to these three areas. Most of the introduction and contributions examine the Lindisfarne Glosses with some discussion of the Rushworth and Durham Glosses.Section 2shows that the Lindisfarne glossator often adds a (first and second person) pronoun where the Latin has none but allows third person null subjects. Therefore, although the Latin original has obvious influence, Old English grammar comes through.Section 3reviews the loss of third person-thverbal inflection in favor of-s, especially in Matthew. This reduction may be relevant to the role of external (Scandinavian and British Celtic) influence and is also interesting when the language of the Lindisfarne and Durham Glosses is compared. InSection 4, the use of overt pronouns, relatives, and demonstratives shows an early use ofth-pronouns, casting doubt on a Norse origin ofthey.Section 5looks at negation mainly from a northern versus southern perspective andSection 6sums up.Section 7previews the other contributions and their major themes, namely possible external (Latin, Norse, or British Celtic) influence, the linguistic differences among glossators, the spacing of ‘prefixes’ as evidence for grammaticalization, and the role of doublets.

In this paper, I sketch the CP layer in main and embedded clauses in the history of English. The Modern English main clause is not as easily expandable as the Old English one, but the reverse is true in the subordinate clause, where Modern English has a more flexible embedded CP than Old English. I focus on the developments of the embedded CP. It has been claimed that Old English lacks an embedded split CP and therefore lacks embedded V2 and a host of other embedded root phenomena. I show this to be true for complements to both assertive and non-assertive verbs. In contrast, the Modern English matrix verb has an effect on the strength of the C-position. Assertive verbs in Modern English allow main clause phenomena in subordinate clauses whereas non-assertives typically do not. The main point of the paper is to chronicle the changes that ‘stretch’ the embedded clause and the changing role of main verbs. It is descriptive rather than explanatory, e.g., in terms of changes in phase-head status.

The argument structure of verbs is pretty uniform across languages. Thus, verbs of `falling’ involve a Theme and an optional Causer and verbs of `working’ an Agent. Aspect is relevant to that uniformity as well since the former verbs will be telic and the latter durative. Stative verbs form a third main class. I first show that, when (spoken/written) languages change, the basic argument structure and aspect don’t change for most unaccusatives and unergatives. There are, however, systematic reports (e.g. Rosen 1984; Keller & Sorace 2003; Randall et al 2004) that certain verbs are unergative in one language and unaccusative in another and that verbs alternate between different aspects (e.g. Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2014). I examine a few verbs diachronically that are ambiguous in the Keller & Sorace work, i.e. verbs of continuation and of controlled motional process, and conclude that a more fine-grained system is helpful.

The present paper examines psych-verbs in the history of English. As is well-known, object experiencers are reanalyzed as subject experiencers in many of the modern European languages. I discuss one such change in detail, namely the change in the verb fear from meaning 'to frighten, cause to fear' to meaning 'to fear'. The reason for the change may be the loss of the morphologically overt causative and a change in the set of light verbs. Object experiencers are constantly lost but I show there is also a continual renewal through external borrowing and internal change from physical to mental impact. A last change I discuss is the one where Subject Experiencers are reanalyzed as Agents in a V(oice)P. Aquest article estudia els verbs psicològics en la història de l'anglès. Com és ben sabut, moltes de les llengües modernes reanalitzen els objectes experimentadors com a subjectes experimentadors. Analitzo un d'aquests canvis en detall: el canvi en el verb fear des del seu significat original d''espantar, fer por' al de 'témer'. El motiu del canvi podria ser la desaparició de la marca morfològica del causatiu i un canvi en el conjunt dels verbs lleugers. Encara que els objectes experimentadors es perden de manera constant, mostro que alhora hi ha una renovació incessant a través dels manlleus i mitjançant canvis interns des de sentits d'impacte físic a sentits d'impacte mental. Finalment, analitzo un canvi en què els subjectes experimentadors es reanalitzen com a agents en un Sintagma Veu.

In this paper, I review how formal features are currently regarded and used in the Minimalist Program. Although features are the cornerstone in Minimalism, they are used in many different and conflicting ways. Features may seem particularly relevant to affix-hop because the affix has to be checked against a higher verb or auxiliary. Chomsky’s (1957) analysis of affix-hop has the affix connected with an auxiliary, e.g., the -en of have-en, move to a verb on its right, as in have see-en. This analysis is one of the high points of early generative grammar but, with each new instantiation of the generative model, it has needed adjustments and the phenomenon is still debated. I will elaborate on a proposal made in van Gelderen (2013) who argues that interpretable tense, mood, or aspect are in a low position being probed by the relevant uninterpretable features in a high position. This view I claim is consistent with data from change and acquisition. I also discuss the implications of this reliance on features ...

Heine and Kuteva show that the languages of Europe are becoming more and more alike in very specific areas such as the use of articles and relative pronouns. One might say that a European Sprachbun...

Chomsky's latest linguistic work has problematized projection and labeling. With the earlier Phrase Structure Grammar and X’-bar theory, it is taken for granted that a phrase contains a specifier, head, and complement; the current work only assumes a labeling algorithm to meet requirements of the conceptual-intentional interface. Such an algorithm automatically rules out particular configurations, for instance, ones with a specifier unless they share certain features. In this brief paper, I point out how regular patterns of language change can be seen as resolutions to the labeling paradox and how they themselves can possibly shed light on the precise nature of this labeling algorithm. I focus on the change where specifiers are reanalyzed as heads

The split infinitive is one of seven syntactic properties that English is said to share with Old Norse, and I will show that, on the basis of the area and date of its first occurrence, Norse origin is unlikely.

Reviewed by (Elly Van Gelderen)Aspects of the theory of syntax and the minimalist program, that is, Chomsky (1965) and (1995), have been reissued by MIT Press with new prefaces by the author and ne...

I review the proposal made by Sigurðsson (2011) that null arguments follow from third-factor principles, as in Chomsky 2005 . A number of issues remain unclear: for instance, the kind of topic that licenses null arguments in Modern Germanic, including Modern English. I argue that Old English is pro drop and add to the discussion Frascarelli (2007) started as to which topic licenses a null subject. I agree with Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007) that the licensing topic in Modern Germanic and Old English is an aboutness-shift topic. I also argue that verb movement to C is necessary to license the empty argument in the modern Germanic languages (including Modern English), but not in Old English, since agreement is still responsible for licensing in that language, as in Italian.

Because there has been a recent surge of interest in the linguistic cycle, this article presents a survey of cyclical change and shows how that change provides a unique perspective on the language faculty. The article provides a general background to the linguistic cycle and cyclical change. It reviews some of the cycles that we know and provides a possible account for them. © 2013 The Author. Language and Linguistics Compass © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The existence of null arguments in Athabascan languages, and other polysynthetic languages, is a debated topic. We argue that, if the agreement on the verb is the argument, the so-called Pronominal Argument Hypothesis, languages such as Navajo do not have null arguments in the traditional sense. We then outline the diachrony of Athabascan object marking on the verb (by looking at the various contemporary languages).

This article examines changes in the valency marking in the history of English. I start with a discussion of the typological literature on measuring basic valency and point out the problems with such an approach. A sample of 18 Old English verbs provides no basic valency pattern for Old English; this makes Old English different from the other Germanic languages. I then review the evidence, presented in, for instance, Visser (1963), that there is an increase in transitivity in the history of English and argue that this increase is partly due to verbs ceasing to mark Theme-preserving alternations, between anticausative and causative. I also examine Theme-changing alternations, between intransitive and transitive, and argue that, due to the changes in aspect marking, objects become licensed by a light verb, v. I conclude by suggesting a syntactic structure that accounts for the various stages of English and argue that the main changes are due to an increase in morphological intransparency.

This paper examines cyclical changes involving complementisers, for instance, whether in the history of English. Whether starts out as a pronoun and after frequent topicalisation is reanalysed as an element in the left-most layer of the sentence. The same is true with prepositional phrases that are fronted and then reanalysed as part of the CP layer. The paper uses a Minimalist approach in that it seeks answers for the linguistic changes in terms of Economy Principles such as Specifier-to-Head Reanalysis. It examines two sources of renewal of complementisers, full phrases such as demonstrative pronouns and heads such as the verbs that reanalyse as question particles in Chinese.

Within early Minimalism, there are Economy Principles such as ‘Last Resort’, ‘Least Effort’, and also ‘Merge as Late as Possible’. The latter principle makes it possible to explain grammaticalization, an important phenomenon in language change. The general direction of change is one where lexical items are reanalyzed as grammatical (or functional) categories, e.g. verbs as auxiliaries and prepositions as complementizers. One explanation in terms of Late Merge is that if a lexical item is not immediately relevant for theta-structure, it can wait and merge later, rather than merge early with additional movement. In later Minimalism, move is reformulated as internal merge and not considered more uneconomical than regular merge, renamed as external merge. This paper will provide ample examples of the workings of Late Merge and examine how we can capture the grammaticalization effects through an Economy Principle, Feature Economy, that is at work when children acquire a language as well as when language changes.

Pendant la periode du moyen anglais, un grand nombre de prepositions ont ete grammaticalisees. L'A. examine ici trois d'entre elles (for (to), to et on) et montre qu'elles ont ete associees a des traits verbaux ainsi qu'au futur, au temps et a l'aspect. Quand ceci s'est produit, elles ont change leurs positions structurales et ont ete reanalysees respectivement comme C (complementeur), I (flexion) et ASP (aspect). Ces categories sont considerees comme des reponses de l'utilisateur de la langue a l'affiliation des traits verbaux de for (to), to et on

The ban on code-switching between a (subject) pronoun and a verb, but not between a lexical DP and a verb, is an enduring puzzle in research on bilingual code-switching. In this paper, we propose an account of these code-switching facts by positing that pronouns and lexical DPs take advantage of different checking strategies: While lexical DPs check features in [Spec, TP], pronouns undergo D-to-T movement. In the latter case, a mixed-language complex head results, a construction which crashes at PF, as predicted by the PF Disjunction Theorem.

This paper decribes cyclical changes in negative and wh-constructions as a change from Spec(ifier) to Head. It accounts for this change through an economy principle that says 'if possible, be a head'. The changes examined all show a tendency towards heads and head-checking but execute this in slightly different ways. In addition, innovations introduce new specifiers, and prescriptive rules retain them, counteracting the effects of economy. Changes from Head to Head and from Spec to Spec also occur. These proceed typically towards positions higher in the tree and can be explained via a 'merge over move' economy principle. The change involving heads I'll look at is the change of to from preposition to complementizer, and the changes involving specifiers involve French negatives and English relatives. Thus, certain instances of grammaticalization can be accounted for in structural terms.

In this paper, I argue in favor of a structure for modal complements making crucial use of the M(ood) and ASP(ect) Phrases. Deontic modals in English originate in ASP whereas epistemic modals are in M and select ASP Phrases as their complements. There are several arguments which I mention here briefly and then work out in later sections in more detail. The phrase structures used are Minimalist, and so are the underlying assumptions about features (even though the latter are not worked out). First, starting with the weakest argument, which I’ll only briefly mention in section 1, present tense deontic modals derive historically from perfective verb forms and the class is therefore called ‘preterite–present’. This suggests an ‘affinity’ with aspect. Second, deontic and epistemic predicates differ in that the latter but not the former can have auxiliaries and stative complements. This is accounted for if epistemics select an ASPP, but if deontics are in ASP in complementary distribution with other aspectuals. Third, double modal varieties of English typically have at most two modals with the epistemic preceding the deontic. This fits in if one modal is in ASP and the other in higher in the structure. Finally, I’ll look at the position of to, but will start with a note on terminology.

The paper lists and discusses all occurrences of an infrequent construction in Shakespearean English, namely one where not precedes (rather than follows) the finite main verb, without the auxiliary do to support the negation. This construction has been neglected or, when it is mentioned, has been left unexplained in traditional grammar. I show that in all these constructions a CP is overtly present. Thus, rather than being an anomaly, the construction provides insight into the clause structure: when a CP is included, an IP is not always present (for the verb to move to across not) and agreement is checked through covert features attraction to C.

This book provides a Minimalist description of the clause. It uses three clausal domains that are quite distinct in their characteristics. One way of characterizing each layer is by using the term pragmatic for the CP, grammatical for the TP, and semantic for the VP, but that is of course an overgeneralization. Each of these three layers has been examined in detail, and a Cartography has emerged. What I have tried to emphasize, however, is that this Cartography is descriptive, i.e. it is descriptively adequate and is not an explanation for why the order of phrases is the way it is and how it came to be this way, i.e. how it is explanatorily adequate and “beyond” explanatorily adequate. Cartography and Minimalism are different ways of approaching the problem: the one is descriptive, the other explanatory. I have therefore also suggested ways to envisage an explanation in terms of third factors, as is now common in Minimalism. Here, I have been much vaguer, and that’s why Minimalism is programmatic at this point. A complete account is not yet feasible. In addition to third factor effects, however, I have suggested a bigger role for Universal Grammar than is currently the case. Innate semantic concepts and features guide the child in its extraordinary acquisition of lexical items.

The present volume is centered around five linguistic themes: argument structure and encoding strategies; argument structure and verb classes; unexpressed arguments; split intransitivity; and existential and presentational constructions. The articles also cover a variety of typologically different languages, and they offer new data from under-researched languages on the issues of event and argument structure. In some cases novel perspectives from widely discussed languages on highly debated topics are offered, also addressing more theoretical aspects concerning the predictability and derivation of linking. Several contributions apply current models of the lexicon–syntax interface to synchronic data. Other contributions focus on diachrony and are based on extensive use of corpora. Yet others, although empirically and theoretically grounded, privilege a methodological discussion, presenting analyses based on thorough and long-standing fieldwork.

Les structures sujet-verbe (SV) et verbe-sujet (VS) different au niveau de l'accord. Le probleme est de savoir pourquoi les langues ont moins d'accord verbal dans les structures VS que dans les structures SV. La theorie du gouvernement et du liage a fourni une solution a ce probleme en etablissant une relation d'accord Spec-Tete dans les structures SV et une relation de gouvernement dans les structures VS. L'A. explique ici les differents schemas d'accord en arabe, en langues bantoues et en anglais de Belfast, en modifiant le cadre minimaliste et en se concentrant sur l'endroit ou le controle de l'accord verbal a lieu et sur la nature de l'element avec lequel le verbe est controle (expletif ou syntagme nominal)

This article analyses agreement markers in related to grammaticalisation. It shows that emphatic and demonstrative pronouns as well as nouns can be reanalysed as subject pronouns, which in turn can be reanalysed as agreement and later be lost. It discusses the linguistic cycle in general and addresses the question of whether subject and object cycles are the most relevant to the typology of a language. It provides examples of the subject cycle and the object cycle and examines possible explanations for why subject and object cycles exist.

This article examines the relation between grammaticalisation and generative grammar. It describes the generative attitude towards historical linguistics in general and then to grammaticalisation in particular and describes what the locus of change is in a generative model. It reviews some early work on historical linguistics within generative grammar. It concludes that the child's innate principles are in fact responsible for grammaticalisation and that generative grammar can therefore gain much insight from grammaticalisation processes.