Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data Achim Stein Carola Trips achim.stein@ling.uni-stuttgart.de ctrips@rumms.uni-mannheim.de Linguistic Evidence, Tübingen, 10.2.2012 1
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon 1.2 Verb second in some Germanic and Romance languages 1.3 Information structure 2 Language contact 2.1 The historical background 2.2 Some facts about Medieval French 2.3 Some facts about Medieval English 3. Empirical study 3.1 Corpora 3.2 Medieval French: periods and global data 3.3 Medieval English: periods and global data 3.4 Comparison 3.5 Evidence for language contact (issue #1) 3.6 Cleft sentences (issue #2) 4 Conclusion 2
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon Object topicalisation and left dislocation Modern examples of topicalisation (1) and left-dislocation (2): (1) ModF: *Les haricots, je mange. PDE: Beans I eat. (2) ModF: Les haricots, je les mange. PDE: Beans, I eat them. Medieval examples of topicalisation. OF (3) and OE (4): (3) Treis escheles ad l’emperere Carles. (Roland,219.3025) three divisions has the-king Charles (4) Þæt hus hæfdon Romane to ðæm anum tacne geworht. . . that house had Romans to the one sign made ‘The Romans had made that house to their sole sign.’ (Or_3:5.59.3.1042) 3
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon Left dislocation with topic continuity. OF: (5), ME: (6): (5) Ceste bataille , veirement la ferum (Roland,70.846) This battle really it [we]-will-fight (6) and slonked her in so hungerly that he lefte neyther flessh ne bone / nomore but a fewe fethers the smal fethers he slange them in wyth the flessh (REYNAR,53.337-8 ) the small feathers he swallowed them in with the flesh Left dislocation with contrastive focus. OF: (7), ME: (8): (7) Mais vos barons en sa ballie S’ il les trovout nes But your barons in his realm if he them found them vilonast (Béroul,1106ss) would mistreat (8) and of on þ ei put oute his eyne, þ e o þ ir þ ei broke his bak and of one they put out his eye, the other they broke his back (CAPCHR,249.4166-7) 4
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon The development of these structures Kroch (1989, 214) “. . . the loss of verb-second word order in French took place via the replacement of topicalization by left-dislocation.” ◮ Phrasal accent forces preposed constituents to occur left-dislocated ⇒ less subject-verb inversion ⇒ more resumptive pronouns 5
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon Questions Questions: 1. What kind of assumptions are necessary to interpret quantitative developments as language change? 2. What kind of information do we have to include to make state- ments about linguistic levels for which we have no direct evi- dence, like prosody? 3. What kind of indicators allow to distinguish between internal change and contact-induced change? 6
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.2 Verb second in some Germanic and Romance languages Verb second OF OE OHG Language type SVO SOV SOV Verb final no yes yes V2 main cl. yes yes yes V2 subord. cl. yes (v. dicendi) yes (v. dicendi) yes (v. dicendi) XP-Spron-Vfin no yes yes (less restr. than OE) Null subjects yes yes (some persons) yes (some persons) subj. clitics no yes yes obj. clitics yes yes yes Loss of V2 yes (residual V2) yes (residual V2) no (full/true V2) Table 1: Comparison of some Germanic and Romance languages 7
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.3 Information structure Information structure (Krifka, 2007) Focus “Focus indicates the presence of alternatives that are relevant for the interpretation of linguistic expression”. (Focus often correlates with “new”, “important”, etc., but can’t be defined by these properties.) Topic “constituent which identifies the entity [. . . ] under which the infor- mation expressed in the comment constituent should be stored in the C[ommon] G[round] content”. (9) A: When did [Aristotle Onassis] Topic marry Jacqueline Kennedy? B: [He] Topic [married her [in 1968] Focus ] Comment 8
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 1 Introduction 1.3 Information structure Methodological problems ◮ For medieval language, it is difficult or impossible to verify nec- essary conditions for the felicitous use of non-canonical sentence structures, contrary to modern language (e.g. Birner and Ward 1998; Birner 2004). ◮ Even in modern language, these necessary conditions are not sufficient: the optionality can depend on text type, code (writ- ten vs spoken), individual preference, etc. ◮ Nevertheless, some discourse-related criteria (cf. Prince 1981, 1992) can be and have been applied to medieval language, as e.g. in Prévost (2003). 9
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 The phenomenon 1.2 Verb second in some Germanic and Romance languages 1.3 Information structure 2 Language contact 2.1 The historical background 2.2 Some facts about Medieval French 2.3 Some facts about Medieval English 3. Empirical study 3.1 Corpora 3.2 Medieval French: periods and global data 3.3 Medieval English: periods and global data 3.4 Comparison 3.5 Evidence for language contact (issue #1) 3.6 Cleft sentences (issue #2) 4 Conclusion 10
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact 2.1 The historical background Norman Conquest: Multilingualism since 1066 ◮ Evidence: glosses, borrowings, didactic texts, translations, etc. ◮ Middle English (1150-1500): ◮ Anglo-French had gained the role of an official language over Anglo-Latin ◮ Middle English was predominantly a spoken language ◮ 15th c.: Middle-English took over the role of the national lan- guage, both spoken and written 11
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact 2.1 The historical background Methodological consequences Include sources for multilingualism: ◮ glosses in dictionaries ◮ didactic texts (discussed in Hunt 1991), grammars of French (e.g. Palsgrave 1530) ◮ business writing, e.g. accounts, inventories: see the work by Wright (1995; 2003), and also Trotter (2000); Ingham (2010)) ◮ direct translations: e.g. Somme le roi (Laurent, 2008) → Ayenbite of Inwyt (Morris, 1866) 12
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact 2.1 The historical background Palsgrave’s description for English learners L’esclaircissement de la langue françoyse : “The hole reason of theyr accent is grounded chefely upon thre poyntes: fyrst, there is no worde of one syllable whiche with them hath any accent, or that they use to pause upon, [. . . ] they pronounce them nat distinctly a sonder as the latines do, but sounde them all under one voyce and tenour, and never rest nor pause upon any of them, except the commyng next unto a poynt be the cause therof ; seconde, every worde of many syllables hath his ac- cent upon the last syllable, but yet that nat withstandynge they use upon no suche worde to pause, except the commyng next unto a poynt be the causer therof : and this is one great thyng whiche inclineth the frenchemen so moche to pronounce that latin tong amysse, which contrary never gyve theyr accent on the last syllable. [. . . ]” (quoted from the edition F. Génin, 1852, XXI) 13
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact 2.2 Some facts about Medieval French Old French (9th until early 14th c.) ◮ topic position for sentence-initial elements ◮ verb second sentences, mostly in main clauses ◮ null subjects ◮ two cases: cas sujet and cas régime ◮ two accent systems: phrasal and lexical ◮ clitic object pronouns (subject pronouns became clitics in later OF) Some controversial points: 1. How strict is V2 in OF? 2. What is the structural position of the topicalized element? 3. Does OF have sentence-initial focus elements? 14
Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data 2 Language contact 2.2 Some facts about Medieval French Old French: dislocation and topicalisation In OF, a dislocated element could be the focus: (10) Li nies Marsilie, il est venuz avant sur un mulet. . . the nephew of-Marsilius, he is come forward on a mule Voici que s’avance sur un mulet le neuveu de Marsilie. ( Chanson de Roland , late 11c., quoted from Prévost 2003) ◮ The dislocated element is normally topic, exceptionally focus. ◮ Topicalised objects are unmarked in early OF. They are increasingly marked as focus towards the 13th c. 15
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