Outline The residue of syntactic change: • Syntactic Change Partial pro-drop in Old English • Partial pro-drop Languages • Referential Null Subjects in OE Emily Coppess (University of Chicago) and Acrisio Pires (University of Michigan) • Null and Overt Expletives in Old English LSA Summer Institute – Ann Arbor • That-trace effect (and V-S inversion?) Diachronic Syntax Workshop June 29-30 th , 2013 • Loss of referential null subjects in OE 1 2 Null subject vs. Non-null subject languages Syntactic Change The path of change between any two given stages in the syntax of a language • Agreement (phi-features) on Tense are uninterpretable, and are assigned a value by a nominal • reflects a principled shift between at least two fully structured grammatical argument (Chomsky 2001, Agree and phi-feature/Case valuation) systems, represented as I-grammars (mental grammars) of different individuals: Consistent NS languages): “Agreement-based” full null-subject languages ( - They require a D(eterminer)-feature in • Lg1 Grammar > Lg1 output > Acquisition/learning > Lg2 Grammar Inflection/Tense, to allow a null pronoun (phi-P) to be referential (Holmberg, 2005) - They only have null expletives (in Holmberg’s approach) A syntactic domain may undergo multiple shifts across generations, reflecting Topic-drop full null-subject languages: a (null) provides reference to the null subject • different levels of stability/instability along the way (Chinese long distance topics, Germanic (matrix) topics) Non-NS languages: • Lack of agreement and D-feature in Inflection/Tense head. Null subject (NS) grammar > Non null-subject grammar (all or nothing?) • No topic binding of null subjects • NS grammar > > partial-NS grammar 1..> no null subjects in finite clauses (except imperatives) • > partial-NS grammar 2…>> non null-subject grammar overt expletives. • Partial pro-drop languages: • No D-feature in I/T . Null pronoun (phi-P) must be bound by higher DP (or be generic) • presence of null subjects is restricted. • overt expletives are allowed (sometimes required) • 3 4 The Corpus: YCOE Gelderen (2013) 1) “Old English is a genuine pro-drop language, although the system is in decline.” p. 271; York-Toronto-Helsinki Corpus of Parsed Old English (YCOE, Taylor et. al 2003). (see also Mitchell 1985:628-634; Traugott 1992; Gelderen 2000). Separation of texts into (Coppess 2011): • Early Period → 300-950CE → 26 texts 2) Elly van Gelderen argues that verbal agreement with subject is linked to licensing of pro- drop in Old English. • Middle Period → 950-1000CE → 34 texts • Late Period → 1000-1100CE → 20 texts 3) An aboutness-shift topic licenses the null subject (Frascarelli 2007, Sigur ðsson 2011) • Unidentified → n/a → 20 texts Our focus: Notes on Corpus Searches (Coppess 2011): 1) Evidence that an agreement based proposal faces problems: • searches done with Corpus Search (Upenn), and restricted to Early and Late Period - Highly restricted referential null subjects appear mostly in subjunctive clauses. • texts without a clear/consistent date were excluded from analysis (unidentified) - Restriction also to main clauses (see Coppess 2011, also Walkden 2011, 2012). YCOE: corpus of approximately 1.5 million words, including 100 texts, with a total of 110,136 tokens (a 2) Further loss in distribution of null subjects throughout the OE period. token is a segment of parsed words). 3) Null expletive distribution remains largely stable. 6 7 1
Late Period Texts Early period texts Early Period Texts (300 - 950 CE) Late Period Texts (1000 - 1100 CE) filenames Text Names filenames Text names coalex.o23 Alexander's Letter to Aristotle caelhom.o3 Ælfric, Supplemental Homilies coblick.o23 Blickling Homilies Apollonius of Tyre coboeth.o2 Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy coapollo.o3 Bede's History of the English Church Byrhtferth's Manual cobede.o2 cobyrhtf.o3 Saint Chad cochad.o24 Canons of Edgar (X) cocanedgX Cura Pastoralis cocura.o2 coducu3.o3 Documents 3 (O3) codocu2.o12 Documents 2 (O1/O2) coinspolX Wulfstan's Institute of Polity (X) codocu3.o23 Documents 3 (O2/O3) colaw1cn.o3 Laws, Cnut I codocu1.o1 Documents 1 (O1) Laws, Cnut II codocu2.o2 Documents 2 (O2) colaw2cn.o3 codocu4.o24 Documents 4 (O2/O4) Laws, Æthelred V colaw5atr.o3 Gregory's Dialogues cogregdC.o24 Laws, Æthelred VI colaw6atr.o3 Leechdoms colaece.o2 colawnorthu.o3 Northumbra Preosta Lagu Lacnunga colacnu.o23 Laws, Williams I, Lad colawafint.o2 Alfred's Introduction to Laws colawwllad.o4 colawine.ox2 Laws, Ine Ælfric's Letter to Sigefyrth colsigef.o3 colawaf.o2 Laws, Alfred Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard (Z) colsigewZ.o34 comart2 Martyrology, II Ælfric's Letter to Wulfgeat colwgeat comart3 Martyrology, III Marvels of the East colwstan1.o3 Ælfric's Letter to Wulfstan I comarvel.o23 Martyrology, I comart1 Ælfric's Letter to Wulfstan II colwstan2.o3 coorosiu.o2 Orosius Gospel of Nicodemuc (A) conicodA Preface to Augustine's Soliloquies coprefsolilo covinsal Vindicta Salvatoris coquadru.o23 Pseudo-Apuleius, Medicina de quadrupedibus Wulfstan's Homilies coprefcura.o2 Preface to the Cura Pastoralis cowulf.o34 8 9 cosolilo St. Augustine's Soliloquies Elided subjects in coordinated clause Overall Distribution of Null Subjects (1) and him bebead þas word (CONj and) (NP-NOM Ø) (NP-DAT him) (VBDI bebead) (NP-ACC þas word) Referential NS Expletive NS Elided NS Total Subjects and Ø him entrusted the word Periods Hits % Hits % Hits % Hits ‘and entrusted the word to him.’ Early 1151 3.77% 1668 5.46% 6062 19.8% 30547 (2) and het hine sendan of ðæs folces meniu men to ðam lande, þær (<950) and Ø commanded him to send of the people’s company men to the land, there ‘and commanded him to send men of the people’s army to the land, there’ Late 206 1.95% 439 4.15% 2027 19.2% 10568 þær hi to sceoldon, and sceawian þæt land,… (>1000) there they to should go, and Ø to.behold the land,… ‘they should go to there, and behold the land,…’ Percentage of each type of null subject out of total subjects. ( Ælfric Supplemental Homilies ,+AHom_21:140.3149) Null subjects are still present, but with very low distribution. In addition to conjunction phrases, there are elided subjects associated with infinitival • • Distribution of null expletives over total number of subjects is misleading. structures. • Elided subjects correspond to subjects of second conjuncts in coordinated Both types of elided subjects with conjunction and infinitival phrases are constructions that • • appear in non-pro drop languages as well. clauses, which we excluded from the counts of true RefNSs These elided subjects were excluded from the evidence for a NSL system. Referential null subjects show further restrictions in their distribution. • • 10 14 Distribution of Referential NS Distribution of Null Subjects by type (matrix vs. subordinate) Referential Subjects Expletive Subjects Elided Subjects Matrix Clause Subordinate Clause Total Null Total % Null Total % Null Total* % Periods Hits % Hits % Hits Early 1151 22362 5.15 1668 2123 78.6 6062 28424 21.3 Early (<950) 995 86.4% 156 13.6% 1151 (<950) Late 206 8013 2.57 439 528 83.1 2027 10040 20.2 Late (>1000) 187 90.8% 19 9.22% 87 (>1000) Percentage of the each type of null subject with respect to the specific environment where their overt counterpart occurs. Most of the referential null subjects appear in matrix clauses – they are • not syntactically dependent on a higher syntactic antecedent (similar Even in contexts restricted to possible referential null subjects context, there is still • observations by Walkden 2011, Gelderen 2013). a very low distribution of referential null subjects. Expletive null subjects are clearly very productive throughout the OE period, and • There is a slight shift from the Early period to the Late period where • do no show an indication of overall decrease in use. more of the null subjects are appearing in the matrix clause. *Conjoined subjects calculated over total number of overt subjects (% not relevant here). 15 16 2
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