Was Old English a V2 language? Anthony Kroch University of Pennsylvania June 2013
English Data Sources • Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor. Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition . CD-ROM, second edition, 2000. • Ann Taylor, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths. York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose . Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2003. • Anthony Kroch, Beatrice Santorini, and Lauren Delfs. Penn- Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English . CD-ROM, first edition, 2004. • Ann Taylor, Arja Nurmi, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Terttu Nevalainen. Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence . Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2006.
The V2 constraint in Old English: the pronoun exception (1) Þ æt hus hæfdon Romane to ð æm anum tacne geworht. (2) Ælc yfel he mæg don. (3) Þ in agen geleafa þ e hæf þ gehæledne. (4) & seofon ærendracan he him hæfde to asend.
The V2 constraint in Old English: the exception to the exception (5) Hwi sceole we o þ res mannes niman? (6) Þ a ge-mette he scea ð an. (7) Ne mihton hi næ nigne fultum æt him begitan. (8) Hæfdon hi hiora onfangen ær Hæsten to Beamfleote come.
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English (9) ... ð eah hit ær upahæfen wære. (10) Se manfulla gast þ a Martine gehyrsumode. (11) ac he heora onfon nolde. (12) and Dryhten so ð lice heofonas geworhte.
The problem of verb-final clauses in Old English II (13) Eac þ is land wæs swi ð e afylled mid munecan. (14) Þ eahhwe ð er his hiredmen ferdon ut mid feawe mannan of þ am castele.
Verb-first subjunctive clauses in Old English (15) Cume se blinda to me. (16) Stande þ in word, cyning. (17) Ne wille ð u swa sprecan; (18) Write he þ a fæstnunge mid his agenre handa.
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP C' C 0 TP T' T 0 vP hæfdon DP v' Romane v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP T' T 0 vP hæfdon DP v' Romane v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP C' C 0 TP T' T 0 vP hæfdon DP DP v' hi hi v 0 VP DP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP T' T 0 vP hæfdon DP DP v' hi hi v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP DP T' hi T 0 vP hæfdon DP v' hi v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP C' C 0 TP T' T 0 T 0 T 0 vP hæfdon hæfdon hæfdon DP DP v' hi hi v 0 VP DP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP T' T 0 T 0 T 0 vP hæfdon hæfdon hæfdon DP DP v' hi hi v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP DP T' hi T 0 T 0 T 0 vP hæfdon hæfdon hæfdon DP v' hi v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Phrase structure of an ordinary declarative English V2 clause CP DP C' þ æt hus C 0 TP C 0 T 0 DP T' hæfdon hi T 0 T 0 vP hæfdon hæfdon DP v' hi v 0 VP DP V 0 geworht þ æt hus
Quantitative Evidence for V-to-T and V- to-C in Old and Early Middle English
Sentences with topicalized direct objects: Frequency of V2 by subject type 1.00 0.75 subject.type noun pronoun inverted/total 0.50 total^0.5 10 20 30 0.25 0.00 1000 1200 1400 1600 date
Sentences with topicalized PPs: Frequency of V2 by subject type 0.8 total^0.5 0.6 20 40 inverted/total 60 0.4 subject.type noun pronoun 0.2 0.0 1000 1200 1400 1600 date
Sentences with topicalized adverbs: Frequency of V2 by subject type 0.8 0.6 total^0.5 20 40 inverted/total 60 0.4 subject.type noun pronoun 0.2 0.0 1000 1200 1400 1600 date
Sentences with topicalized þ a: Frequency of V2 by subject type 1.00 0.75 total^0.5 20 40 inverted/total 60 0.50 subject.type noun pronoun 0.25 1000 1200 1400 1600 date
Inversion in positive sentences with topicalized objects subject subject DP pronoun SV 238 1382 VS 338 29 .59 .02
Inversion in negative sentences with topicalized objects subject subject DP pronoun SV 12 52 VS 22 37 .65 .42
Inversion in indicative sentences with a topicalized constituent subject subject DP pronoun SV 3245 4253 VS 9063 2727 .74 .39
Inversion in subjunctive sentences with a topicalized constituent subject subject DP pronoun SV 143 80 VS 308 162 .68 .67
Low subjects in Old English $ (9) $ ac mycel ge þ olode ð urh his mildheortnes se Crist $ for ure þ earfe. $ (10) $ in þ a tid wæs in Mercna mæg ð e Wulfhere cyning.
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002) $ (11) $ Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen. $ (12) $ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen. $ (13) $ *Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen.
German subject positions (Haeberli 1999, 2002) $ (11) $ Dieses Haus wird später Hans für die Familie kaufen. $ (12) $ Dieses Haus wird er später für die Familie kaufen. $ (13) $ *Dieses Haus wird später er für die Familie kaufen. $ (14) $ Dieses Haus wird Hans später für die Familie kaufen.
CP XP i C' Why not verb-third sentences? þ æt hus C 0 TP DP j T' Romane T 0 vP hæfdon DP j v' Romane v 0 VP XP i V 0 geworht þ æt hus
CP XP i C' Why not verb-third sentences? þ æt hus C 0 TP DP j T' Romane T 0 vP hæfdon DP j v' Romane v 0 VP XP i V 0 geworht þ æt hus
CP XP i C' Why not verb-third sentences? þ æt hus C 0 TP DP j T' Romane T 0 vP hæfdon DP j v' Romane v 0 VP XP i V 0 geworht þ æt hus
CP A V3 example or an Infl-final one? XP i C' þ one fleam C 0 TP DP j T' Þ urcytel ADVP T' ærest T 0 vP 0 T 0 V k v' DP j astealde Þ urcytel v 0 VP XP i V k 0 astealde þ one fleam
CP A V3 example or an Infl-final one? XP i C' þ one fleam C 0 TP DP j T' Þ urcytel ADVP T' ærest T 0 vP 0 T 0 V k v' DP j astealde Þ urcytel v 0 VP XP i V k 0 astealde þ one fleam
Unambiguous V3 clauses with topicalized objects (1) þ æne se geatweard $ let in that-one the doorkeeper $ let in (cowsgosp, Jn_[WSCp]:10.3.6596) (2) and him se inno þ eac geopenode ongean and him the heart also opened again (coælive, +ALS_[Vincent]:170.7907)
Frequency of unambiguous V3 clauses against all particle verb cases full DP subjects pronoun subjects 74 6 V2 cases 74 6 20 45 V3 cases 20 45 .21 .88 frequency V3 0.21 0.88
V3 clauses with topicalized objects ambiguous due to West Germanic verb raising (1) ac þ one yfelan fæstrædan willan folneah nan wind ne mæg but the evil constant will almost no storm not may awecggean awaken (cocuraC,CP_[Cotton]:33.224.4.85f.)
Expected versus observed number of V3 clauses with topicalized objects given verb raising number SOVI main clauses with full 20 noun phrase subjects ratio of SOIV to SOVI in unambiguous 0.7 verb-raising environments rate of object topicalization in verb-final 0.2 clauses predicted number of OSIV cases due to 2.8 verb-raising with topicalization actual number of OSIV cases 22
Decline of direct object topicalization in English 12 10 8 % Topicalized 6 4 2 0 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710 Date
Frequency of direct object topicalization in modern spoken Dutch (Bouma 2008) T a b l e 4 . 2 : S u m m a r y o f V o r f e l d o c c u p a t i o n o f a r g u m e n t s . Prop est (%) V o r f e l d y e s n o pt A r g u m e n t 69.7 70.1 70.4 s u b j e c t 4 3 5 2 3 1 8 5 9 7 2 13.9 14.3 14.8 d i r e c t o b j e c t 3 4 1 8 2 0 4 3 8 1 5 3.2 4.5 i n d i r e c t o b j e c t 3 8
Evolution of PP preposing in English 50 40 % Preposed 30 20 10 0 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710 Date
Evolution of adverb fronting in English 90 75 temporal adverbs 60 % Preposed 45 locative adverbs 30 15 0 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710 Date
The history of topicalization in English (Speyer 2008) • Why does topicalization decline in Middle English but not disappear? If the change a parametric one, it should go to completion. Otherwise, topicalization, a clear case of stylistic variation might be expected to be stable in frequency over time. • This question has answer in the specific interaction between parametric settings and stylistic variation in the history of English.
Decline of direct object topicalization by subject type 15 pronoun subjects 10 V2 % full DP subjects 5 0 OE (Early) OE (Late) 1151-1250 1251-1350 1351-1420 1421-1500 1501-1569 1570-1639 1639-1710 Date
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