Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:58:11.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Head-to-Modifier Reanalysis: The Rise of the Adjectival Quantifier Viel and the Loss of Genitive Case Assignment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2016

Christopher Sapp*
Affiliation:
University of Mississippi
Dorian Roehrs*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
*
University of Mississippi, Department of Modern Languages, Bondurant Hall C-115, University, MS 38677, UAS, [[email protected]]
University of North Texas, Department of World Languages, Literatures, & Cultures, 1155 Union Circle 311127, Denton, TX 76203, USA, [[email protected]]

Abstract

The quantifier viel changes from exhibiting properties of a head in Old High German to exhibiting properties of a modifier in Modern German. This is accompanied by changes in word order vis-à-vis its quantified constituent and the loss of the ability to assign genitive case to some of the quantified constituents. Assuming that quantifying expressions may have various syntactic representations, we argue that viel develops from a quantifying noun to a particle in Card0 to an adjectival quantifier in Spec, CardP, and that this structural change in the position of viel can account in part for the morphosyntactic properties of the quantified element. The development of viel from a quantifying noun to a quantifying particle—a case of head-to-head reanalysis—is typical of grammaticalization. However, the change from a particle to an adjectival quantifier represents head-to-specifier reanalysis, which we relate to degrammaticalization due to analogy with other inflected elements of the DP. The change in word order and case properties of the quantified constituent represents a third type of reanalysis, whereby an embedded nominal undergoes downward reanalysis. Depending on the structural size—that is, whether a DP-layer is present or not—the dependent nominal either integrates into the matrix nominal agreeing with viel or, if too large, it takes up a new embedded position as a complement of the matrix head noun, retaining genitive. We demonstrate that in each case, the morphological change lags behind the syntactic reanalysis.*

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abney, Steven. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis, Haegeman, Liliane & Stavrou, Melita. 2007. Noun phrase in the generative perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Authier, J.-Marc. 2014. Split quantification and the status of adjunction in the theory of grammar. Studia Linguistica 68. 245283.Google Scholar
Behaghel, Otto. 1923. Deutsche Syntax: Eine geschichtliche Darstellung, vol. I–IV. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Braune, Wilhelm & Ebbinghaus, Ernst. 1981. Gotische Grammatik, 19th edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Braune, Wilhelm & Eggers, Hans. 1987. Althochdeutsche Grammatik, 14th edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Braunmüller, Kurt. 1982. Syntaxtypologische Studien zum Germanischen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna, & Giusti, Giuliana. 2006. The syntax of quantified phrases and quantitative clitics. The Blackwell companion to syntax, ed. by Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk, 2393. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1994. On the evidence for partial N-movement in the Romance DP. Paths towards Universal Grammar: Studies in honor of Richard S. Kayne, ed. by Cinque, Guglielmo, Koster, Jan, Pollock, Jean-Yves, Rizzi, Luigi, & Zanuttini, Raffaella, 85110. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2005. Deriving Greenberg's Universal 20 and its exceptions. Linguistic Inquiry 36. 315332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2010. The syntax of adjectives. A comparative study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corver, Norbert. 1997. The internal structure of the Dutch extended adjectival projection. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15. 289368.Google Scholar
Corver, Norbert, & Delfitto, Denis. 1999. On the nature of pronoun movement. Clitics in the languages of Europe, ed. by van Riemsdijk, Henk, 799861. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Demske, Ulrike. 2001. Merkmale und Relationen: Diachrone Studien zur Nominalphrase des Deutschen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Déprez, Viviane. 2011. From N to D. Charting the time course of the internal rise of French n-words. The noun phrase in Romance and Germanic: Structure, variation, and change, ed. by Sleeman, Petra & Perridon, Harry, 257280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dikken, ,Marcel den. 2006. Relators and linkers. The syntax of predication, predicate inversion, and copulas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny Sandra. 1997. Quantifiers and selection: On the distribution of quantifying expressions in French, Dutch and English. Leiden, The Netherlands: University of Leiden dissertation.Google Scholar
Dürscheid, Christa. 2002. Polemik satt und Wahlkampf pur. Das postnominale Adjektiv im Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 21. 5781.Google Scholar
Ebert, Robert Peter, Reichmann, Oskar, Solms, Hans-Joachim, & Wegera, Klaus-Peter. 1993. Frühneuhochdeutsche Grammatik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Fanselow, Gisbert. 1988. Aufspaltung von NPn und das Problem der “freien” Wortstellung. Linguistische Berichte 114. 91113.Google Scholar
Gallmann, Peter. 1996. Die Steuerung der Flexion in der DP. Linguistische Berichte 164. 283314.Google Scholar
Gelderen, Elly van. 2004. Grammaticalization as economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giusti, Giuliana. 1997. The categorial status of determiners. The new comparative syntax, ed. by Liliane Haegeman, 95123. London/New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Haider, Hubert. 2010. The syntax of German. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. The behaviour-before-coding principle in syntactic change. Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale: Mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels, ed. by Floricic, Franck, 493506. Paris: Presses de L'École Normale Supérieure.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. Grammaticalization, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulsey, Sarah & Sauerland, Uli. 2006. Sorting out relative clauses. Natural Language Semantics 14. 111137.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray S. 1977. X’ syntax: A study of phrase structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2005. Nominal phrases from a Scandinavian perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 2012. Grammaticalization as optimization. Grammatical change: Origins, nature, outcomes, ed. by Jonas, Dianne, Whitman, John & Garrett, Andrew, 1551. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Leu, Thomas. 2008. The internal syntax of determiners. New York, NY: New York University dissertation.Google Scholar
Lockwood, William Burley. 1968. Historical German syntax. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Milner, Jean-Claude. 1978. De la syntaxe à l'interprétation. Quantités, insultes, exclamations. Paris: Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Norde, Muriel. 2010. Degrammaticalization: Three common controversies. Grammaticalization. Current views and issues, ed. by Katerina, Stathi, Gehweiler, Elke, & König, Ekkehard, 123150. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Norris, Mark. 2014. A theory of nominal concord. Santa Cruz, CA: University of California Santa Cruz dissertation.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. H. 1988. Many quantifiers. Proceedings of the Fifth Eastern States Conference on Linguistics, ed. by Powers, Joyce & de Jong, Kenneth, 383402. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann. 2007. Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 25th edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, Wolfgang (ed.). 1997. Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 3rd edn. Munich: DTV.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. 1966. On the so-called pronouns in English. Nineteenth monograph on language and linguistics, ed. by Dinneen, Francis, 177206. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Riemsdijk, Henk van. 1989. Movement and regeneration. Dialect variation and the theory of grammar, ed. by Paola Benincà, 105136. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian & Roussou, Anna. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roehrs, Dorian. 2008. Something inner- and cross-linguistically different. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 11. 142.Google Scholar
Roehrs, Dorian. 2013. The inner makeup of definite determiners: The case of Germanic. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 25. 295411.Google Scholar
Roehrs, Dorian & Sapp, Christopher. (forthcoming). Quantifying expressions in the history of German: Syntactic reanalysis and morphological change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Rubin, Edward J. 1996. The transparent syntax and semantics of modifiers. Proceedings of the Fifteenth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. by Agbayani, Brian & Tang, Sze-Wing, 429439. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Schrodt, Richard. 2004. Althochdeutsche Grammatik II. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 1994. The structural location of the attributive adjective. Proceedings of the Twelfth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. by Duncan, Erin, Farkas, Donka & Spaelti, Phillip, 439454. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Szczepaniak, Renata. 2011. Grammatikalisierung im Deutschen. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Vater, Heinz. 1984. Determinantien und Quantoren im Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 3. 1942.Google Scholar
Vater, Heinz. 1986. Zur Abgrenzung der Determinantien und Quantoren. Zur Syntax der Determinantien, ed. by Vater, Heinz, 1331. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Wegera, Klaus-Peter. 2000. Grundlagenprobleme einer mittelhochdeutschen Grammatik. Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, ed. by Besch, Werner, Betten, Anne, Reichmann, Oskar & Sonderegger, Stefan, 13041320. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Willis, David. 2007. Syntactic lexicalization as a new type of degrammaticalization. Linguistics 45. 271310.Google Scholar

Dictionaries and Corpora

Das Bonner Frühneuhochdeutsch-Korpus. Korpora.org, available at http://www.korpora.org/fnhd, accessed on August 12, 2011.Google Scholar
Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. Trier Center for the Digital Humanities. Available at http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB, accessed on November 15, 2013.Google Scholar
Dudenredaktion, . 1995. Der Duden Band 4: Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartsprache. Mannheim: Dudenverlag.Google Scholar
Project Wulfila. University of Antwerp. Available at http://www.wulfila.be, accessed on September 9, 2013.Google Scholar
TITUS (Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien). University of Frankfurt am Main. Available at http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de, accessed on June 20, 2012.Google Scholar