Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T11:56:04.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Relative inversion and non-verb-initial imperatives in Early Modern Swedish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2013

Erik Magnusson Petzell
Erik Magnusson Petzell*
Affiliation:
Erik Magnusson Petzell, Institute for Language and Folklore, the Department for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Gothenburg, Vallgatan 22, SE-411 16 Gothenburg, Sweden. [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This article deals with two syntactic differences between Present-Day Swedish (PDSw) and Early Modern Swedish (EMSw): first, only EMSw allows VS and XVS word order to occur in relative clauses; second, only EMSw permits non-verb-initial imperatives. One structural difference between the varieties is assumed to be a prerequisite for all these word order differences: the subject position was spec-TP in EMSw but is spec-FinP in PDSw. Only the lower position (spec-TP) is compatible with inversion (VS) and fronting of non-subjects (XVS) in relative clauses as well as with imperative clauses having elements other than the imperative verb in the initial position. To be able to account for the latter phenomenon, however, an additional assumption is needed: the imperative type-feature, [imp], always accompanies the verb in PDSw but is tied to an operator in EMSw. The first assumption about differing subject positions is independently motivated by findings already in the previous literature. The second assumption about the differing behaviour of [imp] in the two varieties is supported by the distribution of imperative verbs over a wider range of syntactic contexts in EMSw than in PDSw.

Keywords

Early modern Swedishgenerative syntaximperativesrelative clausessubject positionssubject–verb inversiontopicalisationverb-secondword order
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 2013 , pp. 27 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2013 

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

SOURCES

Agrells räknelära 1655 = Nicolaus Petri Agrell, 1655. Institutiones arithmeticæ: eller een kort vnderwijsningh om the skiönhögnödigste regler, exempel italiensche practiqver och compendier, som i daghligh rächningh mäst bruklige äre: . . . Stockholm.Google Scholar
Horn 1657 = Gösta Holm (ed.), 1959. Agneta Horn. Beskrivning över min vandringstid. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Kiöping 1674 = [Nils Matson Kiöping, 1674. Nils Matssons Reesas korta Beskriffning. In:] Een kort Beskriffning Uppå Trenne Reesor och Peregrinationer, sampt Konungarijket Japan, 1–162. Wijsindzborg: Johann Kankel.Google Scholar
Kockebook 1650 = Per-Erik Wahlund (ed.), 1990. En gammal svensk kokbok: från år 1650. 3., rev. uppl. Stockholm: Fabel.Google Scholar
Ny och fullkomlig koke-bok 1737 = Ny och fullkomlig koke-bok, som underwisar, huru alla wid de förnämsta hofwen mäst brukelige rätter på bästa sätt tillagade warda . . . tryckt hos Benj. Gottlieb Schneider. År 1737. Stockholm.Google Scholar
Penta 1330s = Olof Thorell (ed.), 1955–1959. Fem Moseböcker på fornsvenska enligt Cod. Holm. A 1. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Rosenhane 1652 = Arne Jansson (ed.), 1995. Johan Rosenhanes dagbok 1652–1661. Stockholm: Kungl. Samfundet för utgivandet av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia.Google Scholar
Rålamb 1657–58 = Christian Callmer (ed.), 1963. Diarium under resa till Konstantinopel 1657–1658. Historiska handlingar 37:3. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar

REFERENCES

Alving, Hjalmar. 1916. Det grammatiska subjektets plats i den narrativa satsen i svenskan. Uppsala: Edv. Berlings boktryckeri.Google Scholar
Andersson, Lars-Gunnar. 1975. Form and Function of Subordinate Clauses (Gothenburg Monographs in Linguistics 1). Gothenburg: Department of Linguistics, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Branigan, Philip. 1996. Verb-second and the A-bar syntax of subjects. Studia Linguistica 50 (1), 50–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Kenstowicz (ed.), 1–52.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Sauerland & Gärtner (eds.), 1–29.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On phases. In Freidin, Robert, Otero, Carlos & Zubizarreta, Maria Luisa (eds.), Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory: Essays in Honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, 133–166. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delsing, Lars.-Olof. 1999. Om imperativsatser i fornsvenskan. In Haskå, Inger & Sandqvist, Carin (eds.), Alla tiders språk: en vänskrift till Gertrud Pettersson november 1999, 50–58. Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1990. Verb movement and the subject position in Yiddish. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 8, 41–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engdahl, Elisabet. 1999. Integrating pragmatics in the grammar. In Mereu, Lunella (ed.), Boundaries of Syntax and Morphology, 175–194. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, Cecilia. 1993. Non-referential Subjects in the History of Swedish. Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane & Guéron, Jaqueline. 1999. English Grammar: A Generative Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1989. The role of AGR and finiteness. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 43, 51–76.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Platzack, Christer. 1995. The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar Hrafn & Wiklund, Anna-Lena. 2009. General embedded V2: Icelandic A, B, C, etc. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 84, 21–51.Google Scholar
Håkansson, David. 2008. Syntaktisk variation och förändring (Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A:64). Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.Google Scholar
Höder, Steffen. 2010. Sprachausbau im Sprachkontakt: syntaktischer Wandel im Altschwedischen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Josefsson, Gunlög, Platzack, Christer & Håkansson, Gisela (eds.). 2003. The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.). 2001. Ken Hale: A Life in Language. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblad, Gustaf. 1943. Relativ satsfogning i de nordiska fornspråken (Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap 1). Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Magnusson, Erik. 2003. Subject omission and verb initial declaratives in Swedish. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 71, 103–143.Google Scholar
Magnusson, Erik. 2007a. Gränsöverskridande koordination. Syntaktisk förändring i äldre svenska (Nordistica Gothoburgensis 28). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Magnusson, Erik. 2007b. Huvudsats, bisats eller någonting annat? Om relativsatsliknande sekvenser i äldre svenska. In Wollin, Lars, Saarukka, Anna & Stroh-Wollin, Ulla (eds.), Studier i svensk språkhistoria 9, 166–173. Åbo: Åbo Akademi.Google Scholar
Noreen, Adolf. 1904. Altnordische grammatik, vol. 2: Altschwedische grammatik mit einschluss des altgutnischen (Sammlung kurzer Grammatiken germanischer Dialekte. A: Hauptreihe 8). Halle: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Pesetsky, David & Torrego, Esther. 2001. T-to-C movement: Causes and onsequences. In Kenstowicz (ed.), 355–426.Google Scholar
Petzell, Erik Magnusson. 2010. Coordination and word order in the history of Swedish. Transactions of the Philological Society 108 (2), 178–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 1996. Germanic verb second languages. Attract vs. Repel: On optionality, A-bar movement and the symmetrical/asymmetrical verb second hypothesis. In Lang, Ewald & Zifonun, Gisela (eds.), Deutsch-typologisch, 92–120. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 1998. A visibility condition for the C-domain. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 61, 53–99.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 2001. The vulnerable C-domain. Brain and Language 77, 364–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Platzack, Christer. 2004. Cross-linguistic word order variation at the left periphery: The case of object first main clauses. In Adger, David, de Cat, Cecile & Tsoulas, George (eds.), Peripheries, Syntactic Edges and their Effects, 191–210. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 2007. Embedded imperatives. In van der Wurff, William (ed.), Imperative Clauses in Generative Grammar: Studies in Honour of Frits Beukema (Lingvistik Aktuell 103), 171–204. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 2008. The edge feature on C. Presented at Revisiting Parameters: Holmberg and Platzack (1995) Reloaded, Lund, 16 October 2008.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 2010. Den fantastiska grammatiken. En minimalistisk beskrivning av svenskan. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer & Rosengren, Inger. 1998. On the subject of imperatives: A minimalist account of the imperative clause. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 1, 177–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reis, Marga & Rosengren, Inger. 1992. What do wh-imperatives tell us about wh-movement? Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 10 (1), 79–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, Norvin. 1998. The Principle of Minimal Compliance. Linguistic Inquiry 29 (4), 599–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Haegeman, Liliane (ed.), Elements of Grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi & Schlonsky, Ur. 2007. Strategies of subject extraction. In Gärtner, Sauerland & (eds.), 115–160.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian. 2004. The C-system in Brythonic Celtic languages, V2, and the EPP. In Luigi, Rizzi (ed.), The Structure of CP and IP, 97–328. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Éiríkur & Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1990. On Icelandic word order once more. In Maling, Joan & Zaenen, Annie (eds.), Modern Icelandic Syntax (Syntax and Semantics 24), 3–40. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rohrbacher, Bernhard Wolfgang. 1999. Morphology-driven Syntax: A Theory of V to I Raising and pro-drop. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roussou, Anna. 2000. On the left periphery: Modal particles and complementizers. Journal of Greek Linguistics 1, 65–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SAG = Ulf Teleman, Staffan Hellberg & Erik Andersson. 1999. Svenska Akademiens grammatik, vol. 4. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien/Norstedts ordbok.Google Scholar
Sauerland, Uli & Gärtner, Hans-Martin (eds.). 2007. Interfaces + Recursion = Language? New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Bonnie D. & Vikner, Sten. 1996. The verb always leaves IP in V2 clauses. In Belletti, Adriana & Rizzi, Luigi (eds.), Parameters and Functional Heads, 11–61. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stroh-Wollin, Ulla. 2002. Som-satser med och utan som (Skrifter utgivna av Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet 58). Uppsala: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Stroh-Wollin, Ulla. 2011. Embedded declaratives, assertion and swear words. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 87, 81–102.Google Scholar
te Velde, John. 2006. Deriving Coordinate Symmetries: A Phase-based approach Integrating Select, Merge, Copy and Match (Lingvistik Aktuell 89). Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, Lisa.1984. Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Wessén, Elias. 1941. Svensk språkhistoria, vol. 1: Ljudlära och formlära. Stockholm: Filologiska föreningen vid Stockholms högskola.Google Scholar
Wollin, Lars. 1981. Svensk latinöversättning, vol. 1: Processen. Lund: Blom. [Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fornskriftsällskapet. Serie 1: Svenska skrifter; 74,1 = häfte 251]Google Scholar
Wollin, Lars. 1983. Svensk latinöversättning, vol. 2: Förlagan och produkten. Lund: Blom. [Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fornskriftsällskapet. Serie 1: Svenska skrifter; 74,2 = häfte 252]Google Scholar
Zwart, Jan-Wouter. 1993. Dutch Syntax: A Minimalist Approach. Groningen: University of Groningen.Google Scholar