Verb Second in Medieval Romance (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics) [Illustrated] 9780198804673, 0198804679

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Verb Second in Medieval Romance

O X F O R D S T U D I E S I N D I A C H R O N I C A ND H I S T O R I C A L L I N G U I S T I CS  : Adam Ledgeway and Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge  : Cynthia Allen, Australian National University; Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, University of Manchester; Theresa Biberauer, University of Cambridge; Charlotte Galves, University of Campinas; Geoff Horrocks, University of Cambridge; Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University; Anthony Kroch, University of Pennsylvania; David Lightfoot, Georgetown University; Giuseppe Longobardi, University of York; George Walkden, University of Konstanz; David Willis, University of Cambridge       Gender from Latin to Romance History, Geography, Typology Michele Loporcaro  Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German Edited by Agnes Jäger, Gisella Ferraresi, and Helmut Weiß  Word Order Change Edited by Ana Maria Martins and Adriana Cardoso  Arabic Historical Dialectology Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches Edited by Clive Holes  Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective Edited by Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine  Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek Katerina Chatzopoulou  Indefinites between Latin and Romance Chiara Gianollo  Verb Second in Medieval Romance Sam Wolfe For a complete list of titles published and in preparation for the series, see pp. –.

Verb Second in Medieval Romance S A M WO L F E

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford,  , United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Sam Wolfe  The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in  Impression:  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press  Madison Avenue, New York, NY , United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number:  ISBN –––– Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon,   Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Contents Series preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations . Introduction . Medieval Romance word order and the V hypothesis . Germanic Verb Second: Theoretical and empirical developments . The Medieval Romance ‘problem’ .. V languages? .. Continuity or microvariation? .. V and its correlates .. V and diachrony . Materials and methods . The V syntax of Medieval Romance . Introduction . Arguments for and against a V analysis .. The V hypothesis: Arguments and evidence .. Evidence against V? . Evaluating the claims .. The preverbal field and inversion phenomena .. Matrix/embedded asymmetries .. V and V ‘violations’ .. Diachronic implausibility? . Old Italo-Romance . Introduction . Matrix clause syntax .. Verb placement .. The preverbal field and clitic placement .. Subject positions .. Verb First and Verb Third . Embedded clause syntax .. Verb placement and SVO .. Embedded main clause phenomena . Chapter summary

ix xi xiii                              

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Contents

. Old Gallo-Romance . Introduction . Matrix clause syntax .. Verb placement .. The preverbal field and clitic placement .. Subject positions .. Verb First and Verb Third . Embedded clause syntax .. Verb placement and SVO .. Embedded main clause phenomena . Chapter summary . Old Spanish . Introduction . Matrix clause syntax .. Verb placement .. The preverbal field and clitic placement .. Subject positions .. Verb First and Verb Third . Embedded clause syntax .. Verb placement and SVO .. Embedded main clause phenomena .. A symmetrical V language? . Chapter summary . Old Sardinian . Introduction . Matrix clause syntax .. Verb placement .. The preverbal field and clitic placement .. One half of the V constraint? .. Subject positions .. Verb Third . Embedded clause syntax .. Embedded word order in Wolfe (c) .. New data on Old Sardinian embedded clauses . Chapter summary . Rethinking Medieval Romance V . The syntax of Medieval Romance .. Summary .. Commonalities and the V bottleneck

                                      

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Contents .. Fin- and Force-V and microvariation ... Verb Third ... Verb First ... The syntax of  ... Matrix/embedded asymmetries ... A note on the V correlates .. The cartography of the clause . Changes in clausal structure .. Common syntactic properties: Early Medieval Romance .. The Later Medieval Romance split .. From Fin- to Force-V .. Old Sardinian and the great leap from Latin to Romance . Summary . Conclusion . Summary of major findings . New perspectives on the Medieval Romance ‘problem’ . Future research References Index

vii                   

Series preface Modern diachronic linguistics has important contacts with other subdisciplines, notably first-language acquisition, learnability theory, computational linguistics, sociolinguistics, and the traditional philological study of texts. It is now recognized in the wider field that diachronic linguistics can make a novel contribution to linguistic theory, to historical linguistics, and arguably to cognitive science more widely. This series provides a forum for work in both diachronic and historical linguistics, including work on change in grammar, sound, and meaning within and across languages; synchronic studies of languages in the past; and descriptive histories of one or more languages. It is intended to reflect and encourage the links between these subjects and fields such as those mentioned above. The goal of the series is to publish high-quality monographs and collections of papers in diachronic linguistics generally, i.e. studies focussing on change in linguistic structure, and/or change in grammars, which are also intended to make a contribution to linguistic theory, by developing and adopting a current theoretical model, by raising wider questions concerning the nature of language change, or by developing theoretical connections with other areas of linguistics and cognitive science as listed above. There is no bias towards a particular language or language family, or towards a particular theoretical framework; work in all theoretical frameworks, and work based on the descriptive tradition of language typology, as well as quantitatively based work using theoretical ideas, also feature in the series. Adam Ledgeway and Ian Roberts University of Cambridge

Acknowledgements Any book project such as this is truly a joint endeavour, and there are a number of colleagues, friends, and family I would like to thank for their support during the research project that has culminated in the book, alongside Julia Steer, Vicki Sunter and the rest of the editorial team at OUP. Much of the research for this book was undertaken whilst I was at the University of Cambridge. You truly couldn’t ask for a more intellectually stimulating environment to be in as a historical syntactician or a Romance linguist. For making it so, I’d like to thank Luigi Andriani, Valentina Colasanti, Alice Corr, Jamie Douglas, Anders Holmberg, Norma Schifano, Michelle Sheehan, Giuseppina Silvestri, Maria Olimpia Squillaci, Jenneke van der Wal, and David Willis in particular. Both Delia Bentley and George Walkden also made me feel very welcome during my brief time at the University of Manchester, and I’d like to thank George in particular for his feedback on this manuscript and many useful discussions on the topics discussed here. Since moving to the University of Oxford, I’ve been equally as fortunate in finding fantastic colleagues in linguistics, so I would like to extend my thanks to Xavier Bach, Chiara Cappellaro, Aditi Lahiri, Martin Maiden, Sandra Paoli, Béatrice Rea, Ros Temple, and Ian Watson for their encouragement and support. Many of the ideas in the book have been presented or discussed in some form or another at various workshops, conferences, and seminars. Far too many people to mention deserve thanks for very valuable discussion and feedback, but I would like to express my gratitude in particular to Paola Benincà, Federica Cognola, Silvio Cruschina, Giuliana Giusti, Liliane Haegeman, Luigi Rizzi, Emanuella Sanfelici, and Rebecca Woods. Two international collaborators deserve special thanks. Christine Salvesen has been a phenomenal source of support and intellectually stimulating discussion over the past years. Many of the ideas presented here have also been sharpened and improved by discussions with Cecilia Poletto, who alongside Davide Bertocci, Camilla Covazzi, Jacopo Garzonio, Silvia Rossi, and Francesco Pinzin welcomed me to Padua, where I wrote the first half of this book. Theresa Biberauer merits a special mention as she was the first person to introduce me to formal linguistics, after which I was truly hooked. Ian Roberts has also been unfailingly generous with his time and ideas across a number of years now. In the last year, I also cannot fail to thank John Charles Smith for all he has done to welcome me both intellectually and socially to the University of Oxford and St Catherine’s College. With regard to St Catherine’s, I could not ask for a better environment in which to work and am indebted to its fellowship, many of whom I now call friends, for their creation of what is undoubtedly a truly unique academic institution.

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Acknowledgements

Throughout most of my academic career, I have been supported, encouraged, and, when appropriate, challenged by my doctoral supervisor Adam Ledgeway. I cannot find words for how thankful I am for the time he has invested in me over the years. An academic career, as many readers will know, often turns into a deeply personal vocation. I could not have survived the last ten years without the support of my family and friends, of whom Alex Wilshaw and Helen Watson merit a special mention. Above all, I would like to thank my wife Louisa for her utterly unfailing support. This book is dedicated to her.

List of abbreviations 

accusative



clitic

ClLD

Clitic Left Dislocation

CP

complementizer phrase

Dut.

Dutch

EF

Edge Feature

EMR

Early Medieval Romance

EPP

Extended Projection Principle



future



genitive

Ger.

German

HT

Hanging Topic

Ice.

Icelandic



infinitive

MLGer.

Middle Low German

ModSic.

Modern Sicilian



negative



nominative

Nor.

Norwegian

O

object



oblique

OE

Old English

OFr.

Old French

OHGer.

Old High German

OIt.

Old Italian

OLom.

Old Lombard

OMil.

Old Milanese

ONeap.

Old Neapolitan

OOcc.

Old Occitan

OP

Old Portuguese

OPie.

Old Piedmontese

xiv

List of abbreviations

OSard.

Old Sardinian

OSax.

Old Saxon

OSic.

Old Sicilian

OSp.

Old Spanish

OUmbr.

Old Umbrian

OVen.

Old Venetian



plural



progressive



past



participle



reflexive

S

subject



subjunctive



singular

Swe.

Swedish

V

verb

V

Verb First

V

Verb Second

V

Verb Third

Yid.

Yiddish

Source Texts Alexandre

Libro de Alexandre (OSp., th–th century)

Cassidorus

Le roman de Cassidorus (OFr., th century)

Chartes

Les plus anciennes chartes en langue provençale: Recueil de pieces originales antérieures au XIIIe siècle (OOcc.,