Changing EPP parameters in the history of English: accounting for variation and change

Abstract

This paper presents a novel "Kaynian" analysis of Old and Middle English (OE and ME) word-order patterns in terms of which the patterns attested at the various stages of OE and ME are analysed as the output of a single grammar which, however, permits restricted types of variation. We propose that the West Germanic-like OE word orders were derived via the application of two types of "large XP" movement -VP-raising to SpecvP and vP-raising to SpecTP -which are in fact pied-piping operations: in both cases, a DP contained within VP and vP -the object and the subject respectively -constitutes the actual Goal of movement, with the larger structure simply being pied-piped along. Non-West-Germanic orders in both OE and ME and synchronic variation more generally are shown to be derived from the sideby-side availability in the OE and ME grammar of pied-piping and "stranding", and the wordorder changes that occurred in ME are analysed as the consequence of a reanalysis of the ever more liberal "stranding"-permitting pied-piping grammar as one which specifically targets DPs. INTRODUCTIONIn this paper, we propose a new analysis of the word-order variation found in Old andMiddle English and also of the word-order changes that took place during the Middle English period. Although we follow a broadly "Kaynian" approach to the analysis of OV order in that we assume that such orders cannot be the direct result of First Merge of object and verb, our approach differs from other approaches in the literature (e.g. Roberts, 1997;van der Wurff, 1997avan der Wurff, , 1997bvan der Wurff, , 1999 in that we propose that the movements that derived the Old and Middle

Object position and Heavy NP Shift in Old Saxon and beyond

“…The head-parameter analysis as summarized in Pintzuk (2005) derives all the possibilities, and must only stipulate that VOAux is excluded. The Kaynian analysis of Biberauer and Roberts (2005 fares similarly. 3 Only the account of Wallenberg (2009) seems able to overcome these problems, though at the cost of assuming a monoclausal derivation for multi-verb clauses in OE, i.e.…”

“…The factors conditioning the alternation between object-verb (OV) and verb-object (VO) orders in Old English (OE) have been the subject of a lot of attention in recent years (see Pintzuk 2002Pintzuk , 2005 and the references given there; Biberauer & Roberts 2005Wallenberg 2009, to appear;Taylor & Pintzuk 2010, to appear). Initial investigation of the data revealed that information structure seemed to play a role in conditioning the alternation, leading naturally to the simple hypothesis that objects are postverbal iff they are new information (cf.…”

“…Roberts 1997:412) predict (3) for OE. The analysis of Biberauer and Roberts (2005) may appear to make this prediction, but only if it is assumed that auxiliary constructions in OE are monoclausal; if such constructions are assumed to be biclausal, involving selection of a non-finite TP by a finite V, as in Biberauer and Roberts (2005: 15), then VO orders can be derived with or without focus .…”

“…Individual analyses have tried to account for some of these phenomena without rightward movement or adjunction: Biberauer and Roberts (2005, for instance, assume that focalized objects remain in situ and are spelled out after all other material, due to a particular implementation of phase theory, Radical Spellout. However, unified analyses of this type of phenomenon are rare, which is surprising given that as apparent instances of rightward movement they present a serious problem for the strong Kaynian thesis at first sight.…”

Subject Placement in the History of Latin

“…Other languages are more flexible, in that they allow for both VP and DP movement: (Colloquial) Afrikaans can be said to be such a language. The reader is referred to Biberauer (2003), Biberauer & Roberts (2005) and Biberauer & Richards (2006) for more detailed discussion of the original proposal.…”