LL-L "Grammar" 2012.03.01 (04) [EN]

Fri Mar 2 04:53:17 UTC 2012

=====================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L - 01 March 2012 - Volume 04
lowlands.list at gmail.com - http://lowlands-l.net/
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
=====================================================

From: Pat Barrett pbarrett at cox.net
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2012.02.23 (01) [EN]

When I first saw this, I scrambled to my linguistic dictionaries and a
couple of other books but couldn't find anything. I even went to notebooks
on the history of French syntax where Martin Harris discussed Germanic
sentence structure but found nothing.

But I had just started a book called The Shape of English by Roger Lass and
idly turned to the back of the book and my eye lit upon the following
section heading: "Loss of the 'Sentence-Brace' and I thought, "Hmmmmmm"
Here, I believe, is at least part of what you are looking for. I have to
idea how to get this to you other than to type it out.
p. 327
(iii) Loss of the 'Sentence-Brace'
The sentence-brace (G Satzklammer [parenthetical sentence]) is an old West
Germanic construction which involves the splitting, under certain
conditions, of an auxiliary from a main verb. In simple intransitive
clauses, the normal order of WGmc (and NGmc for that matter) is: Subject +
Auxiliary + Infinitive/Participle:
(6.14)
                    Modal + Infinitive                          Perfect
G         Ich kann schreiben                           Ich habe geschrieben
Afr        ek kan skryf                                    ek het geskryf
Yi        ix ken srajbn                                      ix hob gesribn
E          I can write                                       I have written

But transitive clauses, or clauses containing adverbials (or pretty much
anything except subjects, auxiliaries, and main verbs), have a different
order in German and Afrikaans (and Dutch and Frisian): the subject and
auxiliary come in the first two places as usual, but the infinitive or
participle is extraposed to the end, coming after the object or adverb - a
'brace' enclosing the non-subject material. Thus:
ich kann den Brief schreiben      I can write the letter
ich habe den Brief geschrieben     I've written the letter   German
ich kann jetzt schreiben            I can write now

ek kan die brief skryf
ek het die brief geskryf                    Afrikaans
ek kann nou skryf

The rule for brace-formation is roughly: a finite verb (aux) in position 2;
b objects, adverbs, etc. in position 3; c nonfinite verbal material (i.e.
the main verb) to the end.

English has lost the construction entirely (but see 5.7.2): *I can the
letter write, *I have the letter written (the latter of course is fine if
it's not a perfect, but means 'I've got the letter finished'). Yiddish at
first appears to have lost it too: using the same examples as above:

(6.16)
a. ix ken srajbn           ix ken srajbn dos brif
b. ix hob gesribn         ix hob gesribn dos brif

But if we have an adverb, or if the object of the verb is a pronoun, we
still have the brace:

(6.17)
a. ix ken es srajbn                I can write it
b. ix hob es gesribn              I wrote it
c. ix hob gestern gesribn       I wrote yesterday

The brace can also occur - optionally - in main clauses in conditional
constructions:

(6.18)
a. as got zol vojnen ojf der erd,
    if God shall live on earth
    volten di mensn baj im di fenster ojsslogn
    would the men by him the windows out-hit
    'If God lived on earth, men would break his windows'

b. as me ken nit bajsn,
    if one can not bite
    zol men nit scirn mit di cejn
    shall one not grind with the teeth
    'If you can't bite, don't growl'

(The initial position of the auxiliary (zol, volten) in the main clause is
due to the fact that the subordinate ('if') clause comes first; according
to the verb-second rule, the preposed subordinate clause takes up position
1, and attracts the finite verb to its immediate right.)

As in the past/perfect case, we can see distinct phases in the loss of a
construction: Afrikaans and German have the original firmly established;
Yiddish has lost it overall, but retains it obligatorily with adverbs and
pronominal objects, and optionally in conditionals; English has lost it
entirely. Clearly the current state of Yiddish represents a point 'between'
the two, in terms of historical type, a process of diffusion from
environment to environment caught in midstream.

(iv) Loss of Split Word Order

Since earliest West Germanic there has been a strong tendency toward a
split word-order: verb-second in main clauses and verb-final in subordinate
clauses. This tendency (strong in OE, perhaps somewhat less so in the other
dialects) became rigid in German and Dutch during the course of the 16th
c.. We can see the pattern in German and Afrikaans:

(6.19)
a. Relative Clause
            Das Auto [das ich gekauft habe] is neu
            Die motor [wat ek gekoop het] is nuut
            'The car [that I bought have] is new

b. Complement Clause
            Er dachte [dass er krank waere]
            Hy het gedink [dat hy siek was]
            'He thought [that he sick was]

Compare this with Yiddish and English:

(6.20)
            Dos kar [vos ix hob gekauft] iz naj
            The car [that I have bought ] is new
            Er hot gedaxt [dos er iz geven krank]
            He thought [that he was sick]

The loss of both the sentence-brace and the in principle very similar
verb-final rule proceeded in the same way: by an increasingly common
process of rightward movement of preverbal material. There is considerable
evidence for this in OE; and even in modern German, which has quite rigid
brace and verb-final constraints, extraposition is allowed under certain
conditions: e.g. comparative phrases are normally moved to the right out of
the brace ('exbraciated'):

(6.21)
Expected:
Wir haben [einen besseren Wein als diesen] getrunken.
We have [a better wine than this] drunk.
'We;ve drunk a better wine than this'

Actual:
Wir haben [einen besseren Wein] getrunken als diesen.

Verb-second subordinate clauses arose in English in a similar way: by
extraposing preverbal material like objects. The type is:

(6.22)
he saegde thaet he [thone mann] seah
he saegde thaet he seah [thone mann]
'He said that he saw the man'
(in the last German sentence there's an arrow from Wein to als and in the
last OE sentence from he to thone)

Both brace and verb-final subordinate clauses were variable in OE, and
became steadily less frequent, virtually disappearing in the 14th centurn;
Yiddish maintained both until the late 19th c.

This doesn't get to all your questions, Vlad, and there were no
bibliographical references in these two passages, but this may give a
starting point for further investigation to your most interesting questions.
(most of the Yiddish s should be sh sound
Pat Barrett pbarrett at cox.net
http://ideas.lang-learn.us/barrett.php

 =========================================================
 Send posting submissions to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
 Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands.list at gmail.com
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498
==========================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20120301/8edc4046/attachment.htm>