Emtpy Nouns in Old English

[DagmarHaumann at aol.com]

Dear linguists,

As has been argued by Lobeck (1993) and Kester (1996), strong adjectival
agreement morphology functions as a formal licenser for empty nominal heads,
e.g. German "das gruene Buch und das rote 'e' " (the green book and the red
'e'). Supportive evidence for the claim that the empty category is a head,
and not an NP, derives from the fact "ellipsis" does not affect the noun's
complements, e.g. German "das grosse Auto von Klaus und das kleine 'e' von
Paul" (the big car of Klaus and the small 'e' of Paul).

Thanks strong adjectival agreement morphology, Old English, like German and
Dutch, allows for empty nominal heads, e.g. "Her Leo se ae+dela papa & se
halga 'e' for+t ferde" (CHROA2,58.814.1) (here Leo that noble pope & that
holy 'e' departed).

I would like to find Old English data showing that the "ellipted" noun is
followed by a complement.

Thanks in advance,
Dagmar Haumann




Dagmar Haumann
Anglistische Linguistik
Universitaet Erfurt
Nordhaeuser Str. 63
D-99089 Erfurt
dagmar.haumann at uni-erfurt.de
http://www.uni-erfurt.de/englische_sprachwissenschaft/d_haumann.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/histling/attachments/20020609/4f97ef25/attachment.htm>