Revisiting the Wackernagelposition. The Evolution of the Cimbrian Pronominal System

Bidese, Ermenegildo (2011) Revisiting the Wackernagelposition. The Evolution of the Cimbrian Pronominal System. Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 347-367. ISBN 9789027205902

[img]
Preview
 PDF
Download (270Kb) | Preview

    Abstract

    The present contribution reconstructs the development of the personal object pronouns of Cimbrian, a German dialect spoken in Northern Italy which evolved many centuries in close contact with northern Italy’s Romance dialects. With reference to their functional status and their clausal position we discover that Cimbrian’s object pronouns started from a German model and have over time become closer to a Romance one. In the older Cimbrian texts, these elements are clearly recognizable as full phrases (XP), occupying the traditional Wackernagelposition; in modern writings they behave as heads (X°) and appear only in an ‘adverbal’ position, i.e. enclitic to the finite verb, similarly to the syntax of Romance object pronouns. The fact that they cannot be realized as proclitic to the finite verb – like the Romance ones – shows however that the original Germanic syntax limits the influence of that Romance. Attempting to explain this phenomenon, this current study suggests revisiting the structure of the Wackernagelposition.

    Item Type: Book chapter or Essay in book
    Department or Research center: Humanities
    Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics (General) > P0121 Linguistics
    P Language and Literature > PD Germanic languages
    P Language and Literature > PF West Germanic > PF3001 German
    Uncontrolled Keywords: Wackernagel; Wackernagelposition; Cimbrian; Syntax; Pronouns; Language Contact; Grammatical Change; Diachronic Linguistics
    Repository staff approval on: 20 Nov 2013 14:47

    Actions (login required)

    		 View Item