1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Evolutionary Linguistic Theory
  4. Volume 6, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 6, Issue 1-2
  • ISSN 2589-1588
  • E-ISSN: 2589-1596
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

The first aim of our contribution is to revisit Brugmann’s (1917) tripartition of expletive subjects from the perspective of modern parametric theory, particularly with regard to the parametric values of [±Verb Second] (henceforth V2) and [±Null Subject] (henceforth NS). Karl Brugmann was the first scholar to address the phenomenon of expletive subjects in German, which he called (‘apparent subjects’), from a syntactic point of view, distinguishing between a positional expletive on the one hand and impersonal subjects on the other. His distinction receives important confirmation when reconducted to the basic parameter values of [+ Verb Second] and [−Null Subject] that characterise German. The second aim of our contribution is to show that Brugmann’s typology is useful not only for German, but also for languages with different parametric choices, such as English [−V2; −NS] and Italian [−V2; +NS]. Furthermore, we aim to determine whether Brugmann’s typology of expletives also holds for minority languages like Cimbrian, and for Romance varieties such as Northern Italian dialects. As we will show, Cimbrian and the Northern Italian dialects not only confirm Brugmann’s tripartition of expletive subjects, but also allow for a fine-grained distinction between expletives related to the syntax of the finite verb, that is to the parameter [±V2], which involves the C-domain, and to those related to the syntax of the subject, that is to the parameter [±NS], which involves the T-domain.

© 2024 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
2025-03-06
2025-03-22

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Axel, K.
    (2007) Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement and Verb-Second. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/la.112
     https://doi.org/10.1075/la.112 [Google Scholar]
  2. (2009) The consolidation of verb-second in Old High German: What role did subject pronouns play?InP. Crisma & G. Longobardi (Eds.), Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory (pp.128–143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560547.003.0008
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560547.003.0008 [Google Scholar]
  3. Benincà, P.
    (1994) La variazione sintattica. Studi di dialettologia romanza. Bologna: Il mulino.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. (2007) I clitici fra fonologia e sintassi. InR. Maschi, N. Penello & P. Rizzolatti (Eds.), Miscellanea di studi linguistici offerti a Laura Vanelli da amici e allievi padovani (pp.217–227). Udine: Forum.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Biberauer, T. & Roberts, I.
    (2010) Subjects, Tense and verb-movement. InT. Biberauer, A. Holmberg, I. Roberts & M. Sheehan (Eds.), Parametric Variation: Null Subjects in Minimalist Theory (pp.263–302). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bidese, E.
    (2004) Die Zimbern und ihre Sprache: Geographische, historische und sprachwissenschaftlich relevante Aspekte. InT. Stolz (Ed.), Alte Sprachen: Beiträge zum Bremer Kolloquium über ‘Alte Sprachen und Sprachstufen’ (pp.3–42). Bochum: Brockmeyer.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. (2008) Die diachronische Syntax des Zimbrischen, Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. (2021) Introducing Cimbrian. The main linguistic features of a German(ic) language in Italy. Energeia461, 19–62.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. (2023) Sprachkontakt generativ: Eine Untersuchung kontaktbedingten syntaktischen Wandels im Zimbrischen. Berlin: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110765014
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110765014 [Google Scholar]
  10. Bidese, E., Cognola, F. & Padovan, A.
    (2012) Zu einer neuen Verb-Zweit-Typologie in den germanischen Sprachen: der Fall des Zimbrischen und des Fersentalerischen. InP. Anreiter, I. Hajnal & M. Kienpointner (Eds.), In simplicitate complexitas: Festgabe für Barbara Stefan zum 70. Geburtstag (pp.69–86). Wien: Praesens Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Bidese, E., Padovan, A. & Tomaselli, A.
    (2013), Bilingual competence, complementizer selection, and mood in Cimbrian. InAbraham, W. & E. Leiss (Eds.), Dialektologie in neuem Gewand: Zu Mikro-/Varietätenlinguistik, Sprachenvergleich und Universalgrammatik (pp.47–58). Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Bidese, E. & Schallert, O.
    (2018) Partikelverben und sekundäre Prädikative im Zimbrischen. InS. Rabanus (Ed.), Deutsch als Minderheitensprache in Italien. Theorie und Empirie kontaktinduzierten Sprachwandels (pp.145–182). Hildesheim/Zürich/New York: Georg Olms Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Bidese, E., & Tomaselli, A.
    (2007) Diachronic Development in Isolation: The Loss of V2 Phenomena in Cimbrian. Linguistische Berichte2101, 209–228.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Bidese, E. & Tomaselli, A.
    (2016) The decline of asymmetric word order in Cimbrian subordination and the special case of umbrómm. InI. Reich & A. Speyer (Eds.), Co- and subordination in German and other languages (pp.55–75). Hamburg: Buske Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. (2018) Developing pro-drop: The case of Cimbrian. InF. Cognola & J. Casalicchio (Eds.), Null Subjects in Generative Grammar: A Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective (pp.52–69). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Bidese, E., Padovan, A. & Tomaselli, A.
    (2020) Rethinking Verb Second and Nominative case assignment: New insights from a Germanic variety in Northern Italy. InR. Woods & S. Wolfe (Eds.), Rethinking Verb Second (pp.575–93). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780198844303.003.0024
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198844303.003.0024 [Google Scholar]
  17. Brandi, L. & Cordin, P.
    (1981) Dialetti e italiano. Un confronto sul parametro del soggetto nullo. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa61, 33–89.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. (1989) Two Italian Dialects and the Null Subject Parameter. InO. A. Jaeggli & K. J. Safir (Eds.), The Null Subject Parameter (pp.111–42). Dordrecht: Springer. 10.1007/978‑94‑009‑2540‑3_4
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2540-3_4 [Google Scholar]
  19. Brugmann, K.
    (1917) Der Ursprung des Scheinsubjekts ‘es’ in den germanischen und den romanischen Sprachen. Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königl. Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig [Philologisch-historische Klasse]691. Band 5. Heft: 1–57.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Casalicchio, J. & Cordin, P.
    (2020) Grammar of Central Trentino. A Romance Dialect from North-East Italy. Leiden: Brill. 10.1163/9789004430976
     https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004430976 [Google Scholar]
  21. Cordin, P., Rabanus, S., Alber, B., Mattei, A., Casalicchio, J., Tomaselli, A., Bidese, E. & Padovan, A.
    (2018) VinKo, Versione 2 (20.12.2018, 09:20). Korpus im Text, Serie A, 137391. url: www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=13739&v=2
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Curme, G. O.
    (1922) A Grammar of the German Language. Revised and Enlarged Edition. New York: The Macmillan Company.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Fuß, E.
    (2018) Vorfeld-expletives in the history of German. Paper presented atSentence Grammar and Discourse Grammar III, University of Göttingen.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Fuß, Eric & Roland Hinterhölzl
    2022 On the historical development of pronouns referring to situations: the case of so-called ‘expletives’ in Germanic. Ms., Universities of Bochum & Venice.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Fuß, E. & Hinterhölzl, R.
    (2023) On the historical development of pronouns referring to situations: the case of so-called ‘expletives’ in Germanic. Journal of Historical Syntax, 7.21, 1–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Grewendorf, G. & Poletto, C.
    (2009) The hybrid complementizer system of Cimbrian. InV. Moscati & E. Servidio (Eds.), Proceedings XXXV Incontro di Grammatica Generativa (pp.181–194). Siena: Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Cognitivi sul Linguaggio.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. (2011) Hidden verb second: the case of Cimbrian. InM. T. Putnam (Ed.), Studies on German language-islands (pp.301–346). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/slcs.123.12gre
     https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.123.12gre [Google Scholar]
  28. (2015) Relative clauses in Cimbrian. InE. Di Domenico, C. Hamann & S. Matteini (Eds.), Structures, Strategies and Beyond. Studies in honour of Adriana Belletti (pp.393–416). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/la.223.18gre
     https://doi.org/10.1075/la.223.18gre [Google Scholar]
  29. Guardiano, C., Michelioudakis, D., Ceolin, A., Irimia, M. A., Longobardi, G., Radkevich, N., Silvestri, G. & Sitaridou, I.
    (2016) South by Southeast. A syntactic approach to Greek and Romance microvariation. L’Italia dialettaleLXXVII1, 95–166.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Holmberg, A.
    (2015) Verb Second. InT. Kiss & A. Alexiadou (Eds.), Syntax — Theory and Analysis. An International Handbook, vol. II1 (pp.342–382). Berlin: de Gruyter.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Hulk, A. & van Kemenade, A.
    (1995) Verb Second, Pro-Drop, Functional Projections and Language Change. InA. Battye & I. G. Roberts (Eds.), Clause Structure and Language Change (pp.227–256). New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780195086324.003.0009
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195086324.003.0009 [Google Scholar]
  32. Kaufmann, G.
    (2018) Relative Markers in Mennonite Low German: Their Forms and Functions. InA. Speyer & P. Rauth (Eds.), Syntax aus Saarbrücker Sicht 2. Beiträge der SaRDiS-Tagung zur (pp.109–148). Stuttgart: Steiner.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Kruijt, A., Cordin, P. & Rabanus, S.
    (2023) On the validity of crowdsourced data. InE. Pustka, C. Quijada Van den Berghe & V. Weiland (Eds.), Corpus Dialectology (pp.10–33). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/scl.110.01kru
     https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.110.01kru [Google Scholar]
  34. Light, C.
    (2015) Expletive there in West Germanic. InT. Biberauer & G. Walkden (Eds.), Syntax over Time. Lexical, Morphological, and Information-Structural Interactions (pp.17–35). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687923.003.0002
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687923.003.0002 [Google Scholar]
  35. Manzini, M. R. & Savoia, L. M.
    (2005) I dialetti italiani e romanci. Morfosintassi generativa. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Padovan, A.
    (2011) Diachronic Clues to Grammaticalization Phenomena in the Cimbrian CP. InM. T. Putnam (Ed.), Studies on German language-islands (pp.279–300). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/slcs.123.11pad
     https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.123.11pad [Google Scholar]
  37. Padovan, A., Bidese, E. & Tomaselli, A.
    (2021) Circumventing the ‘That-Trace’ Effect: Different Strategies between Germanic and Romance. Languages6.21, 08401–08413. 10.3390/languages6020084
     https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6020084 [Google Scholar]
  38. Padovan, A., Tomaselli, A., Bergstra, M., Corver, N., Etxepare, R. & Dold, S.
    (2016) Minority languages in language contact situations: three case studies on language change. Us Wurk65.3/4, 146–174.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Panieri, L., Pedrazza, M., Nicolussi Baiz, A., Hipp, S., & Pruner, C.
    (2006) Bar lirnen z’schreiba un zo reda az be biar. Grammatica del cimbro di Luserna. Grammatik der zimbrischen Sprach von Lusérn. Trento/Luserna: Regione Autonoma Trentino-Alto Adige/Autonome Region Trentino-Südtirol — Istituto Cimbro/Kulturinstitut Lusérn.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Poletto, C.
    (1993) Subject clitic/verb inversion in north eastern Italian dialects. Working Papers in Linguistics3/11, 95–137.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. (2000) The Higher Functional Field. Evidence from Northern Italian Dialects. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780195133561.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195133561.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  42. (2019) More than one way out. On the factors influencing the loss of V to C movement. Linguistic Variation19.11, 47–81 [Special Issue: C. Meklenborg Salvesen (eds.), A micro-perspective on Verb Second in Romance and Germanic]. 10.1075/lv.16001.pol
     https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.16001.pol [Google Scholar]
  43. Rabanus, S., Tomaselli, A., Padovan, A., Kruijt, A., Alber, B., Cordin, P., Zamparelli, R. & Vogt, B. M.
    (2021) VInKo (Varieties in Contact) Corpus. Eurac Research CLARIN Centre. hdl.handle.net/20.500.12124/32
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Renzi, L. & Vanelli, L.
    (1983) I pronomi soggetto in alcune varietà romanze. InP. Benincà, M. Cortelazzo, C. Marcato, A. L. Prosdocimi, L. Vanelli & A. Zamboni (Eds.), Scritti linguistici in onore di G.B. Pellegrini (pp.121–145). Pisa: Pacini.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Richards, M. & Biberauer, T.
    (2005) Explaining Expl. InM. den Dikken & C. Tortora (Eds.), The Function of Function Words and Functional Categories (pp.115–153). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/la.78.06ric
     https://doi.org/10.1075/la.78.06ric [Google Scholar]
  46. Rizzi, L.
    (1982) Issues in Italian Syntax, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. 10.1515/9783110883718
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110883718 [Google Scholar]
  47. (1986) On the status of subject clitics in Romance. InO. Jaeggli & C. Silva-Corvalan (Eds.), Studies in Romance linguistics (pp.391–419). Dordrecht: Foris. 10.1515/9783110878516‑025
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110878516-025 [Google Scholar]
  48. (1996) Residual V2 and the WH-Criterion. InA. Belletti & L. Rizzi (Eds.), Parameters and Functional Heads (pp.63–90). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780195087932.003.0003
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195087932.003.0003 [Google Scholar]
  49. Roberts, I.
    (2010a) Agreement and Head Movement. Clitics, Incorporation, and Defective Goals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014304.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262014304.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  50. (2010b) Varieties of French and the Null Subject Parameter. In: T. Biberauer, A. Holmberg, I. Roberts & M. Sheehan (Eds.), Parametric Variation: Null Subjects in Minimalist Theory (pp.1–57). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Tomaselli, A.
    (2023) Dal particolare all’universale. Viaggio nella grammatical del cimbro. Verona: QuiEdit.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Tomaselli, A. & Bidese, E.
    (2019) Subject clitic languages in comparison. Subject clitics, finite verb movement, and nominative case assignment in Germanic (Bavarian, Cimbrian) and Romance (French, North Italian) varieties. InE. Bidese, J. Casalicchio & M. C. Moroni (Eds.), La linguistica vista dalle Alpi. Teoria, lessicografia e multilinguismo — Linguistic views from the Alps. Language Theory, Lexicography and Multilingualism (pp.43–61). Berlin: Peter Lang.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. (2023) Fortune and Decay of Lexical Expletives in Germanic and Romance along the Adige River. Languages8(1) 441, 1–20. 10.3390/languages8010044
     https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010044 [Google Scholar]
  54. Tomaselli, A., Bidese, E. & Padovan, A.
    (2022) Feature Borrowing in Language Contact. Languages7(4), 1–10. 10.3390/languages7040288
     https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040288 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
Loading
On the threefold typology of Scheinsubjekte
Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 6, 158 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
/content/journals/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
/content/journals/10.1075/elt.00057.tom
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Brugmann; Cimbrian; expletives; Northern Italian dialects; Scheinsubjekte; syntax

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error