Journal of Historical Linguistics - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015

According to Haider (2010), we have to distinguish three types of infinitival complements in Present-Day German: (i) CP complements, (ii) VP complements and (iii) verbal clusters. While CP complements give rise to biclausal structures, VP complements and verbal clusters indicate a monoclausal structure. Non-finite verbs in verbal clusters build a syntactic unit with the governing verb. It is only the last infinitival pattern that we address as a so-called coherent infinitival pattern, a notion introduced in the influential work of Bech (1955/57). Verbal clusters are bound to languages with an OV grammar, hence the well-known differences regarding infinitival syntax in German and English (Haider 2003, Bobaljik 2004). On the widespread assumption that German has been an OV language throughout its history (Axel 2007), we expect all three types of infinitival complements to be present from the earliest attestions of German.This expectation, however, is not borne out. In the present article, I show that we find infinitival complements projecting either CPs or VPs in older stages of German, while verbal clusters turn out to be a quite recent phenomenon in the history of German, as already suggested in work by Askedal (1998), Demske (2008) and Maché & Abraham (2011). In line with current beliefs that German is underspecified regarding the direction of government in earlier stages of its historical development, I argue that the rise of verbal clusters is motivated by the increasing stabilization of an OV grammar since the 16th century.

In German, there are two infinitive constructions for complement infinitives, the accusativus cum infinitivo (AcI) and the object control infinitive construction (OCIC). Both constructions have nearly identical structures, where the logical subject of the infinitive is a distinct constituent from the rest of the infinitival clause, although in Modern German they show differences in form: the AcI is coherent and governs the bare infinitive, while the OCIC is incoherent and governs the zu-infinitive. It can be shown that these differences only developed over time and are reflexes of semantic differences between the constructions rather than of structural differences. Superficial binding differences that suggest a structural difference follow instead from the structures of the involved verb phrases.

This article deals with (non‑)finite complement clauses embedded under the inceptive phase predicate beginnen ‘begin’ in the history of German and illustrates how infinitives replaced finite clauses headed by the complementizer dass ‘that’. The main objective is to show that it was possible in Old High German (750–1050) to raise the subject from the embedded clause into the matrix subject position, crossing a CP boundary and leaving a pronominal copy in the dependent clause (copy-raising). Moreover, it is claimed that beginnen in its function as a subject control verb instantiates a recent development in the history of German and that this use developed out of a raising structure.

The article investigates diachronic changes in infinitival complementation from Caucasian Albanian to modern Udi dialects. It describes the syntactic structure of infinitival complements in Caucasian Albanian, 19th century Vartashen Udi and two modern dialects, and concentrates on case marking of overt subjects in constructions with the matrix verbs ‘can, be able’, ‘begin’ and ‘want’. From a diachronic point of view, the data presented in the article allow us to conclude that historical changes in both the lexical form of complement-taking predicates and the morphology of their complements obey Cristofaro’s (2003) Complement Deranking Hierarchy.

This article focuses on how and why non-finite structures weakened as a productive device for embedding in East Slavic and became replaced by an alternative system of finite CPs in many syntactic contexts. The relevant structures analyzed here are infinitive clauses and participial (absolute) constructions. Both constructions were available in almost any embedded context in early Slavic (Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian). However, in later stages (Middle Russian and Modern Russian) embedded infinitive constructions became severely restricted, while absolute constructions disappeared altogether. In order to account for this change, I review a series of conditions that preceded the decline process analyzed here and propose a final trigger for the emergence of a new system of non-finiteness in modern Russian; namely, I explore the possibility that the change in the pro-drop character of Russian turned embedded infinitive clauses into Obligatory Control structures, and forced every other non-finite structure to be replaced by an alternative (finite) embedding device.