Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:43:56.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Null Subjects in Early Icelandic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2016

Kari Kinn ,
Kristian A. Rusten  and
George Walkden
Kari Kinn*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo
Kristian A. Rusten*
Affiliation:
Bergen University College
George Walkden*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, Postbox 1102 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway, [[email protected]]
Department of English, Bergen University College, Inndalsveien, P.O. Box 7030, 5020 Bergen, Norway, [[email protected]]
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom, [[email protected]]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the possibility of subject omission in the history of Icelandic, including the syntactic and pragmatic conditions under which it could arise. Based on regression analysis of substantial data drawn from the IcePaHC corpus, we provide robust quantitative support for Hjartardóttir's (1987) claim that null subjects persist until a very late stage in Icelandic. We also argue, contra Sigurðsson (1993), that only one licensing mechanism is needed for null subjects in early Icelandic. Moreover, on the basis of the position of the null subjects and their person features, we argue that the modern stage, where (predominantly 3rd person) pro-drop yields to a system permitting topic drop of all persons, arises in Icelandic in the early twentieth century.*

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 31 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Axel, Katrin. 2007. Studies on Old High German syntax: Left sentence periphery, verb placement and verb-second. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axel, Katrin, & Weiß, Helmut. 2011. Pro-drop in the history of German from Old High German to the modern dialects. Null pronouns, ed. by Wratil, Melani & Gallmann, Peter, 21–52. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbosa, Maria do Pilar Pereira. 2009. Two kinds of subject pro. Studia Linguistica 63. 2–58.Google Scholar
Barbosa, Maria do Pilar Pereira. 2011. Partial pro-drop as Null NP Anaphora. LingBuzz: Electronic Archive of Linguistic Articles. Available at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001717.Google Scholar
Barbosa, Maria do Pilar Pereira. 2013. ‘Pro’ as a minimal NP: Towards a unified approach to ‘pro’-drop. LingBuzz: Electronic Archive of Linguistic Articles. Available at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001949.Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2001. Oblique subjects in Old Scandinavian. NOWELE 37. 25–51.Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna, & Eythórsson, Thórhallur. 2012. Reconstructing syntax: Construction grammar and the comparative method. Sign-based construction grammar, ed. by Boas, Hans C. & Sag, Ivan, 257–308. Stanford, CA: CSLI Press.Google Scholar
Barton, Ellen L. 1998. The grammar of telegraphic structures. Sentential and nonsentential derivation. Journal of English Linguistics 26. 37–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berndt, Rolf. 1956. Form und Funktion des Verbums in nördlichen Spätaltenglischen. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Biberauer, Theresa. 2008. Introduction. The limits of syntactic variation, ed. by Biberauer, Theresa, 1–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg, Roberts, Ian, & Sheehan, Michelle. 2010. Parametric variation. Null subjects in Minimalist theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bopp, Franz. 1820. Analytical comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic languages, showing the original identity of their grammatical structure. Annals of Oriental Literature 1. 1–65.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan, & Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1990. A note on Icelandic coordination. Syntax and semantics. Modern Icelandic syntax, ed. by Maling, Joan & Zaenen, Annie, 355–366. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1982. Some concepts and consequences of the theory of Government and Binding. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.Google Scholar
Duarte, Maria. Lamoglia, Eugenia. 1995. A perda do princípio “evite pronome” no português brasileiro. Campinas, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation.Google Scholar
Déchaine, Rose-Marie, & Wiltschko, Martina. 2002. Decomposing pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 33. 409–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eggenberger, Jakob. 1961. Das Subjektspronomen im Althochdeutschen. Ein syntaktischer Beitrag zur Frühgeschichte des Deutschen Schrifttums. Zürich, Switzerland: University of Zürich dissertation.Google Scholar
Eythórsson, Thórhallur, & Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2005. Oblique subjects: A common Germanic inheritance. Language 81. 824–881.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 1994. Old and Middle Scandinavian. The Germanic languages, ed. by König, Ekkehard & van der Auwera, Johan, 38–71. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 2001. The notion of oblique subject and its status in the history of Icelandic. Grammatical relations in change, ed. by Faarlund, Jan Terje, 99–135. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 2004. The syntax of Old Norse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje. 2013. The pro cycle. Argument structure in flux: The Naples-Capri papers, ed. by van Gelderen, Elly, Barðdal, Jóhanna, & Cennamo, Michela, 257–284. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje, Lie, Svein, & Ivar, Kjell Vannebo. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Falk, Cecilia. 1992. Pro-drop in Early Modern Swedish. Folia Linguistica Historica 13. 115–123.Google Scholar
Falk, Cecilia. 1993. Non-referential subjects and agreement in the history of Swedish. Lingua 89. 143–180.Google Scholar
Falk, Hjalmar, & Torp, Alf. 1900. Dansk-Norskens syntax i historisk fremstilling. Kristiania: H. Aschehough.Google Scholar
Ferraresi, Gisella. 2005. Word order and phrase structure in Gothic. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Fertig, David. 2000. Null subjects in Gothic. American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 12. 3–21.Google Scholar
Frascarelli, Mara. 2007. Subjects, topics and the interpretation of referential pro: An interface approach to the linking of (null) pronouns. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25. 691–734.Google Scholar
van Gelderen, Elly. 2000. A history of English reflexive pronouns. Person, self and interpretability. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelderen, van Elly. 2013. Null subjects in Old English. Linguistic Inquiry 44. 271–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Georgia M. 1976. Main clause phenomena in subordinate clauses. Language 52. 382–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1990. Understood subjects in English diaries. Mulitilingua 9. 157–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane, & Ürögdi, Barbara. 2010. Referential CPs and DPs: An operator-movement account. Theoretical Linguistics 36. 111–152.Google Scholar
Håkansson, David. 2008. Syntaktisk variation och forändring. En studie av subjektslösa satser i fornsvenska. Lund, Sweden: University of Lund dissertation.Google Scholar
Håkansson, David. 2013. Null referential subjects in the history of Swedish. Journal of Historical Linguistics 3. 155–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugan, Jens. 1998. Subjektet i passiv av norr⊘ne dobbelt objekt-konstruksjonar. Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 16. 157–184.Google Scholar
Hjartardóttir, Thóra Björk. 1987. Getið í eyðurnar. Reykjavik, Iceland: University of Iceland MA thesis.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36. 533–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2010. Null subject parameters. Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts, & Sheehan 2010, 88–124.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders, & Platzack, Christer. 1995. The role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders, & Roberts, Ian. 2010. Introduction: Parameters in Minimalist theory. Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts, & Sheehan 2010, 1–57.Google Scholar
Hooper, Joan, & Thompson, Sandra. 1973. On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry 4. 465–497.Google Scholar
Hróarsdóttir, Thorbjörg. 1996. The decline of OV word order in the Icelandic VP: A diachronic study. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 57. 92–141.Google Scholar
Huang, Yan. 2000. Anaphora: A cross-linguistic study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingason, Anton Karl, Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr, & Wallenberg, Joel C.. 2011. Distinguishing change and stability: A quantitative study of Icelandic oblique subjects, Philadelphia, PA: DiGS 13. Available at http://www.linguist.is/skjol/digs13oblique_slides.pdf/, accessed on May 30, 2015.Google Scholar
Jaeggli, Osvaldo, & Safir, Kenneth J.. 1989. The null subject parameter and parametric theory. The null subject parameter, ed. by Jaeggli, Osvaldo & Safir, Kenneth J., 1–44. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Jenset, Gard B. 2010. A corpus-based study of the evolution of there. Statistical analysis and cognitive interpretation. Bergen, Norway: University of Bergen dissertation.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra. 2009. Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3. 359–383.Google Scholar
Kinn, Kari. 2014. The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts. Information structure and syntactic change in Germanic and Romance languages, ed. by Kristin, Bech & Eide, Kristine Gunn, 173–200. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kinn, Kari. 2015. Null subjects in the history of Norwegian. Oslo: Norway: University of Oslo Dissertation.Google Scholar
de Korte, Siebe. 2008. Dutch topic drop as a PF phenomenon. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: University of Amsterdam MA thesis.Google Scholar
Lander, Eric, & Haegeman, Liliane. 2014. Old Norse as an NP language: With observations on the Common Norse and Northwest Germanic runic inscriptions. Transactions of the Philological Society 112. 279–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magnusson, Erik. 2003. Subject omission and verb initial declaratives in Swedish. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 71. 103–143.Google Scholar
Modesto, Marcelo. 2000. Null subjects without “rich” agreement. The null subject parameter in Brazilian Portuguese, ed. by Kato, Mary & Negr, Esmereldaão, 147–174. Frankfurt: Vervuert-Iberoamericana.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mörnsjö, Maria. 2002. V1 declaratives in spoken Swedish. Syntax, information structure and prosodic pattern. Lund, Sweden: Lund University dissertation.Google Scholar
Mosteller, Frederick. 1968. Association and estimation in contingency tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association 321. 1–28.Google Scholar
Nygaard, Marius. 1894. Udeladelse av subjekt; ‘subjektlöse’ sætninger i det norröne sprog (den klassiske sagastil). Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 10. 1–25.Google Scholar
Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norr⊘n syntax. Kristiania: Aschehough.Google Scholar
Nygård, Mari. 2013. Discourse ellipsis in spontaneously spoken Norwegian. Trondheim, Norway: Norwegian University of Science and Technology dissertation.Google Scholar
Ohlander, Urban. 1943. Omission of the object in English. Studia Neophilologica 16. 105–127.Google Scholar
Platzack, Christer. 1996. Null subjects, weak Agr and syntactic differences in Scandinavian. Studies in comparative Germanic syntax, vol. 2, ed. by Höskuldur Thráinsson, Samuel Epstein, David, & Peter, Steve, 180–196. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouplier, Marianne. 2003. Referential subject and object gaps in Icelandic. Nordlyd 31. 356–371.Google Scholar
Randall, Beth, Kroch, Anthony, & Taylor, Ann. 2005–2013. CorpusSearch 2. Online. Available at http://corpussearch.sourceforge.net/, accessed on May 30, 2015.Google Scholar
Richards, Marc. 2015. Defective Agree, case alternations, and the prominence of person. Scales and hierarchies. A cross-disciplinary perspective, ed. by Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina, Malchukov, Andrej, & Richards, Marc, 173–196. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1986. Null objects in Italian syntax and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 17. 501–557.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. Elements of grammar, ed. by Liliane, Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian G. 1993. Verbs and diachronic syntax: A comparative history of English and French. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 1990. We need (some kind of) a rule of conjunction reduction. Syntax and semantics. Modern Icelandic Syntax, ed. by Maling, Joan & Zaenen, Annie, 349–354. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 1991. Quirky subjects in Old Icelandic. Papers from the Twelfth Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, ed. by Sigurðsson, Halldór Á, 369–378. Reykjavík: University of Iceland.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 1995. Old Icelandic: A non-configurational language? NOWELE 26. 3–29.Google Scholar
Rosenkvist, Henrik. 2009. Referential null subjects in Germanic: An overview. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 84. 151–180.Google Scholar
Ross, John R. 1982. Pronoun deleting processes in German. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America held in San Diego, California, December 27–30, 1982.Google Scholar
Rusten, Kristian A. 2013. Empty referential subjects in Old English prose—a quantitative analysis. English Studies 94. 970–992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusten, Kristian A. 2015. A quantitative study of empty referential subjects in Old English prose and poetry. Transactions of the Philological Society 113. 53–75.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á. 1989. Verbal syntax and case in Icelandic. Reykjavik, Iceland: University of Iceland dissertation.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á. 1993. Argument-drop in Old Icelandic. Lingua 89. 247–280.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á. 2011. Conditions on argument drop. Linguistic Inquiry 42. 267–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á., & Egerland, Verner. 2009. Impersonal null-subjects in Icelandic and elsewhere. Studia Linguistica 63. 158–185.Google Scholar
Stjernholm, Karine. 2008. Subjektsellipser: Fins pro i norsk talespråk? Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo MA thesis.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., & Harald Baayen, R.. 2013. Models, forests and trees of York English: Was/were variation as a case study for statistical practice. Language Variation and Change 24. 135–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taraldsen, Tarald. 1978. On the NIC, vacuous application and the that-trace filter. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, & Thóra, Björk Hjartardóttir. 1986. Pro-drop, topic-drop..: Where do Old and Modern Icelandic fit in? Scandinavian syntax, ed. by Östen, Dahl & Holmberg, Anders, 150–161. Stockholm: University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Trutkowski, Ewa. 2011. Referential null subjects in German. Proceedings of the Sixth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics (CamLing), ed. by Cummins, Chris, Elder, Chi-Hé, Godard, Thomas, Macleod, Morgan, Schmidt, Elaine, & Walkden, George, 206–217. Cambridge: Cambridge Institute for Language Research.Google Scholar
Vance, Barbara. 1989. Null subjects and syntactic change in Medieval French. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation.Google Scholar
Walkden, George. 2013. Null subjects in Old English. Language Variation and Change 25. 155–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walkden, George. 2014. Syntactic reconstruction and Proto-Germanic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walkden, George. 2016. Null subjects in the Lindisfarne Gospels as evidence for syntactic variation in Old English. The Old English glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels: Language, author and context (Buchreihe der Anglia), ed. by Cuesta, Julia Fernández & Sanz, Sara M. Pons, 237–254. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Wallenberg, Joel C., Ingason, Anton Karl, Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr, & Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 2011. Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus (IcePaHC). Available at http://linguist.is/icelandic_treebank, accessed on May 30, 2015.Google Scholar
Weir, Andrew. 2012. Left-edge deletion in English and subject omission in diaries. English Language and Linguistics 16. 105–129.Google Scholar
Wendt, Bo-A. 2006. Vykortsstil i verkligheten. Elliptiskt och icke satsformat språkbruk i vykort. Lekt och lärt. Vänskrift till Jan Einarsson, ed. by Ask, Sofia, Byrman, Gunilla, Hammarbäck, Solveig, Lindgren, Maria, & Stille, Per, 244–295. Växjö: Växjö University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggen, Geir. 1975. Utelatelse av setningsledd. Norskrift 3. 1–47.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael. 2014. Expletive and referential subject pronouns in Medieval French. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar