Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T01:47:13.440Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The rate of phrase structure change in the history of Yiddish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Beatrice Santorini
Beatrice Santorini
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The postion of inflected verbs in early Yiddish varies between second position and positions later in the clause. Standard distributional tests establish that this reflects variation in the underlying position of infl, and that Yiddish phrase structure changed from infl-final to infl-medial. Based on clauses containing the relevant structural diagnostics, we can estimate the rate of this change. We cannot, however, determine the phrase structure of structurally ambiguous clauses (i.e., those superficially consistent with either of the phrase structures) with certainty. Nevertheless, we can use quantitative methods to estimate the likelihood of such clauses being infl-medial, and we can then use these likelihoods to provide an additional estimate of the rate of the change. Comparing both estimates reveals that they do not differ significantly. The implications of this result are briefly examined in conclusion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 1993 , pp. 257 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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

Assaf, Simkha. (1942). Mekorot le-toledot ha-hinnukh be-Yisrael. Tel Aviv: DVIR Co. Ltd.Google Scholar
Bach, Emmon, Brown, Colin, & Marslen-Wilson, William D. (1986). Crossed and nested dependencies in Dutch and German: A psycholiguistic study. Language and Cognitive Processes 1:249–262CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, C.-J. (1973). Variation and linguistic theory. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. (1988). Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna, & Roberts, Ian. (1991). Clause structure and X-second. Unpublished ms., Università di Venezia and Université de Genève. To appear in Chao, W. & Horrocks, G. (eds.), Levels, principles and processes: The structure of grammatical representations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. (1986). Barriers. (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 13.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
den Besten, Hans. (1986). Decidability in the syntax of verbs of (not necessarily) West-Germanic languages. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Liguistik 28:232–256.Google Scholar
den Besten, Hans, & Edmondson, Jerold A. (1983). The verbal complex in Continental West Germanic. In Abraham, W. (ed.), On the formal syntax of the Westgermania. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 155–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
den Besten, Hans, & Moed-van Walraven, Corretje. (1986). The syntax of verbs in Yiddish. In Haider, H. & Prinzhorn, M. (eds.), Verb second phenomena in Germanic. (Publications in Language sciences 21.) Dordrecht: Foris. 111–135.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. (1990). Verb movement and the subject position in Yiddish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 8:41–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dinse, Helmut, & Liptzin, Sol. (1978). Einführung in die jiddische Literatur. (Sammlung Metzler 165, Abteilung D, Literaturgeschichte). Stuttgart: Metzler.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. (1976). A transformational approach to English syntax: Root, structure preserving, and local transformations. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Evers, Arnold. (1975). The transformational cycle in Dutch and German. Doctoral dissertaion, University of Utrecht. Distributed by the Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane, & van Riemsdijk, Henk. (1986). Verb projection raising, scope and the typology of verb movement rules. Linguistic Inquiry 17:417–466.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders, & Platzack, Christer. (1988). On the role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax. Working Papers in Scandinavian Sybtax 42:25–42.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1989a). Function and grammar in the history of English periphrastic do. In Fasold, R. & Schiffrin, D. (eds.), Language variation and change (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 52.) Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 133–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1989b). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1:199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S., & Santorini, Beatrice. (1991). The derived constituent structure of the West Germanic verb raising costruction. In Freidin, R. (ed.), Proceedings of the Princeton Workshop on Comparative Grammar. (Current studies in Lingustics 20.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 269–338.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, David. (1991). How to set parameters. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lötscher, Andreas. (1978). Zur Verbstellung im Zürichdeutschen und in anderen Varianten des Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 45:1–29.Google Scholar
Pintzuk, Susan. (1991). Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Pintzuk, Susan, & Kroch, Anthony S. (1989). The rightward movement of complements and adjuncts in the Old English of Beowulf. Language Variation and Change 1:115–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, Jean-Yves. (1989). Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20:365–424.Google Scholar
Santorini, Beatrice. (1989). The generalization of the verb-second constraint in the history of Yiddish. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Santorini, Beatrice. (1992). Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clauses word order. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10:595–640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Bonnie & Vikner, Sten. (1990). All verb second clauses are CPs. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 43:27–49.Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa deMena. (1984). Parameters and effects of word order variation. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. (1991). Verb movement and the licensing of NP-positions in Germanic languages. Doctoral dissertation (revised version), Université de Genève.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Max. (1980). History of the Yiddish language. Translated from the Yiddish by Fishman, Joshua & Noble, Shlomo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Zaenen, Annie. (1979). Infinitival complements in Dutch. In Clyne, Paul R., Hanks, William F., & Hofbauer, Carol L. (eds.), Papers from the 15th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 378–389. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Zwart, Jan-Wouter. (1991). Clitics in Dutch: Evidence for the position of infl. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 33:71–92.Google Scholar