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- Title
A comparative study of word order in Old Romance.
- Authors
Sitaridou, Ioanna
- Abstract
The main objective of this article is to discuss word-order phenomena in Old French, Old Spanish, Old Portuguese, and Old Occitan from a comparative perspective. In particular, the following are examined: (i) the empirical evidence in order to assess the theoretical arguments for and against a verb-second analysis of the Old Romance languages; (ii) verb movement in Old Romance; and (iii) whether the changes in the word-order patterns in the history of the Romance languages can be captured as yet another instance of grammaticalisation. By means of a uniform methodology and statistical analysis of novel data, it is claimed that: ( a) Old Romance does not possess a Germanic V2; ( b) there is variation in terms of word order among Old Romance languages, which is shown to be linked to the individual history of the languages; ( c) V2 order is mostly an epiphenomenon of the discourse mechanisms and the nature of the left functional field in these languages.
- Subjects
WORD order (Grammar); ROMANCE languages; GRAMMATICALIZATION; OLD French language; SPANISH language -- To 1500; PORTUGUESE language -- To 1500; PROVENCAL language; QUANTITATIVE research; VERBS; METHODOLOGY
- Publication
Folia Linguistica, 2012, Vol 46, Issue 2, p553
- ISSN
0165-4004
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/flin.2012.019