Cover not available
Part of
Historical Linguistics 2017: Selected papers from the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, San Antonio, Texas, 31 July – 4 August 2017
Edited by Bridget Drinka
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 350] 2020
► pp. 409–430

Copying of argument structure

A gap in borrowing scales and a new approach to model contact-induced change

This article deals with the copying of argument structure, pursuing two aims: first, I will discuss why the copying of verbs, and more specifically their argument structure, has never been truly dealt with in models of language contact, including borrowing scales and hierarchies. I will show that the reason lies in the use of the long-standing dichotomy between lexical and structural borrowing, which should be rethought. Second, I will propose an alternative approach using Johanson’s integrative approach to language contact and code copying (2002, 2008), Holler’s (2015) definition of integration conflicts on the level of argument structure, and a modified version of Myers-Scotton’s (2002) Abstract Level Model. I will apply my approach to a qualitative empirical corpus study of Old French psych verbs copied to Middle English, focusing on the description, analysis, and theoretical modelling of the integration conflict that arises with the EXPERIENCER argument syntactically expressed by a to-PP on the model of Old French. Finally, I will compare my findings with similar findings from studies of language acquisition and suggest some generalisations.
Keywords: Middle English, Old French, language contact, argument structure, copying, integration conflicts
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Borrowing hierarchies and the place of verbs
  • 3.Historical language contact and the copying of verbs
  • 4.The copying of verbs and integration conflicts
  • 5.Integrated and non-integrated verbs copied from Old French to Middle English
  • 6.Towards a new approach
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 9 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.350.19tri
References (68)
References
Allen, C. L. (1995). Case marking and reanalysis: grammatical relations from Old to Early Modern English. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F. & Chang, F. (2012). The roles of verb semantics, entrenchment, and morphophonology in the retreat from dative argument-structure overgeneralization errors. Language, 88(1), 45–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B., Pine, J., Rowland, C., Freudenthal, D. & Chang, F. (2014). Avoiding dative overgeneralization errors: semantics, statistics or both? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29(2), 218–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Appel, R. & Muysken, P. (1987). Language contact and bilingualism. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Blumenthal, P. & Stein, A., editors (2002). Tobler-Lommatzsch: Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch. 4 CD-ROMs und DVD mit Begleitbuch. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1993). Argument structure. In J. Jacobs, et al. (Eds.), Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research, Vol. 1, (p. 903–914). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Denison, D. (1993). English historical syntax. Longon: Longman.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, P. (2001). Die grammatische Integration von Fremdwörtern. Was fängt das Deutsche mit seinen Latinismen und Anglizismen an? In G. Stickel, (Ed.), Neues und Fremdes im deutschen Wortschatz. Aktueller lexikalischer Wandel, (pp. 183–209). Berlin: de Gruyter.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011). Das Fremdwort im Deutschen. de Gruyter Studium. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Engelberg, S., Meliss, M., Proost, K., and Winkler, E. (Eds.). (2015). Argumentstruktur zwischen Valenz und Konstruktion. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.Google Scholar
Field, F. (2002). Linguistic borrowing in bilingual contexts. John Benjamins, Amsterdam. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, O. & van der Leek, F. (1983). The demise of the Old English impersonal construction. Journal of Linguistics, 19, 337–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gradon, P., (Ed.). (1965). Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience, Vol. I of The Early English Text Society 278. [reprint of 1866]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J., (Ed.). (1978). Universals of human language, Vol. 1. Method and Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Grossman, E., Seržant, I. & Witzlack-Makarevich, A. (Eds.). (Forthcoming). Journal of Language Contact. Special Issue on Valency and Transitivity in Contact. Leiden: Brill.
Haugen, E. (1969). The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Highfield, A. & Valdman, A. (Eds.). (1981). Historicity and variation in Creole studies. Ann Arbor: Karoma.Google Scholar
Hock, H. H. & Joseph, B. D. (1996). Language history, language change, and language relationship. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Holler, A. (2015). Grammatik und Integration. Wie fremd ist die Argumentstruktur nicht-nativer Verben? In S. Engelberg, M. Meliss, K. Proost, & E. Winkler, (Eds.). Argumentstruktur zwischen Valenz und Konstruktion, (pp. 397–416). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.Google Scholar
Holler, A. & Scherer, C. (2010). Zur Argumentstruktur entlehnter Verben. In C. Scherer, & A. Holler (Eds.). Nicht-native Einheiten und Strukturen, (pp. 183–198). Berlin / New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1976). Towards an explanatory semantic representation. Linguistic Inquiry, 7, 89–150.Google Scholar
(1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, J., von Stechow, A., Sternefeld, W., and Vennemann, T., (Eds.). 1993. Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research, Vol. 1. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johanson, L. (2002). Contact-induced change in a code-copying framework. In Jones, M. C. & Esch, E., (Eds.). Language change: the interplay of internal, external and extra-linguistic factors, (pp. 285–313). Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008). Remodeling grammar. Copying conventionalization, grammaticalization. In Siemund, P. & Kintana, N., (Eds.), Language contact and contact languages, (pp. 61–79). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, M. C. & Esch, E. (Eds.). (2002). Language change: the interplay of internal, external and extra-linguistic factors. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroch, A. & Taylor, A. (Eds.). (2000). The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, Second Edition (PPCME2). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Laurent, F. (2008). La Somme le Roi. Société des Anciens Textes Français, Paris / Abbeville: Paillart.Google Scholar
Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes and alternations. A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Argument Structure. ([URL], consulted on 21 September 2018).
Martineau, F., (Ed.). (2009). Le corpus MCVF. Modéliser le changement: les voies du français. Ottawa: Université d’Ottawa.Google Scholar
Matras, Y. (2007). The borrowability of grammatical categories. In Matras, Y. & Sakel, J., (Eds.). Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective, (pp. 31–74). Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009). Language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matras, Y. & Sakel, J. (Eds.). (2007). Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, E. A. (1978). Language contact. In Greenberg, J., (Ed.), Universals of human language, Vol. 1 Method and Theory, (pp. 93–122). Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Muysken, P. (1981). Halfway between Quechua and Spanish: The case for relexification. In A. Highfield & A. Valdman (Eds.). Historicity and variation in Creole studies, (pp. 52–78). Ann Arbor: Karoma.Google Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C. (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C. & Jake, J. (1995). Matching lemmas in a bilingual language production model: Evidence from intrasentential codeswitching. Linguistics, 33, 981–1024. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Möhlig-Falke, R. (2012). The Early English impersonal construction. An analysis of verbal and constructional meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Orr, J. (1962). Old French and Modern English idiom. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1989). Learnability and cognition. The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (2018). Borrowing. Loanwords in the speech community and in the grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Primus, B. (1999). Rektionsprinzipien. In H. Wegener (Ed.), Deutsch. kontrastiv. Typologisch-vergleichende Untersuchungen zur deutschen Grammatik, (pp. 135–170). Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
(2012). Semantische Rollen. Heidelbert: Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Prins, A. A. (1948). French phrases in English. Neophilologus, 32, 28–39, 73–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prévost, S. & Stein, A. (Eds.). (2013). Syntactic reference corpus of Medieval French (SRCMF). Lyons: ENS; Paris: Lattice; Lyon/Stuttgart Universität Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Rothwell, W. (1976). The role of French in thirteenth century England. Bulletin of the John Rylauds Library, 58, 445–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1980). Lexical borrowing in a medieval context. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 63, 118–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothwell, W. & Trotter, D. (Eds.). (2001). Anglo-Norman Dictionary 2. Online Version. <[URL]>.
Scherer, C. & Holler, A. (Eds.). Nicht-native Einheiten und Strukturen. Berlin / New York: de Gruyter.
Siemund, P. & Kintana, N. (Eds.). (2008). Language contact and contact Languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stickel, G. (Ed.). 2001. Neues und Fremdes im deutschen Wortschatz. Aktueller lexikalischer Wandel. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. 2: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thomason, S. G. & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language contact, creolization and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Togeby, K. (1983). Grammaire française, vol. II. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.Google Scholar
Trips, C. & Stein, A. (2018). A comparison of multi-genre and single-genre corpora in the context of contact-induced change. In R. Whitt, (Ed.). Diachronic corpora, genre and language change, Studies in Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. pages 241-260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Contact-induced changes in the argument structure of Middle English verbs on the model of Old French. In E. Grossman, I. Seržant & A. Witzlack-Makarevich (Eds.). Journal of Language Contact. Special Issue on Valency and Transitivity in Contact. Leiden: Brill. pages 232-267.Google Scholar
Troberg, M. (2008). Dynamic two-place indirect verbs in French: A synchronic and diachronic study in variation and change of valence. University of Toronto, PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Wegener, H. (Ed.). 1999. Deutsch kontrastiv. typologisch-vergleichende Untersuchungen zur deutschen Grammatik. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Whitt, R. (Ed.). (Forthcoming). Diachronic corpora, genre and language change, Studies in Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logo
Winford, D. (2003). An Introduction to contact linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wohlgemuth, J. (2009). A typology of verbal borrowings. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 211). Berlin / New York: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woolford, E. (2006). Lexical case, inherent case, and argument structure. Linguistic Inquiry, 37, 111–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zaenen, A. & Maling, J. (1990). Unaccusative, passive and quirky case. In A. Zaenen & J. Maling (Eds.). Modern Icelandic syntax, (p. 137–152). New York: Academic. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
, (Eds.). Modern Icelandic syntax. New York: Academic.
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Percillier, Michael, Yela Schauwecker, Achim Stein & Carola Trips
2024. Contact Scenario 2: Anglo-French in Contact with Middle English. In Carrying Verbs Across the Channel [New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics, ], ► pp. 167 ff. DOI logo
Percillier, Michael, Yela Schauwecker, Achim Stein & Carola Trips
2024. Verbs in Historical Language Contact. In Carrying Verbs Across the Channel [New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics, ], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.