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Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages
Edited by Kristin Bech and Kristine Gunn Eide
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 213] 2014
► pp. 341–376

On the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure

An interface approach to word order developments in Germanic

| University of Ca’Foscari, Venice

In this paper, I argue that the distinction between OV and VO word orders should not be accounted for by a distinction in the base. More specifically, I argue that this distinction can be reduced to the workings of two parallel interface conditions that define the optimal mapping from syntax to PF and from syntax to LF, respectively. I discuss how mixed OV/VO orders in Old High German and Old English can be accounted for in this framework and then lay out the historical conditions and the possible grammatical factors that made English develop into a PF-transparent VO language and German into a scope-transparent OV language.

Published online: 7 May 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.213.13hin
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