Article published In:
NOWELEVol. 71:1 (2018) ► pp.56–98
Verb-third in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch
This article investigates the status of so-called verb-final declaratives in Otfrid’s
Evangelienbuch, with a focus on whether clauses in which there is no apparent subordinator and the finite verb occurs later than the expected verb-first or verb-second position can be treated as verb-third (V3) clauses, as they are defined for Old High German in works such as
Axel (2007) and
Tomaselli (1995). Drawing on a set of 746 clauses, I argue that there is no evidence that the finite verbs in these clauses have undergone verb movement, as is claimed in the aforementioned works, nor are the asyndetic verb-late clauses with a verb in surface third position consistent with the patterns identified in the generative literature for the V3 type.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.A review of literature that deals with the V3 clause type in OHG
- 3.A clausal typology of Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch
- 3.1Determining clause type in Otfrid
- 3.2Clause types and their frequencies
- 3.2.1V1/V2 and Verb-late clauses – clauses with unambiguous left or right bracket finite verbs
- 3.2.2Ambiguous clauses
- 3.2.3Asyndetic verb-late clauses
- 4.Are there V3 clauses in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch?
- 4.1Verb movement in V3 clauses?
- 4.2Is there a V3 clause type in Otfrid?
- 4.2.1Claim 1: Violations of verb-second in OHG are V3 and show the order XP-SubjPro-Vfin
- 4.2.2Claim 2: Pronominal subjects, pronominal objects and light adverbs are most frequently attested in V3(+) clauses, full DP/NP subjects and objects more rarely, PPs not at all
- 4.2.3Claim 3: Intervening constituents in V3 (and V4(+)?) constructions are discourse-given
- 5.Conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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