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Clause structure in Old English: evidence from Negative Concord

Haeberli, Eric ; Haegeman, Liliane

In: Journal of Linguistics, 1995, vol. 31, no. 1, p. 81-108

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    Titre
    • Clause structure in Old English: evidence from Negative Concord
    Auteur
    • Haeberli, Eric. Département de linguistique générale, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland. E-mail: haeberli@uni2a.unige.ch haegeman@uni2a.unige.ch
    • Haegeman, Liliane. Département de linguistique générale, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland. E-mail: haeberli@uni2a.unige.ch haegeman@uni2a.unige.ch
    Type de document
    • Postprint
    Langue
    • Anglais
    Publié dans
    • Journal of Linguistics, 1995, vol. 31, no. 1, p. 81-108. Cambridge University Press
    Autre version électronique
    Classification
    • Langue, Linguistique
    Identifiant OAI-PMH
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:290826
    Summary
    This paper deals with the clause structure of Old English. In the main body of the paper we adopt the ‘traditional' analysis of the West Germanic languages in which it is proposed that VP is head-final. We will argue (contra Van Kemenade 1987, pace Cardinaletti & Roberts 1991, Pintzuk 1991, Tomaselli 1991) that the clause structure of Old English contains a head-initial functional projection whose head can be the landing site of verb movement in subordinate clauses. This claim is based on evidence related to the distribution and interpretation of negative elements in Old English and West Flemish. We will show that differences between these two languages with respect to Negative Concord phenomena can be accounted for straightforwardly in terms of an Old English clause structure which is different from the one traditionally proposed for the modern Germanic SOV/V2 languages. In the appendix to the paper we briefly turn to the recent alternative approaches to the phrase structure of SOV languages in terms of a universal base hypothesis where all projections are head-initial (see Kayne (1993), Zwart (1993), Roberts (1995) for a discussion of Old English)