Residual Verb Second in French and Romance

This article revisits the classic definition of a Residual Verb Second language in light of evidence from the history of French, which is supplemented with synchronic evidence from the Romance languages. The core proposal is that following the loss of the Verb Second property French has successivel...

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Main Author: Sam Wolfe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2022-08-01
Series:Isogloss
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/208
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author Sam Wolfe
author_facet Sam Wolfe
author_sort Sam Wolfe
collection DOAJ
description This article revisits the classic definition of a Residual Verb Second language in light of evidence from the history of French, which is supplemented with synchronic evidence from the Romance languages. The core proposal is that following the loss of the Verb Second property French has successively lost multiple Verb Second correlates such that the grammar at different stages can be described as ‘more’ or ‘less’ Verb Second, according to the degree of left-peripheral phrasal or head movement permitted. Novel corpus data is presented for Renaissance and Classical French to show that the triggers for such movement become increasingly restricted along micro and nanoparametric grounds. The gradient conception of Residual Verb Second which emerges from the data is also borne out in the Modern Romance languages, which are argued to instantiate multiple points on a typology of Verb Second residues according to the degree of left-peripheral phrasal movement or head movement that they license.
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spelling doaj.art-5b17defea8f2451eaccad3c72549999d2022-12-22T03:12:27ZengUniversitat Autònoma de BarcelonaIsogloss2385-41382022-08-018310.5565/rev/isogloss.208 Residual Verb Second in French and Romance Sam Wolfe0University of Oxford This article revisits the classic definition of a Residual Verb Second language in light of evidence from the history of French, which is supplemented with synchronic evidence from the Romance languages. The core proposal is that following the loss of the Verb Second property French has successively lost multiple Verb Second correlates such that the grammar at different stages can be described as ‘more’ or ‘less’ Verb Second, according to the degree of left-peripheral phrasal or head movement permitted. Novel corpus data is presented for Renaissance and Classical French to show that the triggers for such movement become increasingly restricted along micro and nanoparametric grounds. The gradient conception of Residual Verb Second which emerges from the data is also borne out in the Modern Romance languages, which are argued to instantiate multiple points on a typology of Verb Second residues according to the degree of left-peripheral phrasal movement or head movement that they license. https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/208Residual verb secondleft peripheryverb movementinversionFrench
spellingShingle Sam Wolfe
Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
Isogloss
Residual verb second
left periphery
verb movement
inversion
French
title Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
title_full Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
title_fullStr Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
title_full_unstemmed Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
title_short Residual Verb Second in French and Romance
title_sort residual verb second in french and romance
topic Residual verb second
left periphery
verb movement
inversion
French
url https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/208
work_keys_str_mv AT samwolfe residualverbsecondinfrenchandromance