Description
As is well known, not all languages have dedicated definite articles and this was the case in Old English. A common gramaticalization path for definite articles is from the distal demonstrative and it is well known that the English definite article the grammaticalized from the masculine nominative demonstrative, se. In terms of syntactic structure, this is a change from specifier to head, following the economy principles proposed by van Gelderen 2005. In this talk I show two pieces of evidence, from noun movement and from co-occurring demonstratives and possessives, (as shown in (1) below) that the structural change was taking place in late Old English and that the demonstrative was already becoming a head in the DP before the form changed to the.
(1). his þa æfestan tungan
his that-nom-pl pious tongue-f-pl (Bede 342.17)
I also examine constructions involving demonstratives of the present-day English form in (2) below:
(2) Hill's confidence has grown throughout this his first full season as a front-line racer in Formula One since he replaced Nigel Mansell in the Williams team. (K3X [Liverpool Daily Post and Echo])
and suggest that the word order of the type “this his” possibly represents three different constructions between OE and present-day English and not one continuous expression as is sometimes supposed.
| Period | 4 May 2007 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Diachronic change in the English DP: The Definite Article and Demonstratives |
| Event type | Conference |
| Organiser | Arizona State University |
| Location | Tempe, AZ, United StatesShow on map |