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Failed grammaticalisation of a phrase signifying “(n)ever” Eric Hoekstra & Bouke Slofstra

Failed grammaticalisation of a phrase signifying “(n)ever” Eric Hoekstra & Bouke Slofstra. Current Trends in Grammaticalization Research 2009. The data. Investigate the rise and fall of the phrase syn leven his life => ‘ever’ syn leven net his life not => ‘never’

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Failed grammaticalisation of a phrase signifying “(n)ever” Eric Hoekstra & Bouke Slofstra

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  1. Failed grammaticalisation of a phrase signifying “(n)ever”Eric Hoekstra & Bouke Slofstra Current Trends in Grammaticalization Research 2009

  2. The data • Investigate the rise and fall of the phrase syn levenhis life => ‘ever’ syn leven net his life not => ‘never’ • Data from 17-18th century Frisian (Middle Frisian). Hoekstra & Slofstra

  3. The theoretical question • Why didn’t this phrase grammaticalise? • Why did it lose out against its rivals oait / noait ‘ever/never’. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  4. Language Corpus Middle Frisian • Around 1 million of words • Tagged for all types of agreement • Lemmatised • Exhaustive • Beta-version internally available • Freely available through www as of 2010 • Presentation at Euralex 2010, Leeuwardenhttp://www.euralex.nl/ Hoekstra & Slofstra

  5. Three competitors meaning ‘ever / never’ in 17-18th century Frisian • Ea / Nea • Oait / Noait • Syn leven / Syn leven nethis life / his life not‘ever / never’ Hoekstra & Slofstra

  6. Ea / Nea • Derives from Old Frisian a / na. • Last attested 1702 (ea), 1718 (nea). • Basically absent in 18th century. • Found again from 1830 onwards. • Brought back to life by the Frisian Language movement • Nowadays still written, sometimes heard, called boekjefrysk ‘Frisian from a book’. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  7. Oait / Noait • Homophonous to Dutch ooit / nooit • Borrowed from Dutch • First attested 1702 (oait), 1672 (noait) • Dutch ooit / nooit has ousted older Dutch ie / nie, the cognates of Frisian ea / nea Hoekstra & Slofstra

  8. Dutch ooit / nooit ousts Frisian ea/nea: (N)EA roughly 17th century (N)OAIT roughly 18th century Hoekstra & Slofstra

  9. Syn leven / Syn leven net It comes in two forms. Dutch form: Syn leven / Syn leven net His life / His life not ‘ever/never’ Frisian form: Syn libben / Syn libben net Hoekstra & Slofstra

  10. Syn leven (net) is a loan from Dutch Argument 1 is phonological: intervocalic /v/ does not occur in native MF words after a mid or a high vowel Hoekstra & Slofstra

  11. Syn leven (net) is a loan from Dutch (argument 2) • Argument 2syn leven (net) first attested 1614syn libben (net) first attested 1675 • So the Frisian form is a relexification of the Dutch form, testifying to some language vitality. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  12. Syn leven (net) is a loan from Dutch (argument 3) • Outside the construction syn leven (net), the word leven doesn’t occur. • Outside the construction syn libben (net), the word libben occurs + 400 times. • => The word leven was not borrowed. Only the construction syn leven (net) as a whole was, in the meaning ‘(n)ever’. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  13. Overview of syntactic environments under investigation • Rhetorical questions • Comparative relative ‘so ... like...’. • Exclamative • Clauses with a clausal negation • In the scope of a negative DP such as nobody • In the scope of an excluding head such as if, before, deny. • Relative clauses (free relative clauses) Hoekstra & Slofstra

  14. Rhetorical questions Wa het sijn libben herd fen socke bottewho has his life heard of such terribledingen (1711)things ‘Who ever heard of such terrible things?’Frequency leven + libben: (4+12) = 16 Hoekstra & Slofstra

  15. Comparative relative ‘so/such ... as...’ It is zok maol praat az ik mijn levenit is such crazy talk as I my lifeheard hab! (1779)heard have ‘It’s such crazy talk as I never heard in my life.’ Frequency leven + libben: (2+1) = 3 NB Weak context for NPI Hoekstra & Slofstra

  16. Exclamative (idiomatic) Nou hab ik mijn leven! … hoe bijtinke now have I my life … how thinkdijMinschen 't! (1779)thosepeople (of) it‘Well upon my life! … How do those people come to think of it!’ Frequency leven + libben: (2+0) = 2 Why is the Dutch form leven used here? Hoekstra & Slofstra

  17. Exclamative features the Dutch form. Why? • In the source (a play), rethorical uses feature Frisianised ‘libben’. • => Why is ‘leven’ re-borrowed from Dutch? • => Because it a new syntactic context, and it is a different, more abstract semantic use! Hoekstra & Slofstra

  18. Clause negation ick hie t oors mijn levenI would-have it otherwise my lifeneat ljæuwd (1701)not believed‘Otherwise, I’d never have believed it.’Frequency leven + libben: (19+15) = 34 Hoekstra & Slofstra

  19. Zero in the following contexts • In the scope of a negative DP such as nobodyEA 5:31 (total 36) OAIT 35:95 (130) • In the scope of an excluding head such as if, before, deny.EA 10:26 OAIT 31:99 • Free / nominal relative clauses EA 14:22 OAIT 11:119 Hoekstra & Slofstra

  20. In the scope of a negative DP Joa zille nin fortriet Oyt syæn, (1755)they will no sadness ever see => No syn leven / libben is found in this context. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  21. In the scope of an excluding head such as if, before, deny, alas that. Dat mij ien koegel reitse (1748)that me a bullet may-hiteiar ik ien slaaf ooit hiet before I a slave ever was-called => No syn leven / libben is found in this context. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  22. Free / nominal relative clauses Joa trogzieke wis (1755) they search surelyhet hier ooyt trog toa sieken iswhat here ever through to search is => No syn leven / libben is found in this context. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  23. Zero-contexts for syn libben/leven Hoekstra & Slofstra

  24. Non zero-contexts for syn libben/leven Hoekstra & Slofstra

  25. Question Why didn’tsyn leven / libbenwin out againsteaandoait? Hoekstra & Slofstra

  26. (1) Syntactic reason Syn leven / libben was restricted to three contexts. It could not be used with negative DPs, excluding heads and free / nominal relative clauses – which are good contexts to score a higher frequency. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  27. (2)Semantic reason All examples with syn leven / libben have a very emphatic interpretation (high degree); as such they are found in rethorical questions, exclamatives and comparative relatives indicating a high degree. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  28. (3) Sociological reason The expression seems to be associated with low class and spoken language. It is frequent in low comedy, it doesn’t occur in the translation of the psalms of Althuysen. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  29. (4) Another syntactic reason Syn leven / libben has the structure of: POSSESSOR + leven / libben The possessor is in most examples coreferential with the subject (or topic?). Hoekstra & Slofstra

  30. (4) Another syntactic reason continued Heste dijn libben zok foelbekjen wol heard? Have-you your life such foulspeech ADV heard? ick hie it mijn leven næt ljæud/ I would-have it my life net believed • The agreeing possessor blocks further grammaticalisation en lexicalisation of the phrase in to a word (majority of cases). Hoekstra & Slofstra

  31. Grammaticalisation in Sealter Frisian? • Frisian language family: • North Frisian (near the Danish border) • (West) Frisian (The Netherlands) • East Frisian (near the Dutch border) • Sealter Frisian only survivor of the East Frisian language, spoken by 2000 people in Sealterlân Hoekstra & Slofstra

  32. Frisian Language Family (map) (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Friesetaalgebied.png) Hoekstra & Slofstra

  33. Grammaticalisation in Sealter Frisian?(continued) Kramer (1970):silǻǻrge nit > *silarege > *siladege> sien Lääwdoage ‘his life days’ The possessor pronoun is fixed, so the phrase can be reanalysed as a word. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  34. Grammaticalisation in Sealter Frisian?(continued) • The possessor pronoun is frozen, 3sg, regardless of the ‘antecedent’; hence the phrase can be grammaticalised. • Native speakers consider silǻǻrge a word. • This confirms reason (4), that the changing possessor pronoun blocked grammaticalisation in Frisian. • Incidentally: OE aefre is perhaps derived from a word meaning ‘life’. Hoekstra & Slofstra

  35. To sum up The phrase syn libben/leven net failed to grammaticalise in 17th and 18th century West-Frisian for a complex of syntactic, semantic and sociological reasons. Thank you for your attention! Hoekstra & Slofstra

  36. Questions Questions on any aspect of Frisian: ehoekstra@fryske-akademy.nl bslofstra@fryske-akademy.nl Hoekstra & Slofstra

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