The Germanic Languages

A fair book reviewing all the Germanic languages.

Content:



1 Introduction 1

1.1 Some remarks on the organization of this volume 1

1.2 Divergence and convergence in the Germanic languages 6

1.2.1 Germanic languages and Standard Average European 9

1.2.2 Typological classification 12

1.3 A survey of the Germanic languages 13

1.3.1 East Germanic 14

1.3.2 West Germanic 15

1.3.3 The North Sea Coast languages 17

1.3.4 North Germanic 19

2 The Germanic lexicon 21

2.1 Loanwords 22

2.2 Derivation 26

2.2.1 Compounding 29

2.3 Discourse particles 32

2.4 Phrasal verbs 36

3 The sound systems of Germanic: inventories, alternations and

structures 41

3.1 Segmental inventories and alternations 41

3.1.1 The obstruents: place and manner of articulation 41

3.1.2 The sonorants 53

3.1.3 The vowels 56

3.2 The suprasegmental phonology of the Germanic languages 65

3.2.1 Syllable structure and sonority 65

3.2.2 Length 74

3.2.3 Lexical stress and the foot in Germanic phonology 79

3.2.4 Word tone in Germanic 84

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4 The Germanic nominal system: paradigmatic and syntagmatic

variation 89

4.1 Nominal inflection 89

4.1.1 Historical prelude: Indo-European heritage and Germanic

innovation 89

4.1.2 Inflectional categories of the noun 91

4.2 The internal structure of the nominal phrase 122

4.2.1 Nominal phrases without nominal heads 122

4.2.2 Nominal phrases with pronoun heads 124

4.2.3 Nominal phrases headed by lexical nouns 126

4.3 Determiners 137

4.3.1 Weak quantifiers 137

4.3.2 Definite articles 141

4.4 Genitive phrases 148

4.4.1 Genitive phrases and determiners 150

4.4.2 Proper name possessors and pronominal possessors 155

4.4.3 The English ‘double genitive’ construction 158

4.4.4 The prenominal periphrastic possessive (Jan se boek)

construction 158

4.4.5 Special developments of the genitive in

possessive constructions 161

4.4.6 Meronymic constructions 164

4.5 Predeterminers 167

4.6 Discontinuous nominal phrases 168

4.7 Adjective phrases 171

4.7.1 Comparison 174

4.8 Pronouns in the Germanic languages 175

4.8.1 Personal pronouns 175

4.8.2 The referential properties of pronouns 196

4.9 The external syntax of noun phrases: subjects 214

4.9.1 Subject agreement 214

4.9.2 The typology and distribution of “expletive”

arguments 224

4.9.3 Subjects in imperative clauses 236

4.9.4 Derived subjects and the syntax of voice 237

4.9.5 Raising constructions 256

5 The verbal systems of Germanic: paradigmatic and

syntagmatic comparison 270

5.1 Historical prelude: the Indo-European heritage and

Germanic innovations 270

5.1.1 Types of verbal inflection 270

5.1.2 Categories of verbal inflection: the Germanic tense/mood

system and its Indo-European antecedents 272

5.2 Modal auxiliaries 285

5.3 Developments in the expression of tense in Germanic 292

5.3.1 Identifying periphrastic tense/aspect constructions 293

5.3.2 Future 297

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5.3.3 Perfect tenses and past tenses 301

5.3.4 The meaning of the (present) perfect and the past 307

5.3.5 Progressive 315

5.4 Voice inflections and voice auxiliaries 316

5.4.1 Passive 317

5.4.2 Middle voice 322

5.4.3 The Scandinavian s-passive 327

5.5 Nonfinite verbal forms 329

5.5.1 The infinitive 329

5.5.2 The present participle and the English gerund 341

5.5.3 The past participle and the supine 345

5.6 Verbal valency 347

5.7 Head, complement and adjunct placement in the verb phrase 350

5.7.1 The relative order of the verb and its

complements within the VP 353

5.7.2 The order of objects 362

5.8 Phrasal verbs 366

6 The syntax of the clause 369

6.1 Sentence adverbs 370

6.2 The syntax of negation 376

6.2.1 Some definitions: negation, scope and polarity 376

6.2.2 Scope, polarity and syntactic position 377

6.2.3 Polarity items, negative concord and multiple

negation 379

6.2.4 Negative complementizers and pleonastic negation 382

6.2.5 Constituent negation with sentential scope 383

6.2.6 On formal differences between sentential negators and

constituent negators 392

6.2.7 On the typology of sentential negation in Germanic 394

6.3 The syntax of the left periphery: topics, verb-second and

subject/verb inversion 398

6.3.1 Main-clause/subordinate clause asymmetries in

verb position 400

6.3.2 The triggers of verb-second order and

the typology of V-2 404

6.4 Complementizers 415

6.4.1 That-clauses 415

6.4.2 Infinitive complements 417

6.5 Relative clauses, questions and other fronting constructions 420

6.5.1 A typology of Germanic relative constructions 420

6.5.2 Questions 473

6.5.3 Topic constructions and left dislocation constructions 47