The decline of Latin VOAux
Résumé
This chapter is concerned with the diachrony of the Latin word order pattern ‘verb-object-auxiliary’ (VOAux). In the classical and late classical period (c.100 BC–200 AD), this order is productively available, but it is by and large absent in Late Latin. It is suggested that this change is related to the order VPAux being derived differently in Classical and in Late Latin. More specifically, it is proposed that only Late Latin VPAux-clauses are derived by means of roll-up movement, which gives rise to restrictions on possible word orders inside the verb phrase (Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts’s Final-Over-Final Constraint). In addition, it is proposed that this difference between Classical and Late Latin is an indirect result of an independent change, namely, the incorporation of the pre-verbal sentential negator non into the hierarchically highest verb, an evolution which can be considered part of Jespersen’s Cycle.
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Danckaert, The decline of Latin VOAux June 2015.pdf (358.11 Ko)
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