Failed grammaticalisation of a phrase signifying never Eric

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

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

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

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, Leeuwarden http: //www. euralex. nl/ Hoekstra & Slofstra 4

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

Ea / Nea • • • Derives from Old Frisian a / na. Last attested 1702 (ea), 1718 (nea). Basically absent in 18 th 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 6

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 7

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

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 9

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 10

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

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 12

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 13

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

Comparative relative ‘so/such. . . as. . . ’ It is zok maol praat az ik mijn leven it is such crazy talk as I my life heard 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 15

Exclamative (idiomatic) Nou hab ik mijn leven! … hoe bijtinke now have I my life … how think dij Minschen 't! (1779) those people (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 16

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 17

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

Zero in the following contexts • In the scope of a negative DP such as nobody EA 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 19

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 20

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-hit eiar ik ien slaaf ooit hiet before I a slave ever was-called => No syn leven / libben is found in this context. Hoekstra & Slofstra 21

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

Zero-contexts for syn libben/leven Syn leven / EA libben 55 36 Scope of 0 Neg. DP Excluding 0 Head Free/nominal relative 0 clauses OAIT 130 5 35 10 31 14 11 Hoekstra & Slofstra 23

Non zero-contexts for syn libben/leven Syn leven / EA libben 55 36 Rethorical 16 Question Comp Rel + 5 Exclam Clause 34 Negation OAIT 130 6 26 0 0 0 27 Hoekstra & Slofstra 24

Question Why didn’t syn leven / libben win out against ea and oait? Hoekstra & Slofstra 25

(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 26

(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 27

(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 28

(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 29

(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 ÞThe agreeing possessor blocks further grammaticalisation en lexicalisation of the phrase in to a word (majority of cases). Hoekstra & Slofstra 30

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 31

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

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 33

Grammaticalisation in Sealter Frisian? (continued) • The possessor pronoun is frozen, 3 sg, 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 34

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

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