A Study on the Impact of Information Structure on the Diachronic Shift of Subject Positions in English: From a Discourse Configurational Language to a Proposition Configurational Language
| Project/Area Number |
26370568
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
English linguistics
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| Research Institution | Shimane University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2017)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,250,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥750,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
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| Keywords | 生成統語論 / 言語変化 / 英語史 / パラメター / 素性継承 / 主語位置 / 動詞移動 / 補文標識 / 生成文法 / 統語論 / 情報構造 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This study has aimed to investigate how syntactic positions for subjects have changed in the history of English and provide an explanation of the mechanism that drives the change, in view of the "Feature Inheritance Parameter Hypothesis" proposed under the generative syntax. We have revealed the following: (i) From Old English to Early Middle English, two syntactic positions were available for subjects in accordance with their information value; (ii) however, these two positions underwent an downward shift in the syntactic structure, so that they came to serve as free variants in Late Middle English through Early Modern English; (iii) finally, the subject positions were unified in Late Modern English. The validity of our analysis has also been tested against other diachronic changes and cross-linguistic variations.
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Report
(5 results)
Research Products
(9 results)
