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Overextension in Gottscheerisch (negative) imperatives: proclisis at the edge of the first phase

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Abstract

Gottscheerisch, a Southern Bavarian heritage grammar from Kočevje (Gottschee) in southern Slovenia, has existed in steady contact with Slovene for centuries, with arguably only negligible effects on its syntax with respect to the linear ordering of elements. An exception to this statement can be found in Gottscheerisch imperatives—in particular, negative imperatives—where this German-based dialect patterns with Slovene. Following Aboh (in The emergence of hybrid grammars: Language contact and change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), we propose that this contact-induced change is simultaneously a case of pattern and feature transmission that can be captured in a straightforward and conceptually appealing manner. Adopting a late-insertion derivational approach to morphosyntax, we show how separable prefixes (p-elements) exhibit clitic climbing-like behavior to the edge of the first (vP) phase. Finally, we sketch out an analysis of the overextension of Slovene-like (negative) imperatives in Gottscheerisch in connection with the complex nature of V2.

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Notes

  1. (Heine and Kuteva 2005, 81) propose a similar model that systematically captures contact-induced grammaticalization (or change) involving a feature or structure from the model grammar (M) transferring to the replica language (R) involving the following mechanisms:

    figure a

  2. Another instance of overextension mentioned in research on grammars in sustained contact with another grammar concerns the over-application of particular morphosyntax and morphophonological patterns, such as the shift towards a masculine default gender in American Norwegian (Lohndal and Westergaard 2016).

  3. The initial n- inherited from MHG niht, nit ‘not’ has generally been lost in Gottscheerisch, only appearing in hiatus contexts, e.g. Gott. Ix boas a net ‘I also don’t know’, but Gott. Ix boas et ‘I don’t know’. This proclitic negation is still commonplace today in certain varieties of vernacular Bavarian; see Sprechender Sprachatlas for Bayern (https://sprachatlas-schwaben.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/).

  4. An anonymous reviewer points out that in Norwegian imperatives also, in most environments, the negation marker ikke ‘not’ appears as the initial element in imperatives:

    figure i

    Aside from this structural parallel that exists between Norwegian and Gottscheerisch negative imperatives, the former are additionally constrained by phonological and prosodic factors, such the sonority of the onset of the root predicate (Rice 2003, 2007), that do not play a role in determining the well-formedness of (negative) imperatives in Gottscheerisch.

  5. Another factor that may reinforce and promote this overextension pattern can be found in Slavic languages such as Serbo-Croatian and Slovene in which pronominal clitics always appear in second position in imperatives (Rivero and Terzi 1995; Zanuttini 1997).

  6. Although most non-standard German vernaculars have a significantly reduced inventory of simple past verbs, Gottscheerisch appears to lack this category in its entirety. There are no simple past tense forms in Gottscheerisch. Past tense forms of modal verbs, ‘to be’, and ‘to have’ are all built using periphrastic constructions.

  7. The glosses including standard German equivalents are for the sake of ease of exposition for readers more familiar with German and should not be mistaken as a direct comparison between Gottscheerisch and standard German.

  8. The Gottscheerisch form aus, cognate with German alles, shows the l-vocalization present in many other Austrian German dialects. Despite similarity to the Gottscheerisch separable prefix aüs- (Ger. aus-), it is a pronoun rather than a part of the verb.

  9. See Evers (1975) and Haegeman and van Riemsdijk (1986) for generalizations that cluster creepers involve some form of structural deletion, and Zwart (1995), Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000), and Müller (2004, 2018) who support an analysis of these structures involving the evacuation of material from the (complex) VP-cluster followed by the subsequent raising of the particle element.

  10. Here we do not weigh in on the status of this projection, but see Borer (2005) for a proposal in which xP has an aspectual quality.

  11. The predicate nūgl ‘nail’ is introduced by the a light v-head to determine its categorial status.

  12. Svenonius (2007) lays out a detailed cartography for the internal structure of pP including projections designated for spatial configurations such as AxialPartP, PlaceP, and PathP (ordered hierarchically in top-down fashion).

  13. Biskup (2019) proposes that prepositions (P) also possess valued tense features, but these do not play a critical role in the analysis developed here.

  14. Here we adopt the concept of categorizing light heads (such as v) and categorial neutral \(\sqrt{roots}\). We acknowledge that the analysis we lay out here could also be couched in slightly different exo-skeletal desiderata involving spans (Svenonius 2016; Fábregas and Putnam 2020) and ‘naked’ roots (Ramchand 2008, 2018).

  15. Due to our appeal to a derivation-by-phase account of locality, our approach avoids violations of excorporation (Roberts 1997).

  16. To clarify a point raised by an anonymous reviewer, there is no a priori reason for equating xP and NegP as the same projection; we simply use both labeling preferences to demonstrate that proclisis of separable particles is banned in the presence of negation.

  17. Technically the p-elements also move through v*-prescribe; however, for ease of exposition, we have left this step out in the derivations that follow.

  18. An anonymous reviewer raises a concern of our appeal to a linearized version of V2 based on data introduced previously in this paper (8), which we repeat below for the sake of the reader:

    figure as

    Two points are are in order here: First, the example above does not involve tüən-periphrasis. Second, the status of lai ‘just’ in Gottscheerisch is debatable, with some classifying it as a coordinating conjunction.

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Acknowledgements

The ideas developed in this article have benefited from the comments and queries of participants at GLAC-24 and members of the Theoretical Linguistics Group at the University of Oslo. We would especially like to recognize the following individuals for thought-provoking discussions and assistance with theoretical concepts and Bavarian and Slovene data: Elly van Gelderen, Bill Keel, Terje Lohndal, Lisa Reed, Joe Salmons, Adrian Stegovec, Nora Vosburg, Marit Westergaard, and Alfred Wildfeuer. Finally, we wish to thank three anonymous JCGL reviewers for their assistance in helping us strengthen this manuscript. Lastly, many thanks to Jonathan Crum and Ashley Pahis for help with LaTeX-troubleshooting. All remaining errors are shouldered by the authors.

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Putnam, M.T., Hoffman, A.D. Overextension in Gottscheerisch (negative) imperatives: proclisis at the edge of the first phase. J Comp German Linguistics 24, 185–219 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-021-09126-4

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