In this paper, I provide examples from Germanic of cyclical changes involving the nominal phrase. Using a DP structure, it can be observed that demonstratives in specifier positions of the DP are reanalyzed through time as articles in head positions. The change from demonstrative to article is known as the definiteness cycle and described in Greenberg 1978 and Lyons 1999. Providing examples from Old Norse, Old English, and Afrikaans, I suggest an explanation for the cycle in terms of a cognitive principle, Feature Economy, that assists in language acquisition and hence language change.Many thanks to Werner Abraham, Johanna Wood, Jan Terje Faarlund, two anonymous referees, and especially to Terje Lohndal for helpful discussion and comments.

This study reports on a number of highly significant differences found between English, German, and Dutch hesitation markers. English and German native speakers used significantly more vocalic-nasal hesitation markers than Dutch native speakers, who used predominantly vocalic hesitation markers. English hesitation markers occurred most frequently when preceded by silence and followed by a lexical item, or when surrounded by silence. German and Dutch hesitation markers occurred most frequently surrounded by lexical items. In Dutch, vocalic-nasal hesitation markers dominated only when surrounded by silence. Vocalic-nasal hesitation markers dominated in all positions in English and German, although in the former language this was more salient than in the latter. Nasal hesitation markers were used significantly more frequently in German than in English or Dutch. In addition to overall language trends, speaker-specific differences, especially within German and Dutch, were observed. These results raise questions in terms of the symptom versus signal hypotheses regarding the function of hesitation markers.I am indebted to Angelika Braun and Jens-Peter Köster for their supervision at the University of Trier. I am also thankful to Monika Schmid and Wim Peeters in the Netherlands and to Eva Gossner in England for their organizational help. Finally, I am very grateful to the participants, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. All inadequacies in this article remain my responsibility.

Vocabulary insertion in realizational models of morphology like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993) and Paradigm-Function Morphology (Stump 2001) rely on some form of the Elsewhere Condition (EC) (Kiparsky 1973, 2005, Halle & Marantz 1993) to resolve competition between vocabulary items when more than one is compatible with a syntactic terminal node. In Icelandic (and Faroese), however, morphosyntactically less specific forms routinely block more specific forms in definite NPs, contrary to the EC. If the EC is reformulated in terms of two Optimality Theoretic (McCarthy & Prince 1995) constraints on the correspondence between features of syntactic terminal nodes and vocabulary items, it is possible to formulate an intervening constraint, which provides a principled way of accounting for the Icelandic data while preserving the EC as the principle arbiter of the syntax-morphology interface and without sacrificing basic insights gained from its application.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the eleventh Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference at the University of California, Davis. I am particularly grateful to David Perlmutter, Farrell Ackerman, Eric Bakovic, and Sharon Rose for comments on previous versions of this paper. Comments from two anonymous referees were also greatly appreciated. Any flaws in this work remain, of course, solely attributable to the author.

A standard assumption in work on binding in Norwegian is that a reflexive must have an antecedent that is “visible,” that is, either phonologically realized or PRO. The purpose of this article is to show that this restriction is not observed by many speakers. There are two cases of reflexives with invisible binders. First, an implicit argument can be a binder in a nominalization (Første fase bestod av analyse avseg selv. ‘The first phase consisted of analysis of oneself’). Second, a “semantic subject” can be a binder in an indefinite noun phrase with a propositional interpretation (Et helt hus forseg selver et slit. ‘A whole house for oneself is hard work’). Some younger speakers also allow a reflexive form with a generic interpretation to occur with no binder (En motorsag kan skadeseg selvog andre. ‘A chain saw can hurt oneself and others’).I would like to thank colleagues and students for discussion and intuitions, especially Kjell Johan Sæbø, Eirik Welo, Atle Grønn, Dag Haug, Anneliese Pitz, Gunnar Hrafn Hrafnbjargarson, Mads Haga, and Trine Egebakken. Thanks also to Thorstein Fretheim, Marit Julien, Stephen Wechsler, Annie Zaenen, and to the three anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to my daughters Julie and Therese for their intuitions.

The present paper investigates the origin and semantics of complex verbs with pleonastic prepositions in the Gothic Bible in comparison with the Greek and Latin sources from which the Gothic was translated. In these constructions, the same directional information is specified by a preverb and its semantically and formally related preposition in a PP-modifier. It is shown that Gothic preverb-preposition redundancy is largely the result of mechanical translation from the Greek source, with the strong possibility of Latin influence in some cases. While there are co-occurrences of formally related preverbs and prepositions in Gothic independent of Greek and Latin textual influence, directionality is usually only fully specified by the preposition, and so these instances are not truly pleonastic. The considerable influence of Greek on redundant preverb-preposition constructions in Gothic ultimately serves as a caution against taking Gothic morphosyntax at face value.I would like to thank Kari Ellen Gade, Robert Dennis Fulk, and Tracy Alan Hall for their valuable input on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.

When predicate constituents appear in the midfield in German, they must follow their sister constituents. When a midfield cannot be clearly identified, however, as in many matrix V2 clauses, predicate constituents may precede (certain of) their nonpredicate sister constituents. The contrast in serialization possibilities is curious. This paper provides a dependency grammar analysis of the phenomenon. Presenting four principles of word order for German, the analysis concentrates on the dependency grammar understanding of WEIGHT and RISING and how predicate constituents behave with respect to these areas. The relative flatness of dependency structures provides an opportunity for a theory of weight that does not exist for the more layered structures of most constituency grammars. The term RISING refers to discontinuities. When a discontinuity is perceived, the assumption is that rising has occurred. The understanding of predicates builds on the CHAIN concept. The words corresponding to the predicate in the semantics of an utterance always qualify as a chain in the syntax of that utterance.

Invoking findings from studies on the grammaticization of tense/aspect meanings, I argue that semantic reconstruction of the Present Day English progressive from an often cited Old English construction (beon + PAP) is semantically very unlikely. Instead I argue for a reconstruction of the progressive from a locative construction source of the type, be on hunting. However, as I also show, there is a kind of formal relationship between the present-day English progressive and the OE construction that was encouraged by the prescriptions and proscriptions of the Early Modern English grammarians. Thus, by paying attention to both semantic and formal aspects of the development of the progressive, I provide a clearer picture of its historical reconstruction.

This paper analyzes the semantic structure of the German spatial particle über based on the principles of Cognitive Linguistics. By applying the Polysemy Network Model (Tyler and Evans 2003), thirteen distinct senses of über are identified and conceptual connections between them are elucidated. Furthermore, the semantic structure of English over (the closest counterpart of über) established by Tyler and Evans is expanded, and additional criteria for determining the primary and other distinct senses are proposed. Finally, the network of senses for über is applied to its functions as a separable or inseparable prefix in an attempt to provide insights into the issues of prefix (in)separability in German and to account for the meaning of über in a unified manner.

In JGL 18.4 a review of my book (te Velde 2005) appeared, written by Timothy Osborne. In this Discussion Note, I would like to respond to this review, addressing primarily section 4 (Discussion).