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Latest revision as of 00:16, 23 January 2019

Bibliography

Lash, Elliott, “Subject positions in Old and Middle Irish”, Lingua 148 (September, 2014): 278–308.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Subject positions in Old and Middle Irish”
Volume
148
Pages
278–308
Description
Abstract (cited)
I argue that Old and Middle Irish (spoken: 7th-12th c.) had two subject positions: subject-1 and subject-2, as well as the post-posed position, identified by Mac Giolla Easpaig (1980). I use the presence of demarcating adverbs (e.g. danó ‘also’, íarum ‘then’, trá ‘so’, didiu ‘moreover’, etc.) to distinguish these two positions. It is shown that all types of subjects can occupy both positions, however, there are certain semantic restrictions on indefinites. Indefinites and quantifiers in subject-1 (pre-adverbial) have wide scope interpretations, while those in subject-2 (post-adverbial) have narrow scope interpretations. I show that this is especially true of indefinites/quantifiers/NPIs in the scope of negation, which must occupy subject-2. This can be understood as the effects of the Mapping Principle (Diesing, 1992). However, the presence of definites in both positions suggests that it is information structure that plays a major role in regulating the placement of subjects, since definites are not amenable to a Mapping Principle account. I show that subject-1 is reserved for old information and subject-2 is reserved for new information.
Subjects and topics
Headings
Old Irish Middle Irish
Keywords
subject position Mapping Principle
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
October 2015, last updated: January 2019