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Subject

Key-Topics

DOI:

15. Variationist Approaches to Syntactic Change

SUSAN PINTZUK

Linguistics

»

Historical Linguistics

syntax

,

variation

10.1111/b.9781405127479.2004.00017.x

The development of modern syntactic frameworks and the growth of research in the field of comparative
syntax have enabled the rigorous investigation of syntactic change. In one sense, diachronic syntax can be
regarded as a form of comparative syntax, where the comparison is between two different stages of the
same language rather than between two different cotemporaneous languages or dialects. In the terminology
of the Principles and Parameters framework (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993), the difference between two stages
of a language can be regarded as a difference in the values of one or more parameter settings; and the goal
of the diachronic syntactician is to explain how and why parameter settings change.

1

I will present evidence

in this chapter to support the hypothesis that parameter settings do not change abruptly, but rather that
change proceeds via competition between two alternative parameter settings during periods of syntactic
variation.

The term “variationist” when describing approaches to syntactic change is best understood as referring to
methodology rather than to a specific framework or a general philosophy. When the systematic syntactic
variation exhibited by languages during periods of change is analyzed quantitatively, generalizations emerge
which enable us to describe the time course of syntactic change, and therefore to begin to understand and
explain how change starts and how it progresses. The most important of these generalizations are the
following three, which will be discussed and illustrated in the remainder of this chapter. It should be
emphasized that these generalizations are not untested hypotheses, but rather empirical results supported
by the analysis of historical data.

First, a distinction must be made between two types of syntactic variation. The first type is controlled by
prosodic constraints and information structure, and frequently involves a simple alternation in constituent
order. This type of variation is diachronically stable, and it does not necessarily lead to or play a direct role
in syntactic change.

2,3

It is commonly found both in modern languages and in the written records of

languages no longer spoken; examples include object shift in the Modern Scandinavian languages (Bobalijk
and Thráinsson 1998; Diesing 1996; Jonas 1996), heavy constituent shift in Old English (Colman 1988;
Pintzuk 1998a, 1998b; Pintzuk and Kroch 1989), and postposition in Early Yiddish and Ancient Greek
(Santorini 1993 and Taylor 1994, respectively). The second type of syntactic variation involves the use by
individual speakers of two distinct grammatical options in areas of grammar that do not ordinarily permit
optionality. This type is diachronically unstable, with the new option competing with the old one and
gradually replacing it.

4

This type of variation has been labeled the double base hypothesis in regard to

variation in underlying (base) structure (Santorini 1992), and more generally grammatical competition (Kroch
1995). It has been found to be characteristic of almost all syntactic changes that have been qualitatively and
quantitatively studied in detail. See section 2 for further discussion, and section 3 for an example of
grammatical competition in Old English.

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The second generalization is that syntactic change is gradual, and may continue for several hundred years or
more. This observation is of course not new. But when syntactic variation is analyzed as grammatical
competition, our picture of the time course and the nature of syntactic change must be revised. Consider the
change from object-verb (OV) word order to verb-object (VO) word order in the history of English. Many
studies of Old English syntax (e.g., van Kemenade 1987; Koopman 1990; Lightfoot 1991) claim that Old
English was uniformly OV in underlying structure, and that variation in surface word order was a result of
optional movement rules which derived VO order from OV structure: leftward movement of the finite verb
(verb second) and rightward movement of the object from pre-verbal to post-verbal position (postposition).
It is suggested that speakers used these movement rules with increasing frequency over the course of the
Old English period, with the result that VO surface word order reached near categorical status by the
beginning of the Middle English period. Children from that point on acquired a VO grammar, because the
surface word order of the language to which they were exposed was almost entirely VO. According to this
view, the underlying grammar during the Old English period was stable, although there was variation in
surface word order; the grammatical change occurred abruptly at the beginning of the Middle English
period. This picture of the change from OV to VO is challenged in Pintzuk (1996b, 1998a, 1998b), where it is
demonstrated that VO underlying structure was a grammatical option in Old English, and competed with OV
structure during the Old English period and most of the Middle English period.

5

When syntactic variation and

change is understood in this way, we can see that the new grammatical option (in this case VO structure)
does not simply replace the old one (OV structure) at the end of a long period of variation; rather the new
option is acquired and both options are used, with the old option finally lost at the end of the period of
competition. The gradual nature of syntactic change is thus simply a reflex of the gradual nature of
grammatical competition.

The third generalization is that during a period of change, when two linguistic options are in competition,
the frequency of use of the two options may differ across contexts, but the rate of change for each context
is the same. While some contexts may favor the innovating option and show a higher overall rate of use, the
increase in use over time will be the same in all contexts. This generalization was first proposed by Kroch
(1989a) and called the Constant Rate Hypothesis, and is now known as the Constant Rate Effect due to its
overall applicability.

6

It will be discussed in more detail in section 1.

When the syntactic variation found in historical texts is analyzed using quantitative methods based on those
originally developed for sociolinguistic research, we typically find “orderly heterogeneity” (Weinreich et al.
1968): the variation is systematic and the patterns are revealing. When the distributions of forms are
analyzed in detail, either during a single historical stage of a language or over a longer period of time, the
results can provide support for the choice of one grammatical analysis over the other (Pintzuk 1999; Taylor
1994), permit the tracking of syntactic variation and change over time (Kroch 1989a; Pintzuk 1996a, 1999;
Santorini 1993), uncover dialect differences (Haeberli 2000; Kroch and Taylor 2000), and lead to insights
into the nature and organization of the grammar (Kroch 1989a; Pintzuk 1998b). The quantitative methods
used to analyze the variation range from the simple examination and comparison of distribution frequencies
to the statistically more complex variable rule analysis (see Cedergren and Sankoff 1974; Guy, this volume;
Sankoff 1988; among many others). Some of these methods will be illustrated in section 3.

Although the variationist approach to syntactic change is not by necessity tied to any particular grammatical
framework, most researchers who use the methodology are generative syntacticians who are in accord with
the assumptions of the grammatical approach to syntactic change (see Lightfoot, this volume, and the
references cited there): they assume a rich, highly structured Universal Grammar, consisting of invariant
principles that hold of the grammars of all languages and parameters that are set by triggers in the
language learner's linguistic environment. And they share the view that language change and language
acquisition are intimately connected, and that there can be no separate theory of language change. Much of
the research discussed in this chapter was carried out in a Principles and Parameters framework, but this is
not, of course, a requirement of the variationist approach to diachronic syntax. The changes that are
investigated involve phenomena that distinguish modern languages from each other (e.g., the order of verbs
and their complements, the behavior of clitics, the verb-second constraint) and therefore can be expressed
in any syntactic framework, including Principles and Parameters, Minimalism, Head-Driven Phrase Structure
Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, and Construction Grammar.

1 The Time Course of Linguistic Change

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Suppose that, within a group of historical texts with a range of dates of composition, we can identify one
particular linguistic change that we want to study, in which a new form alternates with and eventually
replaces an older form in a variety of linguistic contexts. For each text, we can count the number of times
each of the two forms appears in each context. We can then plot the frequency of the new form

7

against the

dates of the texts and examine the time course of the change. Many investigators (Altmann et al. 1983;
Bailey 1973; Kroch 1989a; Osgood and Sebeok 1954; Weinreich et al. 1968; among others) have suggested
that this type of change - the gradual replacement of one form by another in the language of speakers over
time, perhaps over the course of many generations - follows an S-shaped curve, as shown in

figure 15.1

.

The replacement of old forms by new ones occurs slowly at the beginning of the period of change, then
accelerates in the middle stage, and finally, at the end of the period, when the old form is rare, tails off until
the change reaches completion.

Figure 15.1 S-shaped curve of linguistic change

Both Altmann et al. (1983) and Kroch (1989a) propose that a specific mathematical function, the logistic,
underlies the S-shaped curve which represents the usage of speakers over time. The importance of selecting
a specific function is that statistical techniques can be used to fit a particular set of data to the function and
estimate its parameters, as will be described in detail below. When parameters for different datasets are
estimated in this way, they can be compared, and the results of the comparisons can be used to draw
conclusions about the change under investigation.

The equation of the logistic curve is given in (1) below. In this equation, p is the frequency of the new form,
and varies between 0 and 1, that is, between 0 percent and 100 percent. t is a variable representing time,
and s and k are constants - that is, they are parameters that are fixed (perhaps differently) for each
particular instance of an S-shaped curve:

(1)

An equivalent form of equation (1) is shown in (2). The left-hand side of (2) is called the logistic transform
of the frequency, or logit:

(2)

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While the logistic of equation (1) is an S-shaped curve, the logit of equation (2) is a straight line, a linear
function of time.

8

s is the slope of the line; k is the y-intercept, and is related to the frequency of the new

form at some fixed point in time, t = 0. Of course, as Kroch and others have pointed out, the logistic model
is an idealization of linguistic change, because there is no time t for which the frequency p of the new form
equals either 0 or 1 in these equations. In other words, the model can only approximate the process of
change at both the beginning, called the point of actuation, where the frequency of the new form jumps from
0 to some small positive value, and at the end, when the old form dies out and the frequency of the new
form jumps from some high value to 1.

Figure 15.2 Bailey's model of linguistic change

Let us now consider how changes begin and how they spread. A concrete example to keep in mind is the
use of auxiliary do in Middle and Early Modern English (Ellegård 1953; Kroch 1989a; Warner 1998), within
three different syntactic contexts: negative declarative clauses, affirmative declarative clauses, and
affirmative questions. In principle, change may be actuated in one of several different ways. Speakers may
start to use the new form simultaneously in all contexts, either at the same initial frequency or at different
initial frequencies; this is simultaneous actuation. For example, auxiliary do may appear for the first time in
all three types of clauses in several texts composed during the same decade, with the same initial low
frequency in all clause types. Or speakers may start to use the new form sequentially, first in the most
favoring context and only subsequently in less favoring contexts; this is sequential actuation. Again, the
initial frequencies may be either the same or different. Once actuation has occurred, the change may in
principle spread in two different ways: either at different rates in different contexts, or at the same rate in
each context. For example, speakers’ use of auxiliary do may increase in frequency more rapidly in negative
clauses than in affirmative declarative clauses and questions. Bailey (1973), for example, claimed that
actuation occurs sequentially, with change spreading more quickly in the most favoring context, less quickly
in the less favoring contexts. This model is illustrated in

figure 15.2

, where the three straight lines represent

three plottings of the logit over time, one for each of three different linguistic contexts. Notice that these
three lines all have different slopes and different y-intercepts (the s and k parameters in equations (1) and
(2)), as is clear from the fact that they rise at different rates and will intercept the y-axis at different points.

In contrast to Bailey, Kroch (1989a) proposed the Constant Rate Effect (CRE): while the frequency of use of
competing linguistic forms may differ across contexts at each point in time during the course of the change,
the rate of change for each context is the same. Kroch's model is illustrated above in

figure 15.3

. Notice that

these three lines have different y-intercepts (the k parameter), but they all have the same slope (the s
parameter); in other words, they are parallel.

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Figure 15.3 Kroch's model of linguistic change

It should be pointed out that the word “constant” in the Constant Rate Effect does not refer to a constant
rate of increase in p, the frequency of the new form. As stated above, and as can be seen from the S-shaped
curve in

figure 15.1

, which plots the frequency p of the new form over time, the frequency increases slowly

at first, then the rate of increase accelerates, and then it finally tails off. What is “constant” in the Constant
Rate Effect is that the change is the same across linguistic contexts, so that the frequency of the new form
changes in the same way in all contexts. In terms of equations (1) and (2), the parameter k may be different
for each context, but the parameter s is constant for all contexts, as shown by the identical slopes of the
straight lines in

figure 15.3

. As Kroch (1989a: 199) states, “Contexts change together because they are

merely surface manifestations of a single underlying change in grammar. Differences in frequency of use of a
new form across contexts reflect functional and stylistic factors, which are constant across time and
independent of grammar.”

Kroch (1989a) presents four cases of linguistic change that have been studied quantitatively - the
replacement of have by have got in British English from 1750 to 1934 (Noble 1985), the rise of the definite
article in Portuguese possessive noun phrases from the fifteenth through the twentieth century (Oliveira e
Silva 1982), the loss of verb second in Middle French (Fontaine 1985; Priestley 1955), and the rise of
auxiliary do in English between 1400 and 1700 (Ellegård 1953) - and shows that all four provide strong
support for the CRE. Additional research has demonstrated that the CRE holds for the replacement of I-final
structure by I-medial structure in the history of English and Yiddish (Pintzuk 1996a and Santorini 1993,
respectively) and the change from OV to VO in the history of Greek (Taylor 1994).

Notice that the grammatical analysis which underlies both the change and the quantitative patterns may be
quite abstract. For example, Kroch (1989a) builds on and extends the work of Adams (1987a, 1987b) for
Middle French to show that three very different surface changes - the loss of subject-verb inversion, the
loss of null subjects, and the rise of left dislocation structures - can all be analyzed as reflexes of the same
underlying grammatical change, the loss of the verb second constraint. These three surface phenomena are
the three different contexts in which variation between options is exhibited. The CRE predicts that all three
surface alternations will proceed at the same rate during the period from 1400 to 1700, as indeed Kroch
(1989a) demonstrates. Similarly, Taylor (1994) shows that in three periods of Classical Greek, the
distribution of clitics and weak pronouns produces the same measure of verb-medial versus verb-final
clause structure as an independent estimate of that ratio derived from the distribution of NP and PP
complements and the rates of postposition.

Conversely, in other cases of syntactic variation and change, identical surface forms may be derived by
different grammatical processes in different contexts. In these cases the CRE is irrelevant, since it holds only
for contexts in which the surface forms are reflexes of the same underlying grammatical alternation. In fact,
it is generally true for these cases that change will proceed at different rates in the different contexts, since
it is unlikely that two separate and unrelated grammatical alternations will advance at the same rate. For
example, HirschbÜhler and Labelle (1994) show that the change from ne infinitival-verb pas to ne pas
infinitival-verb in the history of French affected lexical verbs, modals, and auxiliaries at different times, and
that it proceeded at different rates for the three verb types. These findings thus seem to present a
counterexample to the CRE. However, HirschbÜhler and Labelle use structural evidence to demonstrate that
what appears to be a single grammatical change in three different contexts actually represents two separate
changes: a change in the position of pas, and a loss of verb movement to T. It is only to be expected that

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changes: a change in the position of pas, and a loss of verb movement to T. It is only to be expected that
these unrelated changes should proceed at different rates, precisely because they are unrelated.

As was stated above, the CRE has been demonstrated to hold of particular syntactic changes in the history of
five languages: English, French, Greek, Portuguese, and Yiddish. It would, of course, be desirable to test
more cases of syntactic change so that the overall validity of the CRE can be conclusively demonstrated. This
is not, however, an easy task: quantitative diachronic syntactic research requires the use of large historical
corpora, containing well-documented data which represent a broad range of genres, dialects, authors, and
dates of composition.

9

Corpora of this type are not readily available for all languages, although their

construction and use for linguistic research is becoming more common.

10

Quantitative work of the type

described in this chapter is greatly facilitated by the use of corpora such as the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus
of Middle English, the Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English, and the York
Corpus of Old English Poetry; these corpora are syntactically annotated for efficient data retrieval of syntactic
constructions and constituent orders.

2 Grammatical Competition

It was stated above that during periods of syntactic change, the variation that we see in the language of
historical texts reflects grammatical competition; in other words, the variation is between two distinct
grammatical options in areas of grammar that do not ordinarily permit optionality. The way in which the
competing options are analyzed and described depends upon the syntactic framework being used. In a
Principles and Parameters framework, options generally correspond to contradictory parameter settings: for
example, head-initial versus head-final structure, verb second versus non-verb second. In contrast,
competing options within a Minimalism framework correspond to the strength of features on functional
heads, strong versus weak. Thus it is not two entire grammars that are in competition, but rather two
contradictory options within a grammar.

As a concrete example, consider the order of verbs and their objects. If we look at modern languages, verb-
object order is fixed except in certain well-defined contexts. Thus Modern German normally has object-verb
order, as shown in the (a) examples below, while Modern English has verb-object order, as shown in the (b)
examples:

(3)

a. Die Kinder haben den Film gesehen.
b. *The children have the film seen.

(4)

a. *Die Kinder haben gesehen den Film.
b. The children have seen the film.

It is of course possible to find examples of verb-object order in German, but these can be shown to be
derived by independent syntactic processes, like verb second in clauses with finite main verbs, as shown in
(5). Similarly, we can find sentences with the object preceding the verb in English; for example, clauses
derived by topicalization or wh- movement, as shown in (6) and (7):

(5) Die Kinder sahen den Film.
The children saw the film.

(6) That I never knew before.

(7) What books have you read lately?

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Thus modern languages can be described in terms of the order of constituents within the verb phrase:
English and the Scandinavian languages are head-initial, with the verb (the head of the verb phrase)
preceding its complements and adjuncts; German and Dutch are head-final, with the verb following its
complements and adjuncts. So clear is the difference between the two types of languages that it has been
frequently proposed as a parameter of Universal Grammar.

11

In contrast, Old English shows much more variation in the order of verbs and their complements than
modern languages: in almost any context, complements can appear either before or after the verb, as
illustrated in (8) and (9) below. The variation is not simply between dialects of Old English or even between
speakers: all extant Old English texts, including those known to be the work of a single author, exhibit the
variation (see “Abbreviations” below for full details of sources):

(8) he ne mæg his agene aberan
he not may his own support
“He may not support his own.” (CP 52.2)

(9) þu hafast gecoren pone wer
you have chosen the man
“You have chosen the man.” (ApT 23.1)

Moreover, Old English exhibits variability that cannot be analyzed in terms of independent syntactic
processes, such as leftward verb movement or right-ward movement of complements and adjuncts. In
particular, light elements like pronominal objects and particles do not move rightward in West Germanic
languages;

12

but in Old English they may appear either before or after the non-finite main verb, as shown in

(10) and (11). Pintzuk (1996b, 1998a, 1998b) uses these clauses as evidence for grammatical competition in
Old English, head-final versus head-initial VPs, and shows that there is additional quantitative and
distributional evidence for such an analysis:

(10) & woldon hig utdragan
and (they) would them out-drag
“and they would drag them out.” (ChronE 215.6 (1083))

(11) he wolde adræfan ut anne aeþeling
he would drive out a prince
“he would drive out a prince” (ChronB (T) 82.18–19 (755))

Evidence for grammatical competition has been found in a large variety of languages in the process of
syntactic change. Early Yiddish and Old English exhibited variation between I-final structure and I-medial
structure during the period of change from the former to the latter (Santorini 1989, 1992, 1993; Pintzuk
1993, 1996a, 1999). Ancient Greek changed from OV to VO between the Homeric period and the New
Testament and, like Old and Middle English, varied between the two structures during the long transition
period (Taylor 1990, 1994). The verb-second constraint was lost in Late Middle English, and during that
period the language exhibited variation between verb-second and SVO structure (Kroch 1989b). Early
Spanish was variably verb second, and clitics varied in their behavior between heads and full projections
(Fontana 1993). And Middle French, like Middle English and early Spanish, was variably verb second (Adams
1987a, 1987b; Dupuis 1989; Vance 1995). Similar optionality has not been found in modern standard
languages, which show uniform head-initial or head-final structure, categorical verb second or lack thereof,
and non-varying clitic behavior. This is not to claim that modern grammars are different in nature from the
grammars of older languages, but rather that in the older texts we see evidence for the use of competing
grammatical options which has not been attested for modern standard languages.

13

Despite the strong evidence for the existence of grammatical competition, the concept is not an
uncontroversial one. Three theoretical objections are discussed and answered in Santorini (1992: 619–21):

Objections to the double base hypothesis [i.e., grammatical competition] appear to be rooted in
three methodological concerns: (1) that it is incompatible with rigorous structural analysis, (2)
that it illegitimately complicates the analysis of linguistic phenomena, and (3) that it
contradicts the spirit of generative inquiry. None of these objections can be maintained,

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contradicts the spirit of generative inquiry. None of these objections can be maintained,
however. (1) In the case at hand, it is precisely the reliance on statements of distribution of the
sort that are standardly used in the literature as diagnostics of syntactic structure that leads us
to entertain the double base hypothesis. (2) In linguistics, as in any other domain of empirical
inquiry, what is illegitimate is to assume that the relationship between particular phenomena
and the theoretical principles governing them is necessarily simple … [J]oint considerations of
empirical adequacy and theoretical consistency may lead us to propose analyses of complex
linguistic phenomena in terms of the interaction of more than one grammatical system … (3)
That linguistic variation might arise from the interaction of more than one grammatical system
is expected given the distinction between E(xternalized)-language and I(nternalized)-language
that is at the heart of the generative paradigm … The changing patterns of linguistic variation
that we observe in the historical data … are phenomena of E-language. From a perspective that
focuses on I-language, we study these patterns in order to deduce the principles of I-language
governing them. Conversely, when respect for established generalizations concerning I-
language … yields empirically adequate, theoretically simple analyses of pretheoretically
complex phenomena … then these phenomena themselves can be taken to provide empirical
support for the theoretical distinction between E-language and I-language.

And Kroch (1995: 184–5) responds to an objection concerning grammar competition and learnability:

It is sometimes said that admitting grammar competition into the theory of language will
introduce learnability problems; but this objection is based on a misunderstanding. … Since the
learner will postulate competing grammars only when languages give evidence of the
simultaneous use of incompatible forms, s/he will always have positive and unequivocal
evidence of competition. In the absence of such evidence, the learner will simply analyze the
language unambiguously in accord with the evidence. The difficulty introduced by the
possibility of grammar competition is not for the learner but for the linguist, for whom a
methodological question arises; namely, how to know when grammar competition should be
invoked and when failure to find a unified analysis means only that more research is needed.

3 The Position of the Finite Verb in Old English: A Case Study

In this section I demonstrate the methodology used in analyzing syntactic variation and change by examining
the position of the finite verb in Old English.

14

As shown in the examples below, the verb can appear in

almost any position in both main and subordinate clauses. In (12), the finite verb is in second position; it is
in final position in (13), and in third or fourth position in (14):

15

(12) a. eow sceolon deor abitan
you shall beasts devour
“beasts shall devour you” (ÆLS 24.35)

(1) b. past se eorðlica man sceolde geþeon
so-that the earthly man should prosper
“so that the earthly man should prosper” (ÆCHom i.12.26)

(13) a. him pær se gionga cyning pass oferfæreldes forwiernan mehte him there the young king the
crossing prevent could “the young king could prevent him from crossing there” (Or 44.19–20)
b. þa apollonius afaren wæs
when Apollonius gone was
“when Apollonius had gone” (ApT 5.12)

(1) a. Wilfrid eac swilce of breotan ealonde wes onsend
Wilfred also from Britain land was sent
“Wilfred was also sent from Britain” (Chad 162.27–164.28)

b. swa swa sceap from wulfum & wildeorum beoð fornumene
just-as sheep by wolves and beasts are destroyed
“just as sheep are destroyed by wolves and beasts” (Bede 46.23)

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Two different analyses have been proposed for Old English to account for the position of the finite verb. Van
Kemenade (1987), among others, claims that Old English is an asymmetric verb-second language much like
Modern German and Dutch, with uniform head-final structure and leftward verb movement to C in main
clauses only. Constituents positioned after the otherwise clause-final verb are derived by various types of
rightward movement. According to this analysis, main and subordinate clauses with the finite auxiliary verb

16

in second position are derived by two different processes: verb second in (12a), but verb raising in (12b);

17

the derivations are sketched in (15) and (16). I will call this analysis the asymmetric analysis:

(15) Verb second in main clauses:
[

CP

[eow]

j

[

C

sceolon

i

] [

IP

deor t

j

abitan t

i

]]

(16) Verb raising in subordinate clauses:
[

CP

[

C

þæt] [

IP

se eorðlica man t

i

sceolde geþeon

i

]]

In support of the asymmetric analysis, there is evidence for the use of verb raising in Old English: namely,
clauses with two or more constituents before the verb cluster, as shown in (14) above. Under the assumption
of head-final structure, these clauses cannot be derived in any other way. I will demonstrate below, however,
that the frequency of verb raising in Old English is comparatively low.

Pintzuk (1993, 1996a, 1999) proposes a different analysis for the position of finite verbs in Old English:
grammatical competition between head-initial and head-final structure within the IP, with obligatory
movement of the finite verb to I in both main and subordinate clauses. According to this analysis, main and
subordinate clauses with the finite auxiliary in second position are derived by the same process, leftward
verb movement to I, as shown in (17) and (18). I will call this analysis the symmetric analysis:

(17) Verb movement to I in main clauses:
[

IP

[eow]

j

[

I

sceolon

i

] [

VP

deor t

j

abitan t

i

]]

(18) Verb movement to I in subordinate clauses:
[

CP

[

C

past] [

IP

[se eorðlica man]

j

[

I

sceolde

i

] [

VP

t

j

geþeon t

i

]]]

Notice that in support of the symmetric analysis, there is evidence for leftward verb movement in Old English
subordinate clauses. This evidence is distributional in nature, and involves the position of “light” constituents
like particles, pronouns, and sentential adverbs in subordinate clauses with finite main verbs. Light elements
may appear either before or after the verb, as shown in (19), but they appear post-verbally only in clauses
like (19b), with the verb in second position. The distribution is shown in

table 15.1

.

(19) a. Pre-verbal particle:
þæt he his stefne up ahof
that he his voice up lifted
“that he lifted up his voice” (Bede 154.28)

Table 15.1Position of light elements (particles, pronouns, and monosyllabic adverbs) in Old

English subordinate clauses with finite main verbs

Position of the finite verb Post-verbal light elements Pre-verbal light elements Total
Second

43 = 16.7%

214 = 83.3%

257

Third or later

1 = 0.3 %

315 = 99.7%

316

b. Post-verbal particle:
þæt he ahof upp pa earcan
so-that he lifted up the chest
“so that he lifted up the chest” (GD(C) 42.6–7)

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“so that he lifted up the chest” (GD(C) 42.6–7)

The conclusion that must be drawn from table

15.1

is that light elements do not freely move rightward,

probably because of a heaviness constraint on postposition. They appear post-verbally only in clauses where
the verb has moved leftward to I, as shown in (20). The distribution in table 15.1 demonstrates that there is
a functional head between CP and VP to which finite verbs may move, and thus that not all subordinate
clauses with the finite auxiliary in second position are derived by verb raising:

(20) [

CP

þæt [

IP

[he]

j

[

I

ahof

i

] [

VP

t

j

upp þa earcan t

i

]

How then can we choose between the two analyses for subordinate clauses with the finite verb in second
position, since there is evidence in the Old English texts for each of the structures proposed? I will now
show that quantitative analysis of the data provides two types of evidence that supports the symmetric
analysis over the asymmetric analysis: first, the comparatively low frequency of verb raising; and second, the
increase in the frequency of finite verbs in second position at the same rate over time in main and
subordinate clauses.

Consider first the frequency of verb raising. We have seen above that there is evidence for a process of verb
raising in Old English because of examples like (14a) and (14b), repeated below as (21). But verb raising
must be optional in Old English, since there are many clauses with the non-finite main verb followed by the
finite auxiliary, as in (22). To estimate the frequency of verb raising in Old English subordinate clauses, we
can compare the number of clauses like (21), with two or more constituents before the finite + non-finite
verb cluster, to the number of clauses like (22), with two or more constituents before the non-finite + finite
verb cluster. The frequency of verb raising estimated in this way is about 12 percent (see

table 15.2

):

Table 15.2Frequency of verb raising and potential verb raising in Old English subordinate clauses

Number of constituents preceding
the verb cluster

Order of finite and non-finite verbs

Finite + non-finite =

(potential) verb raising

Non-finite + finite = no

verb raising

Total

2 or more

11 11.8%

82 88.2%

93

At most 1

217 28.4%

547 71.6%

764

(21) Evidence for verb raising:
swa swa sceap from wulfum & wildeorum t

i

beoð fornumene

i

just-as sheep by wolves and beasts are destroyed
“just as sheep are destroyed by wolves and beasts” (Bede 46.23)

(22) Evidence that verb raising is optional:
þe se ealdormon wiþ hiene gedon hæfde
that the alderman against him done had
“that the alderman had done against him” (Or 33.13–14)

Now consider clauses like (23) and (24) below. We have shown that in principle, (23) could be derived either
from head-final structure by verb raising, or from head-initial structure by leftward movement of the finite
verb to clause-medial I; see the structures in (16) and (18) above. (24), in contrast, is clearly a head-final
clause, because of the order of the non-finite and finite verbs. We can once again compare the number of
clauses like (23), with one constituent before the finite + non-finite verb cluster, to the number of clauses
like (24), with one constituent before the non-finite + finite verb cluster. If all potential instances of verb
raising like (23) are indeed true instances of verb raising, then this frequency should be similar to that
calculated for clauses like (21) and (22):

(23) þæt se eorðlica man sceolde gepeon
so-that the earthly man should prosper

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so-that the earthly man should prosper
“so that the earthly man should prosper” (ÆCHom i.12.26)

(24) hwæt se bisceop don wolde
what the bishop do would
“what the bishop would do” (ÆLS 31.500)

The results of these calculations are shown in

table 15.2

. It is clear that clauses with one constituent before

the verb cluster have a much higher frequency of finite verbs in second position than the estimated
frequency of verb raising would predict. This higher frequency leads us to conclude that the majority of
clauses that are in principle structurally ambiguous are actually derived in the same way as verb-second
main clauses, that is, by leftward verb movement to clause-medial I. Thus detailed analysis of the variation
in the position of the finite verb provides support in favor of the symmetric analysis over the asymmetric
analysis.

Figure 15.4 The frequency of verb-second order in Old English clauses with auxiliary verbs, 884–

1100

Table 15.3s and k parameters of the frequency of verb-second order in Old English main and

subordinate clauses, 884–1100

Clause type s parameter k parameter
Main

.519

.14

Subordinate .525

.03

Now let us consider the second type of quantitative evidence for the symmetric analysis. During the Old
English period, the frequency of finite verbs in second position gradually increased in both main and
subordinate clauses. As discussed in section 1, we can count the number of times verb-second order
appears in each clause type for each text, and then plot the frequency of verb-second order against the
dates of the texts and examine the time course of the change. The results are shown in

figure 15.4

.

When the data for main clauses and subordinate clauses are separately fitted to S-shaped curves, the s and
k parameters

18

are estimated as shown in

table 15.3

.

We can see from table

15.3

that the s parameters for the two curves are almost identical.

19

In other words,

the frequency of verb-second order is increasing at the same rate in main clauses as in subordinate clauses.
This result strongly supports the symmetric analysis, with the finite verb in second position derived by the
same process in main and subordinate clauses: that analysis, plus the Constant Rate Effect, predicts that the
rate of change will be the same in both clause types. On the other hand, if the position of the finite verb
were derived by two unrelated processes in main and subordinate clauses, as in the asymmetric analysis,
then the result shown in table 15.3 would be entirely unexpected.

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I have demonstrated in this section how detailed quantitative examination of the variation exhibited by
historical texts can provide support for the choice of one grammatical analysis over another: although either
a symmetric or an asymmetric analysis of the position of the finite verb is possible on the basis of the
structural evidence, the quantitative facts support the symmetric analysis.

4 Conclusions

Evidence has been presented above that careful and rigorous analysis of syntactic variation is crucial for an
understanding of syntactic change. The variationist approach described in this chapter combines the insights
of formal syntactic analysis with quantitative methodology and the tools of corpus linguistics, to arrive at a
new perspective on syntactic change. Change takes place via grammatical competition between distinct
options that correspond to obligatory choices in modern standard languages, and change progresses at the
same rate in all contexts in which the alternation occurs.

Still, there are four important issues that remain to be addressed in this chapter: the actuation of new
grammatical options, the instability of grammatical alternates, the relationship between historical written
texts and spoken language, and the relationship between usage data and grammar. First, the question of
actuation: how are new grammatical options introduced? Some cases of syntactic innovation and change
have been explained in terms of language-internal processes, such as the reanalysis of syntactic or
discourse structures (see, among many others, Auger 1994; Givón 1977). Other cases have been described
as syntactic borrowing through language contact (see Campbell 1987). Kroch and Taylor (1997) and Kroch et
al. (2000), in ongoing research into syntactic differences between northern and southern Middle English
dialects, also suggest language contact, not in the form of borrowing but rather because of imperfect second
language acquisition by adults.

20

They trace the source of the asymmetric verb-second dialect of northern

Middle English to the Northumbrian dialect of Old English, and hypothesize that the Viking invaders who
settled in the north imperfectly acquired verbal agreement inflection; the collapse of verbal morphology
forced a reanalysis of the verb second construction, with verb movement to I (symmetric verb-second)
reanalyzed as verb movement to C (asymmetric verb-second). They demonstrate that the only extant Old
English texts written in Northumbria during the relevant period of time, the Lindisfarne and Rushworth
glosses of the Latin Vulgate Bible, provide evidence for both the loss of verbal agreement and verb
movement to C. Although this hypothesis about the source of syntactic innovation seems promising, it is
clear that it provides an explanation for only some cases, leaving others unaccounted for. Icelandic, for
example, was relatively isolated for much of its history, yet it changed from OV to VO (Hróarsdóttir 1996,
2000; Rögnvaldsson 1996).

The second issue is the diachronic instability of grammatical variants in competition: once actuation occurs,
why doesn't the variation simply remain stable? In other words, why does the frequency of the new variant
increase and eventually replace the old one? Kroch (1995) links syntactic variation to variation in features on
functional heads; in other words, to the existence of syntactic doublets in the lexicon during periods of
syntactic change. He suggests that in syntax, as in morphology, doublets that are semantically and
functionally non-distinct are disallowed; and that doublets of this type, which may arise through language
contact (see the discussion above), compete in usage until one of the forms wins out. Sociolinguistic,
psycholinguistic, and stylistic factors may have an effect on the favoring of one variant over the other, as
may the tendency toward cross-categorical harmony in the directionality of heads, which Hawkins (1990)
suggests is due to parsing constraints; see also Kiparsky (1996a) for discussion.

The third issue is the relationship between historical written texts and spoken language. Change originates
in the spoken language, and historical linguists generally assume without comment that changes enter the
written language in approximately the same order as they appear in speech, after some undetermined time
lag. The assumption, therefore, is that the written language reflects the spoken language of some earlier
time. This is not necessarily the case; future research comparing written and spoken modern languages may
help to determine the chronology of linguistic change.

And finally, how do usage data and the texts themselves relate to grammar, the internal system of principles
and parameters? The quantitative studies cited in this chapter use mainly distributional and statistical
evidence, but draw conclusions about the characteristics of the grammars used to generate the historical
texts. At present there exists no widely accepted theory relating grammatical options and grammar use. But
we have seen that evidence for grammatical competition and support for the Constant Rate Effect can be
found in the history of many different languages. The orderliness of the variation found in the data, and the

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found in the history of many different languages. The orderliness of the variation found in the data, and the
close fit between statistical patterns of usage and formal syntactic analysis, strongly suggest that a coherent
theory relating grammar and usage can and should be formulated.

:
ÆHom

The Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection …, ed. John Collins Pope. London and Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1967–8. (Early English Text Society, 259–60.) [Cited by homily and line
number.]

Æ

LS Ælfric's Lives of Saints …, ed. Walter William Skeat. London and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1881–1900, reprinted 1965/6 (in two vols). (Early English Text Society, 76, 82, 94, 114.) [Cited by
homily and line number.]

ApT

The Old English Apollonius of Tyre, ed. Peter Goolden. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.
(Oxford English Monographs, 6.)

Bede

The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Thomas Miller.
London: Early English Text Society, 1890–8.

Chad

The Life of St Chad: An Old English Homily, ed. R. Vlees Kruyer. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

ChronB

Two of the [Anglo-]Saxon Chronicles Parallel, with Supplementary Extracts from the Others, eds
John Earle and Charles Plummer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892–9, Version B.

ChronE

Two of the [Anglo-]Saxon Chronicles Parallel, with Supplementary Extracts from the Others, eds
John Earle and Charles Plummer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892–9, Version E.

CP

King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Henry Sweet. London: N.
Truebner, 1871–2. (Early English Text Society, 45, 50.)

GD(C)

Bischof Woerferths von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hans Hecht.
Leipzig: n.p., 1900–7. (Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, 5.) Repr. in Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1965. [Cited by page and line number.]

Or

(1) King Alfred's Orosius, ed. Henry Sweet. (Early English Text Society, 79, 1883.) (2) The Old
English Orosius, ed. Janet Bately. (Early English Text Society, 2nd ser., 6, 1980.)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Tony Kroch for helpful discussion, Richard Janda and Brian Joseph for detailed
comments on an earlier version of this chapter, and George Tsoulas and Anthony Warner for comments and
related discussion. All omissions and errors remain my own responsibility.

1 See Lightfoot, this volume, for a discussion of the role of parameter setting in syntactic change.

2 Prosody and information structure may serve to distinguish contexts for change, but their effect is orthogonal to
the syntactic change in progress; see Kroch (1989a) and Pintzuk (1998b, 1999).

3 The distinction between two types of syntactic variation and the fact that only one type plays a role in change
means that syntactic change differs from phonological change in this respect; see Guy, this volume.

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means that syntactic change differs from phonological change in this respect; see Guy, this volume.

4 The use of the two options may be influenced by sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, or stylistic factors.

5 Roberts (1997) and van der Wurff (1997) present analyses of Old English and Middle English, respectively, with
OV order derived by optional leftward movement from VO structure; see Pintzuk (1998b) for arguments against
uniform VO structure throughout the history of English.

6 As Guy, this volume, points out, the stability of constraint effects across dialects and languages and particularly
across time suggests that the Constant Rate Effect holds not only for syntactic changes but also for at least some
instances of phonological change.

7 In other words, the ratio of the number of new forms over the sum of the number of old forms + new forms.

8 Equations (1) and (2) are equivalent: (2) can be derived from (1) by applying a series of mathematical operations
to both sides of the equation. The advantage of working with equation (2) is that straight lines are easier to
compare visually than S-shaped curves. Of course, the real comparison is done quite precisely by comparing the
values of parameters k and s of the two curves.

9 Determining the dates of composition of historical texts is not always a simple matter. See Pintzuk (1999) for
discussion.

10 Researchers in the history of English are particularly fortunate in having available the Toronto Dictionary of Old
English Corpus, which contains all of the approximately 2000 extant Old English texts; and the Helsinki Corpus, a
compilation of samples from Old, Middle, and Early Modern English texts; as well as other English historical
corpora. Large corpora are available for some other languages as well: as just two examples, the ARTFL Project, a
computerized database of about 2000 French texts from the seventeenth century to the present; and the Icelandic
sagas of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Halldórsson et al. 1985–6; Kristjánsdóttir et al. 1988, 1991).

11 Again, depending upon the syntactic framework, the parameter can be defined in terms of the directionality of
case or theta-role assignment, or the strength of features forcing overt movement. What is important here as
elsewhere is not the precise definition of the difference but the fact that languages do differ in this respect.

12 See Koster (1975) for an early use of the position of particles as a diagnostic for underlying order in Dutch.

13 Modern dialects sometimes characterized as “non-standard” may exhibit variation which the standard
languages do not; for some of these cases, the variation may be the residue of syntactic change that has not yet
gone to completion.

14 The verbal syntax of Old English is complex, and the analyses sketched here are greatly simplified. For
discussion and debate on the position of the finite verb in Old English, see Hulk and van Kemenade (1997); van
Kemenade (1987, 1997); Kroch and Taylor (1997); Pintzuk (1993, 1996a, 1996b, 1999). For detailed presentations
of the quantitative analysis and a description of the database and how it was constructed, see Pintzuk (1996a,
1999). Additional general works on Old English syntax include Denison (1993); Mitchell (1985); Traugott (1972,
1992); Visser (1963–73).

15 Complementizers and subordinating conjunctions are not counted for the position of the finite verb.

16 The term “auxiliary verb” is used for expository convenience to refer to all verbs that take infinitival or
participial complements.

17 Verb raising and verb projection raising are processes which permute the order of finite verbs and non-finite
verbs in verb-final clauses; see, among others, den Besten and Edmondson (1983); Haegeman and van Riemsdijk
(1986). The term “verb raising” as used here should not be confused with verb movement to I.

18 Recall that s and k are parameters of the logistic function (see (1) above), and here represent the slope and
intercept of the logistic transform of the frequency of verb-second order. It should be noted that the quantitative
analysis summarized here was multivariate, not univariate, with date of composition, type of clause, type of
auxiliary verb, gapped constituent in wh- clauses, and parallelism in conjoined clauses as the independent
variables.

19 In fact, if we look at

figure 15.4

, the two graphs are strikingly similar, despite the fact that the date of

composition is not the only independent variable influencing the use of verb-second word order.

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20 See also Weerman (1993) for the effect of imperfect second language acquisition on the change from OV to VO
in the history of English.

Cite this article

PINTZUK, SUSAN. "Variationist Approaches to Syntactic Change." The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Joseph,
Brian D. and Richard D. Janda (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Blackwell Reference Online. 11 December 2007
<http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9781405127479_chunk_g978140512747917>

Bibliographic Details

The Handbook of Historical Linguistics

Edited by: Brian D. Joseph And Richard D. Janda
eISBN: 9781405127479
Print publication date: 2004