A history of English reflexive pronouns : person, self, and interpretability / / Elly van Gelderen

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910815483403321
• Autore: Gelderen Elly van
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, : John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2000
• ISBN: 1-282-16337-X; 9786612163371; 90-272-9917-X
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: xiv, 277 p
• Collana: Linguistik aktuell = Linguistics today ; ; v. 39
• Disciplina: 425
• Soggetti: English language - Pronoun; English language - Reflexives; English language - Grammar, Historical
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-268) and indexes.
• Nota di contenuto: A HISTORY OF ENGLISH REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC page -- Table of contents -- Preface -- List of tables -- Notes for the user and list of abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Old English reflexives -- Chapter 2. Reflexives in Middle and later English -- Chapter 3. Pro-drop and feature strength -- Chapter 4. The loss of verbal agreement and verb-movement -- Chapter 5. The loss of inherent case -- Chapter 6. Ergativity and the person split -- Chapter 7. Conclusion -- Appendix -- Main Old English Works used -- Main Early Middle English used -- Middle English Works used -- Main Early Modern Works used -- References -- Name Index -- Subject Index -- The Series LINGUISTIK AKTUELL/LINGUISTICS TODAY.
• Sommario/riassunto: This book brings together a number of seemingly distinct phenomena in the history of English: the introduction of special reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself), the loss of verbal agreement and pro-drop, and the disappearance of morphological Case. It provides vast numbers of examples from Old and Middle English texts showing a person split between first, second, and third person pronouns. Extending an analysis by Reinhart & Reuland, the author argues that the 'strength' of certain pronominal features (Case, person, number) differs cross-; linguistically and that parametric variation accounts for the changes in English. The framework used is Minimalist, and Interpretable and Uninterpretable features are seen as the key to explaining the change from a synthetic to an analytic language.