Part III

LINGUISTS ON
LANGUAGE CHANGE

HISTORY OF LANGUAGE CHANGE AS IT AFFECTS SYNTAX

Winfred P. Lehmann

Syntactic change was not examined in the first half century of modern linguistics, which is generally dated from the publication of Bopp’s Conjugationslehre in 1816. During the next fifty years historical linguists dealt primarily with sounds, forms, and the lexicon, as have many linguists since. Bopp himself in the several editions of his comparative grammar never treated syntax. Only in 1869 did the first important study of syntactic change appear, Ernst Windisch’s investigations on the origin of the relative pronoun in the Indo-European languages. Windisch’s important and imaginative study, the content of which I touch on below, was followed by a steady flow of syntactic treatments of the early Indo-European dialects, as may be noted in Delbrück’s repeatedly revised introduction to the study of the Indo-European languages (1919:133-45, 251).

When we examine the syntactic studies cited by Delbrück, and those which have appeared since, we find that many treatments of historical syntax do not deal with change. Rather, they set out to describe the syntactic patterns in a given historical or prehistorical period. The same procedures are followed in discussions of other language families, as in Brockelmann’s on Semitic (1913). Delbrück’s own monographs, and even his important comparative Indo-European syntax of 1893-1900, largely have descriptive aims. For example, he investigated the early dialects, primarily Vedic and Greek, to determine such syntactic characteristics as arrangement, use of specific forms, expressions for negation. While he sought to determine the basic meaning of these in the proto-language (Grundbedeutung) and of formal categories, his primary concern did not lie in syntactic change. He set out to determine the syntactic patterns of the early dialects, and through them the syntax of the parent language.

Other important studies of the time also limit themselves to such description. Among these are Behaghel’s treatment of Old Saxon syntax, Speyer’s two books on Vedic and Sanskrit syntax, and many handbooks on the other dialects or on selected authors. It was only natural that historical linguists felt the need to determine the facts of Germanic, Latin, Greek, and Indic syntax, and even the syntax of the reconstructed parent language before they dealt with syntactic change. The course of historical phonology had been similar; only after many descriptions of the data in individual dialects was consistent treatment of phonological change undertaken. As did the historical phonologists, we must now direct our attention to the study of syntactic change as well as to descriptions of older stages of languages. This brief paper sketches steps to be carried out.

As we proceed to investigation of syntactic change, we make use of earlier studies, such as Jacob Grimm’s treatment of the simple sentence in Germanic. Published as the fourth volume of his Germanic grammar, this is often characterized as still the best and most comprehensive work on the topic. What Grimm does here is present a massive number of examples of syntactic patterns in the various Germanic dialects. Further, he associates and compares the patterns of one dialect with those of others, Old High German with Old English, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Gothic and so on—also with Middle High German and New High German, as well as other modern dialects. While he discusses differences among these, even diachronically, he is not concerned with syntactic change as such. A similar approach is found in the two massive and exemplary treatments of Greek and Latin syntax in the Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Schwyzer’s syntax of Greek and Szantyr’s of Latin are not in the first instance concerned with syntactic change. They of course present examples from Homer as well as Plato, from Plautus as well as Cicero. But like Grimm and many others, they do not treat syntactic change in a principled way, as I now illustrate.

As an example from the Greek grammar, we may examine Schwyzer’s examination of the comparative. He discusses the meaning and use of comparative forms of adjectives at some length (2:98-101, 183-5). In these discussions he cites examples in which the standard is expressed by the genitive, which he of course treats as reflex of the earlier ablative. And he is aware of the absence of special adjectival forms for comparison in Hittite, Tocharian, and Armenian, ascribing it to foreign influence without linking it to the several means used for expressing comparison in other Indo-European dialects, such as -yes-, -is-en-, -ero-, -tero. These alone, as well as the suppletive forms for common adjectives like good, bad, little, great, should lead us to suspect that the situation in Hittite, Tocharian, and Armenian was also that of Proto-Indo-European.

Moreover, Schwyzer does not bring up the possibility of syntactic change, of an earlier construction for comparison of inequality with standard preceding the adjective, as often in Homer, and a later pattern with standard following the adjective. Such a change apparently did not occur to him, even though he cites examples of particles other than η after the adjective which might well have served as indication of an innovation. Linguists are now aware of the pattern with standard preceding the adjective as characteristic of OV languages, with standard following the adjective as characteristic of VO languages. It is also clear that the earliest Indo-European dialects, such as Hittite and Vedic Sanskrit, as well as Tocharian, Armenian, and even others were OV in structure. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the comparison of inequality construction underwent a syntactic change between Proto-Indo-European and Classical Greek, Proto-Indo-European and Classical Latin, as well as the other dialects with VO structure. The treatment of the comparison of inequality construction is then one example of language change as it affects syntax.

Greek as well as the other Indo-European dialects include other examples: the development of complementation, of adverbial clauses, of prepositional phrases, and so on. Syntactic changes affecting these constructions are in accordance with expectations as a language shifts from OV to VO structure.

The changes cited have to do with verbal constructions. There are also changes in nominal constructions, as illustrated by the changing pattern in Latin for relative clauses. Here again the treatment in the standard grammars is illuminating. As we would expect, Szantyr is in command of the facts (1965:554-72). He states that relative clauses in sentences which include the antecedent in both principal and subordinate clauses stand before the principal clause especially in Old Latin (563-4). Moreover, providing numerous examples of sentences with repeated antecedents (563), he points out that these become less frequent in individual authors such as Caesar and Cicero as they develop their styles. Such patterns are also less frequent in standard Classical Latin (Hochsprache), the presumable ideal of authors as they develop their style. But from these differences he draws no conclusions on syntactic change. Instead, he states flatly that initial placement of the relative clause accompanied by repetition of the antecedent provides no clues on the development of the relative marker, whether from the indefinite or the interrogative (564). As far as its source is concerned, he simply identifies the Italic relative marker as a replacement of the old relative *i̭o- (565). This example from the sphere of nominal syntax, which might be multiplied, illustrates the widely evident position that the important events of syntax have to do with lexical elements, like the yo- or q^uo- marker, not with syntax itself.

Szantyr’s treatment of the relative in Latin is all the more regrettable because almost seventy years before its publication, Jacobi had given numerous examples of OV relative constructions which precede their antecedent. And fifty years earlier still, Weil had pointed out the similarity of early Latin relative constructions with those of Turkish, citing the very example from the Lex agraria which Szantyr refers to as his first in his treatment of repeated antecedents (1965:563). Still Szantyr does not discuss syntactic change, let alone suggest that the Latin examples are readily explained if we treat them as phenomena expected when an earlier OV pattern changes to a VO pattern.

Sadly for Indo-European and historical syntactic studies, inadequate attention was given to Windisch, who almost a century earlier had been more acute. In his essay of 1871 he proposed, following an assumption of Apollonian in the second century A.D. that all third person pronouns are originally deictic, that some of these develop anaphoric uses, and further that relative pronouns may arise from them. Moreover, Windisch held that yo- did not yet have relative force in the proto-language, but was merely anaphoric there. Instead of applying these observations to syntactic developments in early Indo-European, Delbrück unfortunately rejected Windisch’s conclusions on the origin of the relative marker, though he approved of those on the general development of third person pronouns. If Indo-European syntactic studies had pursued Windisch’s insights, the principles of syntactic change and the development of the Indo-European languages from OV to VO structure would have been generally accepted long ago. As things stand, it is only Justus’s masterly treatment of the Hittite data which has demonstrated without question the shift of an Indo-European anaphoric marker to a relative pronoun in Hittite, clarifying in this way the Latin relative as well as syntactic change in the Indo-European languages.

In urging concern with syntactic change we must also account for the failure of scholars after Windisch to contribute to its understanding. I attribute this unfortunate situation to two causes: (1) the attention to surface forms as scholars supposedly dealt with syntax, (2) the primary concern with selection classes and their meanings when approaching the study of syntax, that is, with morphology rather than syntax itself.

The focus on surface forms may be illustrated with Behaghel’s Syntax des Heliand (1897). In this detailed analysis devoted to Old Saxon syntax Behaghel treats syntactic constructions by means of the number of lexical elements they contain. His “third book” examines Die syntaktischen Gebilde, first “word groups” (109-224), thereupon sentences, and phrases (Satzgruppen) (241-368). Of two-member word groups, Behaghel finds the following patterns, those consisting of two personal names such as Simon Petrus, those consisting of a personal name plus an appellative, such as cuning Herodes (111). Three- member word groups which have a substantive as head, e.g. allan langan dag ‘whole long day’, are sub-classified in eleven such sub-classes (120-2), and so on. To be fair to Behaghel, the count is not purely by lexical elements; an adverbial modification in a three-member group may consist of preposition + noun, yielding four lexical items as in neriendon Crist fan Nazarethburg ‘the Savior Christ from Nazareth’. But in general the number of members of syntactic constructions is measured by the number of words; the guiding principle in this way leads to syntactic classification by surface forms. Delbrück (1919:143) comments wryly that Behaghel’s Syntax des Heliand follows an arrangement encouraging reflection, but not imitation. While pursued to an extreme, Behaghel’s procedure reflects the predominant view that in syntactic study one examines lexical elements rather than syntactic categories and the features they express.

The influential treatise directing primary attention to morphology was Ries’s Was ist Syntax? of 1894. For Ries, syntax itself was to deal only with synthesis. Treatment of meanings of word classes and word forms was assigned to morphology. This point of view may be sharply illustrated by the shift from the first to the second edition of Brugmann’s Grundriss. As is well known, Delbrück, who produced the three volumes in the first edition, did not participate in the second. In the second edition the treatment of morphology swelled to three volumes of 2,737 pages. Syntax proper was reserved for a later volume. One on the simple sentence appeared posthumously, a short book of 229 pages (1925). Here, with reference to Behaghel, Brugmann states that syntax (Satzlehre) takes as its starting point the formal and logical relationship of the parts of what is spoken, in seeking to show the parts of speech at work (187). Even when in the final chapter he treats the formation of the sentence corresponding to basic psychological functions such as exclamation, wish, demand, concession, threat (187-229), he again directs his attention at specific forms and their uses.

In this concentration on lexical and morphological characteristics, we find no treatment of historical development, not to mention syntactic change. Moreover, for Brugmann the treatment of syntax is descriptive. Also subsequently, as in Bloomfield’s Language (1933) and the structural sketches produced by Bloomfield’s followers, syntax is largely concerned with forms and their classes. For Bloomfield, “SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTIONS ... are constructions in which none of the immediate constituents is a bound form” (184). And “syntax consists largely ... in stating ... under what circumstances ... various form-classes ... appear in syntactic constructions” (190). This view of syntax virtually eliminates any regard for syntactic change; free forms and form-classes may change, as well as when they appear in syntactic constructions, but there is no attention to change of those constructions. In Bloomfield’s influential book there is no chapter on syntactic change.

Some time earlier Walter Porzig commented on problems of historical syntax in his essay in the Streitberg Festschrift. While I lack the space to discuss the essay, I would like to point out his statement that “the most important task of historical syntax, with greatest significance for all humanistic study consists in the exact observation of the development of new categories” (1924: 147). As example he cites the development of the category of tense from those of mood and aspect. His point of view is evident also in his treatment of the clauses and syntactic groups characterized by ya in the older books of the Rigveda (Porzig 1932). His observations in this work lead him to conclude that originally relative clauses preceded principal clauses, by our interpretation that earlier they reflected OV structure. Porzig then was moving towards appropriate treatment of syntactic change.

Among his aims, like Bloomfield’s, Porzig proposed to free linguistic study from direction by psychology. Linguists who do not read earlier scholarship have little idea of the confusions introduced into the study of many problems by calling on one or another psychological approach; knowledge of such confusion led to Bloomfield’s adamant exclusion of psychological considerations from linguistic study. Instead of a psychological approach, Porzig advocated a phenomenological. I take this variously interpreted term to refer in linguistic study to concentration on data, by no means purely surface, and on their interpretation by means of a framework, through which their change may be perceived and described. Such change may involve arrangement. To recognize that change, we need to know what the characteristic patterns are. These we state in terms of OV or VO structure.

We also need to know the syntactic features involved in the basic syntactic patterns so that we may understand how their means of expression may change. Among the features are interrogation, negation, volition, middle, and so on. These are expressed differently in OV and VO languages, whether through differing arrangement or through differing categories. A morphological category like the subjunctive may be used to express volition. A lexical element like -self, or Greek ϕɩλos or Sanskrit priyas or Old Norse suás, may be used to express the middle. An intonation pattern may be used to express the interrogative feature. We can determine syntactic change by recognizing these categories and elements, and observing how they are applied in the history of languages. It is intriguing to observe how the morphological middle marker inherited by Homer is often replaced by ϕɩλos, and this in turn by pronominal forms as Classical Greek becomes more consistently VO. Change involving other syntactic features is an equally fascinating pursuit. Our understanding of language will be deepened as such studies become more numerous.

Since language consists of a system, syntactic change correlates with phonetic, morphological, and lexical changes. But study of these three kinds of change cannot obviate attention to change in syntax. Disregard of syntactic features in change has taken its toll, as among the successive generations of Homeric translators, for whom the heroes have ‘dear fathers’ (Iliad 1.441), ‘dear children’ (1.447), ‘dear mothers’ (1.572), ‘dear native lands' (2.140) and so on. It is difficult to evaluate such translations more highly than we do those of students who translate German expressions like ich fürchte mich vor dem Feuer as ‘I am afraid of myself in front of the fire’. Neither has a proper understanding of the changing categories used for the expression of the syntactic feature I have called middle. Such understanding must be provided by linguists, among whose responsibilities is the treatment of syntactic change.

To do so, they must know what syntax is. They must also deal with syntax by means of a framework, just as phonologists have dealt with phonology in terms of a framework for at least a century and a half. It will not do to dismiss such a framework, to remain encrusted in views more characteristic of Ned Ludd than of his contemporaries Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm. Just as sound change is not carried out with no reference to the phonological system recognized throughout the flourishing of historical phonology, so syntactic change takes place in accordance with the patterns of a given type of language, in accordance with a system that limits the possibilities of that change. Since I have discussed elsewhere recent work of promise in historical syntax (1978:37-42, 400-17; 1981, to appear), I will not comment on it further here. But I cite one further example, from Old English and the other Germanic languages, the changing pattern for the comparison of inequality construction. Small presents the data for the Germanic languages, especially for Old English, patterns like the following from the Old English Riddles (1929:45):

Here the dative is used to indicate the standard. Small provides ready access to the fifty examples in Old English poetry and the sixty-two in Old English prose, so that only two further instances are cited here. The first is from Elene (Small 1929:40):

The second is from the prose Salomon and Saturn (Small 1929:68) :

When the standard precedes the adjective, as in these examples, the arrangement is that of OV languages. In an earlier study Small examined the comparative with particles, among other things their diversity, as exemplified by English nor, but, than, dialectal as, and also by the diversity of particles in older stages of English and other Indo-European languages. Although he recognizes the gradual fixing of the modern pattern, he does not discuss historical development. For example, he cites no OV comparative as did Jacobi. Nor does he treat the comparative in conjunction with syntactic patterning as a whole; in this effort he might have drawn on Delbrück’s characterization of Indo-European as an OV language. Using such information we account for the development of the English comparative as a shift from the inherited OV pattern through a preliminary VO stage when the standard was placed after the adjective and various particles were introduced. Finally one of the particles was selected for general use, such as NE than, NHG als.

However careful we find Small’s studies, they are disappointing because they provide no understanding of the development of the comparative construction. Like many students of syntax, Small concentrated on selection. Fortunately there now is attention to arrangement, as I have noted elsewhere (1978:37-42, 400-17; 1981, to appear). Examination of arrangement patterns has clarified many problems in syntax and in syntactic change. Where adequate information is available, the further devices of modulation and sandhi must also be studied for their part in syntactic change.

In such study we must be clear about our possibilities. Viewing syntactic change in terms of a system no more explains such change than the use of a phonological framework explains sound change. The causes are social, and can only be accounted for when we have adequate information about the uses of language in the society that maintains it. Though successive linguists attempt to explain specific linguistic patterns through proposed psychological constructs in spite of the failure of their predecessors, we cannot be deterred by such nonlinguistic ventures from identifying syntactic change. A framework assists us in that identification. When we apply the framework appropriately, we can account for some changes. For others we may have inadequate information, whether about the language at the time or the society maintaining that language. Whatever the extent of our information, we have reached a point in the brief history of our discipline when we must clarify syntactic change in languages with adequate data as our predecessors did phonological change.

REFERENCES

Behaghel, Otto. 1897. Die Syntax des Heliand. Leipzig: Tempsky.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt.

Bopp, Franz. 1816. Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Fergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Frankfurt a.M.

——. 1869-71. Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Send, Armenischen, Griechischen, Latinischen, Litauischen, Altslavischen, Gotischen und Deutschen, vols. 1-3. 3rd ed. Berlin.

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Brugmann, Karl. 1897-1916. Vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungsund Flexionslehre der indogermanischen Sprachen. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Strassburg: Trübner.

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——. 1932. Die Hypotaxe im Rigveda. 1. Die durch das Pronomen ya charakterisierten Sätze und syntaktischen Gruppen in den älteren Büchern der Rigveda. IF 41:210-303.

Ries, John. 1927. Was ist Syntax. 2nd ed. Prag. [Reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967.]

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——. 1929. The Germanic case of comparison with a special study of English. Language Monographs 4. Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America.

Speyer, J. S. 1886. Sanskrit Syntax. Leiden: Brill.

——. 1896. Vedische und Sanskrit-Syntax. Strassburg: Trübner.

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Windisch, Ernst. 1869. Untersuchungen über den Ursprung des Relativ-pronomens in den indogermanischen Sprachen. Curtius Studien 2:201-419.