In this paper we try to trace the origin of N-raising in Romance, by investigating whether it was an innovation of Latin or Romance or whether it is detectable in at least another branch of the IE family that does not manifest it nowadays, which might be a first suggestion that it was a common IE feature, subsequently lost in some languages. We compare Classical Latin and Late Latin to Old English, i.e. older stages of Romance and modern English, the two best-studied IE representatives of the opposite values of the N-raising parameter. The comparison shows that N-raising is not a particularly stable feature of the grammar in a diachronic perspective, but may arise at any stage of a given language, as a consequence of the alteration of the primary corpus.
Where did Romance N-raising come from? A parallel study of parameter resetting in Latin and English (Leiden, 9-11 dicembre 2004 - Selected Papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2004)
CRISMA, PAOLA;
2006-01-01
Abstract
In this paper we try to trace the origin of N-raising in Romance, by investigating whether it was an innovation of Latin or Romance or whether it is detectable in at least another branch of the IE family that does not manifest it nowadays, which might be a first suggestion that it was a common IE feature, subsequently lost in some languages. We compare Classical Latin and Late Latin to Old English, i.e. older stages of Romance and modern English, the two best-studied IE representatives of the opposite values of the N-raising parameter. The comparison shows that N-raising is not a particularly stable feature of the grammar in a diachronic perspective, but may arise at any stage of a given language, as a consequence of the alteration of the primary corpus.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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