Pro-drop, pronouns, agreement, and demonstratives: Feature Economy Elly van Gelderen Subjects in Diachrony, Regensburg, 3-4 December 2010

Aims To examine the distribution of pro-drop, pronouns, and demonstratives in Old English (but relevant in other languages too). To explain this in terms of the child interpreting input in a particular way through Feature Economy To examine internal and external factors of linguistic change and their interaction

Why is change interesting? If these are real patterns of change, then they give insight in the Faculty of Language Factors: 1.Genetic endowment (UG) 2.Experience 3.Principles not specific to language

Three factors, e.g. Chomsky 2007 (1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible; (2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range; (3) principles not specific to [the Faculty of Language]. Some of the third factor principles have the flavor of the constraints that enter into all facets of growth and evolution, [...] Among these are principles of efficient computation"

Economy Locality = Minimize computational burden (Ross 1967; Chomsky 1973) Use a head = Minimize Structure (Head Preference Principle, van Gelderen 2004) Late Merge = Minimize computational burden (van Gelderen 2004, and others)

Internal Grammar

Language Change = Cycles are the result of reanalysis by the language learner who applies Economy Principles. I argue that the real sources of change are internal principles.

Cues and Inertia This is very different from models such as Lightfoot's and Westergaard’s that examine how much input a child needs to reset a parameter. According to Lightfoot, "children scan their linguistic environment for structural cues" (2006: 32); for these, change comes from the outside. And from Keenan’s (1996; 2002) Inertia: things stay as they are unless acted upon by an outside force.

If there are Economy Principles, they should be visible in Lg Change Two main patterns (van Gelderen 2004 etc): a)Phrase to Head b)Up the tree: both phrases and heads Principles: acquisition and derivation

Reanalysis of `how’: (1) How would you like to go to the game? `Would you like to go to the game?’ (2) Dwyer told the players how he wanted to win ‘D. told the players that he wanted to win.’ (from the BNC as given by Willis 2007: 434)

And possibly in:

Minimalist features The interpretable ones are relevant at the Conceptual-Intentional interface. Uninterpretable ones act as `glue’ so to speak to help out merge. For instance, person and number features (=phi-features) are interpretable on nouns but not on verbs.

Uninterpretable Case on the pronouns and agreement on V in: (1)Me see he (2)Mẽ kitab pəRhti hũ I book read-FS be-1S `I am reading a book.’

Pronouns/Agreement EnglishIFrenchje i-phiu-phi (=i-ps)(=u-ps) s/heil/ellei-phi (=i-deictic)

What are some of the features? TP T' TvP [u-phi] DPv' [NOM]She vVP [u-Case] saw [i-phi] [u-phi] DPV’ [ACC] bearsV [u-Case] [i-phi] Semantic, interpretable, and uninterpretable

The Subject Cycle (1) demonstrative > third person pron > clitic > agreement (2) oblique > emphatic > first/second pron > clitic > agreement (3)Se je meïsme ne li diOld French If I myself not him tell (4)Moi, je (*...) VModern French

Why? emphatic/ demonstrative > personal > agreement [i-phi][i-phi] [u-phi] [i-deixis][u-Case] illeilil+V

Back to English: features of DP (1)a.*That the dog loves their the toys. b.I saw that. c.*I saw the. (2)DPDP thatD’DNP [i-loc] DNPthe3S [i-ps]3S[u-phi]

OE pronouns and demonstratives He, heo, hit, hi-se, seo, etc. non-deicticdeictic reflexiverelative clause

InternalExternal se -->the seo --> she that --> thathi --> they him/her --> him/herself (3ps no longer only topic switch) a.se>the [i-loc]/[i-phi][u-T]/[u-ps] b.he/hiis replaced byhe heo/hais replaced by she (possibly via seo) hi/hieis replaced bythey [i-phi][i-phi]/[i-loc]

Demonstrative [i-phi] [i-loc] articlepronoun [u-phi][i-phi] [u-T]

Ways to look at change If change is in similar directions: window on the Language Faculty Economy Principles = Third factor Children use these to analyze their input + there is language change if accepted. Change is from the inside, now feature Economy, earlier HPP and LMP Some changes to be looked at: agreement, pronouns, and demonstratives