DOCSLIB.ORG

Possessive Constructions in Modern Low Saxon

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

POSSESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN MODERN LOW SAXON a thesis submitted to the department of linguistics of stanford university in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts Jan Strunk June 2004 °c Copyright by Jan Strunk 2004 All Rights Reserved ii I certify that I have read this thesis and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Joan Bresnan (Principal Adviser) I certify that I have read this thesis and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Tom Wasow I certify that I have read this thesis and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Dan Jurafsky iii iv Abstract This thesis is a study of nominal possessive constructions in modern Low Saxon, a West Germanic language which is closely related to Dutch, Frisian, and German. After identifying the possessive constructions in current use in modern Low Saxon, I give a formal syntactic analysis of the four most common possessive constructions within the framework of Lexical Functional Grammar in the ¯rst part of this thesis. The four constructions that I will analyze in detail include a pronominal possessive construction with a possessive pronoun used as a determiner of the head noun, another prenominal construction that resembles the English s-possessive, a linker construction in which a possessive pronoun occurs as a possessive marker in between a prenominal possessor phrase and the head noun, and a postnominal construction that involves the preposition van/von/vun and is largely parallel to the English of -possessive. In the second part of this thesis, I report the results of a corpus study on the range of use of the four possessive constructions analyzed in the ¯rst part. I show that the four constructions constitute a case of syntactic alternation and try to determine the prototypical contexts in which they are used. I sample a reasonable number of instances of each of the four constructions and annotate them with information about morphosyntactic, semantic, and functional factors in order to obtain an objective picture of the typical uses of the four constructions. v Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor Joan Bresnan for all the help and advice in the writing of this thesis, for helping me come to Stanford in the ¯rst place and for the friendly atmosphere during my whole year at Stanford University. I would also like to thank Tom Wasow and Dan Jurafsky for reading this thesis. The friendliness and excellence of the students and faculty at the Linguistics department have made my year at Stanford a wonderful experience. Other linguists that I would like to thank very much for giving valuable advice and helping me with the research for this thesis are Anette Frank, Rui Chaves, Lisa Mays, and especially Anette Rosenbach. A special thanks goes to my informants Reuben Epp, Reinhard F. Hahn, Eldo Neufeld, Friedrich W. Neumann, Helge Tietz, and Shirley Wyatt who have provided a lot of valuable data for this thesis and never grown tired of answering my strange questions. Last but not least, I have to thank my family and friends for their wonderful support at home and during my year here at Stanford and especially for being so patient with me during the last weeks before the completion of this thesis when I did not have much time to talk to them. vi Contents Abstract v Acknowledgments vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Aims and Goals . 1 1.2 Possession . 3 1.3 Low Saxon . 7 1.4 The corpus . 10 1.5 Lexical Functional Grammar . 12 1.6 Overview of the thesis . 18 2 Syntactic analysis 19 2.1 Identi¯cation of possessive constructions . 19 2.2 The possessive pronoun construction . 34 2.3 The possessive linker construction . 57 2.4 The s-possessive . 99 2.5 The prepositional possessive construction . 132 2.6 Further issues . 152 3 A corpus study 155 vii 3.1 Syntactic variation . 155 3.2 Sampling of the corpus data . 160 3.3 Relevant factors . 167 3.3.1 Morphosyntactic factors . 168 3.3.2 Semantic factors . 170 3.3.3 Animacy and concreteness . 172 3.4 Predictions . 173 3.4.1 Morphosyntactic factors . 173 3.4.2 Semantic factors . 175 3.4.3 Animacy and Concreteness . 176 3.4.4 Summary of predictions . 177 3.5 Coding of the data . 178 3.6 Range of use of the four constructions . 185 3.6.1 Morphosyntactic factors . 185 3.6.2 Semantic factors . 195 3.6.3 Animacy and concreteness . 200 3.7 Summary . 206 4 Conclusions 209 A List of abbreviations 210 B Additional statistics 212 viii Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Aims and Goals The goal of this thesis is to give a comprehensive description and analysis of nomi- nal possessive constructions in modern Low Saxon from two perspectives of modern linguistic analysis that are not often discussed together. First, I propose a formal syntactic analysis of the di®erent constructions within the framework of Lexical Func- tional Grammar (Kaplan and Bresnan 1982). I then go on to analyze the actual usage of these constructions in a large corpus of Low Saxon text and determine to what degree they can be said to alternate and how they di®er in their ranges of use. These two general approaches { the formal analysis of syntax and the quantitative analysis of corpus data { often seem to be regarded as radically di®erent and maybe even incompatible views on natural language. In my opinion, however, an in-depth study of any area of grammar would be incomplete if it limits itself to just one of these per- spectives and neglects the other. I believe that grammar and usage cannot be neatly separated and that usage preferences of today can become hard grammatical facts which are usually modeled by formal theories of syntax and semantics tomorrow (cf. 1 2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Hawkins 2004, chapter 1). Moreover, as Bresnan et al. (2001) have stated \soft con- straints mirror hard constraints", i.e. usage preferences in one language correspond to hard constraints in other languages so that a combination of both perspectives should allow us to get a better picture of cross-linguistic facts and tendencies (see also Hawkins 2004, chapter 1). In accordance with this view, I will limit my formal syntactic analysis to determining the structure of the constructions and defer all dis- cussion of constraints on the use of the constructions { be they hard constraints or stronger or weaker preferences { to the second part of the thesis. This also has the advantage that any constraints that I posit are tested on ac- tual corpus data instead of only on intuitive judgments of a small number of native speakers. For the present study, intuitive judgments are di±cult to evaluate because there is no standard variety of modern Low Saxon and this study deals with data from a large number of di®erent dialects. This raises the issue whether it is sensible at all to undertake a study like this on such diverse data. Apart from the fact that even standardized languages show the same kinds of variation to a lesser degree, I believe that the existence of largely similar possessive constructions in the Germanic languages suggests that the structure of such constructions in di®erent dialects of Low Saxon can be expected to be very similar (if not identical). In the quantitative study, I will code the examples for the factor regional dialect in order to allow comparisons between the whole sample and subsamples from major dialects. Nevertheless, I will use intuitive judgments of native speakers as additional data in order to clarify ques- tions that come up and that cannot be answered by the data available in the corpus. Corpus data alone can of course never be used to determine the ungrammaticality of a construction because the absence of examples in a corpus { however large that corpus might be { is not su±cient evidence for the lack of grammaticality of a construction but only for its relative rarity. Throughout this thesis, I will make reference to other languages (mostly other 1.2. POSSESSION 3 Germanic languages) which use similar constructions to express possession. It is my hope that this analysis of Low Saxon possessive constructions might also shed some more light on related constructions in these languages. I chose to write my thesis on the topic of nominal possessive constructions because it is my perception that the syntax of nominal phrases is still much less studied than the syntax on the level of the clause. I hope to show that nominal syntax is a very fascinating area of study that should receive more attention from modern linguistics. 1.2 Possession As this thesis is about possessive constructions, I would ideally like to have a de¯nition of possession that can be used to identify all relevant constructions in Low Saxon that have possessive meaning. Such a de¯nition is indeed very hard to ¯nd (cf. also Rosenbach 2002, pp. 27{27). Most studies of possessive constructions give an extensional de¯nition of the relevant constructions based on traditional classi¯cations, i.e. they list the constructions they are interested in without further justi¯cation (e.g. Torp 1973; Hawkins 1981; Altenberg 1982; Plank 1992; Barker 1995; Norde 1997; Rosenbach 2002). More general treatments of possession such as Seiler (1983), Langacker (1991, chapter 4.3.2), and Langacker (1999, chapter 6.3), try to give intensional de¯nitions but the resulting de¯nitions are necessarily quite vague because as remarked by many authors, e.g.
Recommended publications

  • The Stamps of the German Empire

    UC-NRLF 6165 3fi Sfifi G3P6 COo GIFT OF Lewis Bealer THE STAMPS OF THE GERMAN STATES By Bertram W. H. Poole PART I "Stamps of the German Empire" BADEN MECKLENBURG-SCHWERIN BAVARIA MECKLENBURG-STREUTZ BERGEDORF OLDENBURG BREMEN PRUSSIA BRUNSWICK SAXONY HAMBURG SCHLESWIG-HOISTEIN HANOVER LUBECK WURTEMBERG HANDBOOK NUMBER 6 Price 35c PUBLISHED BY MEKEEL-SEVERN-WYLIE CO. BOSTON, MASS. i" THE STAMPS OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE BY BERTRAM W. H. POOLE AUTHOR OF The Stamps of the Cook Islands, Stamp Collector's Guide, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Sierra Leone, Etc. MEKEEL-SEVERN-WYLIE CO. HANDBOOK No. 6 PUBLISHED BY MEKEEL-SEVERN-WYLIE CO. BOSTON, MASS. GIFT OF FOREWORD. In beginning this series of articles little is required in the way of an intro- ductory note for the title is lucid enough. I may, however, point out that these articles are written solely for the guidance of the general collector, in which category, of course, all our boy readers are included. While all im- portant philatelic facts will be recorded but little attention will be paid to minor varieties. Special stress will be laid on a study of the various designs and all necessary explanations will be given so that the lists of varieties appearing in the catalogues will be plain to the most inexperienced collector. In the "refer- ence list," which will conclude each f chapter, only > s.ucji s. arfif>s; Hifl >e in- cluded as may; ie,'con&tfJdrekt ;"e,ssntial" and, as such,' coming 'within 'the scope of on the.'phJlaJtetist'lcoUeetijig' ^ene^l" lines. .V.
  • Animacy and Alienability: a Reconsideration of English

    Animacy and Alienability: a Reconsideration of English

    Running head: ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 1 Animacy and Alienability A Reconsideration of English Possession Jaimee Jones A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Spring 2016 ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________ Jaeshil Kim, Ph.D. Thesis Chair ______________________________ Paul Müller, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Jeffrey Ritchey, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Brenda Ayres, Ph.D. Honors Director ______________________________ Date ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 3 Abstract Current scholarship on English possessive constructions, the s-genitive and the of- construction, largely ignores the possessive relationships inherent in certain English compound nouns. Scholars agree that, in general, an animate possessor predicts the s- genitive while an inanimate possessor predicts the of-construction. However, the current literature rarely discusses noun compounds, such as the table leg, which also express possessive relationships. However, pragmatically and syntactically, a compound cannot be considered as a true possessive construction. Thus, this paper will examine why some compounds still display possessive semantics epiphenomenally. The noun compounds that imply possession seem to exhibit relationships prototypical of inalienable possession such as body part, part whole, and spatial relationships. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the possessor and possessum in the compound construction is reminiscent of inalienable possession in other languages. Therefore, this paper proposes that inalienability, a phenomenon not thought to be relevant in English, actually imbues noun compounds whose components exhibit an inalienable relationship with possessive semantics.
  • The Strategy of Case-Marking

    The Strategy of Case-Marking

    Case marking strategies Helen de Hoop & Andrej Malchukov1 Radboud University Nijmegen DRAFT January 2006 Abstract Two strategies of case marking in natural languages are discussed. These are defined as two violable constraints whose effects are shown to converge in the case of differential object marking but diverge in the case of differential subject marking. The strength of the case bearing arguments will be shown to be of utmost importance for case marking as well as voice alternations. The strength of arguments can be viewed as a function of their discourse prominence. The analysis of the case marking patterns we find cross-linguistically is couched in a bidirectional OT analysis. 1. Assumptions In this section we wish to put forward our three basic assumptions: (1) In ergative-absolutive systems ergative case is assigned to the first argument x of a two-place relation R(x,y). (2) In nominative-accusative systems accusative case is assigned to the second argument y of a two-place relation R(x,y). (3) Morphologically unmarked case can be the absence of case. The first two assumptions deal with the linking between the first (highest) and second (lowest) argument in a transitive sentence and the type of case marking. For reasons of convenience, we will refer to these arguments quite sloppily as the subject and the object respectively, although we are aware of the fact that the labels subject and object may not be appropriate in all contexts, dependent on how they are actually defined. In many languages, ergative and accusative case are assigned only or mainly in transitive sentences, while in intransitive sentences ergative and accusative case are usually not assigned.
  • Does English Have a Genitive Case? Amyrose@Linguist.Umass.Edu

    Does English Have a Genitive Case? [email protected]

    2. Amy Rose Deal – University of Massachusetts, Amherst Does English have a genitive case? [email protected] In written English, possessive pronouns appear without ’s in the same environments where non-pronominal DPs require ’s. (1) a. your/*you’s/*your’s book b. Moore’s/*Moore book What explains this complementarity? Various analyses suggest themselves. A. Possessive pronouns are contractions of a pronoun and ’s. (Hudson 2003: 603) B. Possessive pronouns are inflected genitives (Huddleston and Pullum 2002); a morphological deletion rule removes clitic ’s after a genitive pronoun. Analysis A consists of a single rule of a familiar type: Morphological Merger (Halle and Marantz 1993), familiar from forms like wanna and won’t. (His and its contract especially nicely.) No special lexical/vocabulary items need be postulated. Analysis B, on the other hand, requires a set of vocabulary items to spell out genitive case, as well as a rule to delete the ’s clitic following such forms, assuming ’s is a DP-level head distinct from the inflecting noun. These two accounts make divergent predictions for dialects with complex pronominals such as you all or you guys (and us/them all, depending on the speaker). Since Merger operates under adjacency, Analysis A predicts that intervention by all or guys should bleed the formation of your: only you all’s and you guys’ are predicted. There do seem to be dialects with this property, as witnessed by the American Heritage Dictionary (4th edition, entry for you-all). Call these English 1. Here, we may claim that pronouns inflect for only two cases, and Merger operations account for the rest.
  • Lessons from the Rise and Demise of the Self-Declared Caliphate of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

    Lessons from the Rise and Demise of the Self-Declared Caliphate of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

    IN A BROKEN DREAM: LESSONS FROM THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE SELF-DECLARED CALIPHATE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE IN SYRIA AND IRAQ TAL MIMRAN* I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................77 II. THE PRINCIPLE OF SOVEREIGNTY AND THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ORDER.............................................79 III. THE CASE STUDYTHE ISLAMIC STATE BETWEEN 2014 AND 2017.......................................................................91 IV. THE DREAM OF THE CALIPHATE AND STATEHOOD................99 A. The Criteria for Statehood............................................100 1. Permanent Population............................................101 2. Defined Territory ....................................................102 3. Effective Government .............................................102 4. Capacity to Enter into Relations with Other States ............................................................103 B. What’s Recognition Got To Do with It? ........................103 V. FUNCTIONALISM, DETERRITORIALIZATION, AND THE ISLAMIC STATE IN THE AGE OF THE RISE OF NSAS............112 VI. CONCLUSION........................................................................127 I. INTRODUCTION The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Islamic State)1 is a terrorist organization that took over significant territories, in the context of the Syrian civil war,2 and declared itself a caliphate in June 2014.3 It transformed from a minor terrorist group into an alleged quasi-state, presenting capabilities and wealth like no * Doctorate
  • The Term Declension, the Three Basic Qualities of Latin Nouns, That

    The Term Declension, the Three Basic Qualities of Latin Nouns, That

    Chapter 2: First Declension Chapter 2 covers the following: the term declension, the three basic qualities of Latin nouns, that is, case, number and gender, basic sentence structure, subject, verb, direct object and so on, the six cases of Latin nouns and the uses of those cases, the formation of the different cases in Latin, and the way adjectives agree with nouns. At the end of this lesson we’ll review the vocabulary you should memorize in this chapter. Declension. As with conjugation, the term declension has two meanings in Latin. It means, first, the process of joining a case ending onto a noun base. Second, it is a term used to refer to one of the five categories of nouns distinguished by the sound ending the noun base: /a/, /ŏ/ or /ŭ/, a consonant or /ĭ/, /ū/, /ē/. First, let’s look at the three basic characteristics of every Latin noun: case, number and gender. All Latin nouns and adjectives have these three grammatical qualities. First, case: how the noun functions in a sentence, that is, is it the subject, the direct object, the object of a preposition or any of many other uses? Second, number: singular or plural. And third, gender: masculine, feminine or neuter. Every noun in Latin will have one case, one number and one gender, and only one of each of these qualities. In other words, a noun in a sentence cannot be both singular and plural, or masculine and feminine. Whenever asked ─ and I will ask ─ you should be able to give the correct answer for all three qualities.
  • Meer Mee-Doen

    Meer Mee-Doen

    Meer Mee-Doen Regelingen bijzondere bijstand en minimabeleid Sociale Dienst Oost Achterhoek 03-2015 Deze brochure geeft de belangrijkste informatie maar is natuurlijk niet volledig. Voor meer informatie kunt u terecht op www.sdoa.nl uitgave 03-2015 | Regelingen bijzondere bijstand en minimabeleid pagina 3 Bijzondere noodzakelijke uitgaven kunnen doen en meedoen met maatschappelijke activiteiten; dat moet mogelijk zijn voor iedereen. Ook als u een laag inkomen heeft. De Sociale Dienst Oost Achterhoek spant zich in om u financieel te helpen waar dat nodig en mogelijk is. Daarvoor zijn allerlei regelingen van kracht die kunnen verschillen afhankelijk van de gemeente waar u woont. Deze folder geeft de belangrijkste regelingen weer. pagina 4 Regelingen bijzondere bijstand en minimabeleid | uitgave 03-2015 Kom ik in aanmerking voor bijzondere bijdragen? Iedere aanvraag voor bijzondere bijstand wordt apart beoordeeld, maar er zijn natuurlijk algemene richtlijnen. Die hebben te maken met uw leeftijd (heeft u de pensioengerechtigde leeftijd al bereikt?), met uw gezinssituatie (woont u alleen of gezamenlijk, heeft u kinderen waarvoor u moet zorgen?) en met uw inkomen. Via onderstaand overzicht kunt u van te voren al redelijk inschatten of u wel of niet recht heeft op regelingen voor bijzondere bijstand. De genoemde norminkomens wijzigen tweemaal per jaar. Kijk voor de actuele bedragen voor de zekerheid op www.sdoa.nl. Bent u getrouwd of woont u samen en bent u tussen de 21 en de pensioengerechtigde leeftijd? Dan hebt u, als uw gezamenlijk inkomen beneden de € 1.509,- ligt, waarschijnlijk recht op één of meerdere regelingen. Bent u alleenstaande ouder tussen de 21 en de pensioengerechtigde leeftijd? Dan hebt u met een inkomen beneden de € 1.336,- (dit is inclusief de alleenstaande ouderkop), waarschijnlijk recht op één of meerdere regelingen.
  • The Accusative Case the Accusative Case Is Applied to the Direct Object of the Verb

    The Accusative Case the Accusative Case Is Applied to the Direct Object of the Verb

    The Accusative Case The accusative case is applied to the direct object of the verb. For example “I studied the .Notice several things about this sentence درس ُت الكتا ب book” is rendered in Arabic as is not used in the sentence. Such pronouns are usually not أنا ”,First, the pronoun for “I used, since the verb conjugation tells us who the subject is. These pronouns are used sometimes for emphasis. Second, notice that I left most of the verb unvowelled. The only vowel I used is the vowel that tells you for which person the verb is being conjugated. Sometimes you may see such a vowel included in an authentic Arab text if there is a chance of ambiguity. However, usually the verb, like all words, will be completely unvocalized. Notice that the verb ends in a vowel and that the vowel will elide the hamza on the definite article. ends in a fatha. The fatha is the accusative case الكتا ب ,Fourth, the direct object of the verb marker. I studied a document.” Notice that two fathas are used“ درس ُت وثيقة :Look at this sentence here. The second fatha gives us the nunation. This is just like the other two cases, nominative and genitive where the second dhanuna and second kasra provide the nunation. So, we use one fatha if the word is definite and two fathas if the word is indefinite. But there درست كتابا :is just a little bit more. Look at the following This is “I studied a book.” Here the indefinite direct object ends in two fathas but we have also added an alif.
  • Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present (Impact: Studies in Language and Society)

    Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present (Impact: Studies in Language and Society)

    <DOCINFO AUTHOR ""TITLE "Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present"SUBJECT "Impact 18"KEYWORDS ""SIZE HEIGHT "220"WIDTH "150"VOFFSET "4"> Germanic Standardizations Impact: Studies in language and society impact publishes monographs, collective volumes, and text books on topics in sociolinguistics. The scope of the series is broad, with special emphasis on areas such as language planning and language policies; language conflict and language death; language standards and language change; dialectology; diglossia; discourse studies; language and social identity (gender, ethnicity, class, ideology); and history and methods of sociolinguistics. General Editor Associate Editor Annick De Houwer Elizabeth Lanza University of Antwerp University of Oslo Advisory Board Ulrich Ammon William Labov Gerhard Mercator University University of Pennsylvania Jan Blommaert Joseph Lo Bianco Ghent University The Australian National University Paul Drew Peter Nelde University of York Catholic University Brussels Anna Escobar Dennis Preston University of Illinois at Urbana Michigan State University Guus Extra Jeanine Treffers-Daller Tilburg University University of the West of England Margarita Hidalgo Vic Webb San Diego State University University of Pretoria Richard A. Hudson University College London Volume 18 Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present Edited by Ana Deumert and Wim Vandenbussche Germanic Standardizations Past to Present Edited by Ana Deumert Monash University Wim Vandenbussche Vrije Universiteit Brussel/FWO-Vlaanderen John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements 8 of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Germanic standardizations : past to present / edited by Ana Deumert, Wim Vandenbussche.
  • Read Each Sentence and Rewrite the Underlined Word Or Words Using a Possessive Pronoun Or a Possessive Pronoun and a Noun

    Read Each Sentence and Rewrite the Underlined Word Or Words Using a Possessive Pronoun Or a Possessive Pronoun and a Noun

    Grammar: Possessive Pronouns Name • A possessive pronoun takes the place of a possessive noun. It does not have an apostrophe. • A possessive pronoun must match the noun it replaces in number and gender. Read each sentence and rewrite the underlined word or words using a possessive pronoun or a possessive pronoun and a noun. 1. My uncle’s ranch is in Texas. 2. I left the book that belongs to me at home. 3. Lisa’s telephone is broken. 4. The mechanic said that the car’s wheels are brand new. 5. The bedroom that belongs to you and me needs to be cleaned. 6. We watched the tiger’s cubs as they played. 7. May I borrow the necklace that belongs to you? 8. Maya and Lucy’s parrot says “Hello.” 9. The foot that belongs to me is hurting. Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Companies, McGraw-Hill The © Copyright 10. The woman’s dream was to become a lawyer. Grammar • Grade 4 • Unit 4 • Week 4 91 Grammar: Stand-Alone Possessive Pronouns Name • A possessive pronoun takes the place of a possessive noun and does not include an apostrophe. It must match the noun it replaces in number and gender. • A stand-alone possessive pronoun is not used directly before a noun. • Add -s to most pronouns that are used before a noun to form a stand- alone possessive pronoun, such as yours, hers, ours, and theirs. • Mine is a stand-alone possessive pronoun. His and its are the same when used before a noun or as a stand-alone possessive pronoun.
  • From Winterswijk to Wisconsin: Emigration from the Achterhoek to the United States in the Nineteenth Century

    From Winterswijk to Wisconsin: Emigration from the Achterhoek to the United States in the Nineteenth Century

    From Winterswijk to Wisconsin: Emigration from the Achterhoek to the United States in the nineteenth century Introduction Winterswijk is a small village in the eastern part of the Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is likely that nobody in Wisconsin would ever have heard about it, if not for a single historical phenomenon: in the nineteenth century, a significant part of the population emigrated to the United States and many of these emigrants ended up in Wisconsin. This article will explore the reasons why so many people left, how they traveled and where they ended up. Figure 1: Location of Winterswijk and the neighboring towns of Aalten, Bredevoort and Dinxperlo1 Agricultural history of Winterswijk To understand why the emigration wave hit exactly in the Winterswijk area, we have to understand some of its history. Winterswijk has long been a rural community. Some of the farms that exist today, appear in historical records as early as the 11th century.2 Until the French occupation in 1795, many inhabitants were serfs. They were bound to the land and worked the farms of the landlords. They also had to perform services for the lord, including de-icing the castle moat, letting the lord's pigs roam the forests for acorns, providing food and water for the lord's hunting party and cutting wood for the lord's kitchen. In return, they had the right to work the farm and the lord provided protection for them. They also had to submit to strict serf laws. In general, serfs were only expected to marry other serfs that belonged to the same estate.
  • From Latin to Romance: Case Loss and Preservation in Pronominal Systems

    From Latin to Romance: Case Loss and Preservation in Pronominal Systems

    FLORE Repository istituzionale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems Questa è la Versione finale referata (Post print/Accepted manuscript) della seguente pubblicazione: Original Citation: From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems / Manzini, MARIA RITA; Savoia, LEONARDO MARIA. - In: PROBUS. - ISSN 1613-4079. - STAMPA. - 26, 2(2014), pp. 217-248. Availability: This version is available at: 2158/891750 since: 2016-01-20T16:23:29Z Terms of use: Open Access La pubblicazione è resa disponibile sotto le norme e i termini della licenza di deposito, secondo quanto stabilito dalla Policy per l'accesso aperto dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze (https://www.sba.unifi.it/upload/policy-oa-2016-1.pdf) Publisher copyright claim: (Article begins on next page) 27 September 2021 Probus 2014; 26(2): 217 – 248 M. Rita Manzini* and Leonardo M. Savoia From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems Abstract: The evolution from Latin into Romance is marked by the loss of case in nominal declensions. In most Romance varieties, however, pronouns, specifi- cally in the 1st/2nd person singular, keep case differentiations. In some varieties 1st/2nd singular pronouns present a three-way case split, essentially the same re- constructed for proto-Romance (De Dardel and Gaeng 1992, Zamboni 1998). We document and analyze the current situation of Romance in the first part of the article (section 1). In the second part of the article we argue that the Dative Shifted distribution of loro in modern Italian, accounted for by means of the category of weak pronoun in Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), is best construed as a survival of oblique case in the 3rd person system (section 2).