Linguistics and English Language

Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Marc Meisezahl (University of Edinburgh)

Title: The loss of V2: What role does the distribution of preverbal elements play?

Abstract: Verb second (V2) is a word order phenomenon characterised by the obligatory realisation of the finite verb in the second position of the clause, while no restrictions apply to grammatical function or category of the preverbal constituent. Although many of the present-day V2 languages had a V2 grammar already attested in their earliest records, other languages like English and French used to be V2 but have later lost this property of their grammar. The loss of V2 has been tied to the amount of evidence for V2 learners receive in their input. It has been suggested that this evidence is formed by non-subject-initial sentences. Building on work demonstrating a fostering effect of more variable input, we hypothesised that learners will be unable to converge on a V2 grammar without sufficient variability in the preverbal constituent. In this talk, I present the results of an artificial language learning experiment in which we put this hypothesis at test. In four conditions, participants were exposed to a miniature V2 language with different distributions of preverbal constituents. Contrasting previous findings, no difference between different input conditions were observed. I discuss possible explanations for this null result and its implications.

Contact

Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

Feb 07 2023 -

Language evolution seminar

2023-02-07: The loss of V2: What role does the distribution of preverbal elements play?

Room G.16 - Doorway 4, Old Medical School, The University of Edinburgh, Central Campus, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, EH1 2QZ; online via link invitation