The history of pronominal subjects in the languages of northern Europe

Lead Research Organisation: University of Oxford
Department Name: Linguistics Philology and Phonetics

Abstract

This project looks at subject pronouns ('I', 'she', 'they') and how their form and functions change over time. Languages create new pronouns (neither 'she' nor 'they' are directly descended from Old English). The ways pronouns are used can vary: 'She and I both left' (with coordination of two pronouns) is fine in English but its literal translation is not possible in French. Hence, pronouns can change from one pattern to the other: French used to be more like English in this example, and it is usually thought that French pronouns have in some sense become 'weaker', leading to this change. Some languages allow pronouns to be omitted: 'I speak Italian' is 'Parlo italiano' in Italian, with no word corresponding to 'I' (the '-o' ending of 'parlo' indicates the subject). Whether a language can omit pronouns can change: French was once more like Italian in this respect and has become more like English. Even in Italian, pronouns are sometimes used. When a pronoun is appropriate depends on complex factors, for instance, to do with what is the current topic of discussion and when it was last mentioned. These rules too can change over time. The central question that this project aims to answer is how and why so much to do with subject pronouns is variable over time. We do this by looking in-depth at the history of subject pronouns in three language groups broadly speaking spanning northern Europe: Celtic (Welsh, Irish, Breton etc.), Slavonic (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian etc.) and Germanic (English, German, Dutch etc.). While Germanic is relatively well studied in this regard, work on Slavonic is less well-developed and many questions remain unanswered, and relevant work on Celtic is still in its infancy. We annotate historical texts from the history of these languages to establish what patterns were found in the past. We then try to explain the patterns and changes against the background of existing approaches, such as the idea that pronouns undergo a cycle of weakening and replacement or that omission of subjects is linked to the number of different forms a verb has or to aspects of a language's word order. In this way, we hope both to shed light on the histories of the languages under investigation and to address broader questions about how and why pronominal systems and language in general change over time.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description We have been examining changes in the way that subject pronouns are expressed over time in the languages of northern Europe, focusing in Oxford on Celtic languages and in Berlin on Slavic languages. We have been creating annotated versions of various historical texts in the relevant languages in order to see how the expression of subject pronouns has been changing. In doing so, we have successfully developed new standards for grammatical annotation (both part-of-speech annotation and parsing of sentence structure) for both Welsh and Irish. In a number of languages (Russian, Welsh), subjects pronouns, which could be left unexpressed in the medieval period, have become more and more common. We have established that, in Welsh, the increase in frequency of subject pronouns is late, not being evidenced even in the late medieval period, and we have been developing an account linked to individuation of the subject (less individuated subjects e.g. plural ones, or those referring to non-participants in the discourse are less likely to be expressed overtly). For Russian, a clear link to both person and topic shift has been identified: the increase in frequency of subject pronouns is favoured: (i) when the topic of a sentence is different from that of the previous sentence; and (ii) when the subject is first person ('I') or second person ('you'). The parallels between Russian and Welsh have suggested a natural (as opposed to culturally specific) pathway of development. Irish has turned out to be quite different, with increased use of subject pronouns seemingly spreading step by step from one context to the next, starting with those where the subject could not be expressed using a verbal ending.
Exploitation Route The research provides case studies for how the subject pronoun system of a language may change, and will feed into work in the comparing diachronies approach to historical linguistics, where the histories of multiple languages are compared to establish whether the same historical changes occur in unrelated or distantly related languages, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the processes underlying language change.
Sectors Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Education

URL https://www.slawistik.hu-berlin.de/de/member/meyerrol/pronounhistory
 
Description Partnership with Humboldt University Berlin 
Organisation Humboldt University of Berlin
Country Germany 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We are collaborating with the research group of Prof. Roland Meyer at Humboldt University Berlin, sharing experience of creating parsed digital historical corpora of Celtic languages and analysis of historical pronominal patterns in those languages.
Collaborator Contribution Our partners are pursuing parallel research goals, primarily focusing on the Slavonic langauges. We share experience, knowledge and expertise.
Impact Each team has gained expertise and insights from the other but publish outputs separately.
Start Year 2021