Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 52 | 2018
Research Article | Mood Alternations in Old High German Subordinate Clauses
Mood Alternations in Old High German Subordinate Clauses
Abstract
In this paper, Old High German mood alternations in the different types of subordinate clauses (complement, adverbial and relative clauses) are discussed. The use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses is notoriously more frequent than in Modern German and has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Based on a comprehensive corpus study, the paper will show that the licensing conditions for the subjunctive in Old High German are determined by notions such as veridicality and – in relative contexts – specificity. These conditions are thus similar (but not always identical) to those observed for Modern Greek and Romance languages. Furthermore, a syntactic analysis is provided in order to account for the licensing of the subjunctive in each type of subordinate clause.
Submitted: Aug. 3, 2018 | Accepted: Aug. 14, 2018 | Published Sept. 28, 2018 | Language: en
Keywords Mood alternation • Relative clause • Subjunctive • Complement clause • Indicative • Corpus study • Subordinate clause • Old High German • Adverbial clause • Specificity • Veridicality
Copyright © 2018 Marco Coniglio, Roland Hinterhölzl, Svetlana Petrova. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2018/01/001
