Itinerarium Egeriae: L'ordre Des Constituants Obligatoires

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the ordering of obligatory constituents (subject, object, indirect object) in the Itinerarium Egeriae (fourth century AD). The point of departure for the analysis is the valency of the verb and the number of its syntactic positions. This approach allows considering together several models in which the obligatory constituents usually carry the same pragmatic function. Thus, the frequent postverbal position of the object in the Itinerarium is not a result of some syntactic constraint but of its pragmatic function as carrier of Focus. Directional complements and subjects in passive constructions present usually also new information and occupy the final position in the sentence. Topics are often (but not always) found in initial position; anaphoric and demonstrative pronouns occur, facultatively, to co-mark the topic function. However, due to its content, the degree of topic continuity is higher in the first part of the Itinerarium, which describes entities, than in the second part, which describes events.