Abstract
AbstractThis paper is mainly about a unique case of syntactic epistemic weakening, i.e. the present subjunctive mood and its negation trigger in surface coordination. In contrast to modern colloquial German, which limits the use of the present subjunctive quite restrictively to root clauses, the older periods of German, Old and Middle High German, showed an extended use of the subjunctive beyond root, i.e. also in dependent structures. However, the semantically interpreted as well as the grammatical subjunctive got entirely lost in Modern colloquial, albeit not quite in Standard written German. The focus of this paper is the discussion of mood in early complex (subordinated or coordinated) negated sentences. Exploiting mainly the MHG text of theLay of the Nibelungs, we focus on negated matrix structures, in superficially coordinated, but semantically dependent clauses. This suggests that thene-particle in co-construction with the subjunctive on the predicate was used to code clausal dependence from the previous (negated) clause. In further course, in specific semantic constructions, the original Middle High German interpretability of paratactic negation and the consequent denotation of non-factual situations were lost and gave way to the pure syntactic coding of dependency. The triangle of triggers contributing to the complex phenomenon consists of 1. negation of different sorts and in various syntactic distributions, 2. dependency marking, and 3. indicative–subjunctive marking on the dependent predicate. The attempt is made to draw comparisons to other epistemicity triggers such as syntactic and lexical nonveridicals.
Highlights
Breaking the ground for the notion of epistemic weakeningThe path of subjunctive coding from independent non-factuality to purely syntactic, non-interpretable subjunctive marking is a multifarious enterprise
In contrast to Italian and the older stages of German, Old High German (OHG) and MHG, where mood can alternate in the dependent relative clause (Coniglio 2017), Old-Bavarian-derived Cimbrian exhibits a choice between two relative pronominals: bo and ke, both for ‘which, who’ and their case modifications
In the OHG illustration (39b), likewise, the subjunctive is triggered in the OHG illustration by negation in the matrix clause followed by indefinite pronouns in the complement sentence
Summary
The path of subjunctive coding from independent non-factuality to purely syntactic, non-interpretable subjunctive marking is a multifarious enterprise. Subjunctive forms and functions were much simpler in the early historical periods of German than in Modern Standard German/MStG as there were only two tenses in the subjunctive mood: present and simple past. There were only two functions if we go by what the subjunctive meant in the first place in the early periods of Indo-European: the optative present and past. Both have in common that they are non-factual irrespective of a narrower designation of mood. If she only kissed would/been have ‘If only she would be kissed/would have been kissed!’. If he her only kiss would/kissed had ‘If he only would kiss her/would have kissed her!’. Consider the German correspondences giving credit to the perfective prefix, ge- in (2a), and the present subjunctive, wer MStG ‘wehre’ in (2b), by means of periphrases.
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