Edited by Esther Pascual and Sergeiy Sandler
[Human Cognitive Processing 55] 2016
► pp. 193–213
Fictive questions in conditionals?
Synchronic and diachronic evidence from German and English
This chapter discusses the alleged emergence of verb-first (V1) conditionals in English and German from question-driven fictive interaction of the type A: p? (B: Yes.) A: Then q. Since this scenario proves impossible to maintain with regard to English, an alternative model is proposed treating V1 as the grammaticalized residue of a stage in ancient Germanic at which word-order options were determined pragmatically instead of syntactically. The chapter shows that the conversational frame left its mark on V1-conditionals indirectly through the period as a rhetorical discourse unit in which V1 emerged as a marker of conditionality. This happened in different ways linked in part to the divergence of word-order systems between English and German.
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.55.10leu
References
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.