Cover not available
Part of
Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax
Edited by Miriam Bouzouita, Ioanna Sitaridou and Enrique Pato
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 16] 2018
► pp. 99–122

Chapter 5
Stylistic fronting in Old Spanish texts

| Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

This paper provides new evidence on Stylistic Fronting in Old Spanish. The data show significant differences in the distribution and restrictions of Stylistic Fronting in main and subordinate clauses. They also provide new evidence about the syntagmatic split of phrases occurring simultaneously in many cases of Stylistic Fronting. I also address the question of whether this kind of fronting may be viewed as an instance of the emphatic movement or focus. Looking at textual evidence, the focal or expressive character of these expressions is not always easy to prove. These data lead to the conclusion that Stylistic Fronting should be viewed as a by-product or an epiphenomenon derived from multiple causes and motivations.

Keywords: Stylistic Fronting, Spanish, word order, main clause, subordinate clause, focus, movement
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Textual evidence
    • 2.1Subject gap
    • 2.2Initial position in main sentences
    • 2.3Subordinate sentences
  • 3.Focus meaning?
  • 4.Stylistic fronting in main clauses
  • 5.Split phrases and analytical futures
  • 6.Stylistic fronting in subordinate clauses
  • 7.Summary and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.16.05elv
References
Adams, J. N.
(1994a) Wackernagel’s law and the placement of the copula esse in Classical Latin. Cambridge: The Cambridge Philological Society.Google Scholar
(1994b) Wackernagel’s law and the placement of unstressed personal pronouns in Classical Latin. Transactions of the Philological Society, 92(2), 103–178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, B. L. M.
(2009) Word order. In Ph. Baldi & P. Cuzzolini (Eds.), New perspectives on historical Latin syntax, Volume 1: Syntax of the Sentence (pp. 241–316). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bouzouita, M.
(2011) Future constructions in Medieval Spanish: Mesoclisis uncovered. In R. Kempson, E. Gregoromichelaki & C. Howes (Eds.), The dynamics of lexical interfaces (pp. 91–132). Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
(2012) Los futuros en la Fazienda de Ultra Mar , In E. Montero Cartelle & C. Manzano Rovira (Eds.), Actas del VIII Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española (Vol. 1, pp. 695–706). Santiago de Compostela: Meubook.Google Scholar
Castillo Lluch, M.
(1996) La posición del pronombre átono en la prosa hispánica medieval. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
(2002) Distribución de las formas analíticas y sintéticas de futuro y condicional en español medieval. In M. T. Echenique Elizondo & J. P. Sánchez Méndez (Eds.), Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española (pp. 541–550). Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Eide, K. G.
(2018) Postverbal subjects of unaccusative verbs in the history of Portuguese. In M. Bouzouita, I. Sitaridou & E. Pato (Eds.), Studies (in this volume) in historical Ibero-Romance morpho-syntax (pp. 149–171). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Elvira, J.
(1987) Enclisis pronominal y posición del verbo en español antiguo. Epos, 3, 63–79.Google Scholar
(1993) La función cohesiva de la posición inicial de frase en la prosa alfonsí. Cahiers de linguistique hispanique médiévale, 18/19, 243–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Ordóñez, I.
(2008–2009) Orden de palabras, tópicos y focos en la prosa alfonsí. Alcanate, 6, 139–172.Google Scholar
Fischer, S.
(2005) Construcciones con avance estilístico en el catalán antiguo. Caplletra, 38, 119–135.Google Scholar
(2010) Word-order change as a source for grammaticalisation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014) Revisiting Stylistic Fronting in Old Spanish. In A. Dufter & A. S. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (Eds.), Left sentence peripheries in Spanish. Diachronic, variationist and comparative perspectives (pp. 53–76). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Fischer, S., & Alexiadou, A.
(2001) On Stylistic Fronting: Germanic vs. Romance. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, 68, 117–145.Google Scholar
Fontana, J.
(1993) Phrase structure and the syntax of clitics in the history of Spanish. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Franco, I.
(2009) Verbs, subjects and Stylistic Fronting. A comparative analysis of the interaction of CP properties with verb movement and subject positions in Icelandic and Old Italian. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Siena, Siena, Italy.Google Scholar
Hrafnbjargarson, G. H.
(2004a) Oblique subjects and Stylistic Fronting in the history of Scandinavian and English: The role of IP Spec. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark.Google Scholar
(2004b) Stylistic Fronting. Studia Linguistica, 58(2), 88–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leonetti, M., & Escandell, M. V.
(2009) Fronting and verum focus in Spanish. In A. Düfter & D. Jacob (Eds.), Focus and background in Romance languages (pp. 155–204). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maling, J.
(1980) Inversion in embedded clauses in Modern Icelandic. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði, 2, 175–193.Google Scholar
(1990) Inversion in embedded clauses in Modern Icelandic. In J. Maling & A. Zaenen (Eds.), Syntax & semantics: Modern Icelandic syntax (pp. 191–215). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mathieu, E., & Sitaridou, I.
(2002) Split wh-constructions in Classical and Modern Greek. Linguistics in Potsdam, 19, 143–182.Google Scholar
Mathieu, E.
(2006) Stylistic Fronting in Old French. Probus, 18, 219–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Menéndez Pidal, R.
(1976a) Orígenes del español. Estado lingüístico de la Península Ibérica hasta el siglo XI. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
(1976b) Cantar de Mio Cid. Texto, gramática y vocabulario. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Meyer-Lübke, W.
(1900) Grammaire des langues romanes. Vol. 3: Syntaxe. Paris: H. Welter Éditeur.Google Scholar
Molnár, V.
(2010) Stylistic Fronting and discourse. Tampa Papers in Linguistics, 1, 30–61.Google Scholar
Platzack, Ch
(1988) The emergence of a word order difference in Scandinavian subordinate clauses. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics. Special Issue on Comparative Germanic Syntax, 215–238.Google Scholar
Rodríguez Molina, J.
(2010) La gramaticalización de los tiempos compuestos en español antiguo: Cinco cambios diacrónicos. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
Rohlfs, G.
(1949–1954) Historische Grammatik der italienischen Sprache und ihrer Mundarten. I. Lautlehre. Band III: Syntax und Wortbildung. Bern: A. Francke Verlag.Google Scholar
Sławomirsky, J.
(1986) Wackernagel’s Law in Old Spanish. Revista Española de Lingüística, 16(1), 91–100.Google Scholar
Vennemann, T.
(1974) Topics, subjects, and word order: From SXV to SVX via TVX. In J. Anderson & Ch. Jones (Eds.), Historical linguistics: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Historical Linguistics, Edinburgh, September 1973 (pp. 339–376). Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar

Corpus

Admyte II. Archivo digital de manuscritos y textos españoles
. Madrid: Micronet & Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia 1999.Google Scholar
Alfonso, X.
Estoria de España (I and II), Escorial Monasterio Y-I-2, Ll. A. Kasten & J. Nitti Eds. in Admyte II
General Estoria (II and IV), Madrid Nacional ms. 10237, W. L. Jonxis-Henkemans Ed. in Admyte-II
Real Academia Española
Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE). Madrid: RAE. [URL]