Crossing the lake
Motion verb constructions in Bodensee-Alemannic and Swiss German
The Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in south-western Germany are structurally very similar. This seems to extend to the motion verb construction where the motion verb is obligatorily followed by an element gi/go followed by an infinitive. Upon closer inspection, however, intriguing asymmetries emerge. We account for these differences by treating gi/go as belonging to different syntactic categories. This synchronic difference in categorization can be related to different historical developments, as proposed by Lötscher (1993): both elements go back to the preposition gen ‘towards’ and developed into a functional head with purpose/goal semantics that combines with a non-finite verbal projection. We will show that while gi in Bodensee-Alemannic still heads this functional projection, go in Swiss German has been reanalyzed as a verbal element and is now integrated into the Verb Raising and Verb Projection Raising system.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Brandner, Ellen
2024.
The Indefinite Article as an Exponent for Partition
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Partitive Constructions and Partitive Elements Within and Across Language Borders in Europe
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Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts
2014.
A Syntactic Universal and Its Consequences.
Linguistic Inquiry 45:2
► pp. 169 ff.
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