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Language Change at the Interfaces: Intrasentential and intersentential phenomena
Edited by Nicholas Catasso, Marco Coniglio and Chiara De Bastiani
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 275] 2022
► pp. 35–60

Information structure and Jespersen’s cycle

The dialects of Veneto as a window on processes of language change

ORCID logo | Ghent University
ORCID logo | Ghent University
ORCID logo | Ghent University

In this paper we report the results of an exploratory experiment aiming to examine the division of labour between syntax, phonology, and information structure in linguistic change, in particular, Jespersen’s cycle. According to previous literature, new expressions of negation start out from narrow focus contexts and lose this restriction when they become reanalysed as neutral negators. This leads to the expectation that prosodic correlates of (narrow) focus should be lost in the syntactic reanalysis of emerging negative markers. Looking at a group of North Italian dialects that are currently at different stages of (incipient) Jespersen’s cycle, we show that in more advanced varieties, we find a reduction of the new negator in pitch, duration and spectral organization, confirming our hypothesis.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Incipient and full-scale Jespersen’s cycle
  • 3.Information structure and incipient Jespersen’s cycle
  • 4.Pilot study
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Duration
    • 5.2Formants
    • 5.3Fundamental frequency
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 21 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.275.01mag
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