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Part of
History of Linguistics 2021: Selected papers from the 15th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS 15), Milan, 28 August – 1 September
Edited by Savina Raynaud, Maria Paola Tenchini and Enrica Galazzi
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 133] 2024
► pp. 181–199

Chapter 12
The relevance of B. Delbrück’s work on Indo-European syntax
(a century after his death)

| Università degli Studi di Milano,
Delbrück’s work on Indo-European syntax, particularly his contribution to the analysis of Vedic syntax, is still a useful tool for those wanting to deal with the study of Old Indian and Indo-European comparative syntax. Indeed, it is methodologically comparable with the recent analyses of the left periphery of the sentence. In fact, the notions of basic order of the major constituents of the sentence and of marked order are already present in Delbrück’s 1878 work, together with formal considerations that relate the variation of the order of constituents to the interface between the syntax and information structure of the sentence.
Keywords: B. Delbrück, neogrammarians, PIE syntax, Vedic syntax, left periphery syntax
Article outline
  • 1.On PIE word order: Delbrück vs. Braune
  • 2.Non-configurational languages
  • 3.Configurationality and Indo-European
  • 4.The opposition between ‘traditionelle’ and ‘occasionelle Wortstellung’
  • 5.Examples of traditional and occasional order
  • 6.Looking for a VP in Sanskrit
  • 7.Clitics in Delbrück (1878)
  • 8.Verb-initial sentences due to textual cohesion
  • 9.Reception of Delbrück’s work in recent years
  • 10.The Occasionelle Wortstellung as a historical explanation
  • 11.Amplified sentences
  • 12.Occasionelle Stellung and Left Periphery
  • 13.Conclusions
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
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References (27)
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