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Cataphora, expletives and impersonal constructions in the history of Icelandic

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

This paper presents a diachronic account for the emergence of the expletive thorn ao in Icelandic impersonal constructions. Using data from the IcePaHC corpus (Wallenberg et al. 2011), I show that a cataphorically referential thorn ao functions as a topic position placeholder in Old Icelandic (1150-1350) in impersonals with a clausal argument. The corpus findings indicate that thorn ao spread from this early cataphoric context to impersonals which lack the clausal argument, with 'say-type predicates' acting as a bridging context. Strikingly, this coincides with another change whereby cataphoric thorn ao becomes increasingly restricted to the topic position in constructions with a clausal subject. I interpret this as evidence that cataphoric thorn ao is losing its subject status in such contexts and becoming a topic position placeholder, in line with its function in impersonals. This sheds light on the mixed status of cataphoric thorn ao in modern Icelandic and challenges the 'Prefinite First Hypothesis' for the diachrony of Germanic expletives (e.g. Faarlund 1990).
Journal: NORDIC JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS
ISSN: 1502-4717
Issue: 2
Volume: 42
Pages: 139 - 164
Publication year:2019
BOF-keylabel:yes
IOF-keylabel:yes
Authors:National
Authors from:Higher Education
Accessibility:Closed