The change of Frisian infinitives

This paper discusses the two types of infinitives in Frisian: infinitives ending in -E (e.g. rinne “walk”) and infinitives ending in -EN (e.g. rinnen “walk”). It shows that their distribution can be accounted for by their different underlying syntactic structure: the -E infinitive has a fully verbal structure whereas the -EN infinitive has a flexible structure which always involves a DP. Moreover, I argue that the fact that the difference between the two forms is disappearing can be explained both by Dutch influence and by the fact that the structure of the infinitives already showed much over... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Bergstra, M.
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
Schlagwörter: infinitives / language change / Dutch-Frisian language contact / nominal and verbal structure / Taverne
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29038870
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/361027

This paper discusses the two types of infinitives in Frisian: infinitives ending in -E (e.g. rinne “walk”) and infinitives ending in -EN (e.g. rinnen “walk”). It shows that their distribution can be accounted for by their different underlying syntactic structure: the -E infinitive has a fully verbal structure whereas the -EN infinitive has a flexible structure which always involves a DP. Moreover, I argue that the fact that the difference between the two forms is disappearing can be explained both by Dutch influence and by the fact that the structure of the infinitives already showed much overlap.