Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

The balance between syntax and discourse in Old English 11
(16) Se casere hi sealde his gerefan, þæs nama wæs Dulcitius,
the caesar them gave his prefect, whose name was Dulcitius,
þæt se hi genedde þæt hi Criste wiðsocan.
that DEM them urge that they Christ reject
“The Caesar gave them his prefect, whose name was Dulcitius, that HE urge
them that they reject Christ” (comart3,Mart_5_[Kotzor]: Ap3,A.7.506)
This in itself shows that this set of pronouns has independent pronominal function,
and serves to mark a type of pronominal reference. This is reinforced by the
fact that they are also used as relative pronouns: relative pronouns are anaphoric
elements par excellence, as they must refer back to the antecedent of the relative
clause they introduce, sharing features for number and gender, and, optionally, for
case as in (17b).
(17) a. Ure Drihten arærde anes ealdormonnes dohtor,
Our Lord raised an alderman’s daughter (A),
seo ðe læg dead
who (N) that lay dead
“Our Lord brought to life an alderman’s daughter who lay dead”
(ÆHom VI, 176)
b. Ic wat witodlice ðæt ge secað ðone hælend
I know truly that you seek the Lord (A)
ðone ðe on rode ahangen wæs
whom (A) that on cross hung was
“I know truly that you seek the Lord, who was hung on the cross”
(Mt. 1766)
The claim here is that demonstrative pronouns mark a type of (pronominal) reference
that is both definite and specific, and when used as ‘definite determiners’
in a NP, serve to render that NP definite and to give it a specific reference to a
discourse antecedent. This fact allowed a more versatile form of discourse linking,
as it allows a definite NP to have a specific anaphoric reference as well, and to be
positioned accordingly: on the left of a discourse particle.
2.3 Discourse and syntactic structure in OE
In this section, we present a hypothesis about the relation between discourse and
syntax in Old English. We will show that there are clear overall generalizations to
be made about the clause structure of Old English, and the discourse properties
of the elements that occur in specific positions in that structure, in particular the
‘high’ position under discussion here. We will see as well that for each syntactic
generalization, there are cases that one might call exceptional, so that the facts on
the surface seem to be rather more diffuse than is warranted by our hypothesized
system. We will show, however, that these ‘exceptions’ fall into place if we consider