Linguistische Berichte Heft 189

In this paper we revise some arguments brought forward in the past in favour of a German-like V2-syntax analysis for Old French. In particular, on the basis of research on Old French sentence particles, we argue that Old French has many more similarities with the Celtic Janguages than with the modern Germanic ones, showing quite a frequent use of Vl structures and of particles. V2 effects arise only as superficial ordering depending on the realisation of the head Fin (in the sense of Rizzi 1997). Concentrating on the Old French sentence particle si, the phonological realisation of Fin, we propose that a change in the prosody of French together with semantic factors caused the redistribution of the featural content of the head Fin, resulting in the disappearance of Y2 effects. The discussion takes as its starting point the so-called 'lnertial Theory" of language change as proposed in Longobardi (2001), which offers an episthemologically more interesting hypothesis by assuming !hat syntax is diachronically 'inert'; but considering the fact that languages change, as French did, the task is to explain which part of the grammar is permeable for change. Jmplementing some ideas from Minimalism, and by doing so following Longobardi, we assume the interfaces PF and LF to be the sensitive loci for language change, which therefore, given a restrictive theory of change as a reaction to some pressure on the interfaces, should be predictable.

The present paper examines the influence of focal condition on the timing of nuclear high accents in Hamburg German. The analysis of spontaneous speech data shows that in utterances produced with narrow focus the Fo peak of the focal accent occurs later than in utterances produced with wide focus. This variation is often accompanied by an increase of the Fo excursion. The question arises whether the observed timing difference can be attributed to the increase of the Fo excursion alone. If so, the shift of the Fo peak could simply be explained as an effect of additional emphasis under narrow focus. Further analysis, however, suggests that differences in tonal organization might also be important for the timing of nuclear high accents.

The present article discusses the findings of a 1999 study on communication and referential strategies by learners of Dutch, both advanced learners and beginners, whose mother tongue is German. Originally modelled on the Nijmegen Project by T. Bongaerts, T. Kellerman and N. Poulisse (1983) - but in a different language setting (Ll German, L2 Dutch instead of L1 Dutch and L2 English in the Nijmegen Project) -, this study may have revealed some problems in the methodology of its model. More importantly, several findings seem to refute the general line of argument underlying the Nijmegen Project.

Certain instances of Case morphology drop in German are exclusively determined by the syntactic context. Gallmann (1996a; 1998) develops a simple competition-based approach to this phenomenon that relies on specificity. Based on some pieces of empirical counterevidence, I argue that this approach is not fine-grained enough, and I show that the main properties of Case morphology drop in German can be captured by a more articulate, and more flexible, competition-based approach, viz., one that relies on optimality theory (see Prince & Smolensky (1993)).