Comparative Syntax of the Balkan Languages (Oxford ... - Cryptm.org

IS BALKAN COMPARATIVE SYNTAX POSSIBLE 1 ' 33extending their use of their own native element. As a caique, then, a sort ofloan-translation, it would have been transmitted superficially, but it could havebeen integrated into the receiving language differently from the way it fits intothe syntactic structure of the model language. Thus, what would be most salientfrom the point of view of the speakers who are in contact with one anotherwould be the function that particular surface forms have, for that is where themodel for the caique and extension would be found.In such a case, therefore, working out the formal and sometimes abstractdetails of where each element fits in its respective system is certainly important,but more for the syntax of the individual languages than for comparative syntaxof the Balkan languages; the comparative Balkan aspect, in terms of what isrevealed for the Balkan Sprachbund (that is, for comparative Balkan syntax), focusesmore on the surface and on the function. Nevertheless, tracing the historyof the forms and their respective functions in each language highlights apossible Sprachbund feature,"' the independent prohibitive use of an m-negator,thus contributing to the goal of comparative Balkan syntax in the sense developedabove. Even if it should turn out that this usage arose independently ineach language, so that it is not a contact-induced feature in one of the languages,the identification of a possible shared feature through comparative syntax iscrucial to determining the extent to which the feature is a syntactic Balkanism—an aim of a true comparative Balkan syntax.4.2. "Negative fusion"Another set of negation facts to be considered here is more of the other sort, thatis, interesting from the perspective of comparative linguistics of the Balkans (asopposed to comparative Balkan linguistics).At issue here is a phenomenon that can be referred to as "negative fusion":the joining of a negative marker with a verb to form a single word unit. Anexample from earlier stages of English is Old English nille 'not wants', whichrepresents the negative marker ne fused with wille 'he/she wants'. To a certainextent, negative fusion is found in Modern English too, in the analysis ofZwicky and Pullum (1983) whereby -n't is not merely a syntactically generatedclitic form of not but rather is a morphologically generated affix; thus, won't, intheir view, does not synchronically represent a reduction of will + not but ratheris an independent formation with n't being an affixal realization of the feature ofnegation." Moreover, the degree of fusion can vary within a language, foralongside the fused -n't in English there is the more independent free form not,seen in (12a) and (12b); however, even not shows some degree of dependency, asit is generally separable from most auxiliaries, as in (12a) and (12b), but nonethelesscannot be separated from do, as shown by (12c) and the contrast betweenit and(12a), (12b), and (12d):(12) a. John will definitelv not winb. John must definitely not win