Tobler-Mussafia law

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Adolf Tobler, 1904 photograph by Nicola Perscheid
Adolf Mussafia, around 1906 photograph by Rudolf Krziwanek

The so-called Tobler-Mussafia law also "Lex Tobler-Mussafia" is a rule of the syntax of the clitic object pronouns in the old Romanic languages. It is named after the two Romanists Adolf Tobler (for the Old French , 1875) and Adolf Mussafia (for the Old Italian , 1886), by whom it was first described. It is considered a variant of Wackernagel's law . In all ancient Romansh languages, the obligatory adjustment of the clitic object pronouns to the finite verb , if this is in the initial position of the sentence, was common, or it simply states that in the Romance languages ​​an unstressed element must not open a sentence.

From Latin to Romansh

The classical Latin had no klitischen or unstressed pronouns . Then, with the development of Vulgar Latin , the distinction between stressed, unconnected or independent and unstressed, connected forms developed, as can be found in all Romance languages .

The stressed, unconnected, independent forms come after the prepositions , examples: span. De ; fr. de moi ; ital. di me , the unstressed, connected, however, are proclitically before or enclitically after the stressed word. In the vulgar Latin pàter me vídet the “father sees me”, the pronoun me is enclitic to pàter and proklitisch to vídet . In the sentence nùnc me vídet "now she / he sees me", the pronoun me is enclitic to nùnc and proclitic to vídet . Unstressed pronouns must not be at the beginning of a sentence, but must have a stressed word in front of them.

Executions

According to the Tobler-Mussafia law, the unstressed, connected clitic object pronouns at the beginning of the sentence and after some conjunctions (especially in the continuations of Latin ET "and" and AUT "or"> Italian. E , o , French. Et , ou , span. y , o etc.) stand in enclises .

The enclise, i.e. the reenactment of the pronouns after the verb, characterizes the entire Old Romanic syntax , with the transition to the Proclise set in earlier than in the other Romance idioms, especially in Old French and Old Friulian.

In the development of the neo-Romance languages , a structural change took place, according to which the clitic pronouns now usually have to come before the verb . New French occupies one extreme, in which the oxytonian language structure means that the pronouns can only be placed in front of the verb ( proklitic ) (the only exception: the imperative ), while Neo-Portuguese is the most archaic because the pronouns never begin here of the sentence, e.g. B. lava se "he washes himself", but não se lava "he does not wash." However, the Brazilian Portuguese is more innovative and tolerates the pronoun at the beginning of the sentence: Brazilian Portuguese me chamo João “My name is Johann” vs. European Portuguese (and Galician ) chamo-me João (see also comparison of Spanish and Portuguese ). Although the Tobler-Mussafia law for both languages ​​lost its validity over time, the times for this were different so the process for Old French began as early as the end of the 12th century to the beginning of the 13th century, while in Old Spanish it did much later, not until the 15th century.

Examples:

  • Old Italian: Dicero lti molto breve "I'll tell you in a nutshell " (Dante, Inferno III, 45) (in New Italian it must be te lo dirò "I'll tell you")
  • Old Spanish : Reçibió lo el Çid ( Cantar de Mio Cid 204) "The Cid received him" (in New Spanish it must be "El Cid lo (or le) recibió").

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg A. Kaiser: German Romance Studies - generative (= Tübingen Contributions to Linguistics. Volume 489). Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-8233-6174-0 , p. 88.
  2. Ulrich Detges: Historical theory of forms, 2nd pronouns. see. Lathrop (1989), Lloyd (1987), winter semester 2005/2006 Paul Gévaudan ( Memento of the original dated June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / homepages.uni-tuebingen.de
  3. Reinhard Kiesler: Introduction to the problematic of Vulgar Latin (= Romanistic workbooks. Volume 48). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-1109-1655-X , p. 54.
  4. Eduardo Raposo: clitic position and Verb Movement in European Portuguese. University of California, Santa Barbara