Middle English Syntax.

1892 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Charles Flint McClumpha ◽  
Wilhelm Grote
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Syntax

A Middle English Syntax. Part I, Parts of Speech

1961 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 573 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Wilson ◽  
T. F. Mustanoja
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
English Syntax

A Handbook of Middle English Syntax

1962 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott V. K. Dobbie ◽  
Tauno F. Mustanoja
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Syntax

scholarly journals The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: information structure and syntax in interaction

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
BETTELOU LOS
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
Finite Verb

English syntax used to have a version of the verb-second rule, by which the finite verb moves to second position in main clauses. This rule was lost in Middle English, and this article argues that its loss had serious consequences for the information structure of the clause. In the new, rigid subject-verb-object syntax, the function of preposed constituents changed, and the function of encoding ‘old’ or ‘given’ information in a pragmatically neutral way was increasingly reserved for subjects. Pressure from information structure to repair this situation subsequently led to the rise of new passive constructions in order to satisfy the need for more subjects; the change in the informational status of preposed constituents triggered the rise of clefts. If information structure can be compromised by syntactic change in this way, this suggests that it represents a separate linguistic level outside the syntax.

scholarly journals He forbead þæt hi ne weopon: A negative element in the þæt-clause introduced by a verb of prohibition

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Michiko Ogura
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Negative Element ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
The University ◽  
Stylistic Device

In ICEHL 20 at the University of Edinburgh, I made a report of my research on this theme. The present paper gives additional facts on the construction of a verb of negation followed by a þæt-clause with a negative element. What I try to exemplify is not a historical change from expletive negative to affirmative clause, but the facts that (i) the expletive negative was one of the correlative constructions based on Old English syntax and (ii) the affirmative clause was already found in early Old English together with the negative clause, even though the negative clause was frequent in late Old English to early Middle English and then decreased after late Middle English. The verb with negative import with a negated þæt-clause is, therefore, not an illogical expression but a stylistic device of combining the negation of the governing verb with the content of the governed, negated þæt-clause.

scholarly journals A Parsed Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-38
Author(s):  
Robert Truswell ◽  
Rhona Alcorn ◽  
James Donaldson ◽  
Joel Wallenberg
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Important Data ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Data Gap ◽  
English Syntax

This chapter reports on the construction of a new resource, the Parsed Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (PLAEME). Prose is underrepresented in the period 1250-1350, which is why this period is also underrepresented in the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCHE). This data gap is unfortunate, as we know that the period is important for morphosyntactic change. PLAEME addresses that data gap by transforming material from the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (LAEME) into the same format as the PPCHE. The chapter present a detailed account of its construction, as well as three case studies replicating three recent studies of Middle English syntax: the establishment of not as the expression of sentential negation (Ecay and Tamminga 2017), the fixing of the syntax of the dative alternation (Bacovcin 2017), and the introduction of argumental headed wh-relative clauses (Gisborne and Truswell 2017). These case studies show that PLAEME allows these changes to be charted in much greater detail, and hence demonstrates how PLAEME fills an important data gap.

Dative External Possessors in Early English

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia L. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Empirical Base ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
Early English ◽  
Genitive Case

This book presents the results of a corpus-based case study of diachronic English syntax. Present Day English is in a minority of European languages in not having a productive dative external possessor construction. This construction, in which the possessor is in the dative case and behaves like an element of the sentence rather than part of the possessive phrase, was in variation with internal possessors in the genitive case in Old English, especially in expressions of inalienable possession. In Middle English, internal possessors became the only productive possibility. Previous studies of this development are not systematic enough to provide an empirical base for the hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the loss of external possessors in English, and these earlier studies do not make a crucial distinction among possessa in different grammatical relations. This book traces the use of dative external possessors in the texts of the Old and Early Middle English periods and explores how well the facts fit the major proposed explanations. A key finding is that the decline of the dative construction is visible within the Old English period and seems to have begun even before we have written records. Explanations that rely completely on developments in the Early Middle English period, such as the loss of case-marking distinctions, cannot account for this early decline. It does not appear that Celtic learners of Old English failed to learn the external possessor construction, but they may have precipitated the decrease in frequency in its use.

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