Initial adverbials and word order in English with special reference to the Early Modern English period

Abstract Although Verb-Object (VO) is the basic unmarked constituent order of predicates in Present-Day English, in earlier stages of the language Object-Verb (OV) is the preferred pattern in some syntactic contexts. OV predicates are significantly frequent in Old and Middle English, and are still attested up to 1550, when they “appear to dwindle away” (Moerenhout & van der Wurff 2005: 83). This study looks at OV in Early Modern English (EModE), using a corpus-based perspective and statistical modelling to explore a number of textual, syntactic, and semantic/processing variables which may account for what by that time had already become a marked, though not yet archaic, word-order pattern. The data for the study were retrieved from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (1500–1710) and the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence (c.1410–1695), the largest electronic parsed collections of EModE texts. The findings reveal a preference for OV in speech-related text types, which are less constrained by the rules of grammar, in marked syntactic contexts, and in configurations not subject to the general linearisation principles of end-weight and given-new. Where these principles are complied with, the probability of VO increases.

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Motivations for particle verb word order in Middle and Early Modern English

English Language and Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1360674313000130 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 489-511 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

MARION ELENBAAS

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Middle English ◽

Twelfth Century ◽

Word Order ◽

Division Of Labour ◽

The Other ◽

Particle Verbs ◽

Early Modern English ◽

The One ◽

Particle Verb

This article examines possible motivations for the choice of particle verb word order in Middle English (1100–1500) and Early Modern English (1500–1700). The word order alternation of Present-Day English particle verbs, which presents language users with a choice between verb–object–particle and verb–particle–object order, first emerged in Early Middle English (twelfth century). For Present-Day English, several studies (e.g. Gries 1999, 2003; Dehé 2002) have shown that the choice is influenced by a number of linguistic factors, such as the heaviness of the object (morphosyntactic factor) and the givenness of the object (discourse factor). This article reveals the influence of a number of morphosyntactic factors and also shows that the choice is increasingly influenced by the givenness of the object. The differences between Present-Day English on the one hand and Middle and Early Modern English on the other hand are discussed in the light of syntactic changes going on in these periods. It is argued that the developments in particle verb syntax are characterised by an increasing division of labour between the two word orders, which may also explain why both orders survive into Present-Day English.

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Word order patterns in Early Modern English By Bjørg Bækken

Language ◽

10.1353/lan.2000.0025 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 76 (1) ◽

pp. 222-222

Author(s):

Eric Potsdam

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Word Order ◽

Early Modern English

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Early Modern English

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.264 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Terttu Nevalainen

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Word Order ◽

Standard English ◽

Gradual Change ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Vowel Shift ◽

New Research ◽

Over Time

In the Early Modern English period (1500–1700), steps were taken toward Standard English, and this was also the time when Shakespeare wrote, but these perspectives are only part of the bigger picture. This chapter looks at Early Modern English as a variable and changing language not unlike English today. Standardization is found particularly in spelling, and new vocabulary was created as a result of the spread of English into various professional and occupational specializations. New research using digital corpora, dictionaries, and databases reveals the gradual nature of these processes. Ongoing developments were no less gradual in pronunciation, with processes such as the Great Vowel Shift, or in grammar, where many changes resulted in new means of expression and greater transparency. Word order was also subject to gradual change, becoming more fixed over time.

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Changes in argument structure in Early Modern English with special reference to verbs of DESIRE: A case study of lust

Research in Corpus Linguistics ◽

10.32714/ricl.07.07 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 129-154

Author(s):

Noelia Castro-Chao

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Special Reference ◽

Middle English ◽

Argument Structure ◽

Nominative Case ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Verbal Agreement ◽

Early English

In Old and Middle English, several verbs of DESIRE could be found in impersonal constructions, a type of morphosyntactic pattern which lacks a subject marked for the nominative case controlling verbal agreement. The impersonal construction began to decrease in frequency between 1400 and 1500 (van der Gaaf 1904; Allen 1995), a development which has been recently investigated from the perspective of the interaction between impersonal verbs and constructional meaning by Trousdale (2008), Möhlig-Falke (2012) and Miura (2015). This paper is concerned specifically with the impersonal verb lust (< ME lusten) as a representative of Levin’s (1993) class of verbs of DESIRE, some of which developed into prepositional verbs in Present-day English. The main aim here is to explore the changes undergone by lust during the two centuries after it ceases to appear in impersonal constructions, as well as to reflect upon some of the possible motivations for such changes. The data are retrieved from Early English Books Online Corpus 1.0, a 525-million-word corpus, and the examples are analysed manually paying attention to the range of complementation patterns documented in Early Modern English (1500–1700).

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Developments in argument linking in early Modern English gerund phrases

English Language and Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1360674300000708 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 87-119 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Teresa Fanego

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Special Reference ◽

Internal Structure ◽

Determiner Phrases ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Direct Objects

This paper discusses the internal structure of eModE gerund phrases, with special reference to the verbalization of subjects and objects in the course of the period. It is shown that the gerund's acquisition of common case subjects (‘Johnlooking at me’) and of direct objects (‘by seeingJane’) correlates with style, the new verbalized complements being recorded first in the more oral and informal registers. Attention is also paid to the influence of absolute participles on the replacement of PossPs (‘John'slooking at me’) by NPs as subject arguments, and to the diffusion of direct objects across the various classes of gerunds. The mixed nomino-verbal properties exhibited by many gerundive nominals by the late seventeenth century are considered in detail, and an analysis is proposed which interprets them as determiner phrases (DPs) where the head D can select various categories of complements. Alongside this phrasal type of gerund, it is argued that a clausal one with fully verbal features must also be recognized as part of the grammar of eModE.

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