Dative case in Old English

This chapter provides an overview of the uses of dative case in constructions other than dative external possessors, such as ‘ethical’ datives and dative objects of transitive and ditransitive verbs. Constructions traditionally analysed as ‘impersonal’ as well as constructions with copulas that use dative case present particular challenges of analysis, as do the dative complements of adjectives and nouns. While this study focuses on attributive possession, the use of dative case in predicative discussion is discussed in this chapter. In addition to delimiting the scope of the present investigation, the chapter provides background for the discussion in Chapter 7 of the relationship between the loss of functions of the dative case generally and the loss of dative external possessors in Middle English.

Changes and explanations

This chapter evaluates proposals that have been put forward to explain the loss of dative external possessors in English. The leading explanation using internal developments as a trigger links the syntactic change with a morphological one, namely the loss of the dative as a separate case. This explanation cannot explain the early decline of the construction and offers no explanation for why internal possessors should have become the rule in dialects retaining rich case marking at the same time as ones which had lost the dative case. Of the explanations based on language contact, the Celtic Hypothesis is the only one with any serious plausibility. The evidence suggests that Celtic learners of English did not fail to learn the dative external possessor construction, but they may have been instrumental in its initial decline by narrowing the range of the construction.

Mind and dative external possessors in Old English

This chapter documents the use of dative external possessors in Old English with words referring to the mind or soul and compares this with the use of internal possessors with these words. It is shown that dative external possessors were generally not as frequent with these possessa as with possessa referring to the body. Dative external possessors with mind object possessa were limited to poetry in Old English. The construction was more common with subject possessa, especially with copulas. They were most common with possessa in idioms in which the possessum was the object of a preposition. In contrast, internal possessors were frequent even at an early stage, and a decline in frequency of dative external possessors is discernible within the Old English period.

Investigating dative external possessors in the history of English

This chapter outlines the methodology used in gathering data for dative external possessors and internal possessors in Old and Early Middle English. Parsed electronic corpora of texts from these periods were searched for all ative external possessors of body and mind possessa playing different grammatical relations, using a list of forms of lemmas referring to these concepts. A second set of searches for internal possessors produced data allowing a comparison of internal possessors and dative external possessors. These searches used the same forms for inalienable possessions but were restricted to verbs likely to represent a situation in which the possessor was highly affected. Various problems that arose in gathering the data, such as the problem syncretism of cases can present in gathering the data, are discussed.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the findings of the investigation and points to some avenues of future research. The dative external possessor was always a marked construction in English, used especially with actions involving a negative effect on the possessor, with the internal possessor being the default construction early in the Old English period, even with highly affected possessors. While much has been made of the oddness of English in not having the construction any more, scant attention has been given to the fact that variation between internal and dative external possessors was a feature of all early Germanic languages, and the distinction between the two types of possessors has sharpened on the continent, where language contact may have strengthened the position of the dative construction. More research is needed in the development of dative external possessors in other Germanic languages.

External possessors in Early Middle English

This chapter documents the use of dative external possessors in Middle English with possessa referring to the body and the mind. This construction was infrequent but still productive with body subject and object possessa in the earliest period of Middle English, similar to the latest stage of Old English, but by about 1250 had pretty well disappeared. With possessa playing the role of object of preposition, the construction experienced a dramatic drop in frequency early in Middle English, a finding that runs contrary to the assumption that expressions like ‘look me in the eyes’ are relics of the Old English construction. Dative external possessors were never very common with mind possessa and disappeared early in Middle English outside of some idioms.

Early changes in English

This chapter presents statistical evidence that dative external possessors declined within the Old English period. A more informal comparison with Gothic and Old Saxon suggests that the use of such possessors had declined in English compared with the Common Germanic period. Specifically, the use of dative external possessors with beneficially affected possessors had all but disappeared with subject and object possessa arguments of lexical verbs by the earliest written Old English, but such possessors are found in both Gothic and Old Saxon. In the Late West Saxon texts, dative external possessors were restricted to severely adversely affected body parts with such possessa, although they were still used frequently with object of preposition possessa, especially in idioms.

Body and dative external possessors in Old English

This chapter documents the use of dative external possessors in Old English with words referring to the human body or parts of it and compares this with the use of internal possessors. It is shown that with subject and object possessa, dative external possessors were nearly restricted to situations in which the possessor was adversely affected, but they were in variation with internal possessors even in the earliest English in these situations, a variation that cannot be attributed to Latin influence. The widely held belief that dative external possessors were dominant over internal possessors in OE is probably due to the fact that previous studies have not distinguished possessa in the role of object of preposition, where the possessor did not have to be affected from other roles. The chapter establishes differences between the poetry and prose texts.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the subject matter of the book and briefly surveys the literature on dative external possessors cross-linguistically and in the history of English. This corpus-based study adds to the empirical base for assessing hypotheses about the reasons for the loss of dative external possessors as a productive construction in Middle English, drawing on recent advances in linguistic typology, syntactic theory, and language contact. Cross-linguistically, dative external possessors are most likely to be found with affected possessors of inalienable possessa. This study focuses on possessa referring to the body and the mind and compares the use of internal and external possessors, establishing the timing of the loss of the external possessor and evaluating proposed explanations for this syntactic change, including the so-called Celtic Hypothesis.