A Brief History of English Syntax

247 Pages·2017·1.408 MB·English

by  Olga Fischer, Wim van der Wurff, Hendrik De Smet

A Brief History of English Syntax
Inits1,500-yearhistory,theEnglishlanguagehasseendramaticgrammatical
changes.Thisbookoffersacomprehensiveandreader-friendlyaccountofthe
majordevelopments,includingchangesinwordorder,thenounphraseand
verb phrase, changing relations between clausal constituents and the devel-
opment of new subordinate constructions. The book puts forward possible
explanations for change, drawing on the existing and most recent literature
and with reference to the major theoretical models. The authors use corpus
evidencetoinvestigatelanguage-internal andlanguage-externalmotivations
for change,including the impact of languagecontact. The book isintended
forstudentswhohavebeenintroducedtothehistoryofEnglishandwantto
deepentheirunderstandingofmajorgrammaticalchanges,andforlinguistsin
generalwith ahistorical interest. Itwillalsobeof valuetoliteraryscholars
professionallyengagedwitholdertexts.
ProfessorEmeritusofGermanicLinguisticsattheUniversityofAmsterdam,
olga fischer is a contributor to the Cambridge History of the English
Language (1992), co-author of The Syntax of Early English (2000), and
author of Morphosyntactic Change: Functional and Formal Perspectives
(2007). She has been an editor of the Language chapter in the Year’s Work
inEnglishStudiessince1998,andisco-editorofthebookseriesIconicityin
Language and Literature. She has written widely on topics within English
historicallinguistics,grammaticalization,iconicityandanalogy.
hendrik de smet is a BOF research professor at KU Leuven. He is the
author of Spreading Patterns: Diffusional Change in the English System of
Complementation(2013)andco-editorofOnMultipleSourceConstructionsin
LanguageChange(2015).Hisworkisprimarilyonmechanismsoflanguage
change,includingreanalysis,analogyandblending.Heisalsoinvolvedinthe
compilation of several freely available text corpora for historical research,
includingtheCorpusofLateModernEnglishTextsandtheCorpusofEnglish
Novels.
wim van der wurff is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Newcastle
University, UK. He is co-author of The Syntax of Early English (2000),
Colloquial Bengali (2009), and has co-edited volumes on reported speech,
modality, imperativesand diachronic syntax. His recentworkfocuses on the
wayfactorsofdifferenttypesinteractintheemergenceanddeclineofsyntactic
constructions.
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A Brief History of English Syntax
Olga Fischer
UniversiteitvanAmsterdam
Hendrik De Smet
KatholiekeUniversiteitLeuven,Belgium
Wim van der Wurff
NewcastleUniversity,UK
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UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521747974
DOI:10.1017/9781139049559
©OlgaFischer,HendrikDeSmetandWimvanderWurff2017
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
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Firstpublished2017
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,LTD.
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Names:Fischer,Olga,author.|DeSmet,Hendrik,author.|Wurff,
Wimvander,author.
Title:AbriefhistoryofEnglishsyntax/OlgaFischer,HendrikDeSmet,
WimvanderWurff.
Description:Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2017.|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2016047639|ISBN9780521768580(Hardback)|
ISBN9780521747974(Paperback)
Subjects:LCSH:Englishlanguage–Syntax.|Englishlanguage–Grammar,Historical.
Classification:LCCPE1361.F572017|DDC425/.09–dc23LCrecordavailableat
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements pagevii
1 Introduction 1
2 Data and Data Handling 8
2.1 Introduction 8
2.2 DatafromHandwrittenandPrintedTexts 9
2.3 DigitalData 12
2.4 DataandVariation 15
2.5 DataPatterning 21
2.6 Conclusions 24
3 Theoretical ModelsandMorpho-Syntactic Change 27
3.1 Introduction 27
3.2 ThePositionofHistoricalLinguisticsvis-à-visLinguistics 28
3.3 ModelsRelevanttoDiachronicLinguistics 31
3.4 EvaluationandFurtherUseoftheModelsinThisVolume 41
3.5 Analogy,ReanalysisandtheRolePlayedbyFrequency 44
3.6 ConcludingRemarks 48
4 The Role of Contact in Syntactic Change in English 51
4.1 Introduction 51
4.2 SyntacticChangeandContact:GeneralBackground 51
4.3 TheExternalCircumstancesAffectingtheLinguisticConsequences
ofContactwithLatin,Scandinavian,CelticandMedievalFrench 54
4.4 ABriefConclusion 76
5 The Noun Phrase 77
5.1 Introduction 77
5.2 TheHeadoftheNounPhrase 80
5.3 Determiners 83
5.4 Pre-andPostdeterminers 91
5.5 Modifiers 93
5.6 ConcludingRemarksandMore 104
6 The VerbPhrase 106
6.1 Introduction 106
6.2 Modality 107
v
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vi TableofContents
6.3 Tense 115
6.4 Voice 120
6.5 Aspect 123
6.6 TheVerbDo 128
6.7 ConcludingRemarks 132
7 Clausal Constituents 133
7.1 Introduction 133
7.2 Subjects 133
7.3 Objects 138
7.4 ImpersonalConstructions 145
7.5 PassiveConstructions:GainsandLosses 148
7.6 Agreement 152
7.7 Negation 157
7.8 ConcludingRemarks 160
8 Subordinate Clauses 162
8.1 Introduction 162
8.2 Non-FiniteClauses 165
8.3 FiniteClauses 179
8.4 ConcludingRemarks 187
9 Word Order 188
9.1 Introduction 188
9.2 TheOrderofSubjectandVerb 189
9.3 TheOrderofObjectandVerb 194
9.4 TheOrderofDirectObjectsandIndirectObjects 197
9.5 ThePositionofParticles 199
9.6 ThePositionofAdverbs 202
9.7 ConsequencesofWord-OrderChange 204
9.8 ConcludingRemarks 211
References 212
Name Index 231
Subject Index 235
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Preface and Acknowledgements
This book has been a long time in the making. The first ideas for it were
developedafterthepublicationofthechapteronsyntaxinHoggandDenison
(2007) by two of the present authors. Since we had a lot more material for
whichtherewasnoroominthatchapter,itlookedlikeagoodideatousethis
material for a more elaborate book on the history of English syntax. And
indeed this book builds further upon the 2007 syntax chapter. To it we have
added additional chapters on the handling of data, the theoretical background
and the changes syntax underwent due to contact. Some of this material was
also based on earlier work, such as Fischer (2007) for Chapter 3 and Fischer
(2013) for Chapter 5. We have everywhere updated the information with the
latest research done in the area, which constituted a fair amount due to the
spateofhandbooksthathaveappearedinthelastdecade,andtotheflourishing
of the field of historical linguistics with more and more PhDs and journal
articles seeing the light of day (although no doubt the pressure to “publish or
perish”alsoplaysarolehere).Wethereforehadtomakechoices,andwehope
we have made theright ones.
Thepresentvolumeisintendedforeveryonewhohasaninterestintheway
Englishhaschangedsyntacticallyoveraperiodofmorethan1,000years.For
that reason, we have tried to avoid theoretical jargon as much as possible, so
thatthebookcanbeusedbothinandoutsideofuniversities.Itcanbeusedasa
textbook but has not been set up as one. It is not restricted to one particular
approachtosyntax;rather,itisbroadinitsscopeandtakessurfacephenomena
asafirstpointofdeparture.Wherepossible,wehavetriedalsotoexplainwhy
thechangesoccurred,makinguseofthevariousmodelsofsyntaxandchange,
of both a formal and afunctional nature,that arearound.
We would like to thank Cambridge University Press and especially our
editor, Andrew Winnard, for the encouragement given and patience shown.
We also thank the Faculty ofHumanities of theUniversity of Amsterdam for
granting Olga Fischer a six-month leave of absence in 2011. Finally we are
most grateful to Sune Gregersen Rygård for his careful reading of the last
version of thetext and his useful and pertinent suggestions.
vii
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1 Introduction
ThepurposeofthisbookistopresentanoutlineofthehistoryofEnglishsyntax.
ThemainchangesinthiscomponentoftheEnglishlanguagewillbediscussed
and–wherepossible–somethingwillbesaidaboutthefactorsthatplayedarole
in causing the changes and about the effects of individual changes on other
structures. Overall, it could be said that English in its earliest stages was a
heavilyinflectedlanguagewitharelativelyfreewordorderandalexicalbaseof
mainlyGermanicwords,ratherlikemodernGermantoday.Ahostofchanges
overthecenturieshasmadeitintowhatitistoday:alanguagewithamorph-
ologyandsyntaxradicallydifferentfromthatofGerman.Themaincausesof
these changes are the rapid loss of inflexions brought about both by internal
phonologicalweakeningandbyintensecontactwithotherlanguagesafterthe
Viking and Norman invasions and perhaps by the continuing presence of a
Celticsubstratum.Throughoutthevolume,wewilldocumentthewaysinwhich
thesefactorshaveledtoaradicaltransformationofEnglishsyntax.
Indoingso,wewillbeabletodrawontheconsiderablevolumeofdescrip-
tive,explanatoryandexploratoryworkonEnglishhistoricalsyntax.However,
ratherthangoingforbreadthofcoverage,wewilltrytogoforrepresentative-
nessofmaterialintermsofimportanceandinterest,providingafulldiscussion
ofthemajordevelopmentsandaselectionofadditionalchangesthatwethink
are illuminating and/or intriguing. Inevitably, there are many other changes
thatwecouldnotinclude.Ourapologiestothesechangesandthescholarsthat
have identified and written about them. We focus on syntactic change in the
commoncoreofEnglish,forreasonsofbothspaceandavailabilityofmaterials
(though we have allowed ourselves one or two digressions on non-standard
developments).Inthediscussionofindividualchangesthatwehaveincluded,
we try to reflect the current state of scholarship so that various kinds of
approachtohistoricalsyntaxarerepresented.Nevertheless,wehaveattempted
atallpointstotellacoherentstoryratherthanpresentaninventoryofwhathas
beensaidandwritten.Atregularpointsinthisstory,wealertthereadertothe
fact that particular changes have not been adequately explained or even
described yet – a sobering but also encouraging message, because on the one
hand it forces us to recognize that progress in this field can be tantalizingly
1
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2 Introduction
slow, while on the other it entails that the field is not cut-and-dried and
finished, and that there isstill plenty todiscover and explain.
As one sobering and encouraging example, we may briefly mention here
the general changes in word order that English has undergone over the
centuries (for discussion of the details, see Chapter 9). The fact that word
order in earlier English showed certain resemblances to that of modern
German and Dutch was realized long ago, but it has taken a surprisingly
long time for the precise extent of the similarities and dissimilarities to
becomefullyappreciated.This,itmustbeadmitted,isnotbecausethebasic
dataarehardtofind–alookatanyOldorMiddleEnglish(OE/ME)textwill
suffice to establish that both German/Dutch-like and Present-Day-English
(PDE)-likeordersoccursidebyside.Whatismoredifficultistosystematic-
ally analyse the word orders found in a large number of texts, from various
stagesofthelanguage,andtodosoinatheoreticalframeworkwhichenables
meaningfulcomparisonstobemade.Thisis more difficultnotonlybecause
it requires more time and effort (and the availability of a generally accepted
andadequateframework),butalsobecausethereisastrongtemptationtobe
resisted: the temptation to move from description to explanation as soon as
possible.Thisurgetoexplain,whileadmirableinitself,hasresultedinsome
accounts of the word-order changes that are virtually divorced from any
empiricalfindingsandthatbasicallyleaveintactallthequestionsandpuzzles
that there were in this field. The other side of the coin, of course, is that
answers to these questions and puzzles are still welcome, and that even
relatively modest or small-scale studies, provided they are firmly grounded
in what is already available, can make a real contribution.
Ourownviewisthatadditionalstudiesaremostlikelytoproduceanswersif
they combine detailed philological work (or full consideration of relevant
existing work of this type) with the use of theoretical tools. Although this
volume,whichdealswithsyntaxintheentirehistoryoftheEnglishlanguage,
isbasedontheresultsofresearchaccumulatedovertheyearsratherthanona
completely new investigation of the field, such a combined empirical-
theoretical approach is a line of recent enquiry that we think will lead to
additionalinterestingfindingsintheyearstocome.Thus,inthefieldofword
order again, it is easy to find very broad and general claims in the earlier
literaturetotheeffectthatEnglishwordorderwasinfluencedbywordorderin
Old French or Old Norse, or in the indigenous Celtic languages. What one
usually looks for in vain are claims about the precise locus and nature of this
influence, or indeed empirical backing of these ideas which goes beyond the
facts to be explained. However, current work by several scholars explores
dialectal differences in word order in early English, working with carefully
chosenmaterialsandawell-informedtheoreticalmodelthatpromisestofinally
enable usto substantiate some ofthe earlier claims and to discount others.
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