Gram - SEAS

192 7 Grammaticalization across clauses
The pronominal status of the source of complementizer pret is particularly striking
in (40):
(40) l>ret gefremede Diulius hiora consul t>ret t>ret
DEM arranged Diulilis their consul COMP DEM
tidlice t>urhtogen.
in-time achieved
angin weaf(
beginning was
'Their consul Diulius arranged (it) that it was started on time.'
(c. 880, Orosius 4 6. 1 72.2)
The preverbal pret in this example is a fronted (topicalized) object pronoun antic­
ipating the complement introduced by the second pret. (The third pret is simply
the quasi-definite article with the neuter noun angin 'beginning'.) Such correla­
tive structures, especially correlatives which mark the beginning of both clauses,
and their interdependency, are typical of hypotaxis in OE (and many earlier Indo­
European texts). Such features are reminiscent of oral language and of strategies
clarifying interdependencies in the flow of speech (for oral residue in early Old
English prose syntax, see O'Neil 1977; Hopper 1992).
The majority of instances of pret-complements in OE are like (4 1), however,
and do not reveal the pronominal origins of the construction overtly:
(41) Dyslic bia t>ret hwa woruldlice speda forhogie for manna herunge.
foolish is COMP someone worldly goods despise for men's praise
'It is foolish to despise worldly goods in order to win the praise of men.'
(c. 1000, IECHom I, 4 60.32)
It appears that the complementizer pret started out as a "copy" in the margin clause
of the object pronoun in the nucleus. It was reanalyzed from a pronoun which was
a constituent of the matrix clause to a complementizer that had a whole clause
within its scope. Example (42) shows the use of pret spreading to non-accusative
object environments:
(42) And t>res us ne scamaa na, ac t>res us
And DEM:GEN we:ACC not shames never, but DEM:GEN we:ACC
scamaa swyt>e t>ret we bote aginnan swa swa bec trecan.
shames much COMP we atonement begin so as books teach
'And we are not at all ashamed of that, but we are ashamed of this: of beginning
atonement in the way that the books teach.' (c. 1010, WHom 20.3 160)
The impersonal verb scamaiJ 'shames' in OE requires its experiencer argument
(the person who is ashamed) to be in the accusative case, and the stimulus of
the shame (the thing of which the experiencer is ashamed) to be in the genitive.
Consequently, if pret were still analyzed as an argument of the nucleus, it would
have to be in the genitive case, since it is "stimulus" for scamaiJ.