The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

82 The syntax of early Englishthe object was a pronoun (see section 2.3.2), in Middle English this orderbecame gradually less common, and ceased to show a correlation with clausetype. In Chaucer’s language, it was still reasonably well represented, but by1450, object–verb order was found in no more than 1 per cent (in prose) to 6per cent (in verse) of all possible cases. (38) contains an instance ofobject–verb order from a prose text written around 1430.(38) & many tymes of e mete sche seyd many good wordys as Godand many times of the food she said many good words as Godwold hem puttyn in hir mendewould them put in her mind‘and many times she said many good words about the food, as God wouldput them in her mind’ (MKempe 26.1)There is a voluminous literature on the shift from object–verb to verb–objectin English, which has focussed in particular on the causes of this development.However, some of this literature is based on the assumption that the shift wascompleted by 1200. The data show that the change was more gradual and tookthe whole of the Middle English period to come to completion; in chapter 5,we examine the change in detail.Another, probably related, Middle English change affected the position ofparticles relative to the verb. We saw in section 2.3.2 that such elements werealso often preverbal in Old English. In the course of the Middle English periodthey gradually came to be restricted to postverbal position, as in (39). In thiscase too, however, the older order continued to be used every now and thenuntil the end of the Middle English period, as shown by (40). The developmentof phrasal verbs is considered in detail in chapter 6.(39) Trystrames sterte up, and kylde that monTristram started up and killed that man‘Tristram suddenly came up and killed that man’ (Malory Works 413.2)(40) sir Raynold gan up sterte with his hede all blodySir Raynold began up start with his head all bloody‘With his head all bloody, Sir Raynold suddenly moved up’(Malory Works 276.25)A further Middle English change involving verb position is the decline of theso-called ‘Verb-Second’ rule. As discussed in section 2.3.2, many Old Englishmain clauses had the finite verb in second position, following a first elementwhich could have a variety of functions (subject, direct object, adverbialadjunct, etc.). In this respect, Old English shows similarities with most of themodern Germanic languages. However, in those languages, the Verb-Secondrule applies virtually without exception in every main clause. The discussion