The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

90 The syntax of early English(65) Now, or I fynde a man thus trewe and stable,/ And wol for lovenow before I find a man thus true and stable and will for lovehis deth so frely take,/ I preye God let oure hedes nevere ake!his death so freely take I pray God let our heads never ache‘Now, before I find a man so true and loyal, who will so nobly accept deathout of love!’ (Chaucer Legend 703)Another consequence of the proximity of written and spoken language wasthe high frequency of so-called anacolutha, i.e. sentences like (66) which are‘illogically’ constructed from a purely formal point of view.(66) The reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit – / By cause that it wasthe rule of St Maurus or of St Benedict because it wasold and somdel streit/ This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace . . .old and somewhat strict this same monk let old things pass(Chaucer Gen. Prol. 173)In this example the first line seems intended to function as the syntactic objectof leet pace, but it has been left dangling since a new object, olde thynges, isintroduced later.Likewise, we often come across constructions that contain elements whichlook pleonastic in modern written English, such as (67).(67) Thanne dame Prudence, whan that she saugh how that hirthen Lady Prudence when that she saw how that herhousbonde shoop hym for to wreken hym on his foes and tohusband prepared himself for to avenge himself on his foes and tobigynne werre, she in ful humble wise, whan she saugh hir tyme,begin war she in ful humbe manner when she saw her timeseide . . .said‘Then lady Prudence, when she saw how her husband prepared himself totake revenge on his foes and to start a fight, (she) very humbly, when shesaw an opportunity, said . . .’ (Chaucer Melibee 1050)We have referred several times now to the use of the subordinator e in OldEnglish, which was a marker of relative clauses and of adverbial clauses (thelatter usually in combinations like for æm e ‘because’ and mid y e ‘when’).In Middle English, e came to be replaced by at, which was already in use tomark complement clauses in Old English. It is not entirely clear how thisdevelopment took place. Any explanation depends heavily on the syntacticstatus one assigns to e in Old English. According to some linguists (e.g.Geoghegan 1975), e must be interpreted as a marker of subordination, andnot as a relative particle, as for instance Allen (1977) has suggested, followingmost traditional accounts (for a more detailed consideration of the variousarguments involved see Fischer 1992a: 293 ff.). The possible development may