The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

An outline of Middle English syntax 103(94) And for his tale sholde seme the bettre,/ Accordant to his wordes was hischeere . . .‘And for his tale should seem the better, in accordance with his words werehis manners’ (Chaucer Squire 102)(95) And anne ei schullen dyggen & mynen so strongly, till at ei fynden theates at kyng Alisandre leet make . . .‘And then they must dig and excavate so strongly, till that they find the gatesthat King Alexander had made’ (Mandev. 178.19)(96) So he may fynde Goddes foyson there,/ Of the remenant nedethso he may find God’s plenty there of the rest needsnat enquere.not enquire‘So he may find Gods’s plenty there, after the rest [he] need not enquire’(Chaucer Miller 3165)A more complicated case is presented by examples such as (97a–c).(97) a. er passes non bi at place so proude in his armes/ at hethere passes none by that place so glorious in his arms that hene dyngez hym to dee with dynt of his honde . . .not beats him to death with blow of his hand‘none however glorious in arms will pass by that place without beingbeaten to death by one blow of his hand . . .’ (Gawain 2104)b. Was non of hem at he ne gret . . .was none of them that he not wept‘There was not one of them [such] that he did not weep . . .’(Havelok 2160)c. . . . wente neuere wye in is world oru at wildernesse/ Thatwent never man in this world through that wilderness thathe ne was robbed . . .he not was robbed‘never did any man in this world go through that wilderness withoutbeing robbed . . .’(Piers Plowman B.(Trin-C) xvii.101)These examples seem to waver between a consecutive and a relative clause (arelative with a resumptive pronoun). There are good reasons to assume,however, that these clauses are in fact consecutive (cf. Diekstra 1984). Firstly,there are restrictions on resumptive pronouns in relative clauses which are notobeyed here (cf. Fischer 1992a: 345). Secondly, the main clause is formally distinctin other ways: it is always negative, the predicate is usually an existentialverb, and it often contains (explicitly as in (97a), or implicitly as in (97b) and(97c)) a correlative element that strongly links it to the that clause.