The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

The Verb-Second constraint and its loss 117(45) æt eallum folcum sy gedemed beforan ethat all peoples (D) be judged before thee‘that all the peoples be judged before you’ (PPs(prose) 9.18)(46) onne ælce dæge beo manega acennede urh hys mihte onwhen each day are many (N, pl) given birth through his power onworuldeworld‘when every day many are given birth through his power on earth’(ÆHom 6.116)(47) foram e him burston ut butu his eaganbecause that him burst out both his eyes (N, pl)‘because both his eyes burst out’ (ÆLS(Alban) 116)In van Kemenade (1997a), an argument is presented that such constructionsare in several ways special. The fact that Spec,IP here seems to host a nonsubjectis argued to be a construction-specific feature that cannot serve as evidencethat Spec,IP is the general topic position, and hence does not provideevidence that Old English is a symmetric Verb-Second language. Anotherfeature of these constructions is that while the subject can immediately followthe finite verb, it frequently occurs in clause-final position, as in (44)(rihtwisnyss) and (47) (butu his eagan). Finally, this type of embedded topicalizationoften occurs without V-movement, as illustrated by the followingimpersonal sentences:(48) a æm hearpere a uhte æt hine a nanes inges newhen to the harpist then seemed that him then no thing notlyste on isse woruldepleased in this world‘when it seemed to the harpist that nothing in this world would please himanymore’ (Bo 35.102.9)(49) gif am gifran ungemetlicu spræc ne egldeif the greedy eloquent speech not afflicted‘if the greedy are not afflicted by loquacity’ (CP 43.309.2)The above provides evidence that topicalization in conjunction with Verb-Second is asymmetric, suggesting that the topic position (and, by analogy, thesubject position in root clauses) is Spec,CP rather than Spec,IP. We come backto more empirical evidence for this below.There is a further source of complexity in topic-initial constructions. Thereader will recall that in topic-initial sentences, subject–verb inversion is thenorm only when the subject is nominal. Personal pronoun subjects appear leftof a preposed finite verb. Two examples illustrating the contrast are repeatedhere: