The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

126 The syntax of early English(72)CPSpecC'C FPVfSpec F'pronounF NegPVfSpec Neg'naNeg TPne-VfSpec T'SubjectT …VfSpecVPV'… V …In general, such a structure, with NegP splitting TP from the projectionhosting subject pronouns, is motivated by negation facts from languages asdiverse as Old French (Hulk and van Kemenade 1997) and modern Hebrew(Shlonsky 1997); the reader is referred to van Kemenade (1999) for further discussion.Recall that the position for pronouns in Old English is not restrictedto subject pronouns; object pronouns can occur here as well, as in (71a).Therefore, the projection dominating NegP is one that hosts pronouns, not afeature like, e.g. nominative case. We remain neutral on its precise propertiesand call it FP. Let us assume that pronominal subjects (and, optionally,objects) inhabit Spec,FP in the structure (72). 8 Ne is the head of NegP, andrequires incorporation of the finite verb, since it is always proclitic on the finiteverb. Let us suppose furthermore that na as a second sentential negationelement is in Spec,NegP. This is suggested first of all by its fixed position; the8This begs some questions concerning the nature of pronouns. The underlyingassumption here is that Old English personal pronouns are Germanic-style weakpronouns rather than Romance-style phonologically reduced clitics, according to thetypology of NP types in Cardinaletti and Starke (1996). This is in line with thefindings of Koopman (1997), who shows that the criteria for clitic status formulatedby Kayne (1975) (which are geared toward the properties of French clitics) giverather equivocal results for Old English.