The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

132 The syntax of early EnglishKroch and Taylor, be analysed as an asymmetric Verb-Second language inwhich the finite verb always moves to C in root clauses. This contrasts withthe southern dialects of Middle English, in which, as we have seen from theabove data, the Old English situation with respect to Verb-Second was continued.Kroch and Taylor analyse the position of the finite verb in theSouthern dialect in the same way as Pintzuk analyses Old English. Thedialect contrast is then one between a categorical C-Verb-Second dialect (theNorth) and I-Verb-Second dialects (the Southern dialects). We have seen inthe previous sections that Pintzuk’s analysis for Old English can be refinedin interesting ways when we take into account the negation data as we havein section 4.3.2.2; and in the light of the positional contrast between nominaland pronominal subjects that we still see in Middle English, this revisedanalysis applies to Middle English as well. This detracts in no way from theinterest of Kroch and Taylor’s findings; the contrast is then one between acategorical C-Verb-Second dialect (the North) and a group of dialects inwhich in subject- and topic-initial clauses, the finite verb very often moves toa position F which is lower than C (the Southern dialects). It may be notedthat in other texts from the Northern dialect, facts similar to those in TheRule ofSt. Benet are found, but not nearly as systematically. Conversely,there are texts like the Middle English part of the E manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, better known as The Peterborough Chronicle, which showstrong Scandinavian influence in their vocabulary, but whose Verb-Secondsyntax patterns with that of the Southern dialects (in fact, examples (75a)and (76a) are from this text). Yet another slightly complicating fact is that inone prose translation (but not others) by Geoffrey Chaucer, the late fourteenthcentury Treatise on the Astrolabe, Verb-Second with inversion is categoricalin all root contexts, and this is a text in which there is no clearScandinavian influence. All this leaves a somewhat confusing picture – thereis a lot left to investigate here, and even then, the precise picture may wellremain hidden by the mists of time.In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, the variant of the Verb-Second phenomenon in topic-initial constructions as discussed above showsa sharp decline. While in earlier stages a positional discrepancy betweennominal and pronominal subjects with respect to the finite verb was found,verb–subject order with nominal subjects was lost. The first texts where wesee this happening with considerable frequency are the prose writings ofRichard Rolle, which were written in the mid-fourteenth century in Yorkshire.In (80), some examples are given of non-inversion with nominal subjects. Thesame situation obtains in the writings of Wycliffe (this is confirmed by thefigures on a sample of Wycliffe in MacLeish (1969)), as illustrated in (81). The