The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

5The loss of object–verb word order5.1 IntroductionOne of the most prominent syntactic differences between present-dayEnglish and earlier English involves the order of object and verb. Consider,for example, the sentences in (1)–(3), which are from the Old English, EarlyMiddle English, and Late Middle English periods, respectively. We haveitalicized the relevant object(s).(1) ond he his feorh generede, ond eah he wæs oft gewundadand he his life saved and yet he was often wounded‘and he saved his life, although he was often wounded’(ChronA (Plummer) 755.38)(2) Hi hadden him manred maked and athes sworen,they had him homage done and oaths swornac hi nan treuthe ne holdenbut they no truth not kept‘They had done him homage and sworn oaths of allegiance to him, but theydid not keep their word’ (ChronE (Plummer) 1137.11)(3) If so be that thou ne mayst nat thyn owene conseil hyde,if so be that you not can not your own counsel hidehow darstou preyen any oother wight thy conseil secrely to kepe?how dare-you ask any other person your counsel secret to keep‘If it is the case that you cannot hide your own counsel, how could you dareto ask anyone else to keep your counsel secret?’ (Chaucer Melibee 1147)Each of these sentences has one or more objects preceding the lexical verb(s).In Modern English, of course, the object has to follow the verb, as the translationsof (1)–(3) show.It has often been observed on the basis of facts like these that Englishchanged from an OV language to a VO language, and over the years, manyresearchers have addressed the question why this should have happened. Inthis chapter, we shall discuss this change, and the analyses and arguments thathave been advanced in the generative literature dealing with it. However,138