The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

190 The syntax of early Englishc. and ærrihte wear æt fæt upp to heofonum abrodenand straightaway was the vessel up to heavens pulled‘and straightaway the vessel was pulled up to heaven’(ÆLS(Peter’s Chair) 94)Modification of a PP seems plausible in these examples. Interpreting elementsin this position as PP modifiers (and therefore not as particles at all) allows usto make an important generalization about the position of particles: if theyprecede the verb they do so immediately. There are only a few exceptions tothis general rule; we will deal with them separately in section 6.6.6.4 Position of the particle marks the position of the verb beforemovementWe have seen that particles in main clauses come after the finite(lexical) verb, but precede the non-finite (lexical) verb. A reasonable assumptiontherefore is that V-movement ‘strands’ the particle, and that the surfaceposition of the particle actually marks the underlying position of the verb.Koster (1975) has investigated this idea for Dutch. We will consider how farhis arguments carry over to Old English and whether the evidence from coordinateclauses and subordinate clauses is compatible with this hypothesis too.6.4.1 Koster’s (1975) arguments for DutchDutch does not have phrasal verbs, but it has separable verbs (see (7)and (8) and the discussion preceding them), which resemble the combinationswe find in Old English. In Dutch the relevant verbs are compounded verbswith a noun, adjective or adverb as first element (the ‘particle’) (see Geerts etal. 1984: 488 ff ), which can be separated from the verb in certain syntactic contexts.Separation is obligatory in main clauses when the verb is finite. This isillustrated in (21a) for lesgeven ‘to teach’ (lit. lesson-give) with a noun as firstelement, in (21b) for losmaken ‘to untie’ (lit. loose-make), with an adjectivalfirst element, and in (21c) for opbellen ‘to phone’ (lit. up-ring) with an adverbas separable element:(21) a. Marie geeft al jaren lesMarie gives already years lesson‘Mary has been teaching for years’b. Snel maakte zij de knoop losquickly made she the knot loose‘She quickly untied the knot’