The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

Verb–particles in Old and Middle English 191c. Jan belt Piet vaak opJohn rings Peter often up‘John often phones Peter’We will concentrate on separable verbs with adverbs as first elements, as theseare closest to particleverb combinations in Old English. In Dutch main clausesthe particle follows the object (as in (21c)), but the finite verb precedes it, due tothe Verb-Second rule of Dutch discussed in chapter 4. In subordinate clauses theverb will always come after any object there may be (with the exception of aclausal object) and the particle characteristically precedes the verb, as in (22):(22) omdat Jan Piet vaak opbeltbecause John Peter often up-rings‘because John often phones Peter’Koster’s (1975) essential insight is that sentence elements that can be found tothe right of the verb in subordinate clauses, such as most PPs, clausal objects andadverbs after an intonation break, can also be found to the right of a particle inmain clauses with a single finite verb. We can illustrate this for PPs as in (23):(23) a. Marie gaf het boek terug aan Judith‘Mary gave the book back to Judith’b. omdat Marie het boek teruggafaan Judithbecause Marie the book back gave to Judith‘because Mary gave the book back to Judith’Similarly, clause elements that cannot follow the verb in subordinate clausescannot follow the particle in main clauses either, as shown by the object Jan‘John’ in (24):(24) a. *Piet belt vaak op JanPeter rings often up Johnb. *omdat Piet vaak opbelt Janbecause Peter often up-rings JohnThis is not the place to discuss Koster’s tests in detail (see Koopman 1984 andvan Kemenade 1987 for an extensive discussion), but they all show that thedistribution of particles in main clauses and verbs in subordinate clauses isvery similar. Koster’s findings for Dutch separable verbs can be summarizedas follows:(25) a. separation is obligatory in main clauses with a finite separable verbb. separation is ungrammatical in subordinate clauses 5c. verbs in subordinate clauses and particles in Verb-Second clauses aresentence-final, unless followed by a PP or an adverbial after anintonation break, or a clausal object5Auxiliaries and modals can intervene; see (5).