The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

Verb–particles in Old and Middle English 207that was crucial in Pintzuk’s analysis of V-movement in subordinate clauses. 10There is no longer a discrepancy between the position of particles (and pronominalobjects) in subordinate clauses with a single (inflected) verb and thosewith an auxiliary/modal and a non-finite verb, as noted for Old English byPintzuk (1991) (see section 6.4.3). The statistical evidence for Old Englishquoted from Pintzuk (1991) shows that particles can follow the verb in subordinateclauses, but only rarely do so when the verb is non-finite. We have alsoseen in applying Koster’s (1975) tests to Old English that what can follow theparticle in main clauses can also follow the non-finite verb in subordinateclauses (PPs, certain adverbs, object clauses and even nominal objects). Thedata collected by Hiltunen (1983) show clearly that the situation is different inMiddle English. Main as well as subordinate clauses characteristically have VOpatterns, and particles now commonly follow the verb. This is the pattern, forinstance, in the two continuations of the Peterborough Chronicle (ChronE),with one single exception, 11 even when the object precedes the verb, as in (47):(47) at he ealle his castles sculde iiuen upthat he all his castles should give up‘that he should give up all his castles’ (ChronE (Plummer) 1140.42)We can conclude from (47), the figures quoted in table 6.6 and the examplesgiven in (42) that the order of particle and verb has been reversed in MiddleEnglish. Although V-movement to F persists in main clauses in MiddleEnglish (see chapter 4), it is clear that for the very frequent pattern illustratedby (47) the particle no longer marks the position of the verb before movement.If it did, we would have to assume that the non-finite verb was moved in (47).It would seem that it is possible to analyse particles in Middle English inmuch the same way as in present-day English, 12 but the Middle English distributionis not quite the same as that of the present-day language. A crucialdifference is that not only an object but also an adverb or a PP can intervenebetween verb and particle, something that is not allowed in present-dayEnglish.(48) a. 7 com baldeliche for‘and came quickly forth’ (St Marg.(1) 40.28)10If Lightfoot (1991, 1999) is correct in believing that embedded domains are notaccessible to children and cannot play a role in syntactic change, it is problematichow children could have acquired V-movement in subordinate clauses in OldEnglish. For the view that subordinate clauses played a crucial role in the changefrom OV to VO see Stockwell and Minkova (1991).117 hi togædere comen (ChronE (Plummer) 135.23).12Particles are analysed either as forming a lexical unit with the verb or as an independentsyntactic head (see den Dikken (1995) who opts for the second approach).