The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

212 The syntax of early English100806040KeyPurposeIntentionManipulatives200800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300Figure 1 Ratios of to-infinitives to that-clauses in OE and eME(Los 1998)Many traditional scholars suggest that the increase in the use of the toinfinitivein Middle English took place at the expense of the bare infinitive (i.e.an infinitive without the marker to). In these accounts the bare infinitive wasgenerally replaced by the to-infinitive when, due to the loss of verbal inflections,it became difficult to distinguish the infinitival form from other verbalforms. As a result, they suggest, to began to function as a mere marker of theinfinitive, losing its original ‘purposive’ sense (see, for example, Mustanoja1960: 514, 522, and, more recently, Jack 1991). However, Fischer (1995, 1996b,1997b) and Los (1998) suggest that the change is of a different nature: the toinfinitiveand the bare infinitive remained more or less distinct in function andmeaning, and the increase of the to-infinitive takes place because the form isused to replace æt-clauses. Figure 1, taken from Los (1998: 27), shows therapid change in frequency of æt-clauses versus to-infinitives after directiveverbs (i.e. verbs like ‘order’) and verbs expressing purpose or intention (‘seek,desire’) in the early Middle English period.Beside an enormous increase in number, infinitival constructions also showsome interesting spin-offs of the changes discussed in the previous chapters,in particular the loss of the case system and the emergence and gradual fixingof surface VO word order. This is reflected in the rise of the following newconstructions in the Middle English period:(3) i. infinitivals with a lexical subject:a. for NP to V constructionsIt is ridiculous for you to imagine that he would give you thatamount.