The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

226 The syntax of early EnglishOld English used the following types of infinitival complements:(21) i. after verbs of physical perceptiona. Ic wiht geseah on wege feranI someone saw on way go‘I saw someone travelling along’ (Rid 36.1)b. Ic seah turf tredanIc saw turf tread‘I saw grass being trodden’ (Rid 13.1)ii. after causativesa. . . . yfele hyrdas e læta godes scep losian urh gymeleaste‘. . . evil shepherds who let God’s sheep perish through negligence’(ÆCHom I 17(App)177.8)b. he sette scole, 7 on ære he let cnihtas læranhe set-up school, and in it he let boys teach‘he set up a school in which he had boys taught’ (Bede 3(O)14.208.8)iii. after object-control verbsa. and his bebod tobræc e he him bebead toand his command broke which he them commanded tohealdennehold‘and broke the command which he had ordered them to observe’(ÆHom 11.103)b. Moyses forbead swyn to etenneMosesy forbade pigs to eat‘Moses forbade the eating of pigs’ (ÆLS(Maccabees) 85)iv. after ECM verbsinfinitival complements are found here only in direct translation fromLatinNext to infinitival complements, we also find finite complements, usually ætclauses.æt- clauses are very frequent after perception verbs as in (21i). Theyare highly infrequent after the core causatives lætan and don, but occur regularlyafter hatan, which is a verb that syntactically belongs both in (21ii) and(21iii) (cf. Fischer 1989). After object-control verbs, the æt-clause is in factfar more usual than the infinitival complement. Infinitives, as noted in section7.1, only become frequent here in Middle English. A finite complement is theonly possibility after verbs of group (21iv). Other differences between thesefour groups of verbs may also be noted. Groups (21i) and (21ii) always take abare infinitive, while (21iii) always has a to-infinitive. Groups (21i), (21ii) and(21iv) govern a direct object in the accusative, which may be animate as wellas inanimate. Group (21iii) has both a direct (usually inanimate) and an indirectobject (always animate); the former has accusative case, the latter is