The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

Changes in infinitival constructions 241to- and the bare infinitive remained semantically and syntactically distinct (cf.Fischer 1995, 1996b, 1997b), and that the sharp increase in the use of the toinfinitivemust be linked with the decrease in the use of that-clauses rather thana decrease in bare infinitives (cf. Los 1998).Some concluding remarks. We have oversimplified the developmentsomewhat here, because it is clear that there must have been further contributoryfactors. One may have been the ambiguity arising through the factthat the bare infinitive cannot always be distinguished from finite forms,connected with the fact that the complementizer that could be left out. 16Another factor, which we return to below, was the use of the reflexivepronoun as the ‘accusative’ NP. But the point still stands that the Latin AcI’scould only be taken into the language successfully because their bed hadbeen prepared, so to speak. 17 They no longer represented a constructionalien to the language system. Once causatives and object-control verbs haddeveloped passive AcI’s, there was nothing really that could stop the LatintypeAcI from entering, since the structure was already there. No such cosybed had been prepared for the construction in Dutch, to which we will nowturn.7.3 Borrowing and internal factors: the Latin AcI in the history ofDutchWe have so far concentrated on the grammatical factors leading to theestablishment of the Latin-type AcI structure (especially the word order16I.e. in examples such as,I deeme anon this cherl his servant have (Chaucer Physician 199)it is not always clear whether a finite or a non-finite clause is intended because havecould be infinitive as well as subjunctive. For more details, see Fischer (1989:168–74).17Harris and Campbell (1995) show that it is not necessarily the case that borrowedstructures must fit into the borrowing language: ‘contrary to opinions expressed bymany, borrowing and language contact can introduce structures to a language whichare not harmonious with existing structures’ (p. 150). They write that ‘given enoughtime and intensity of contact, virtually anything can (ultimately) be borrowed’ (p.149). It does seem, however, that syntactic borrowing is subject to stricter constraintsthan lexical borrowing, i.e. that the contact either has to be more intensiveor that the new structure has to harmonize with existing structure for borrowing tobe possible. In the case of Latin, harmony is likely to be a necessary condition sincethe contact situation only applied to the very small part of the population familiarwith Latin.