The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

246 The syntax of early Englishc. Ick . . . salse . . . maken verstroyt te wordenIck . . . shall them make dispersed to be‘I shall cause them to be dispersed’ (Ezech.6, Kantt.11, WNT IX,123)The example in (38c) is especially interesting because it occurs with a causative.Since in Dutch SOV structures were retained in subordinate clauses, theold active type of infinitive construction, common also in Old English (cf.(21i b and 21ii b)), remained the rule, and indeed we usually find the activeinfinitive there all through the history of Dutch. Thus, (38c) would be inModern Dutch:(38)c. Ik zal ze laten (maken) verstrooien‘I will them let disperse’An example from seventeenth century Dutch is given in (39).(39) De welke [de preek] geeindigd zijnde; deed hij den brief terwhich [the sermon] ended being did he the letter from-thestoel aflezenpulpit off-read‘And after it had ended, he let the letter be read from the pulpit’(Hooft Historien, Nijhoff 1947 [1978]: 180)The evidence from Dutch thus seems to suggest quite strongly that the strategyof least salience by itself was not sufficient to gain the Latinate AcI a footholdin the language. The extra NP argument that the Latin constructionintroduced before the infinitive remained an awkward element, apparentlyeven when put in a less awkward position. The data from Dutch and Englishrather seem to show that the borrowing of a foreign construction was madepossible ultimately by (the changes in) the syntactic structure of the receivinglanguage, and that therefore, although internal and external factors were bothresponsible for the introduction of this AcI, it is the internal grammaticalfactors in this case of change which play the more crucial role.Reconsidering the factors promoting the acceptance of the ECM inEnglish, we find that a chain of changes was set in motion by the word orderchange (involving the constructions given in (3i, 3ii), involving reanalysis andanalogical extension of the infinitival construction after causatives and perceptionverbs, and of the (for) NP to V construction. The influence from Latinwas present all along, but only became effective when the syntactic structuresof English had been altered in such a way that Latin AcI’s resembled the newnative AcI’s. This case also suggests that for borrowing on the syntactic level,length and intensity of contact alone may not be sufficient. Linguists ratherdiffer in their opinions on how permeable the syntactic level is compared to