The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

22 The syntax of early Englishare finite verbs, which are simply P, and nouns, which are simply N. Other categoriesare more complex and consist of hierarchical combinations of the twobasic categories. Nonfinite verbs would be characterized as P;N (the semicolonindicates that the left term, P, dominates over the one on the right, N).Adjectives are P:N (the colon indicates that the terms on the left and right aremutually dependent). Espousing a view of the historical development of themodals very similar to Warner’s, Anderson analyses the development as a typeof categorial change called realignment.On this view, all Old English verbs are of the category P, as they all occuras finite verbs. Although Anderson recognizes that some modals lack nonfiniteforms in Old English, he assumes that this does not require a distinctsubclass. All Old English verbs potentially have nonfinite forms and are thusalso characterized as P;N. In the course of history, this category has beendiversified: the situation in present-day English would be as in (20).(20) {P} {P} & {P;N} {P;N}. . .. . .verbs 1 verbs 2 verbs 3modals other auxiliaries main verbsModals have become restricted to finite use only. The auxiliaries have and beare both finite and nonfinite. Main verbs are basically nonfinite, as there areconstructions such as questions, in which they cannot occur as finite verbs.The main difference between treatments such as those by Warner andAnderson on the one hand, and that of Lightfoot on the other, is that inLightfoot’s restrictive theoretical framework, word categorization is a clearcutthing, and therefore a change in word class is by definition an abrupt one,with the abruptness reflected in the syntactic behaviour. Fuzziness is, in sucha context, a phenomenon of language rather than of grammar. In theapproaches by Warner and Anderson, this distinction between language andgrammar is not made; fuzziness is something that is accommodated in theoverall approach, and in the case at hand, it is clear that word categorizationcan be non-clear-cut. Graduality can thus be accommodated in the frameworkitself, and therefore the relationship between the data and the theoreticalmodel is more straightforward.1.3.2 Surface similaritiesWe touch here briefly on an approach to change in the lexical propertiesof verbs that is primarily concerned with the diffusion of change. Thisshould be viewed against the general background of the theory of lexical