The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

An outline of Middle English syntax 73objects of active clauses being eligible for promotion to subject in the passive).Not surprisingly in view of the development of formal identity across theboard of (earlier) datives and accusatives, all these areas underwent change inMiddle English.In the case of monotransitive complementation, the development wassimple: all internal arguments came to be marked by the objective case form,and any semantic distinctions that existed earlier were lost or relocated todifferent lexical items. In the case of the verbs see and help, for example, theinternal arguments were marked accusative and dative respectively in OldEnglish, as in (6a–b), but in Middle English both verbs took an objective internalargument, as in (7a–b).(6) a. Sona swa hio geseah one fordrifenan cyning . . .as-soon as she saw the-ACC driven-off-ACC king-ACC‘As soon as she saw the king, who had been driven out of course . . .’(Bo 38.116.6)b. for an e he wolde gehelpan . . . earfum andbecause he would help poor-people-DAT andwannhalumsick-people-DAT‘because he wanted to help the poor and the sick.’ (ÆLS(Oswald) 272)(7) a. Allas . . . / at ich here is sorwe see!alas that I here this sorrow-OBJ see‘Alas, that I should see this sorrow here.’ (Havelok 1878)b. Loke nou, hu God helpen kan/look now how God help canO mani wise wif and manin many ways woman-OBJ and man-OBJ‘Now look how God can help men and women in many ways.’(Havelok 1712)As explained in 2.2.1, there were verbs in Old English that could take either adative or an accusative object, with in some cases a possible difference inmeaning (see Plank 1983). The difference involved the degree of affectednessof the object, the dative signalling a lesser degree of affectedness than theaccusative. In Middle English, the distinction between dative and accusativewas lost, and with it the possibility of signalling a difference in meaning in thisway. In some cases, part of the semantic difference may have come to beexpressed by other lexical items (including verbpreposition combinations)that were pressed into service for this.In the case of ditransitive verbs, the two internal arguments, usually markedaccusative and dative in Old English as in (8), both received objective markingin Middle English, as in (9).