The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

74 The syntax of early English(8) Æfter isum sealde se ealdorman hine sumum frysanafter this sold the aldorman him-ACC some-DAT Frisian-DATof lundeneof London‘Afterwards the aldorman sold him to a Frisian of London’(ÆCHom II, 24.204.167)(9) Wolle we sullen Iosep is chapmen at here come?will we sell Joseph-OBJ these merchants-OBJ that here came‘Shall we sell Joseph to these merchants that have come here?’(Jacob&J. 118)In addition, the recipient argument could be marked by means of the prepositionto, as in (10). In Old English, this pattern is found with only a few verbs,but it becomes a very productive one in Middle English.(10) Betir is that Y yue hir to thee than to another manbetter is that I give her to you than to another man‘It is better if I give her to you than to another man’(WBible Gen 29.19; Denison 1993: 107)As far as prepositions are concerned, the situation in Old English was thatindividual prepositions selected either the dative or accusative (and some thegenitive). The underlying basis for selection, including the variability shownby some prepositions, is not entirely clear. In Middle English, the system wasmuch simplified, since all prepositions were now followed by the objective caseform.The changes in marking of internal arguments in ditransitive constructionsand in prepositional phrases were accompanied by changes in the possibilitiesfor passivization, which we shall discuss in section 3.2.3. But first we presentin section 3.2.2 a description of what happened to the Old English impersonalverbs. We saw in section 2.2.2 that these verbs showed rather special casemarking in Old English. The overall simplification of the case system led tosimplification of impersonal constructions as well, but we shall see that theynevertheless retained some of their special properties.3.2.2 Impersonal verbsIt was shown in section 2.2.2 that Old English impersonal verbs withtwo NP arguments occurred in three distinct configurations, repeated here in(11).(11) a. EXPERIENCER – dative THEME – nominativeb. EXPERIENCER – nominative THEME – genitivec. EXPERIENCER – dative THEME – genitive