The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

An outline of Middle English syntax 79structurally available around 1375 as a result of the fixing of word order inactive ditransitives. Before that time, both [V–THEME–RECIPIENT], as in(9), and [V–RECIPIENT–THEME], as in (25), had been possible.(25) There the kyng graunted syr Ector grete rewardysthere the king granted sir Hector-OBJ great rewards-OBJ‘There the king granted Hector great rewards’ (Malory Works 11.9)When only the order of (25) remained, Allen suggests, the immediately postverbalRECIPIENT NP came to be analysed as the direct object, and couldtherefore become the nominative subject of a corresponding passive. Anotherpossibility might be that this change is related to the loss of Verb-Second asdiscussed in chapter 4. With the loss of this operation, a fronted dative couldbe reinterpreted as nominative, since the default first constituent position nowbecame the nominative subject position, as suggested by van Kemenade (1998).In addition to its prototypical passive, Old English also had a passiveconstruction in which there was no nominative subject, since the correspondingactive sentence lacked an accusative object. Examples were given in section2.2.1; we repeat one of them in (26).(26) Ac æm mæg beon suie hrae geholpen from his lareowebut him-DAT can be very quickly helped by his teacher‘But he can be helped very quickly by his teacher’(CP 33.225.22; Denison 1993: 104)As shown in example (6b), the verb helpan took a dative object in Old English,and this dative was retained under passivization. However, as shown in (7b),the object came to be marked with objective case in Middle English, and couldtherefore participate in the prototypical passive, as it does in (27).(27) Ne hadde he ben holpen by the steede of brasnot had he been helped by the horse of brass‘If he had not been helped by the brass horse’(Chaucer Squire 666; Denison 1993: 105)3.3 Word order3.3.1 Word order within the NPThe order of elements within the NP in Middle English does notdiffer greatly from that of Old English, nor indeed from that of present-dayEnglish. With regard to the determiner system, there are only some minordifferences in terms of combinability, in the sense that some forms could