Subject Clauses in Old English: Do They Really Exist?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.199711294Abstract
Recently, the existence of subject clauses in Old English has been denied mainly because clauses do not occur in sentence initial position. This paper argues that the alternative analyses put forward in the literature fail to account for the linguistic data and that occurence in initial position is not a relevant criterion for subjects at this early stage in the development of English.
Downloads
References
ALLEN, C. L. 1986. "Reconsidering the History of like." Journal 22: 375-409. of Linguistics
---. 1995. Case Marking and Reanalysis: Grammatical Relations from Old to Early Modern English. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
ANDERSON, J.M. 1986. "A Note on Old English lmpersonals" J of Linguistics 22: 167-77.
ANDREWS, A. 1976. "The VP Complement in Modern Icelandic." Montreal Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 1-22.
BEAN, M.C. 1983. The Development of Word Order Patterns in Old English. London: Croom Helm.
BOLINGER, D. 1961. "Syntactic Blends and Other Matters." Language 37: 366-381.
BUTLER, M. C. 1977. "Reanalysis of Object as Subject in Middle English Impersonal Constructions." Glossa 11: 155-70.
DEKEYSER, X. 1984. "Diachronic Dimensions of Subject and Object Complement Clauses." In English Historical Linguistics: Studies in Development. Ed. N. F. Blake and C. Jones. CECTAL Conference Paper Series. Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press. 194-204.
DENISON, D. 1990. "The Old English Impersonals Revived." Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics: Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987. Ed. S. Adamson et al. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 111-141.
ELMER, W. 1981. Diachronic Grammar: The Hist01y of Old and Middle English Subjectless Constructions (Linguistische Arbeiten 97). Ttibingen: Niemeyer.
ELSNESS, J.1981. "On the Syntactic and Semantic Functions of That-clauses." In Papers from the First Nordic Conference for English Studies. Ed. S. Johanson and B. Tysdahl. Oslo: University of Oslo. 201-303.
FISCHER, 0. C. M. 1992. "Syntax." In The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 2. Ed. N. F. Blake. Cambridge: C.U.P.: 207-408.
FISCHER, 0. C. M., and F. C. van der LEEK, 1983. "The Demise of the Old English Impersonal Construction." JoUrnal ~f Linguistics _19: 337-68.
GAAF, W. van der, 1904. The Transition from the Impersonal to the Personal Construction in Middle English. (Anglistische Forschungen 14). Heidelberg: Karl Winter.
HOPPER, P. J., and E .C. TRAUGOTT, 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
KEENAN, E. 1976. "Towards a Universal Definition of Subject." In Subject and Topic. Ed. C. N. Li. New York: Academic Press.
KLAIMAN, M. H. 1980. "Bengali Dative Subjects." Lingua 51: 275-95.
KOOPMAN, W. F. 1996. "Multiple Topicalization in Old English and the Effects on the Position of Subject and Verb." Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Poznan, August 26-31, 1996.
MALING, J. 1990. "Inversion in Embedded Clauses in Modern Icelandic" Islenskt Mai of Almenn Malfrr.edi 2: 175-94.
MENDEZ NAYA, B. 1995. Finite Complementation in Old English, A Corpus-based Study. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. University of Santiago de Compostela.
MITCHELL, B. 1985. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MOLENCKI, R. 1991a. Complementation in Old English. Katowice: Uniwersytet Slasld.
---. 1991b, "On Extraposition in Old English." Filologia Angielska 5: 51-66.
QUIRK, R. et al. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
RISSANEN, M., et al. (compilers) 1991. Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, Diachronic and Dialectal. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
SHIBATANI, M. 1977. "Grammatical Relations and Surface Cases." Language 53: 789-809.
SRIDHAR, S. N. 1979. "Dative Subjects and the Notion of Subject." Lingua 49: 99-125.
STOCKWELL, R. 1977. "Motivations for Exbraciation in Old English." In Mechanisms of Syntactic Change. Ed. C. N. Li. Austin: University of Texas Press: 291-314.
THRAINS0N, H. 1976. "Some Arguments against the Interpretative Theory of Pronouns and Reflexives." Harvard Studies in Syntax and Semantics 2: 573-624.
TRAUGOTT, E. C. 1972. A Histo,y of English Syntax: A Transformational Approach to the Histo1y of English Sentence Structure. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
---. 1992. "Syntax." In The Cambridge Histo,y of the English Language. Vol. L Ed. R. M. Hogg. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 168-289.
VISSER, F. T. 1963-73. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
WAHLEN, N. 1925. The Old English lmpersonalia. Part I. Goteborg: Elanders.
WARNER, A. R. 1982. Complementation in Middle English and the Methodology of Historical Syntax. London: Croom Helm.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
