Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:06:22.953Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Object–verb order in early sixteenth-century English prose: an exploratory study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2005

MIKE MOERENHOUT  and
WIM VAN DER WURFF
MIKE MOERENHOUT
Affiliation:
University of Leiden
WIM VAN DER WURFF
Affiliation:
University of Leiden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent work on word-order change in the history of English has shown that late Middle English prose retains object–verb order as a productive option in contexts with an auxiliary and a quantified or negated object, and also in topicalization structures. In order to determine when these limited types of object–verb order became impossible, we have examined a collection of sixteenth-century prose texts. Our findings are that the patterns attested in late Middle English in fact continue until 1550, but then appear to dwindle away. We present the relevant object–verb data, discuss the reasons for the survival of the patterns found, provide an explanation for a difference at the level of detail between the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century data, and offer some suggestions about the reasons for the eventual loss of the structures in question.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 2005 , pp. 83 - 114
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Parts of the material in this article were presented at the second Holland–York Symposium on the History of English Syntax (April 2003, University of Leiden) and the TABU Conference (June 2003, University of Groningen). We would like to thank the audiences for questions and comments. Substantial improvement of the text was brought about by notes of caution and encouragement from an anonymous referee and from Ann Taylor. The usual disclaimers apply.