Negated subjects and objects in 15th-century nonliterary English

Abstract

Using a large database of familial correspondence, it is shown that NP positions in 15th-century English were essentially those of Present-Day English, contrary to claims that the syntactic structure of Late Middle English still had a position for preposed object NPs, and that 15th-century English possessed multiple subject constructions with expletive there. The only form of OV order to remain productive in familial correspondence of this period occurred in the configuration: finite verb–negated NP–lexical verb. Neither ordinary NPs nor other quantified NPs were productive in this configuration. It is also shown that negated subject NPs, but not ordinary or other quantified subject types, were commonly found in multiple subject constructions. All these phenomena can be conveniently accounted for in terms of movement to a Neg projection (Haegeman, 1995). A theoretical account of noncanonical subject and object positions in terms of Neg movement thus receives strong empirical support from the distribution of argument NPs in 15th century English.

Changing EPP parameters in the history of English: accounting for variation and change

“…In later ME, as has been observed by several scholars (Ingham, 2002(Ingham, , 2003Kroch & Taylor, 2000;Moerenhout & van der Wurff, 2000;Pintzuk, 2002;van der Wurff, 1997avan der Wurff, , 1997bvan der Wurff, , 1999 By the 15 th century, as observed by Moerenhout & van der Wurff (2000: 527), "… the pattern with an auxiliary (usually a modal) and a negative object is predominant." The fact that the objects that surfaced in these structures tended to be negative objects strongly suggests that the optional (defocusing) EPP-feature associated with OE v had been lost and that the obligatory EPP-feature associated with OE v had undergone further "specialisation" -whereas it had previously attracted all [+Op] D-material with which v had entered into an Agree relation, it only continued to attract a subset of [+Op] D-elements in later ME, namely…”

Taking Stock to Look Ahead: Celebrating Forty Years of English Studies in Spain

“…The examples attested in those studies investigating OV word order in Late Middle English (LME) are, according to van der Wurff (1997), Ingham (2002) and Moerenhout and van der Wurff (2010), limited to non-literary English, and mostly to these patterns: predicates with auxiliaries-that is, vOV (Ingham's 2002 'embraciated' constructions)and with negated/quantified objects. OV was also found in coordinated clauses and in nonfinite clauses.…”

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

“…Thus, Pintzuk (1991Pintzuk ( , 1996 shows that there is a great deal of surface VO order already in Old English; Allen (2000), Kroch & Taylor (2000), and Trips (2002) demonstrate that there is still much surface OV order around in early Middle English; and van der Wurff (1997a), Moerenhout & van der Wurff (2000), and Ingham (2002) find that OV order also still occurs productively in late Middle English. Thus, Pintzuk (1991Pintzuk ( , 1996 shows that there is a great deal of surface VO order already in Old English; Allen (2000), Kroch & Taylor (2000), and Trips (2002) demonstrate that there is still much surface OV order around in early Middle English; and van der Wurff (1997a), Moerenhout & van der Wurff (2000), and Ingham (2002) find that OV order also still occurs productively in late Middle English.…”

“…In more detailed work on the occurrence of OV and VO order in fifteenth-century prose, van der Wurff (1997a), Moerenhout & van der Wurff (2000), and Ingham (2000Ingham ( , 2002 find that by this time OV order has become virtually limited to three patterns: clauses with an auxiliary and a positively or negatively quantified object and clauses without an overt subject, such as subject relatives, coordinate clauses, and nonfinite clauses of various types. The former types appear to be found in a wide range of texts, but the latter type may have been more characteristic of formal writing.…”