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Prosodic evidence for incipient VO order in Old English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2005

ANN TAYLOR
ANN TAYLOR
Affiliation:
University of York
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Abstract

In this article I investigate the prosodic structure of verb–object sequences in three Old English metrical texts: Beowulf, Ælfric's Lives of Saints, and The Metres of Boethius. I show that while OV sequences are rarely separated by a line break in any of the texts, the prosodic structure of VO sequences is different in each text, with a high rate of separation of the verb and object in Beowulf, followed by the Metres with less separation, and finally the Lives of Saints with less again. I relate these facts to the ongoing change in headedness in the VP that has been claimed to begin in the Old English period. I take a separated verb–object sequence to indicate a postposed object, and thus the fall in the frequency of separation across the texts indicates a fall in the proportion of VO sequences that are derived by postposition, with a concomitant increase in base-generated VO order.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 2005 , pp. 139 - 156
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2005

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was given at ICEHL in Vienna, August 2005. For helpful comments, I would like to thank the audience, as well as Susan Pintzuk, Wim van der Wurff, and two anonymous reviewers.