The Loss of V2 Clause Structure in the History of English: a Review of the Literature

The Loss of V2 Clause Structure in the History of English: A Review of the Literature

Heather Burnett and Elizabeth Ferch

Queen’s University

August 24, 2005

Cette recherche a bénéficié de l’appui du projet Modéliser le changement : les voies du français (GTRC/CRSH), dirigé par France Martineau. La recherche a été supervisée par Mireille Tremblay, Queen’s University. Table of Contents ______

Section 1: Review of the Literature

0. Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 3 1. Theories of Language Change……………………………………………….. 3 2. Synchronic Analyses of Old English……………………………………….. 14 3. Synchronic Analyses of Early Middle English……………………………... 27 4. Late Middle English and the Loss of V2…………………………………… 30 5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….. 33

Section 2: Article Summaries…………………………………………………………... 35

Section 3: Bibliography of V2 in English……………………………………………... 114 Section 1: Review of the Literature

0. Introduction

Historical linguistics and the study of language change was once the major area of study for linguists. With the advent of generative grammar, it has taken on a new role.

The study of the way in which language changes, and the way in which it doesn’t, offers a unique window into the constitution of the language faculty. In this paper, we will present a comprehensive and critical review of the literature surrounding a major change in the history of the English language: the loss of verb second word order from Old

English to Middle English. We will begin by describing some of the main theories of language change which have been used to study the loss of V2. We will then examine the debate on the synchronic description of word order in Old English. Finally, we will review the various analyses of the synchronic state of Middle English, as well as the proposals for the causes and time course of the loss of V2. The goal of this paper is to make accessible the vast amount of literature available on the subject, to fuel further research into the history of English and diachronic syntax in general.

1. Theories of Language Change

In this first section, we will present a brief description of some of the major theories of language change that the discussion on the history of V2 has been couched in.

Although they cannot be entirely separated, we feel that it is very important to make a distinction between the synchronic descriptions of various stages of a language, and the way in which the transition between those stages is expressed. This is because a certain theory of change can hold valuable insights, even if the particular synchronic analysis used to exemplify it may not be 100% correct. Roberts (1993) distinguishes three components in his theory of language change.

A step, defined as “the appearance of a new construction, or a significant change in the frequency of a construction” (Roberts 1993: 158), is a diachronic relation between E- languages; a parametric shift is a diachronic relation between I-languages; and a

Diachronic Reanalysis (DR), the reanalysis of a given structure, is a relation between the

E-language of one generation and the I-language of the next. Diachronic Reanalyses are caused by the Least Effort Strategy, which prompts learners to choose the grammatical representation containing the shortest possible set of chains, and they often provoke parametric shifts by eliminating the evidence for a given parameter setting; Roberts suggests that they are always minimal, that is, that each reanalysis reduces the structure as little as possible. Although steps and DRs can reduce the frequency of constructions, only parametric shifts can make them ungrammatical. However, as Lightfoot (1997) points out, the distinction between a parametric shift and a Diachronic Reanalysis is not entirely clear; Roberts himself allows that “[a]ll DRs may turn out to be instances of

Parametric Change” (1993: 159). As well, this theory does not explain why the LES should provoke a reanalysis in one generation of learners and not another.

Lightfoot (1991, 1995, 1997) proposes a theory of language change based on sudden reanalysis. He postulates that parameter settings are acquired based on specific triggering experiences in the linguistic environment. Based on data from Dutch and

German regarding the acquisition of OV word order (Klein (1974); Clahsen & Smolka

(1986), cited in Lightfoot (1991)), and data from its loss in Old English (Bean (1983) and others), Lightfoot argues for “degree-0 learnability,” in other words, the idea that triggering experiences must be present in simple matrix clauses. Triggers must also be expressed robustly, that is, in a sufficient proportion of sentences, in order to cause the parameter to be set. Lightfoot believes that the linguistic environment is always changing, due to grammar-external factors; in cases of language change, a particular construction increases or decreases in frequency until the triggering experience has changed sufficiently for the parameter it expresses to be set a different way. Thus,

Lightfoot’s theory involves a gradual drift in usage followed by a sudden change in grammar. However, Kroch (1999) takes issue with this notion of “drift”, saying that empirical evidence for its existence is “at the least, uncertain” (Kroch, 1999:6). He claims that the problem lies in the fact that so-called “drifting” has no obvious motivation; therefore, it is unclear why the frequency of a certain form undergoing change should be incorrectly learnt in one case, but correctly learnt in practically all the other cases. He cites cases such as the stability of the frequency of the placement of adverbs in the history of English as an example where drift would have most likely occurred, but did not

(Kroch, 1999:6-8). According to him, if the drift model was correct, the loss of V to I movement in Middle English would have caused an increase in the frequency of preverbal adverbs. However, the frequency of preverbal adverbial placement versus postverbal placement remained the same throughout time, thus rendering the motivation for the change in frequencies that bring about a reanalysis extremely unclear.

In order to avoid postulating drifts in usage frequencies that occur prior or independently of grammar change, Kroch (1989; 1999, 2003 a.o.) proposes the

“imperfect transmission” (IT) model of language change. In this model, instead of the grammatical change occurring at the end of a long period of drift, it is the first stage in the process of change. According to the “IT”, change occurs when, for a variety of reasons, a child “mislearns” the grammar of its parents. They create a grammar that is different from the one they are exposed to, and it is this difference in grammar that creates a difference in the patterns of usage.

Basing the model in the principles and parameters (P&P) framework (for an overview, see Chomsky, 1995: chapter 1), Kroch (2003), following Clahsen (1991) and

Penner (1992; both cited in Kroch, 2003), assumes that language learners set linguistic parameters in an irreversible way. Therefore, when the learner first encounters some input that makes reference to a certain parameter, she will set it accordingly. If all the following input that she is exposed to is consistent with this parameter setting, the learner will simply assume that this is the target grammar and nothing further will happen.

However, if, later on, she comes into contact with data which contradicts the first parameter setting, seeing as she cannot simply re-set the parameter, nor can she put the parameter on both settings, the learner creates a separate grammar which has the parameter in question set in the opposite way. The learner is now “bilingual” or

“bidialectal”, in the sense that she has two (or more) separate grammars in her head and can use either one of them. The two grammars do not, however, coexist completely harmoniously; they are in what Kroch (1989 and later work) and Pintzuk (1991 and later work) call “grammar competition”. In a first language acquisition sense, this term corresponds to a situation where a child mistakenly acquires a parameter setting that is clearly different from the majority of input sentences she is exposed to. According to

Kroch (2003), if the learner is young enough and the primary linguistic data conclusively support the second, newer grammar, then she will begin using the second grammar at the expense of the first. After a period of variation/competition, the second grammar will

“win out” over the first, i.e. it will become the dominant one all but eradicating the first.

Kroch (2003) claims that a concrete example of this type of grammar competition is found in the study of Labov & Labov (1976). In this study, the Labovs recorded thousands of their four-year old daughter’s wh-questions and note that the acquisition of questions formed with “why” undergoes a radically different pattern with respect to the presence of inversion than the other Wh-words:

(1)

Acquisition of Wh-questions by Labov daughter (cited in Kroch (2003:his figure1)

Kroch interprets these results in the following way: until roughly December 1976, the

Labovs’ daughter had inaccurately set the “inversion” parameter as – in the case of why- questions, but as + in the case of the other wh-questions. Having been exposed to overwhelming evidence of the existence of a grammar with the +inversion setting, she then creates one which enters into competition with the existing –inversion grammar. The

+inversion grammar ends up replacing the original grammar by June, 1976.

Kroch (1989 and subsequent work) proposes a model of language change which essentially mirrors the process of grammar competition in acquisition, but on a larger scale. According to this model, language change occurs when the primary linguistic data available to learners consistently requires the creation of two grammars, the competition between which is not eradicated within the critical period of acquisition. Speakers can, therefore, live their entire lives with multiple grammars, and they make choices as to frequencies at which they use one grammar over the other that are “probabilistically influenced by features of context and situation” (Kroch, 1989:3).

Following authors such as Weinreich, Labov and Herzog (1968, cited in Kroch,

1989) and Osgood and Sebeok (1954 cited in Kroch, 1989), Kroch assumes that the time course of language change follows an ‘S’-shaped curve, with “new forms replacing established ones only slowly in the beginning of a change, then accelerating their replacement in the middle stages of a change and finally, as the old forms become rare, slowing their advance once again” (Kroch, 1989:3). Kroch (1982, 1989) goes even further in his characterization of the shape that language change takes by proposing a specific mathematical function, the logistic1, as the underlying form of a syntactic change. Although, as Kroch (1989:4) notes, it is impossible to verify exactly which function is the proper characterization of the time course of language change, other

1 The equation of the logistic curve is where p is the fraction of the advancing form, t is the time variable, and s and k are constants. models that have been used, such as the cumulative function of the normal distribution

(Aldrich and Nelson, 1984, cited in Kroch, 1989), “generally differ so little from the logistic that they can provide no improvement in fit to empirical data.” Also, the logistic has been widely used in other fields to model population behaviour, such in epidemiology and population biology (ex. Spiess, 1989, cited in Kroch (1989); therefore, the logistic seems to be a plausible model to apply to grammar competition and replacement.

Further support for parameter-based grammar competition comes from the rate that the time course of language change takes. If one assumes that the grammars in competition differ in the setting of an abstract parameter, one would expect to see the result of a parametrical difference to take the form not of a single difference in form, but as a series of correlated changes that instantiate the abstract change. Therefore, we would expect all the elements affected by the parametrical change to be change at the same rate.

This is known in Kroch (1989 and subsequent work) as the “constant rate hypothesis”.

More specifically, it is the claim that, although the rate of use of different grammatical options in competition will most likely differ across contexts at each period in time, the rate of change will be the same across contexts (Kroch, 1989:6). The realization of this hypothesis can be illustrated through the case of the loss of V2 in the history of French.2

As shown in (2), the losses of pro-dropped subjects, full NP subject inversion, and pronoun-subject inversion proceed at the same rate, as would be expected if they were the result of a change in a certain “V2 parameter”.

2 We bring up this case, as Kroch does, simply for explanatory purposes. At this point we do not support or deny this claim about the actual nature of V2 in French; however, for a deeper discussion about the issues involved in the history of French V2 see Burnett & Ferch (in prep). (2)

(Kroch, 1989: 12, his Figure 3)

Another approach that strongly links language change with acquisition is that of

Yang (2000). Yang compares the tension that exists between the discrete and symbolic nature of grammatical competence and the variable, heterogeneous nature of performance with the tension that exists between the discrete basis of Mendelien genetic and the continuous distribution of genotypes in populations. He views language acquisition as being similar to evolution: it is as a “variational process in which the distribution of grammars changes as an adaptive response to the linguistic evidence in the environment”

(Yang, 2000:234). As in Kroch’s model, this “variational process” is realized through multiple grammar competition and replacement. In this model, within the finite collection of grammars that make up UG, each grammar Gi is associated with a weight pi, which denotes the probability with which the learner will access the grammar. Acquisition works as follows: when an input sentence is presented, a grammar is selected. The probability that certain grammar is selection is determined by its weight. The grammar is then used to analyze the sentence. If the sentence can be successfully parsed using the selected grammar, it is rewarded: i.e. its weight is increased, and the weights of all the other grammars are indirectly punished: i.e. their weights are decreased. If the selected grammar fails to parse the input, it is punished and the other grammars are rewarded. This process continues until a single grammar has a weight that ensures that it will be exclusively selected.

If we assume, as is common, that UG remains constant from generation to generation, then language change must be due to a situation where two generations are exposed to different linguistic evidence, which results in different knowledge of language. According to Yang, the “different linguistic evidence” can arise in a variety of ways such as through the migration of foreign speakers who introduce novel forms into the language, through linguistic innovation, or through more general social and cultural factors (237). These factors will create a situation where the input evidence will seem to reflect two conflicting grammars. The proportion of expressions that belong to Grammar

1 (G1) that are incompatible with Grammar 2 (G2) is called the advantage of G1, and the proportion of expressions in the environment that belong to G2 that are incompatible with

G1 is called the advantage of G2. Therefore, according to Yang’s theory of acquisition,

Grammar 2 will overtake Grammar 1if the advantage of grammar G2 is higher than G1.

The change takes the shape of the logistic, as shown in (3) (3)

(Yang 2000: 240)

Due to the repeated “punishment” of unsuccessful grammars that it proposes, a corollary of Yang’s model is that, once a grammar is on the rise, it is unstoppable (239).

Another theory which takes an evolutionary look at language acquisition and change is that of Clark and Roberts (1993), who characterize language acquisition as natural selection among hypotheses about the target grammar. In their theory, hypotheses are made up of sets of parameters and encoded as strings of binary digits. Each hypothesis translates into a parsing device; these parsing devices are tested against each input datum, and their fitness is judged based on how they interpret the datum3. The most

3 C&R provide a fitness metric for mathematically calculating the relative fitness of the grammars. This metric is shown in (i):

(i) n n n (_j = 1 vj + b_ j = 1 sj + c_ j = 1 ej) – (vi + bsi + cei) n n n (n – 1)( _j = 1 vj + b_ j = 1 sj + c_ j = 1 ej) important factor is the well-formedness of each parse, specifically the number of basic grammatical principles which are violated. Other factors are also considered, including the elegance of the parse, measured as the number of nodes contained in it, and the number of superset parameters; these factors are important when distinguishing among equally grammatical interpretations. A superset parameter is one which, when set a given way, produces a set of sentences which includes all sentences that could be generated with the parameter set the other way. If the learner were to incorrectly postulate the superset setting, there would be no evidence available to disprove this hypothesis, and the language acquired would be a superset of the target language; in order for this not to happen, such hypotheses must be selected against, as per the Subset Condition of

Berwick (1985). When the relative fitness of the hypotheses is determined for a given datum, the most fit hypotheses are selected for special “mating operations”: a crossover mechanism, by which a new hypothesis is formed from parts of two old ones, and a mutation operator, which forms new hypotheses by randomly changing parameter settings. Over time, parameter settings which are frequently expressed in the input will be selected for, while those which are unable to interpret the input will be selected against; thus, the population of hypotheses will tend towards the optimal settings for the target language. This process does not, however, guarantee that the learners’ grammars will be identical to those of their parents. If a parameter is unambiguously expressed in the language, it is stable, but if the evidence becomes ambiguous between various

n In this equation, n represents the number of parsing devices; _j = 1 vj represents the total number of grammatical violations of all parsing devices; n vi represents the number of violations by the parsing device whose fitness is being determined; _j = 1 sj represents the total number of superset settings in the n population of hypotheses; si represents in number of superset settings in the grammar being evaluated; _j = 1 ej represents the total number of nodes generated by all parsers; ei represents the number of nodes (the elegance) of the parser being evaluated; and b and c are constants, greater than 0 and smaller than 1, used to weight the elegance and superset factors so that they have less impact than does failure to parse. settings, the language will be unstable and therefore prone to change. Instability can arise for various reasons: phonological changes may make syntactic parameter settings difficult to interpret; a change in one parameter may destabilize another one; or the language may become “shifted,” with learners setting parameters in such a way that they interact to produce a superset language. Once a language becomes unstable, according to

Clark & Roberts, learners turn to UG-internal factors, specifically elegance and the

Subset Condition, to choose between hypotheses.

This model is similar toYang (2000) in that, as in his model, the outcome of language acquisition is determined by the compatibilities of grammars with the linguistic input data in a “Darwinian selectionist manner” (Yang, 2000:240), the differences between the two models being primarily that Clark and Roberts (1993) do not accept, like

Kroch and Yang, the existence of multiple grammars within the head of a single speaker.

These evolutionary theories are impressive, but as Kroch (1999) notes, theories such as that of Clark and Roberts “are useful hypotheses, no doubt, but unless they can be further specified to make empirically testable predictions, they will remain speculative”

(1999:35).

2. Synchronic Analyses of Old English

The proper characterization of Old English syntax has been a matter of great debate. Due to the large amount of complex variation in its surface word order, a number of scholars have concluded that OE was a free word order language (Kroch & Taylor,

1997). For those who noticed the V2 pattern in OE, it was still uncertain whether or not this was a robust syntactic rule, or just a narrative tendency (see Bean, 1983). However, in more recent years, studies such as those done by van Kemenade (1987) and Pintzuk (1991) have shown that OE word order in general and, more specifically, the V2 pattern is, in fact, highly rule governed. However, the exact nature of the V2 rule remains open to discussion. In this section we will first give a brief overview of the V2 pattern in OE, and then we will present various analyses which have tried to account for the distribution of verb-second order in both main and subordinate clauses.

If, following van Kemenade (1987), Pintzuk (1991;1993), Kiparsky (1994), Kroch

& Taylor (1997), we take the dominant underlying order of late OE to be SOV, then the most common type of V2 sentence would be the one where the finite verb moves to become the second element in the clause, and the NP-subject is the topic, yielding surface

SVO order, as in (4):

(4) Godes _eowas sceoloni unscæ__ignysse healdan ti God’s servants should harmlessness preserve ‘God’s servants should preserve harmlessness…” (AELS 25.846, cited in Pintzuk, 1993: 6)

However, the subject is not the only thing that can appear before the verb. It is also very common to have the “topic” position filled by a non-subject: a direct object, a prepositional phrase or an adverb. In this case, the subject appears after the verb, as shown in (5):

(5) a. & of heom twam is eall manncynn cumen (WHom 6.52) and of them two is all mankind come b. pæt hus hæfdon Romane to dæm anum tacne geworht (Or 59.3) that building had Romans with the one feature constructed c. pær wearp se cyning Bagsecg ofslægen (Anglo-Saxon Chron., Parker, 871) there was the king Bagsecg slain (all cited from Kroch & Taylor (1997:302), their

(5)) Another pattern that we see with non-subject topics is “verb third” word order. This arises in cases where the subject of the sentence is a pronoun:

(6) Ælc yfel he mæg don (WHom, 4.62) each evil he can do (cited in Kroch & Taylor, 2000, their (7a))

Although V3 word order was originally taken to indicate the inconsistent nature of the V2 constraint in OE, Kemenade (1987) and Pintzuk (1991) have shown that it reflects not a variable verb movement rule, but particular characteristics of the pronouns themselves (to be discussed below). Evidence to suggest that V3 is a result of the “clitic-like” nature of the pronoun and not of the V2 constraint comes from the fact that object pronouns can appear in the same preverbal position as their subject counterparts.

(7) & seofon ærendracan he him hæfde to asend (ASC, Parker, 905) and seven messengers he him had to sent ‘and he had sent seven messengers to him’ (cited in Kroch, Taylor & Ringe, 2000, their (8b))

V3 order can also occur when some adverbs are topicalized, as in (8):

(8) Her Oswald se eadiga arcebisceop forlet pis lif. (ASC, Laud, 992) in-this-year Oswald the blessed archbishop forsook this life (cited in Kroch, Taylor & Ringe, 2000, their (10c))

V2 order also appears in a small number of exceptional constructions such as non- subject wh-questions, sentences introduced by the elements _a and _onne, and negation- initial sentences, examples of which are found in (9):

(9) a. hwi sceole we opres mannes niman? (AELS 24.188) why should we another man's take b. pa ge-mette he sceadan (AELS 31.151) then met he robbers c. ne mihton hi nænigne fultum æt him begitan (Bede 48.9–10) not could they not-any help from him get (cited in Kroch, Taylor & Ringe, 2000, their (9a-c)) These constructions are customarily analyzed as involving verb movement to C (Pintzuk

(1991, 1993), Kroch & Taylor (1997), Kemenade (1987, 1997), Fischer et al (2000)).

As for subordinate clauses, the data are much less clear. According to Pintzuk

(1991), Old English exhibits V2 order in a variety of subordinate clauses. In her view, this makes OE different from other V2 languages such as German and Dutch which allow verb second only in main clauses4. This significant difference leads Pintzuk to postulate that OE is an IPV2 language (like Icelandic and Yiddish) rather than a CPV2 language, such as German and the Mainland Scandinavian languages. It is generally assumed that in the latter languages the verb raises to the complementizer position, and the topic moves to

SPEC, CP. However, when the C position is filled by a complementizer, as is the case in subordinate clauses, verb movement to C is blocked, yielding a non-V2 word order. In an IPV2 language, the verb raises to the inflectional head I, and the topic moves to SPEC

IP. In subordinates, V2 order is still possible since the I head is not affected by the presence of a Comp in C. In order to explain the V3 effect that arises when the subject is a pronoun, Pintzuk proposes that pronouns in OE are IP (Wackernagel) clitics, which means that they attach at the border between CP and IP. She also postulates the existence of a phonological rule which moves them to the right of the first phrasal constituent, yielding the order found in (6).

Pintzuk’s analysis is reviewed in Kroch & Taylor (1997) (K&T), and, although they largely support her claims, these authors raise a number of concerns with her proposal. Primarily, they take issue with the phonological rule that is needed to derive the surface XP Pro V order. As they say, “the special clitic movement rule needed by Pintzuk

4 This does not take into account special cases which can be analysed as instances of “CP recursion” as discussed in Iatridou & Kroch (1992). to account for the placement of pronouns between topic and verb in V2 clauses has no counterpart elsewhere among the Germanic languages and does not have clear theoretical justification” (Kroch & Taylor, 1997: 305). We would also like to point out that the

“phonological” nature of this postposing rule would predict that that the final word of the first constituent and the subject clitic would form a phonological word. For example, in

(6) (repeated here as (10)), Pintzuk’s rule would have “he” forming a phonological word with “yfel”, which seems to us to be counterintuitive.

(10) Ælc yfel he mæg don (WHom, 4.62) each evil he can do (cited in Kroch & Taylor, 2000, their (7a))

In order to remedy these inconsistencies, K&T propose that, in Old English main clauses, the topic moves first to SPEC, IP but goes on to land in SPEC, CP. As such, there is now no need to propose a phonological rule that moves the clitic from the Wackernagel position at the CP/IP border. K& T do, however, support Pintzuk’s claim that the topic moves only to SPEC, IP in subordinate clauses.

The second difficulty that K&T have with Pintzuk (1991) is that it fails to account for a striking generalization made from data presented in van Kemenade (1997): rather than being relatively productive (as Pintzuk’s theory predicts), V2 word order with a non- subject topic in subordinate clauses is possible only in cases where “the nominative subject is absent or is licensed to appear in a position other than SPEC, IP, as in passive sentences or in sentences with experiencer dative “subjects” ” (K&T: 307). These two kinds of V2 subordinates are shown in (11):

(11) a. passive: _onne ælce dæge beo_ manega acennede _urh hys mihte on woruld when each day are many(NOM) given-birth through his power on world (AEHP.VI.120, cited in K&T:307) b. experiencer dative “subjects”: gif us ne lyst _æra ærrena yfela _e we ær worhton if us(DAT) not pleases the earlier evils (GEN) that we earlier wrought (CP.445.29, cited in van Kemenade (1997: 335))

Thus, according to K&T, SPEC, IP is available for topics only when the subject does not have to be there. Both Pintzuk (1991)’s analysis and K&T’s refinement are immediately confronted with the following questions: why is it that the subject is not required to move to SPEC, IP in order to check case and EPP features in main clauses? Conversely, if the subject is not required to move to SPEC IP in main clauses, why is it that it must raise in subordinates?

K&T’s solution to these problems is the following: If one takes the view that the essence of the V2 constraint is the establishment of a SPEC/head relationship between the topic and the verb, and if the verb only moves to I, it is then imperative that the topic occupy the specifier position of IP.5 Since the topic or its trace is in SPEC, IP, the subject cannot move there. In order to satisfy the Principle of Full Interpretation (Chomsky

(1986; 1993), it must check the finite agreement features in another way. According to

K&T, this is accomplished through the incorporation of a null expletive which is coindexed with the subject into the feature complex of I. This expletive checks the active inflectional and EPP features in I, making it unnecessary for the subject to move into

SPEC, IP. In subordinate clauses, the movement of the subject to SPEC, IP is not driven by inflectional or EPP considerations; it is, in fact, due to the topicalization that is necessary to satisfy the V2 constraint. Although this scenario addresses the theoretical problem of the licensing of the subject inside the VP, K&T themselves note that “since the licensing of topics in main and subordinate clauses is identical, we are now without a

5 K&T note that It is also possible, assuming a split IP comprised of AgrS and T, that the verb moves to AgrS. (K&T, 1997:319). simple syntactic explanation for the greatly reduced range of topicalizations in subordinate as opposed to matrix clauses” (K&T: 309). However, K&T suggest that this restriction may in fact not be syntactic but pragmatic: they claim that due to information structure considerations, the subject will be topicalized as much as possible in subordinate clauses, the only exceptions to this being the cases, such as in (11), where there seems to be no subject. Although it is impossible to verify this hypothesis for OE, evidence from Icelandic and Yiddish (Rognvaldsson & Santorini, p.cs to K&T) suggests that this generalization holds in living IPV2 languages.

Another analysis of the Old English syntax is that of van Kemenade (1987;1997) who proposes that OE is, in fact, a CPV2 rather than IPV2 language. She claims that, in main clauses, the topic moves to SPEC,CP and the verb moves to the complementizer position. Pronouns cliticize on the left of the finite verb, as in (12a), but the cliticization is blocked if the first constituent is an operator (i.e. contexts where the verb independently raises to C, such as in wh-questions) (12b):

(12) a.Be _æm we magon swi_e swutule oncnawan _æt… (CP.181.16) by that we may very clearly perceive that b. for hwam noldest _u _e sylfe me gecy_an (AESLXXXIII.307) for what not-wanted you yourself me make known ‘wherefore would you not make yourself known to me’ (cited in van Kemenade (1997:333)

By saying that the topic moves to SPEC, CP in main clauses, van Kemenade, like Kroch

& Taylor (1997), eliminates the need to postulate the existence of a special phonological clitic postposition rule of the type argued for in Pintzuk (1991). However, unlike Pintzuk

(1991) and K&T, van Kemenade does not suggest that the topic is ever in SPEC, IP. This placement of the topic predicts that V2 word order would be impossible in subordinate clauses. Van Kemenade (1997) argues that this is, in fact the case, and she shows that apparent V2 order in subordinates only occurs in constructions which have no external argument. This distribution was taken by K&T to reflect a pragmatic constraint on embedded topicalization rather than a syntactic one, and they analyze cases such as the ones in (11), repeated here as (13), as real instances of V2 in subordinates.

(13) a. passive: _onne ælce dæge beo_ manega acennede _urh hys mihte on woruld when each day are many(NOM) given-birth through his power on world (AEHP.VI.120, cited in K&T:307) b. experiencer dative “subjects”: gif us ne lyst _æra ærrena yfela _e we ær worhton if us(DAT) not pleases the earlier evils (GEN) that we earlier wrought (CP.445.29, cited in van Kemenade (1997: 335))

However, van Kemenade (1997) argues that these cases do not constitute valid examples of V2 in subordinates as it is impossible to tell that what K&T are calling the “topic” (i.e.

“each day” in (13a) and “us” in (13b)) is actually in SPEC, IP. For example, it is not clear that “each day” is necessarily in SPEC, IP, since, as shown in (14), there is a position between SPEC,IP and I available for temporal adverbials.

(14)

Kroch (2005:L6:3) In order to properly conclude that the V2 constraint is active in subordinate clauses, one would have to come across a case where the external argument was postverbal with a non-subject XP occupying the position of SPEC, IP. Van Kemenade (1997) says that, since cases such as in (13) do not have an external argument, they cannot be used as evidence for the presence of the V2 constraint in subordinates. We also think that it is possible that the constituents which K&T classify as “non-subject topics” in sentences such as (13b) are actually subjects. K&T conclude that the DP “us” is not generated in

SPEC, vP based on its dative case marking. However, it has been shown for Icelandic

(Harley, 1995) that there are a certain group of verbs that lexically assign dative case to their subject and nominative case to their object, such as the verb “liki” in (15):

(15) Calvini liki verki_ Calvin-D like the job-N “Calvin likes the job” (Harley, 1995, her (1))

Despite their “quirky” case marking, these DPs display properties of subjecthood (for a complete discussion, see Harley (1995); Bobaljik (2005)). As shown in (16), it seems likely that there is a similar group of verbs in OE, of which “licode” is a member:

(16) ac Gode ne licode na heora geleafleast but God(DAT) not pleased not their faithlessness(NOM) ‘but their faithlessness did not please God’ (AEHP.XX.71, cited in van Kemendade (1997:334))

In these sentences, SPEC,IP would be occupied by the subject, and thus examples such as

(13b) give us no information at all as to the presence or absence of V2 in subordinates.

Given the ambiguous evidence, it is difficult to uphold an IPV2 analysis of Old English; however, until these constructions are examined in more depth it cannot be completely ruled out.

Van Kemenade’s (1987;1997) analysis is slightly revised in Fischer et al. (2000).

This revision concerns the treatment of pronouns in OE. They propose that OE pronouns are Germanic-style weak pronouns and not clitics, as claimed by Pintzuk (1991;1993),

Kroch & Taylor (1997), Van Kemenade (1987; 1997), and Cardinaletti & Roberts (1991).

Following Koopman (1997), they claim that these pronouns are housed in the specifier of a functional projection (FP) that is below C, but above IP and the high negation phrase. In main clauses, the topic moves to SPEC, CP and the verb moves to the head of FP to join the pronouns.

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Based on Fischer et al. (2000:126)

Treating the pronouns as independent syntactic objects rather than as clitics allows

Fischer et al. (2000) to account for the fact that pronouns appear after the verb in contexts such as Wh-questions. In these cases, the verb raises past the pronouns to C yielding the WH V Pro order. There is thus no need for an extra rule concerning the direction of cliticization, such as that in van Kemenade (1987;1997). Haeberli (2002) has a very similar proposal to the one made in Fischer et al. (2000). The structure is the same; the only difference being that Haeberli calls FP AgrP. He proposes that subjects below AgrP are licensed by an empty expletive in SPEC, AgrP.

A final, somewhat different, analysis comes from Cardinaletti and Roberts (1991)

(C&R). They argue for a more articulated clause structure than is usually assumed, which includes two subject agreement projections.

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Based on (C&R, their (0)) The lower agreement projection holds the agreement morphology of the verb, and the upper one holds subject clitics. In main clauses, the verb joins the clitic in Agr1; however, in subordinate clauses, it only moves as far as Agr2.

It is difficult to evaluate this analysis in comparison with the others as it is an analysis more of verb movement than it is of the V2 phenomenon. C&R make no explicit mention of the position of topics or what the relationship between the topic and the verb is. Also, the expanded clause structure allows for an easy derivation of a lot more possible word orders than do the analyses of Pintzuk (1991), Kroch & Taylor (1997),

Kemenade (1987), and Fischer et al. (2000). However, this account may not be the most interesting one to pursue, as the existence of agreement projections has been argued against by Chomsky (1995:349-355), who notes that it is motivated solely by theory- internal reasons. In the interests of empirical falsifiability, it is thus desirable to postulate the existence only of projections “with intrinsic properties that are manifested at the interface levels” (Chomsky, 1995:355), not ones, such as the many Agr projections in

C&R, which have no semantic or phonological consequences.

The various approaches to the syntax of Old English examined here are summarized in table (1): Table (1): Analyses of V2 in Old English Pintzuk (1991; Kroch & Taylor (1997) Van Kemenade Fischer, van Cardinaletti & 1993) (1987; 1997) Kemenade, Koopman Roberts (1991) & van der Wurff (2000) Main Topic SPEC, IP TopicSPEC, CP (passing Topic  SPEC, CP Topic  SPEC, CP VerbAgr1 clauses Verb I through SPEC,IP) Verb  C Verb  F Verb I/AgrS Subordinate Topic SPEC, IP Topic SPEC IP Not V2 Not V2 VerbAgr2 clauses VerbI Verb I/AgrS Status of IP clitics + a IP clitics IP clitics Germanic-style weak Clitics in Agr1 pronouns phonological rule pronouns housed in postposing them SPEC, FP, not clitics to the right of the first constituent In conclusion, the analysis given by Fischer et al. (2000) and Haeberli (2002) seems to be best able to account for the various word order patterns in OE in a straight- forward manner; however, we are concerned that, through the addition of the extra functional projection needed to account for the distribution of pronouns, they lose what is often considered the motivation for V2: the establishment of a local (Spec/head) relationship between the topic and the verb (Kroch & Taylor, 1997). It is therefore clear that, at the moment, there is no completely satisfactory analysis of the V2 phenomenon in

Old English, and the question is still open for discussion.

3. Synchronic Analyses of Early Middle English

V2 word order continues to be dominant well into the Early Middle English period. However, in this time period, we can see the development of a dialectal difference in the V2 constraint with respect to the behaviour of pronouns. The Southern dialects exhibit the same pattern as in Old English: subject-inversion occurs with full NPs and not with pronouns. The Northern dialects, however, start to show inversion with all types of subjects, as shown in (19).

(19) O_ir labur sal _ai do other labour shall they do ‘they must do other labour’ (Benet.33.20 cited in Van Kemenade (1997))

For Van Kemenade (1987, 1997), verb movement in Old and Early Middle

English is basically the same. According to her, Old English is a CPV2 language, a pattern which continues into the 14th century. Van Kemenade (1997) attributes the difference in the position of pronouns between the northern and southern dialects to a loss of a clitic position in the North which remains available in the South. The Loss of V2 in the History of English 28

However, Kroch & Taylor (1997) take issue with this simplistic approach, saying that it does not account for another change occurring at the same time in the Northern dialects: the increase in inversion of full NPs with adverbs and adjunct PPs. As shown in

(20), there is a higher rate of subject-inversion in the Northern dialects than in the South and Midlands.

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Table (2): subject-verb inversion in the Northern Prose Rule of St. Benet (from Kroch & Taylor (1997:313)

(b)

Table (3): subject-verb inversion in seven early Midlands texts (from Kroch & Taylor (1997:311)

This dialectal difference cannot be explained by a simple difference in the cliticization of pronouns. Also, there is reason to believe that pronouns in the “Rule of St. Benet”, a

Northern text, are still clitics. For example, stylistic fronting can occur with pronouns, as in (21), but not with full NPs. The Loss of V2 in the History of English 29

(21) Bot yef it sua bi-tide, _at any falle in mis-trouz; _an sal scho pray gerne to god but if it so betide, that any fall into mistruth; then shall she pray earnestly to God (Benet 19.30, cited in Kroch & Taylor 1997: 314)

In order to account for these differences, Kroch & Taylor propose that the IPV2 system which they postulated for Old English is replaced by a CPV2 system in the Northern dialect, while the Southern dialect remains IPV2. This means that in the North, the verb moves to C, and the topic moves directly to SPEC,CP, not leaving a trace in SPEC,IP as it did in Old English. In this case, the verb in C always precedes pronouns cliticized at the CP/IP boundary; the increased rate of inversion with adverbs and adjunct PPs is explained by the fact that adjunction to CP is less productive than adjunction to IP, so that in the Northern CPV2 dialect, it is more likely that initial adverbs or PPs are topics rather than preverbal adjuncts, and therefore that they trigger inversion.

The fact that a change from IPV2 to CPV2 can account for the differences discussed above seems to provide evidence for an IPV2 characterization of Old English; however, the increased rate of subject inversion with adverbs and PP adjuncts is not necessarily due to such a change, as it might simply reflect an increased preference for topicalizing such constituents in the Northern dialect. Thus, a CPV2 analysis could still be upheld. However, the asymmetry between pronouns and full NPs when it comes to stylistic fronting remains a problem for van Kemenade’s (1997) decliticization analysis.

This asymmetry can be accounted for by the analysis of Fischer et al (2000).

They adopt K&T’s idea of a dialectal difference between North and South, with a CPV2 dialect in the North, but they characterize the Southern dialect as having verb movement to F, as in their analysis of Old English, rather than to I.

The analyses we have discussed are summarized in Table (4): The Loss of V2 in the History of English 30

Van Kemenade Kroch & Taylor Fischer et al (1997) (1997) (2000) Main clauses: North Topic  SPEC, CP Topic  SPEC,CP Topic  SPEC,CP Verb  C Verb  C Verb  C South Topic  SPEC,CP Topic  SPEC,CP Topic  SPEC,CP Verb  C Verb  AgrS Verb  F Subordinates: North Not V2 (Topic  SPEC,CP)6 Not V2 Verb T South Not V2 Topic  SPEC, IP Not V2 Verb T Pronouns: North Not clitics Clitics Weak pronouns South clitics Clitics Weak pronouns Table (4): Synchronic analyses of Early Middle English

4. Late Middle English and the Loss of V2

The number of unambiguously verb second sentences gradually declines starting from the middle of the 14th century (Kroch, Taylor & Ringe, 2000), although it is not completely eradicated until the 17th century (Fisher et al. 2000), as shown in (22):

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Frequency of subject-verb inversion (V2) in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English and Early Modern English (from Johnson & Whitton (2002), cited in Kroch (2003).

6 In Middle English, it is possible to have topicalization across a lexical complementizer in ungoverned subordinate clauses, as in (i).

(i) I sal yu lere _e dute of god, his wille _at Ζe may do I shall you teach the duty of God, his will that ye may do (Benet 2.5, cited in Kroch & Taylor 1997: 315) The Loss of V2 in the History of English 31

There are a number of accounts for the loss of the V2 constraint available in the literature. For example, van Kemenade (1987) explains this loss as a result of a change in the position of Infl. According to her, in Old and Early Middle English, Infl is outside the sentential node “S”. As such, in order to be licensed it must be lexicalized either by a complementizer or by V2 movement. In late Middle English, Infl moves inside the “S” node where it is after the subject position. Due to this change in the phrase structure, we no longer observe the V2 pattern.

According to van Kemenade (1997), the asymmetry between pronominal and full

NP subjects was lost so that “fronting of XP to Spec, CP no longer went hand in hand with V/I to C” (van Kemenade (1997:349). With no positive evidence for the existence of verb movement to C, children would fail to acquire the V2 constraint thus causing it to disappear.

The account given in Fischer et al. (2000) equates the loss of V2 with the loss of verb movement to F, which then eliminates the pronoun/full NP asymmetry since all the subjects now come before the verb. They suggest that this loss may be linked to loss of agreement morphology, but they admit that the motivation behind the loss of V to F movement is still unclear.

Haeberli (2000) attributes the loss of V2 to the loss of empty expletives.

According to him, empty expletives are only licensed if singular present tense forms are distinguished from the infinitive. The erosion of the infinitive ending in late Middle

English caused the first person singular to be identical to the infinitive. The empty expletive could no longer appear in SPEC, Agr; therefore, post verbal subjects could no longer be licensed. The Loss of V2 in the History of English 32

By far the most elaborated account of the loss of V2 in late Middle English is the one given by Kroch & Taylor (1997) (K&T) and Kroch, Taylor & Ringe (2000) (KTR).

They develop a complex scenario of language contact and bilingualism based on the

“double base” hypothesis and the notions of “grammar competition” discussed in section

1. According to these authors, the loss of the V2 constraint was a result of language contact between Northern English speakers and Scandinavian settlers on the one hand, and Northern and Southern English speakers on the other.

Between the 9th and 11th centuries, the Vikings (speakers of Old Norse) invaded and settled the North of England. K&T and KTR hypothesize that, during this time period, there was a great deal of Old English/Old Norse bilingualism, the Norse speakers having to learn English (as adults) to properly integrate themselves into the community.

Due to imperfect acquisition by the Vikings, some inflectional endings were levelled in the North of England. Therefore, verb movement to AgrS to attach inflectional endings to the verb would no longer take place. If the Old English V2 constraint was satisfied by the verb in AgrS, it could no longer be so when the verb ceased to move there. Since Old

Norse was also a V2 language, the evidence for V2 in a mixed environment was too robust to allow the constraint to be lost; thus, in order to preserve V2, Northern Early

Middle English gained verb movement to C.

According to K&T and KTR, the loss of V2 was a result of contact between the

CPV2 northern speakers and the IPV2 southern speakers. Since, in the North, both pronouns and full NPs invert with non-subject topics, when northerners hear southerners say a sentence with a preverbal pronoun, they conclude that the sentence comes from a non-V2 grammar. The northerners would then acquire this non-V2 grammar, which The Loss of V2 in the History of English 33 would begin to compete with their original V2 grammar. The “non-V2” parameter setting being the typologically less marked, the V2-less northern grammar would have an advantage in the grammar competition, and would therefore spread at the expense of the

V2 grammars. It is also possible that there was a southern dialect which had independently lost V2 (see Prasad (2000) for discussion). This could have favoured the eradication of V2 in England as a whole.

5. Conclusion

In this paper, we have reviewed the literature on the verb second phenomenon in the history of English. As shown by the variety of analyses presented in the literature, the loss of V2 in the history of English could have come about, from a syntactic point of view, in many different ways. It is for this reason that pure technical analyses are insufficient to choose between the many logical possibilities that syntactic description affords. The answer must therefore lie in research into language acquisition and universals, as well as into the sociolinguistic situation of 14th/15th century England. The research undertaken by Kroch & Taylor (1997) and Kroch, Taylor & Ringe (2000)

(regardless of any particular syntactic analysis presented in their work) is a first step on what we believe to be the right path.

The Loss of V2 in the History of English 35

Section 2: Article Summaries