Verb and Object Order in the History of English

Download or read book Verb and Object Order in the History of English written by Chiara De Bastiani and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-18 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study takes up the challenge posed by the reanalysis of Verb-Object order as the basic one in the history of English; the question, which has been debated for over thirty years, is tackled here by combining a qualitative and quantitative investigation with current linguistic theories, shedding new light on the phenomenon. It introduces new evidence in favour of a universal base order, by exploring the syntax of both Old English and Early Middle English and the information structural and prosodic properties of objects. It also considers the philological history of the texts examined, highlighting how this aspect should not be neglected in a diachronic linguistic study. As such, this book provides new data for scholars working in the field of English linguistics, as well as students and linguists interested in language change at the interface between syntax, information structure and prosody.