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Clause structure in Old English
Ohkado, M.
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Ohkado, M. (2005). Clause structure in Old English
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Download date: 18 Jun 2017
Introduction n
Brucee Mitchell, the author of the authoritative Old English Syntax and a severe critic of
modernn linguists working on Old English syntax writes that "it will come as little surprise to
att least some of my audience if I say that in my opinion modern linguistic techniques have
soo far done little to advance our knowledge of Old English syntax" (Mitchell 1992: 97).
II am of the opinion that works done by such researchers as Olga Fischer, Eric Haeberli,
Anss van Kemenade, Willem Koopman, KATO Kozo, Bettelou Los, Susan Pintzuk, and
Wimm van der Wurff, among others, significantly deepen our knowledge of Old English
syntax.. Thanks to Ans van Kemenade's pioneering work published in 1987, the foundation
forr discussing Old English syntax within the framework of generative grammar was
established..
I would emphasize that the use of a theoretical model (any model) leads to
askingg new questions and through that to making new discoveries, finding patterns in the
dataa that had not been noted before.
A notable example is the presence or absence of
inversionn in clauses with personal pronoun subjects: Inversion is observed in interrogative,
imperativee or optative, VI, and NEG1 clauses, while it is almost never observed in clauses
withh fronted topic elements. Whether or not one agrees with the specific theory adopted
there,, the analyses based on it, which have enabled such discoveries to be made, should be
regardedd as an important contribution to the field of Old English syntax. Another example
iss Pintzuk's (1991, 1999) finding that particles occur rarely to the right of the nonfinite verb,
whichh is one of the pillars of the idea that Old English had more than one underlying order
inn her phrase structures in competition.
Thee seven articles collected in this volume are all concerned with word order
phenomenaa in Old English.
They are connected to each other in one way or another, but
theyy also have their own separate concerns, showing new analyses of issues important in
Oldd English syntax. I will first discuss what generally connects all these articles and then
turnn to them in more detail in separate paragraphs.
Ass is well-known, word order in Old English is much freer than in Present-day English,
11
22 Clause Structure in Old English
andd my central concern has been to see to what extent Old English word order may deviate
fromm that observed in Present-day English, and to examine what hidden mechanisms
operatee that allow various word order patterns to occur in Old English.
For my purpose I
havee adopted the so-called standard analysis, which is based on the theoretical framework
off generative grammar originally proposed by Chomsky (1957), and developed by Allen
(1975),, Closs (1965), and van Kemenade (1987) among others.
According to this
framework,, the underlying structure of Old English is SOV and various word order patterns
whichh apparently deviate from it are derived by movement rules of verbs and the
extrapositionn or movement of other elements, such as noun phrases or prepositional phrases.
Thee specific model I adopted in the articles is the one within the framework of the
Governmentt and Binding theory, closest to the one proposed in van Kemenade (1987),
althoughh in some cases I critically examine its validity by examining empirical facts of Old
English. .
Inn the model I adopted, the clause structure of Old English is as illustrated in (1), which
iss compatible with the X-bar schemata proposed in Chomsky (1986).
(1) )
SPEC C
XP P
VV
Introductionn
3
Inn main clauses, the C position is occupied by finite verbs. Elements that occupy the Spec
CC position are operator elements such as tvA-phrases or topic elements.
These operations
yieldd Verb Second Patterns as schematically illustrated in (2).
(2)) a. [cp operator [ c finite verb [n>.. . ]]]
b.. [cp topic
[c finite verb [ t P ... ]]]
Chapterr 2 mainly deals with the structure illustrated in (2a), and proposes that in clauses
withh the negating particle in clause initial position, the Spec C position is occupied by an
emptyy operator.
Itt should be noted here that part of this theory, namely, the analysis concerning clauses
withh topic elements can no longer be maintained.
Crucial data here are concerned with the
behaviorr of personal pronoun subjects: In clauses with non-subject operators, personal
pronounn subjects follow finite verbs as in (3a), but in clauses with non-subject topic
elements,, they precede finite verbs as in (3b).
(3)) a
[operator] - [finite verb] - [personal pronoun subject]
b.. [topic] - [personal pronoun subject] - [finite verb]
Thiss difference has led researchers to assume that topic elements occupy the position lower
thann the Spec C position and that finite verbs in clauses with topic elements occupy a
positionn lower than the one ( = C) they occupy in clauses with operators.
This issue is
touchedd on in Chapter 6, where it is suggested that at least in clauses with full noun subjects,
topicc elements do occupy the Spec C position and finite verbs are in the C position. In
otherr words, it is suggested that the structure in (2b) is partially correct in Old English.
Turningg to subordinate clauses, it is assumed in the model adopted here that verbs only
movee to the I position in (1) so that SOV patterns are derived.
This underlying pattern,
however,, can be modified by (i) extraposition, which move XP elements rightward, or (ii)
Verbb (Projection) Raising, which applies to clauses with two or more verbal elements, and
movess lower verbs or verb phrases rightward.
Theoretical considerations related to these
operationss in subordinate clauses are made in Chapters 1,3,4, and 5.
44
Clause Structure in Old English
Inn this connection it should be noted that the analysis which tries to derive various word
orderr patterns in Old English from exclusively SOV underlying structures has been attacked
fromm two directions.
The first concerns the existence of some problematic data which
cannott be analyzed as being derived from an SOV structure. A notable example of this is
thee theoretical treatment of constructions with particles, which are extensively analyzed by
Pintzukk (1991, 1999) and Koopman (1990).
The second form of 'attack' is a theoretical
one,, and is connected with the advent of the minimalist framework of Chomsky (1993) and
Kayne'ss (1994). They propose that the underlying order of every language is SVO, which is
adoptedd for Old English by Roberts (1997) (cf. Fischer et al. 2000: 147-179). At present,
itt seems to me that the approach trying to derive all the word order patterns in Old English
fromm an underlying SVO structure is not on the right track, as discussed in Chapter 4 of this
volume,, which deals with subordinate clauses containing modal verbs followed by nonfinitee verbs.
Ass for the possibility that the underlying structure of Old English can be SVO as well as
SOV,, I think the analysis is valid. In fact, Chapter 1 presents another piece of evidence for
thee assumption. I should emphasize, however, that I am of the opinion that, although there
certainlyy are examples which should be treated as having been derived from an SVO
structure,, they are small in number. This point is discussed briefly in Chapter 4, and more
extensivelyy in Ohkado (2001), which is a book-length study of the constructions examined
inn Chapter 4 and other related constructions.
Lett us now turn to each chapter in more detail.
Chapterr 1 concentrates on constructions involving three verbal elements, which are also
analyzedd by Koopman (1990) from different angles.
Theoretical mechanisms considered
heree are (i) the underlying structure of Old English and (ii) the rightward movement
operationss in subordinate clauses: extraposition, Verb Raising, and Verb Projection Raising.
Itt is demonstrated that, in order for all the possible patterns to be derived in a theoretically
consistentt way, we should assume that the underlying structure of Old English can be SVO
ass well as SOV. I also argue that we can dispense with Verb Projection Raising as long as
itt could be assumed that extraposition may affect verb phrases in addition to noun and
Introductionn
prepositionall phrases.
The main aim of this article was to point out that there are some
Oldd English examples which cannot be derived from the SOV underlying structure at the
timee when the analysis that derives all the examples from a single SOV structure seemed to
bee still predominant.
Chapterr 2 is concerned with the characteristics of Old English as a Verb-Second
language.. Again, it is widely known that Old English shows Verb Second phenomena. In
thee standard analysis Verb Second constructions are treated as being derived by the leftward
movementt of finite verbs to the second position in addition to the leftward movement of
otherr elements to the initial position.
The constructions examined in this chapter are
NEG11 constructions, in which the negating particle ne occupies the sentence initial position
followedd by finite verbs. Since ne should be analyzed as a clitic, the constructions
apparentlyy exhibit Verb First patterns: Finite verbs with ne occupies the C position and the
Specc C position is apparently empty. I tried to show, by positing an empty operator which
iss independently motivated by the NEG-criterion proposed in Haegeman (1995) in initial
position,, that NEG 1 constructions, in spite of their surface appearance, could be analyzed
ass Verb Second constructions in line with other surface Verb Second constructions.
Thee constructions examined in Chapter 3 are passive constructions, which show three
distinctt characteristics: (i) Passive constructions with extraposed subject in Old English
havee different properties from corresponding constructions in Present-day English; (ii) In
passivee constructions the X-v-Subject-V order, which is typically observed in main clauses,
iss found even in genuine subordinate clauses; and (iii) In passive constructions with three
verball elements the subject can intervene between the second and the third verbs. I have
proposedd a unified account for these peculiar properties of Old English passive
constructionss in terms of a mechanism of Nominative Case assignment.
Specifically, I
assumedd that Nominative Case can be assigned in the object position in Old English so that
NPss occupying the object position in passive constructions do not have to move to the
subjectt position.
I have left open the possibility that the analysis is extended to
unaccusativee constructions, which are parallel in structure with passive constructions in the
sensee that the surface nominative NPs occupy the underlying object position.
This task is
5
66
Clause Structure in Old English
takenn up in Ohkado (1998), which is not presented in this volume because the main
argumentss overlap too much.
Chapterr 4 concentrates on constructions involving modal verbs and non-finite verbs.
Inn Old English subordinate clauses, modal verbs often follow non-finite verbs, yielding
S(...)VMM patterns, but the former can also precede the latter, yielding SM(...)V(...) patterns.
Myy aim here has been to clarify the conditions that affect the choice between the two word
orderr patterns. It is demonstrated that one of the crucial factors is whether or not the
relevantt clause involves (an) extra elements): If it does, the clause tends to show
SM(...)V(...)) patterns, and if it does not, the clause tends to show S(...)VM patterns. I
accountt for the phenomena by assuming that VPs involving (an) extra element(s) are
regardedd as heavy so that they are usually extraposed in accordance with the generally
observedd tendency in Old English that heavy elements undergo rightward movement. This
analysiss can be considered another piece of evidence for the suggestion made in Chapter 1
thatt rightward movement of VPs, which are generally regarded as Verb Projection Raising,
iss actually extraposition. A remaining question is whether other predicate phrases, namely,
phrasess headed by beon, wesan, weorpan 'be/become' and adjectives.
This point is taken
upp in Ohkado (2001), and it is shown there that the similar tendencies are also observed in
thesee phrases so that we can assume that extraposition is applicable to predicate phrases in
genera]] in Old English. Another question to be answered is the existence of clauses with
noo extra elements, which show MV patterns.
To account for this, I had recourse to the
notionn of embedded main clauses, which plays a central role in the next chapter.
Inn Chapter 5,1 tackled the "looseness" of Old English clauses from the perspective of
thee nature of "subordinate" clauses. In Present-day English, in contexts which can be
characterizedd as assertive, subordinate clauses may exhibit main clause phenomena such as
Subjectt Auxiliary Inversion. I tried to show that a similar mechanism operated in Old
Englishh so that at least some apparent subordinate clauses exhibiting SVO patterns can be
regardedd as embedded main clauses, and not genuine subordinate clauses. In other words,
itt is demonstrated, at least for the constructionss examined here, that Old English is not more
'loose'' than Present-day English.
Introductionn
7
Chapterr 6 deals with the position of subject pronouns. Since van Kemenade's (1987)
seminall work, it has been widely accepted that pronouns in Old English can be clitics
exhibitingg some peculiar properties that are not shared with full nouns. Concerning the
actuall position of clitic pronouns, however, there is some controversy centering around (i)
whetherr they are cliticized to a head or phrase, and (ii) whether they occupy a special
positionn designed for them or are adjoined to existing position (cf. Fischer, et al 2000, van
Kemenadee 1999, Koopman 1990, and Pintzuk 1991, 1999). Here I have concentrated on
thee position of subject pronouns in relation to that of Finite verbs and I demonstrate that, in
clausess with inversion, they are to be analyzed as being cliticized to the C position, which is
occupiedd by finite verbs. I also suggest that it is possible to extend the proposed analysis
too main clauses without inversion.
What remains to be done here is to clarify the exact
positionn of finite verbs in main clauses without inversion.
It should certainly be
somewheree lower than the C, but to pinpoint the exact position is not an easy task as the
controversyy among researchers show (cf. Fischer ef a/2000: chapter 4).
Thee last chapter in this volume is concerned with coordinate clauses, whose
subordinatee clause-like character has been repeatedly pointed out in the literature. I show
thatt a proper analysis of Old English clause structure should divide coordinate clauses into
coordinatee main clauses and coordinate subordinate clauses since these two types of clauses
exhibitt distinct properties. I also demonstrate that, both in coordinate main and coordinate
subordinatee clauses, the choice of subordinators is relevant to observed word order patterns.
Inn addition, it is suggested that the analysis of coordinate main clauses here proposed can be
extendedd to main clauses exhibiting SOV patterns. Here again, identifying the exact
positionn in main (and coordinate main) clauses without inversion is one of the essential
taskss to be done in future research.
Throughoutt this study, I virtually ignored the possibility that I(NFL) occupies the
positionn between subjects and VPs in genuine subordinate clauses.
This is another path
thatt should be explored in future.
Somee of the studies assembled here focus on providing an account of already
establishedd phenomena from a theoretically new perspective. For instance, the phenomena
88
Clause Structure in Old English
examinedd in Chapter 2 are well-known among traditional scholars. I believe, however,
thatt the discussion in this chapter is a good demonstration of the fruitfulness of an approach
whichh looks at Old English syntax from a theoretical perspective, in which different
assumptionss lead to different questions and different answers, leading to a new way of
lookingg at old data.
Thee basic facts concerning NEG 1 constructions are noted in Mitchell (1985: §1599),
whoo states that "[t]he OE verb is most commonly negated by the adverb ne immediately
precedingg it, no matter what the order of the other elements.
The negated verb is normally
inn initial position in principal clauses in the prose...."" A theoretical assumption that can be
madee here is that the negating particle is a clitic.
This assumption leads us to examine
whetherr personal pronouns, which can also be analyzed as clitics, behave in parallel fashion
withh ne.
Since theoretical devices within the framework of generative grammar are
intendedd to be universal across languages, a theoretical approach also allows us to examine
comparablee phenomena in other languages. In the present case, the devices of the NEGcriterionn and the X-bar tree structure allow us to consider Old English in relation with such
languagess as Standard French, Turkish, Berber, West Flemish, Colloquial French, German,
andd Swedish. The discussions in Chapter 2 also enable us to see the close relation between
NEGG 1 constructions and clauses with (overt) operator elements in initial position.
Considerationss from a theoretical perspective in Chapter 3 also reveal the inadequacies
off the traditional 'surface structure' approach. Considering work to be done on word order
phenomenaa in Old English, Mitchell (1985: §3889) states that "it is vital that future workers
distinguishh those arrangements which are possible today from those which are not."
Chapterr 3 demonstrates that, although the 'X-BE-Vp.p.-Subject' string is observed in
Present-dayy English as well as in Old English, constructions exhibiting the order in the
formerr are structurally quite different from corresponding constructions in the latter.
Inn Chapters 3-7, in addition to theoretical considerations, factual discoveries have also
beenn made as stated below:
(i))
Old English passive constructions exhibit three distinct properties which are not
Introductionn
9
observedd in corresponding Present-day English constructions. (Chapter 3)
(ii))
In Old English subordinate modal constructions, modal verbs tend to precede nonfinitefinite verbs when extra elements are involved, and the former tend to follow the
latterr when the relevant clauses do not have extra elements. (Chapter 4)
(iii)) SVO patterns in subordinate clauses tend to be observed in assertive contexts.
(Chapterr 5)
(iv)) In constructions with inversion, no element can intervene between the finite verb
andd the subject personal pronoun, and in subordinate clauses, with the exception of
embeddedd main clauses, no element can intervene between the complementizer
andd the subject personal pronoun. (Chapter 6)
(E)) Coordinate clauses should be further divided into coordinate main and coordinate
subordinatee clauses. (Chapter 7)
Thee corpus used for these studies is admittedly small. In order for conclusions concerning
Oldd English in general to be drawn, the careful analysis of other texts is essential.
AA developing trend in theoretical approaches to Old English syntax has been the use of
quantitativee data and the advent of tagged corpora such as The York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus
ofof Old English Poetry, The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, and
77iee Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English has made this
typee of approach possible.
These corpora will be useful for examining whether the
statementss given in (i)-(v) hold true for wider range of Old English texts. Indeed, in
Ohkadoo (2004), I have already taken up point (iii), and shown that the same conclusion can
bee drawn from a study of the texts contained in TTie Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-Helsinki
ParsedParsed Corpus of Old English.
Pointt (ii) has been taken up by Suzuki (2004), who has examined the poetic text of
BeowulfBeowulf to see whether or not this tendency is observed in poetry as well. He finds that
thee tendency observed in the prose texts analyzed in Chapter 4 is not observed in Beowulf,
andd that word order there is governed by different principles: In subordinate clauses the
cruciall factor in choosing between MV and VM orders is the distribution of alliteration.
100 Clause Structure in Old English
Thiss observation raises longstanding questions about differences between prose and poetry.
Thee issue is also taken up in van Kemenade (2000, 2002), and Ohkado (2003, to appear),
whoo analyze negative constructions. Here again, the above-mentioned corpora should
servee as useful tools.
Finally,, I would like to suggest a future path for historical linguistics in general which, I
believe,, will lead to the production of a large amount of fruitful research works.
Itt has been customary for historical studies to discuss issues by presenting only relevant
figuress and statistics, and not all the relevant examples. However, this situation has at
leastt two serious drawbacks. First, it is often difficult to examine the validity of the
presentedd argument, since, in order to do so, we have to go to the relevant texts used in the
study,, pick up all the relevant examples, and count them. In other words, we have to
repeatt the process which the author has already gone through for the study in question.
Second,, it is often difficult for scholars inspired by the study to further develop the
argumentss discussed. As an example of the first problem, let us have a look at Allen's
(1995)) work on the development of the so-called impersonal constructions in the history of
English. .
Ass Lieber's (1997) comment given below shows, Allen (1995) is a very detailed study
basedd on various statistical data.
AA study of the syntax of a number of related constructions through the history of
English,, this book is perhaps the most carefully detailed study of Old and Middle
Englishh syntax to be done thus far in the generative tradition. (Lieber 1997: 619)
However,, since only a portion of data is directly available to the reader, it is often difficult
too examine the validity of Allen's (1995) arguments. For instance, in Chapter 2 of the
book,, Allen argues that the 'Subject-Object' pattern is the basic word order of Old English
andd that the inverted 'Object-Subject' pattern is the marked word order.
In order to prove
this,, Allen examines the second series of jElfric's Catholic Homilies (Godden's 1979
edition),, and reports that there are 103 relevant examples.
Introductionn 11
Whatt all these types of object fronting have in common is that the reversal of the
usuall SO order signals that there is something unusual about die sentence; either the
objectt is seen as more important than the subject, the more important information is
towardss the end of the sentence, or the sentence is part of a list.
(Allen 1995: 44)
...aa basic SO order, which must be formulated in terms of grammatical relations, is
alreadyy evident in OE,...
(Allen 1995: 45)
However,, only 9 (8.7%) examples are cited in the book, and a reader who is willing to
seriouslyy examine the validity of Allen's arguments given above has to read the same text
andd collect the same data Allen has already collected. If all the relevant data were listed in
thee book, the re-examination would be much easier.
Lett us now turn to the second problem. Allen (1995) argues in the same chapter that,
inn the ordering of subject and objects, the nature of these sub/objects (i.e. whether they are
[
human]) is not relevant. (4) gives the relevant figures presented in Allen (1995).
(4)) Object fronting in one of jElfric's works in main and coordinate clauses with
pronominall subject, nominal object: accusative object
Noo object fronting
Object fronting
Numberr
Number
%
23
20
%
80
Total
A.. SHOH A
91
B . S H O N AA
265
C.. SNOHA
6
(100)
0
6
D.. SNONA
7
(100)
0
7
84
52
16
U4
317
(Allenn (1995: 38))
Inn (4), the subscript 'H' attached to 'S' and 'O' indicates that the subject or the object is
[+human],, and the subscript 'N' attached to 'S' and 'O' indicates that the subject or the object
iss [-human]. The figures in (4) seem to suggest that the choice between [ human] is not
relevantt to the presence or absence of object fronting.
Supposee that an idea occurs to a reader that transitivity, rather than the feature [
122 Clause Structure in Old English
human],, might be relevant in their ordering. It would mean that he or she has to read and
examinee the same text and collect the same data all over again.
Furthermore,, some of the statistics given in Allen (1995) may be useless for researchers
whoo have different assumptions.
For instance, Allen's statistics make no distinction
betweenn main clauses and coordinate clauses, and therefore, cannot be used by researchers
whoo argue that these two categories should always be treated separately.1
Again, if all the
dataa had been listed in the book, researchers who wish to separate the two categories would
easilyy be able to obtain the necessary statistics by distinguishing main clauses from
coordinatee clauses for themselves.
Theree are philological works which do give the necessary information for identifying all
thee relevant data, by presenting chapter, page, and line numbers of the examined texts. In
thesee cases readers may easily verify the arguments and develop their own ideas. Hitunen
(1983),, who examines the historical development of 'verb-particle' combinations, is a good
examplee of such a study. Based on Hiltunen's (1983) data, two representative works on
Oldd English syntax within the framework of generative grammar have emerged, namely,
vann Kemenade (1987) and Pintzuk (1991, 1999).
Both of these authors reexamine
Hiltunen'ss (1983) data concerning the order of verbs and particles in Old English, and
developp their own analyses of the clause structure and the derivation of various word order
patternss in the language. Thus, Hiltunen's (1983) work, in itself important enough, has
alsoo made a significant contribution to the development of English historical linguistics by
makingg his data easily accessible to other researchers.
Sincee the publication of The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic Part by Matti
Rissanenn and his group in 1984, corpus-based studies are becoming increasingly popular.
AA notable example is a collection of papers based on this corpus published in 1993
(Rissanenn et al. 1993).
Ten years later, Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor published the
syntacticallyy tagged Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, which were followed
byy such corpora as The York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry, The York-
Toronto-HelsinkiToronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, and The Brooklyn-Ge
Amsterdam-HelsinkiAmsterdam-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English, already mentioned above.
Introductionn 13
Althoughh such annotated corpora are useful tools, corpus-based research does not itself
solvee the above-mentioned fundamental problem: The lack of (easy) accessibility to the
databasee on which the relevant arguments are based. As an example, consider Kroch and
Taylorr (1997), the central concern of which is whether or not various elements such as
objectt noun phrases, prepositional phrases, etc. trigger Subject-Verb-Inversion in Middle
English.. Their database is The Perm-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, and they
presentt such tables as in (5).
(5)) V2 in seven early Middlands texts (Kroch & Taylor 1997: 311)
NPP subjects
proposedd element
NPP complement
PPP complement
Adjj complement
pa/then pa/then
now now
PPP adjunct
anyy other adverb
pronoun subjects
%%
number r number r
inverted d uninverted d inverted d
50 0
12 2
20 0
37 7
12 2
56 6
79 9
44
44
11
22
11
19 9
59 9
93 3
75 5
95 5
95 5
92 2
75 5
57 7
%%
number r
number r
inverted d uninverted d inverted d
44
00
77
26 6
88
22
11
84 4
11 1
14 4
10 0
22 2
99 9
181 1
05 5
00 0
33 3
72 2
27 7
02 2
01 1
Thee first column in (6) gives elements which occupy the initial position, the next three
columnss are concerned with examples with non pronominal subjects, and the last three
columnss are concerned with examples with pronominal subjects. The three columns in
eachh case give (i) the number of examples with inversion, (ii) the number of examples
withoutt inversion, and (iii) the percentages of the examples with inversion.
Justt as in the case of the traditional "table-only" approach, readers who intend to
examinee the validity of their arguments by checking each example, have to conduct the
samee search process as the authors did. This process is, of course, greatly facilitated
becausee of the syntactic tagging of the corpus.
Yet, it is not always easy to pick up the
exactt examples unless the search method used in writing the article is clearly given.
Inn order to overcome the above-mentioned problems, I propose that researchers in the
fieldfield of (English) historical linguistics make it a convention to attach the database in
electronicc form when they publish their studies as articles or books, or make the database
availablee on the web. The basic idea of the proposal is not new, as is clear philological
144 Clause Structure in Old English
workss such as Hiltunen (1983), mentioned before.
Other notable examples are Callaway
(1913),, Ellegard (1953), Ogawa (1989), and Ogura (1986, 1989, 1995, 2002), among others.
Whatt is new is the way the relevant data can be provided.
In traditional studies, mainly
duee to the lack of space, only the chapter, page, and line numbers of the relevant texts are
given,, so readers would have to revert to the relevant books, facsimiles, or, in some cases,
evenn the manuscripts. In the present proposal, what is provided is a machine-readable
database,, and not just chapter, page, and line numbers. This is shown in Ohkado (2002),
whichh was published with a database CD-ROM attached.
Chapter 7 of this volume was
writtenn in this spirit as well, and the database is available on the web:
http://homepage.mac.com/ohkado/kenkyu/thesis_database.htm m
Anotherr possible approach, which is utilized when annotated corpora are used, is to spell
outt the exact procedures used to retrieve the relevant data. It is to be hoped that such
proceduree will become customary among historical linguists.
Note e
1.. Allen herself is well aware of the potential problem and conducted her own research
beforee she decided to make no distinction between the two types of clauses.
References s
Allen,, Cynthia (1975) "Old English Modals," Papers in the History and Structures of
English,English, ed. by Jane B. Grimshaw, 89-100, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Allen,, Cynthia (1995) Case Marking and Reanalysis, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Callaway,, Morgan Jr. (1913) The Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon, The University Press,
Cambridge,, U.S.A.
Chomsky,, Noam (1957) Syntactic Structures, Mouton, The Hague.
Introdactionn 15
Closs,, Elizabeth (1965) "Diachronic Syntax and Generative Grammar," Language 41, 402415. .
Ellegard,, Alvar (1953) The Auxiliary Do; The Establishment and Regulation of Its Use in
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