Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

On the position of the OE quantifier eall and PDE all 121
e. and hi ða eodon ealle gewæpnode. and mid leohtfatum to ðam
and they then went all armed and with torches to the
lifigendum drihtne;
living lord
“and they then went all armed and with torches to the Living Lord”
(ÆCHom II 140.80)
In sentence (27a) the quantifier occurs before the non-finite verb arisan “arise”.
This preverbal position corresponds to the position where the subject is basegenerated.
This is because in OE the subject of unaccusative verbs like arisan
“arise” is base-generated before the verbs (i.e., the complement of VP). Similarly,
the quantifier in (27b) occurs before the non-finite verb gegaderode “gathered”.
This surface word order is the same as that in (27a), but they are different in that
the quantifier in (27b) agrees with the verbal predicate. Under Yanagi’s (1999)
assumption that agreement is licensed through the Spec-Head configuration
(cf. Chomsky 1993 & 1995), it can be said that the quantifier in (27b) moves up
from the complement of VP to a higher specifier position, as illustrated in (28). 10
It can also be argued that the quantifier in (27c) is raised to a higher specifier
position for the same reason.
(28) a. [ VP [ QP ealle ] gegaderode ]
b. [ XP [ QP ealle ] [ X’ [ VP t QP t V ] gegaderode ] ]
On the other hand, the quantifier in (27d) occurs not before the nominal
predicate gebroþru “brothers”, but before the non-finite verb beon “be”. Given that
the subject is base-generated in the pre-predicate position, eall in (27d) also moves
up to a higher position, in this case, the specifier position of the VP headed by
beon “be”. This is illustrated in (29).
(29) a. [ VP beon [ XP [ QP ealle ] in gode gebroþru ]
b. [ VP [ QP ealle ] beon [ XP tQP in gode gebroþru ] ]
Here we can conclude that the OE quantifier eall, just like the PDE quantifier all,
marks the intermediate subject positions.
Next we consider the sentence in (27e). Unlike the quantifier in the other examples
in (27), the quantifier in (27e) occupies the postverbal position. Under the
10. In (28) and (29) the positions of the pronouns modified by eall are ignored for reasons of
simplicity.