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

126 Richard Ingham & Kleanthes K. Grohmann
The loss of the Middle English verb-second tendency with nominal subjects
(Haeberli 2002) meant that by the end of the medieval period and thereafter,
post-verbal subjects are no longer as common as before. However, as shown by
Warner (2006), inversion is still frequently found in the early modern period in
the context of passives and unaccusative clauses, i.e. those where the verb lacks an
external argument in its lexical structure (Levin & Rappaport 1995) Seeking to
obtain a sizable body of data allowing us to analyse possible factors involved in the
phenomenon of post-finite misagreement (henceforth, PFM), we have identified
about 400 passive and unaccusative contexts from 15th-century London chronicles.
These texts often thematise time and place adverbials in passive clauses, and thus
favour potential contexts for PFM. Examples are given below for there-subjects (3)
as well as unexpressed (empty or null) subjects (4):
(3) a. And ther was new grotes and pensse made. Lamb. 80 (1465)
b. This yere after alhalontyde there was proclamacions made in London.
Gough 163 (1469)
(4) a. And vpon Saterday next folowyng was their hedes set vpon London Brigge.
Vitell 216 (1497)
b. And the xx day of Janyver was certayne poyntys of armys done in Smethefylde.
Greg. 184 (1441)
Although little if any discussion of the PFM phenomenon features in the recent
historical linguistic literature, 1 it is evident that the data presented in (1)–(4)
relate fairly directly to significant issues of current concern. They may be taken to
reflect a vernacular tendency towards using was for were, running counter to what
was to become the norm in standard English (Nevalainen 2006 & Wright 2000). It is
known that London was often active in new developments, as population change, not
least the influx of Northern speakers, induced shifts in the sociolinguistic mix. Since
Northern English extended the use of the third person singular -s inflexion beyond
that of Southern varieties, it is natural to wonder, as Nevalainen (2006) does, whether
the extension of was to plural subject contexts can be seen as part of the same trend.
Alternatively, one might opt for a psycholinguistic explanation, and see
the co-occurrence of misagreement with post-finite subjects as a language
processing issue: perhaps the grammatical number of the nominal subject has
not yet been processed at the point where the verb is produced. This and a sociolinguistic
account are not mutually exclusive, of course: it could well be envisaged
1. Visser (1963: 72–30) notes examples of both pre- and post-finite misagreement; the former
type appears to be rare until the 16th century, whereas the latter is quite widely attested in Old
and Middle English as well as in the Early Modern period.