Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
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On <strong>the</strong> post-finite misagreement phenomenon 137<br />
According to our analysis of <strong>the</strong> London Chronicles data, we are now in a position<br />
to provide a structural account of how <strong>the</strong> PFM phenomenon arose. It took <strong>the</strong><br />
form of an optional agreement with a singular expletive subject, overt or null, existing<br />
as an option alongside <strong>the</strong> option of regular number agreement between <strong>the</strong> finite<br />
verb and <strong>the</strong> subject left in <strong>the</strong> VP. Crucially, it was not available when <strong>the</strong> subject<br />
preceded <strong>the</strong> verb, since this structure contained no expletive element. In keeping<br />
with o<strong>the</strong>r sociolinguistic phenomena such as negative concord (Labov 1972), PFM<br />
was not categorical but alternated with <strong>the</strong> ‘standard’ plural agreement pattern. 5<br />
It is interesting to consider <strong>the</strong> PFM phenomenon in terms of how language<br />
change arises as a modification of speakers’ internalised grammars under <strong>the</strong> pressure<br />
of external shifts in <strong>the</strong>ir language experience (see e.g., Lightfoot 2006). The<br />
data patterns testify to <strong>the</strong> acquisition of speaker grammars that freely allowed<br />
PFM but not misagreement when subjects preceded <strong>the</strong> verb. This may have come<br />
about when London speakers heard was for were, possibly as a result of <strong>the</strong> influx<br />
of speakers of o<strong>the</strong>r varieties during <strong>the</strong> 15th century, but ra<strong>the</strong>r than simply<br />
positing this as an across-<strong>the</strong>-board default morphological property, <strong>the</strong>y gave a<br />
structural analysis to <strong>the</strong> input <strong>the</strong>y observed. This would be favoured if <strong>the</strong> primary<br />
linguistic data to which <strong>the</strong>y were exposed contained plenty of evidence for<br />
such a structural analysis. Indeed, Nevalainen (2006), who used a large sample<br />
of English correspondence beginning at around <strong>the</strong> right time for our purposes<br />
(1420), notes that was for were was particularly frequent in <strong>the</strong> context of expletive<br />
<strong>the</strong>re sentences. Although it is highly unlikely that <strong>the</strong> passive clauses with initial<br />
adverbials studied in this paper would have formed a significant proportion of <strong>the</strong><br />
primary linguistic data of language acquisition, expletive <strong>the</strong>re-sentences, on <strong>the</strong><br />
o<strong>the</strong>r hand, are likely to have been relatively common, thus permitting a structural<br />
cue to be established in which an expletive was marked for singular number.<br />
When this vernacular trait is combined with <strong>the</strong> persistence of residual null<br />
expletives, we get <strong>the</strong> result that we see in <strong>the</strong> chronicles data: verbs optionally<br />
agree with expletives, and in this genre expletives may be null as well as overt,<br />
hence <strong>the</strong> PFM phenomenon occurs with and without expletive <strong>the</strong>re. The scenario<br />
found in <strong>the</strong>se texts is thus an intriguing combination of an archaism and an<br />
innovation. The structural position of <strong>the</strong> passive subject is irrelevant to <strong>the</strong> form<br />
of agreement, as we would expect if it is indeed <strong>the</strong> properties of <strong>the</strong> expletive preverbal<br />
constituent that are at issue. Thus <strong>the</strong> passive subject standing in any of <strong>the</strong><br />
three post-finite configurations we identified (embraciated, late, and extraposed)<br />
may agree or not agree with <strong>the</strong> verb. Since <strong>the</strong> PFM phenomenon is independent<br />
5. We use this term somewhat anachronistically, meaning <strong>the</strong> form that was to become <strong>the</strong><br />
norm in <strong>the</strong> later standardisation process.