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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50 Kristin Bech<br />
course of time, and also how <strong>the</strong> differences between coordinate and non-<br />
coordinate clauses relate to word order. In o<strong>the</strong>r words, <strong>the</strong> focus here is on<br />
word order <strong>from</strong> a functional perspective.<br />
2. Material and method<br />
2.1 The corpus<br />
The corpus on which this work is based consists of 5,000 main clauses <strong>from</strong> Old<br />
and Middle English prose texts; 1,250 <strong>from</strong> each of <strong>the</strong> four periods: early Old<br />
English (870–950), late Old English (950–1150), early Middle English (1150–1350)<br />
and late Middle English (1350–1500). The clauses have been excerpted <strong>from</strong><br />
19 different texts, four <strong>from</strong> <strong>the</strong> early OE period and five <strong>from</strong> each of <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
periods. 2 A list of <strong>the</strong> texts, including <strong>the</strong> number of clauses taken <strong>from</strong> each text,<br />
is given in <strong>the</strong> references, toge<strong>the</strong>r with <strong>the</strong>ir abbreviated reference forms.<br />
2.2 The word order patterns<br />
The word order patterns that will be discussed here are <strong>the</strong> XVS, SVX and XSV<br />
patterns. In <strong>the</strong> XVS word order, <strong>the</strong>re is one initial X element, followed immediately<br />
by <strong>the</strong> verb. The subject usually follows <strong>the</strong> verb, and it may in turn be<br />
followed by o<strong>the</strong>r clause elements. Clauses in which <strong>the</strong> verb is followed by one<br />
or more X elements, and with <strong>the</strong> subject in a later position, are also included<br />
in this pattern, i.e., XVXS order. If <strong>the</strong> verb phrase is complex, <strong>the</strong> finite and <strong>the</strong><br />
non-finite verb need not be contiguous; it is <strong>the</strong> finite verb that needs to occur in<br />
second position. In (1), <strong>the</strong> clause starts with <strong>the</strong> subject complement non richere,<br />
followed by <strong>the</strong> finite verb:<br />
(1) and non richere shal on man ben than anothir<br />
“and no richer shall one man be than ano<strong>the</strong>r” (Mandeville 97: 10)<br />
In SVX clauses <strong>the</strong> first clause element is <strong>the</strong> subject, followed immediately by <strong>the</strong><br />
verb, and usually by one or more X elements, which may be objects, adverbials,<br />
subject complements, and, occasionally, object complements. In this pattern are<br />
2. The texts were selected in a ‘quasi-random’ manner. I chose texts that represent different<br />
genres and different periods, but I did not check <strong>the</strong> texts for particular word order aspects<br />
before I started extracting <strong>the</strong> clauses. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, I did not always start <strong>the</strong> extraction of <strong>the</strong><br />
clauses at <strong>the</strong> very beginning of <strong>the</strong> text.