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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62 Kristin Bech<br />
additional information about time, place or manner. 2) In OE, both postverbal and<br />
preverbal position were possible for <strong>the</strong> subject. As a result of this situation, subject<br />
placement was partly determined by principles of information structure, to <strong>the</strong> effect<br />
that if <strong>the</strong> subject occurred before <strong>the</strong> verb, it was often light and/or given, whereas<br />
postverbal position could be filled by ei<strong>the</strong>r light/given subjects or heavy and/or<br />
new subjects, with existential clauses being a typical example of <strong>the</strong> latter. In XSV<br />
clauses, <strong>the</strong>n, <strong>the</strong> subject is usually given, and that, in combination with <strong>the</strong> likelihood<br />
of <strong>the</strong> initial X element being an adverbial, often one relating to <strong>the</strong> previous<br />
context, means that <strong>the</strong> verb would most likely be a verb with complement, because<br />
o<strong>the</strong>rwise <strong>the</strong> clause would be ra<strong>the</strong>r uninformative. Since sentences usually have<br />
to contain some new, salient information, it is very likely that <strong>the</strong> given subject, <strong>the</strong><br />
agent, carries out an action, and that this action will affect someone or something,<br />
which means that <strong>the</strong> verb will take a complement. The situation in late ME resembles<br />
<strong>the</strong> earlier periods: <strong>the</strong> majority of <strong>the</strong> verbs in <strong>the</strong> XSV pattern are still verbs<br />
with complement. Since English word order moved towards verb-medial syntax, we<br />
would not expect <strong>the</strong> verb distribution in this pattern to alter dramatically. 12<br />
3.4 Copulas in <strong>the</strong> SVX pattern<br />
The last feature to be discussed is <strong>the</strong> higher proportion of copulas in non-coordinate<br />
SVX clauses than in coordinate clauses in all but <strong>the</strong> last period. For late OE<br />
and early ME, <strong>the</strong> distributional difference is statistically significant on <strong>the</strong> 0.05<br />
level, whereas for early OE, p ≈ 0.11.<br />
As mentioned, coordinate clauses are presumably closely related to <strong>the</strong> previous<br />
clause or sentence, whereas non-coordinate clauses are more context independent.<br />
Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, a characteristic of SVX word order is that <strong>the</strong> X element(s) will in<br />
most cases be heavy and/or new, in accordance with general pragmatic principles.<br />
Finally, copular clauses are characterized by <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> main focus is on attributing<br />
a quality to a subject, which means that <strong>the</strong> subject is likely to be known<br />
and <strong>the</strong> attributed quality will constitute <strong>the</strong> new information. If we consider<br />
<strong>the</strong>se three factors toge<strong>the</strong>r, it becomes clear why <strong>the</strong>re is a greater proportion<br />
of copular verbs in non-coordinate SVX clauses than in coordinate SVX clauses:<br />
since <strong>the</strong> focus of a copular clause is on attributing a quality to a subject, and not<br />
relating any action to <strong>the</strong> previous sentence, a copular clause is less likely to point<br />
back to <strong>the</strong> previous sentence than to stand on its own, or function as a frame or<br />
background for what follows, as exemplified in (12).<br />
12. What we would expect, however, is an increase in heavy and/or new subjects in <strong>the</strong> XSV<br />
pattern, since <strong>the</strong> loss of verb-second order meant that <strong>the</strong> option of choosing postverbal position<br />
for heavy subjects disappeared, and that is in fact what happens: in late ME, <strong>the</strong> proportion<br />
of nominal subjects in this pattern is much higher than in <strong>the</strong> earlier periods (Bech 2001: 97).