This article reports a regression model for the change from OV to VO in Middle English. It focuses on genre (prose versus poetry) as a predictor by including data from a recently published corpus, the Parsed Corpus of Middle English Poetry (PCMEP; Zimmermann 2015). Other independent variables considered are time, object type, clause type and weight. The results specify the time course of the development in Middle English with great precision and replicate several effects from the previous literature including the importance of the genre variable, poetry being considerably more conservative than prose. It is recommended that poetry texts should be considered in studies on early Middle English syntax more generally to arrive at comprehensive assessments of linguistic changes at the time.

Kuhn (1933) proposed that the evolution of Germanic syntax began with a need to restore acceptable sentence rhythm after a shift to fixed initial stress. Kuhn found support for his hypothesis in ‘laws’ for word placement that applied in alliterative poetry but not in prose. Kuhn assumed that his laws were syntactic rules of Proto-Germanic maintained by conservative poets. Here I argue that Kuhn's Laws were rules of poetic meter that obscured basic word order. Adopting the universalist approach in Russom (2017), I integrate Kuhn's Laws with the metrical constraints observed by Sievers (1893) and explore the interaction between meter and syntax. When there are no adverse metrical consequences, subject-object-verb order is employed with remarkable consistency in Beowulf, our most valuable source of poetic evidence. My analysis receives independent support from Smith (1971), a study of the earliest Germanic texts that focuses primarily on prose.

This article traces the diachronic development from the Proto Norse demonstrative hinn via the Old Icelandic definite article(s) to the Modern Icelandic article system. This demonstrative gave rise to two distinct article elements during the Viking period that are well-attested from Old Icelandic onwards, a freestanding and a suffixed article.

Based on evidence from Old Icelandic, I argue for a categorial distinction between an adjectival and a nominal article, which does not entirely coincide with a mere morpho-phonological distinction. The former, which mostly occurs as a freestanding element, is a genuine component of AP, not an immediate constituent of the nominal extended projection. The latter, which only occurs in suffixal form, heads a low projection in the extended nominal projection and has scope only over the noun. For Modern Icelandic, on the other hand, I will adopt the idea that free and suffixed articles are two surface manifestations of the same element.

The diachronic perspective is complemented by an examination of the development of seven adjectivally modified definite noun phrase patterns. This empirical survey reveals several surprising facts: The standard pattern of modification in Modern Icelandic was virtually non-existent prior to the 17th century, and double definiteness persisted until the early 20th century. Likewise, certain modificational patterns otherwise found in Mainland Scandinavian were dominant between the 16th and 19th century. This latter observation points to a competition between two adjectival articles hinn vs. sá similar to the one that had taken place earlier in Mainland Scandinavian. In Icelandic, however, sá did not replace hinn, and, in the long run, a pattern not comprising an adjectival article became the dominant one.

This article discusses the existence of transitive expletive constructions (TECs) in Swedish. It is often claimed that TECs are a distinctive feature of Insular Scandinavian, but do not exist in Mainland Scandinavian. In this article, however, it is shown that such constructions do occur throughout the history of Swedish and, to some extent, still occur in present-day Swedish, although nowadays the language has none of the features previously proposed as licensing TECs. It is also shown that Swedish has a broader repertoire of associate subjects in TECs than does Icelandic. Unlike in Icelandic, associate subjects can also be definite in Swedish. The presence of TECs in Swedish calls into question the previous analysis of the licensing of this construction, and in this article a new explanation for the phenomenon is proposed. It is claimed that TECs are possible if the expletive can merge in a position structurally higher than the canonical subject position. In the case of V2 languages, this implies that expletives must be able to merge in Spec,CP, and it is shown that in Swedish they are able to merge in this position.

This article proposes that Late Archaic Chinese object relative clauses were reduced relative clauses consisting of a TP dominated by DP. They contained a functional morpheme suo, which attracted an operator to the edge of the vP before moving to T in order to provide T with an [N] feature that could be selected by D. The embedded subject moved to the specifier of the nominalized T, where it valued genitive case with D under Agree. The reduced nature of SUO relative clauses accounts for the fact that a unique strategy was required for relativization on VP-internal positions, as opposed to subject position, since the lack of a CP layer denied the clause a uniform landing site for operators originating internal and external to vP. This analysis also accounts for the loss of the relativization asymmetry by correlating it with the loss of nominalizing morphology such as genitive case.

Children acquiring their first languages are frequently regarded as the principal agents of diachronic change. The causes and the precise nature of the processes of change are, however, far from clear. The following discussion focuses on possible changes of core properties of grammars which, in terms of the theory of Universal Grammar, can be characterized as reflecting different settings of parameters. In such cases, learners develop grammatical competences differing from those of speakers of the previous generation who provided the primary data serving as input for the developmental processes. It has been argued that reanalyses of this type must be conceived of as instances of transmission failure. Yet acquisition research has demonstrated that the human Language Making Capacity is extraordinarily robust, thus leading to the question of what might cause unsuccessful acquisition. Changing frequencies in use or exposure to data containing ambiguous or even contradictory evidence are unlikely to suffice as causes for this to happen. Language acquisition in multilingual settings may be a more plausible source of grammatical reanalysis than monolingual first language development. The study of contemporary bilingualism can therefore contribute to an explanation of diachronic change. Yet one such insight is that simultaneous acquisition of two languages (2L1) typically leads to a kind of grammatical knowledge in each language which is qualitatively not different from that of the respective monolinguals, obliging us to look for other sources of transmission failure. 2L1 acquisition in settings where one language is “weaker” than the other has been claimed to qualify as such. But I will argue that even such problematic cases do not provide convincing evidence of reanalysis. If, on the other hand, children receive sustained input from second language learners, or if their onset of acquisition is delayed, this can indeed lead to incomplete acquisition. I conclude that successive acquisition of bilingualism plays a crucial role as a source of grammatical change. In order for such changes to happen, however, grammar-internal and language-external factors may have to concur.

This paper focuses on the origin of the V2 property in the history of Germanic. Considering data from Gothic and Old English (OE), it is suggested that the historical core of the V2 phenomenon reduces to V-to-C movement that is triggered in operator contexts. Therefore, the historical system shares basic properties with limited V2 in Modern English. It is shown that apparent deviations from this pattern that can be observed in Gothic can be attributed to the influence of Greek word order. Concerning the apparently more elaborate V2 properties of OE, it is claimed that a large part of them in fact do not involve a Spec-head relation, but rather result from linear adjacency between the clause-initial element and a finite verb located in T0. Special attention is paid to the placement of pronominal subjects in OE, which are claimed to occupy SpecTP. This contrasts with a lower position of full subjects due to the absence of an EPP in OE. Finally, the loss of superficial V2 orders in the Middle English period is attributed to the development of an EPP feature in T.