Bettelou Los

The Rise of the to-infinitive

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction PART II: THE TO-INFINITIVE AS GOAL 2. The Expression of Purpose in Old English 3. The to-infinitive as GOAL-argument PART III: THE TO-INFINITIVE AS THEME 4. Intention 5. Commanding and Permitting 6. Commissives PART IV: SYNTACTIC STATUS 7. Introduction 8. The Changing Status of Infinitival to PART V: CHANGES IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 9. The Rise of to-infinitival ECM 10. Innocent Bystander: The Loss of the Indefinite Pronoun man PART VI: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 11. Summary and Conclusions Appendix References Index

The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English:information structure and syntax in interaction

English syntax used to have a version of the verb-second rule, by which the finite verb moves to second position in main clauses. This rule was lost in Middle English, and this article argues that its loss had serious consequences for the information structure of the clause. In the new, rigid subject-verb-object syntax, the function of preposed constituents changed, and the function of encoding ‘old’ or ‘given’ information in a pragmatically neutral way was increasingly reserved for subjects. Pressure from information structure to repair this situation subsequently led to the rise of new passive constructions in order to satisfy the need for more subjects; the change in the informational status of preposed constituents triggered the rise of clefts. If information structure can be compromised by syntactic change in this way, this suggests that it represents a separate linguistic level outside the syntax.

Particles and prefixes in Dutch and English

This paper charts the historical development of two sets of verbal prefixes in the West-Germanic languages, which appear to show a large degree of functional equivalence, although they have rather different morphosyntactic properties. The first set is inseparable, as found in the Dutch verbs verbranden ‘burn’, beschrijven ‘describe’, ontmoeten ‘meet’; while the second set is separable, as found in the Dutch verbs opbellen ‘call up’, afzeggen ‘call off’, wegblazen ‘blow away’.

Book Review: Book Review: Diachronic Change in the English Passive. By Junichi Toyota. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xvii + 286. ISBN 978-0-230-55345-3

Bespreking van: J. Toyota,Diachronic Change in the English Passive Basingstoke, UK:Palgrave Macmillan ,2008 978-0-230-55345-3