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By the end of the ME period, however, the patterns of (78) cannot be said to be characteristic of the class of impersonals any more. The empty subject option (78c) was lost from the language altogether (compare Section 3.4.1 above) and individual verbs had mostly become restricted to the pattern of either (78a) or (78b).

One of the reasons for the ultimate demise of the system of grammatical marking for impersonals may be the influx of French loanwords, which might have ‘impersonal’ meanings but resist full-scale integration in the system of impersonal syntax, thus introducing all kinds of exceptional behaviour into this verbal class. Other causes may also have played a role. Thus it has repeatedly been suggested that instances of (78b) with a preposed experiencer could have been reanalysed as instances of (78a), with the experiencer functioning as subject. The standard (but invented) example given to illustrate this is (84):

b.the king liked the pears (ME)

In (84a) the phrase þam cyninge is unambiguously recognisable as a dative, and the verb licodon is clearly plural, showing that the plural noun peran is the subject of the clause. In (84b), however, the relevant formal markers have disappeared and the sentence would therefore be liable to reanalysis, whereby the king would become subject (in accordance with the increasing fixity of subject–verb word order) and the pears object. It has been objected that the very frequent sentencetype Him liked pears, where the case of the experiencer is unambiguously objective, would be counterevidence to such a reanalysis, but this observation itself has been countered by arguments to the effect that preposed dative experiencers had several subject properties anyway, even in OE (see especially Allen, 1995).

The passive has undergone considerable development in the history of English. Some of the relevant changes were discussed in the section on the verbal group (Section 3.3.3). Here, we deal with changes in the realisation of the arguments of the passive verb in a finite clause. We shall first distinguish three types of passive in PDE, as shown in (85):

b.He was given a reprimand. indirect passive

The labels in (85) reflect the status that the passive subject would have in the corresponding active clause: direct object in (85a) (they arrested him), indirect object in (85b) (they gave him a reprimand) and object of a preposition in (85c) (they frowned upon this). Of these three types, only the first goes back to OE

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in word order from object–verb to verb–object, and their history is therefore dealt with in Section 3.5.6.

To set off against these gains in the possibilities for passive formation, there is one type that existed in OE but disappeared early in the ME period. This is the passive of a verb that did not take an accusative object. We saw in (72b) that help was such a verb; a passive with it is given in (89):

‘and then the innocent house was helped’ (ÆCHom II, 39.1 293.178)

Here, the passive has an empty subject, and the only argument of the verb is the object – marked by dative case, just as in the active (72b). Another OE passive with an empty subject can be seen in (90), where the object of the passive verb is a clause.

Sometimes, the subject position in such sentences is filled by dummy hit/it in OE, and this becomes the norm in ME (compare the discussion of other empty subject constructions in Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.3 above).

We also briefly mention here a phenomenon that is somewhat similar in effect to the passive as far as meaning is concerned. It consists in the suppression of the agent argument of a verb and conversion of its direct object to subject status, but without the attendant introduction of a passive auxiliary. In studies of PDE, the construction is sometimes called the ‘middle’ or ‘medio-passive’; an example is given in (91):

(91)This car drives like a dream.

In PDE, the middle use of verbs is different from the simple active use in typically requiring either a manner adverbial or a modal. This type of alternation is already found in early ModE, but it becomes really frequent only in texts from the last two hundred years. The causes of its rise in popularity, and the pathway that it has followed, still need to be fully investigated. The development is no doubt connected with the fact that, throughout the history of English, individual verbs have sometimes allowed both transitive and intransitive uses; examples are the verbs grow (the potatoes grew/they grew potatoes), heal (the wound healed fast/he healed the wound) and many others. The overall result of the increase of all these alternations is that the subject position in English has come to be associated with a wide variety of notional roles. The subject was strongly associated in OE

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‘Indeed, I know (that), if our gods had any power, they would help me more.’ (Bede 2 10.134.18)

Just like that-clauses, infinitival clauses can be used as subject, subject predicative, or complement to a verb, as in (97a,b,c); an important further use is as complement to an adjective, as in (97d):

(97)a. To agree straightaway would be a mistake.

b.Their plan was to get it all over and done with this week.

c.They wanted to leave as soon as possible.

d.These texts are hard to decipher.

In discussing the history of these constructions, which basically involves the external syntax of infinitive clauses, we shall also pay some attention to their internal syntax: unlike that-clauses, infinitive clauses differ from main clauses in several major respects having to do with their own clausal constituents and, closely associated with them, the nature of the verbal group.

A first thing to note is that in all four uses shown in (97), the infinitival clause lacks an overt subject. This was the only option for infinitival clauses until the late ME period. At that time, however, overt subjects started appearing, first in the form of a bare noun phrase (Him to agree would be a surprise, or even He to agree would be a surprise), but later (also) introduced by the preposition for (For him to agree would be a surprise). The origins of this innovation lie in changes in word order, and we therefore postpone fuller discussion until Section 3.5.6.

Infinitivals functioning as subject predicative or as complement to a verb or adjective (see (97b–d)) are found from the earliest records of the language. The pattern in (97a), however, is not: just like that-clauses (and probably for the same reasons), infinitival clauses unambiguously functioning as subjects are not attested until the later ME period. Instead, a variant with a dummy or empty subject was used, in which the infinitival clause was in extraposed position; examples can be seen in (62) and (63).

Predicative infinitives of the type exemplified in (97b) are rare until the late ME period, but those of the type seen in (98) are frequent from the earliest texts onwards:

What is special here is that, notionally, the matrix subject is interpreted as the object of the lexical verb in the infinitival clause (i.e. despising it would be wrong), making the construction similar in meaning to regular passive clauses; a label sometimes given to this construction is ‘modal passive’. In OE, the construction

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wæs to cumenne). In ME, other verbs also start being used in this frame, which means that the construction of (103) is born. This in turn would lead to systematic ambiguity of sentences of the type X is to V, where X might have to be interpreted either as the subject of V (as in (103)) or the object of V (as in modal passives like (98)). In actual use, meaning and context would no doubt resolve the ambiguity in many cases, but adoption of the passive to-infinitive for the object interpretation eliminated it altogether.

The infinitive used as complement to a verb, as in PDE (97c), can be found throughout the history of the language. In (104) we give examples from OE, ME and early ModE:

c.they forbore to assist it with their purses (Drake, An Essay Concerning the Necessity of Equal Taxes 949 (1702))

Note that in (104a), the object of the matrix verb, þe, is also understood to function as the subject of the infinitive (i.e. the sentence has object control), while in (104b,c) it is the matrix subject that is so interpreted (subject control). Both types have existed since OE times.

While infinitival complement clauses have been a stable feature of the grammar of English for a very long time, some changes have affected them. A first change concerns the form of the infinitive. In PDE, the bare infinitive has a rather restricted range of occurrence: apart from its use after modal auxiliaries (see Section 3.3.4), it is only frequent after verbs of sense perception and causation, as in (105):

(105)a. We saw him come in.

b. They made us work harder.

In earlier English, the bare infinitive had somewhat wider use, since it regularly occurred after verbs with other meanings as well; OE and ME examples are given in (106) and (107):

(107)Who . . . hath suffred aprochen to this sike man thise comune strompetis? ‘Who has permitted these common strumpets to come near this sick man?’

(Chaucer, Bo. 1.pr1.47)

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have been used from the earliest texts onwards can be seen in (62) and (63); here the infinitival clause has an overt object and the matrix clause has an empty or dummy subject: (It) is hard for me to do this. In all these sentence types, the rule has always been the use of the to-infinitive rather than the bare infinitive.

The eager-to-please construction has been remarkably stable throughout the history of the language, but the easy-to-please construction has undergone a number of changes. From around 1400, two slightly more complex variants of the construction are found: one has a preposition in the infinitival clause, as in (110), and another has a passive infinitive, as in (111):

(111)þe blak of þe y e . . . is hardest to be helid and I-cured ‘The black of the eye is hardest to heal and cure.

(a.1398 Trevisa Barth 42a/b)

This development is the same as that of the modal passive (compare (101) and (99), respectively) and some degree of mutual influence seems likely. However, this mutual influence was apparently not strong enough to maintain the similarity of the two constructions: while the modal passive came to favour the use of a passive infinitive, eventually giving up the active infinitive altogether, the easy- to-please construction retained the active infinitive and eventually abandoned the use of the passive infinitive. A late example of easy-to-please with the passive infinitive is given in (112).

(112)books which are rather difficult to be procured, from having been privately published (1850 Gaskell, Letters 74, p. 122)

The reason for this difference in development may be that after adjectives and nouns the need for a passive infinitive in PDE is less strong than after verbs, because verbs require their argument positions to be filled (lexically or by means of a silent element), whereas adjectives and nouns (see also the example in (102), where the infinitive depends on a noun) are freer in this respect. Note also that in clauses such as (109), the subject ðis can be said to have not only an object relation with the verb donne but also, at some level of analysis, a thematic subject relation with the adjective hefi. This ‘double allegiance’ does not exist in cases such as (99) and (102). With adjectives, passive infinitives are generally only used in PDE when an active infinitive may lead to ambiguity, as in the case of likely or

fit, cf. you are not fit to be seen vs you are not fit to serve. Another adjective which has retained the option of using a passive infinitive is ready. Thus the well-known ambiguity of (113) can be avoided by using the variant in (114):

(113)The lamb is ready to eat.

(114)The lamb is ready to be eaten.

Other adjectives still allowing the passive infinitive tend to be like ready in that they can occur in both the easy-to-please construction (where the matrix subject

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is understood to be interpretable as the object of the infinitive) and the eager-to- please construction (where it is to be interpreted as the subject of the infinitive). In fact, the desire to avoid ambiguity may also have been one of the factors responsible for the ME introduction of the passive option in this construction in the first place. For the specific example in (111) we may note firstly that both heal and cure were verbs that could be used either transitively or intransitively, and secondly that in ME the adjective hard could also be used in the meaning ‘slow’, as in His eres waxes deef, and hard to here ‘His ears grow deaf and slow to hear’ (a.1425 (a.1400) PConsc. 782). As a result, a sentence like (115) might be ambiguous, and the variant in (111) might be resorted to.

(115)The black of the eye is hardest to heal

a.‘The black of the eye is most difficult to make better.’

b.‘The black of the eye is slowest to get better.’

The third type of subordinate clause that we discuss is headed by an -ing- participle. We shall first consider its use as a complement to V, since this ties in with the use of the to-infinitive as a complement, which we have just dealt with. A PDE example is (116):

(116)He avoided mentioning the incident.

Nowadays, the situation is that some verbs can only take a clausal complement with an -ing-form (avoid is one of these), others allow either an -ing-form or a to- infinitive, in some cases with a difference in meaning (as in I remembered posting it vs I remembered to post it) and yet other verbs only allow the to-infinitive (he promised to be in time).

The use of -ing-complements dates back to the ME period, but it is not yet frequent at that time; an example is (117):

(117)he oughte forto forbere bothe inward and outward preising and preying and worschiping, dispreising and disworschiping

‘He ought to refrain from both inward and outward praising and praying and worshiping, and also dispraising and disrespecting.’

(Pecock, Rule Crysten Religion 56.4 (1443))

In this and other ME examples, the -ing-form as a rule behaves like a nominal form, taking an adjectival modifier and either no object or one introduced by the preposition of. It is only in the early ModE period that it regularly shows verbal behaviour, taking adverbial modifiers and being followed by a bare NP object, as in (118):

(118)In as much haste as I am, I cannot forebear giving one example. (Dryden, A Parallel between Painting and Poetry 331)

Both (117) and (118) feature the matrix verb forbear, and this is no coincidence: the rise of -ing-complements follows a path of lexical diffusion, with verbs of negative import such as avoid, escape and forbear leading the way. The example

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may have been set by another group of verbs with negative import, i.e. defend, keep and let (all basically meaning ‘prevent’), which occurred in the frame ‘prevent sb. from V-ing’ (i.e. with V-ing following a preposition) already in ME. This early association with negative meaning must also be the reason why the ing-form came to be used in examples like I could not help noticing and why it is frequent in the eighteenth century after verbs like decline, fail and refuse (which, however, have since reverted to use of the infinitive; cf. also example (104c)).

Use of the ing-form in PDE is of course not restricted to verb complements. In fact, constructions headed by an ing-form can be found occupying all positions that an ordinary NP can occupy; see the examples in (119):

(119)a. The finding of the body was a crucial breakthrough. (subject)

b.His only interest in life is making money. (predicative)

c.He regretted having to leave so early. (object/complement to V)

d.He was offended at being passed over. (object of P)

The traditional label for the -ing-forms in (119a–d) is the gerund. As can be seen, the gerund comes in two basic types: its internal syntax can be either nominal (as shown by the presence of an object introduced by of and the presence of an article in (119a)) or verbal (see the presence of a bare NP object in (119b), the complementation by a to-infinitive in (119c), and the presence of the passive auxiliary in (119d)). The nominal gerund is less frequent in PDE than the verbal gerund, but historically it is the older type.

The gerund’s ultimate origin is to be found in OE nouns ending with the derivational suffix -ing/-ung, such as huntung ‘hunting’ and binding ‘binding’. In OE, these nouns are often used without any dependents, but when with dependents, their syntax is entirely nominal: they take a genitive ‘subject’ (as in mine halsunge ‘my entreaty/my begging’ PPs 142.1), a genitive ‘object’ (as in æfter his hadunga ‘after his ordination/after ordaining him’, GD Pref and 3(C)23.225.23) and the type of modifiers, such as adjectives, that would be normal in NPs (as in mid gelomum scotungum ‘by frequent shooting/shots’, ÆLS (Edmund) 181). From the late ME period onwards, however, such nouns slowly start acquiring verbal characteristics. Thus they come to take a bare NP as object and an adverb as modifier, as in (120); they come to take an objective-case subject, as in (121); they allow negation by means of not, as in (122); and they occur in the perfect and passive, as in (123):

(120)the coste of buyldynge them anew (More, Utopia, tr. Robinson; ed. Lupton)

(121)it was true of this light contynuyng from day to daye (1536 John de Ponte, Ellis, Original Letters I 2, 125)

(122). . . humblye desyreing your excuse for her not wrighting (1629 Barrington Family Letters 116)

(123)He . . . bore a great pique at Alexander, for having been preferr’d before him to the See of Alexandria (1676 Marvell, Mr Smirke Hivb)

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Finally, we briefly discuss some changes in non-finite adverbial clauses. Some examples in PDE are given in (126):

(126)a. He did it to annoy us.

b.All things told, it would be better not to do it.

c.Tears filling his eyes, he told her what had happened.

The first type, a to-infinitival clause expressing purpose, is already found in OE. An example is:

This usage continues uninterrupted to the present day, but in the course of the centuries some variants developed that re-emphasise the notion of purpose, suggesting that the simple to-infinitive – which had become very common in other uses, as shown above – was sometimes felt to be insufficiently expressive of purposive meaning. In early ME, perhaps helped by Scandinavian influence (Kyto¨ & Danchev, 2001), the marker for to starts being used; this persists into the early ModE period, as in (128):

(128)sith [‘since’] almightie God the father would gyue hys moste dearely beloued sonne vnto suche an horrible death onely for to quenche and to extincte sinne (Fisher 398)

However, in ME already for to soon develops into a general infinitive marker, losing its purposive character in the process; see, for example, its use after the modal verb ought in (117). In the seventeenth century, renewed marking of purpose was achieved by the introduction of in order to, as in (129); a more recent form can be seen in We told them in advance so as to avoid any misunderstanding.

(129)T’is said hee and his family comes up to London upon Wedensday next, in

In PDE, other types of non-finite adverbial, as in (126b,c), are found especially in quite formal written registers, but in early ModE they seem to be used somewhat more generally. Their origins probably lie in influence from Latin (which has various types of absolutive constructions); examples can already be found in OE and ME texts.

In early ModE, a non-finite adverbial clause is sometimes preceded by a preposition which specifies more explicitly the nature of the adverbial modification, as in (130):

(130)Wherupon the duke sent him a lettre of defiaunce, and called Paulmer, who