3.5Word order

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(133) but also for other changes in the order of sentence elements that have taken place in the history of English.

We saw in (133) that in OE main clauses the finite verb can occupy the second position of the clause, where it may precede the subject. Another example of this phenomenon (which is usually referred to as the verb-second rule, or simply verb-second or even V2) is given in (134):

(134)On twam þingum hæfde God þæs mannes saule gegodod

Example (134) also has a non-finite verb, gegodod, which appears in clause-final position; the finite and non-finite verbs in this sentence form what is sometimes called a brace construction.

A widely accepted analysis of such OE verb-second sentences, originally developed for Modern Dutch and German, is to say that the initial element (on twam þingum in (134)) is in a special topic-slot at the left boundary of the clause, and that it somehow attracts the finite verb into a position to its immediate right (see den Besten, 1977; van Kemenade, 1987). Any non-finite verb remains where it was. The abstract structure of verb-second sentences would therefore be as in (135):

(135)[TOPIC Vfinite [SUBJECT rest of clause]]

This analysis is attractive because it directly expresses the similarity between declarative main clauses, as in (133)–(134), and wh-interrogatives such as (136):

Clauses like this have of course retained inversion up to the present day. In OE, they could be regarded as special cases of the structure in (135), with the whelement taking the place of the TOPIC.

Subordinate clauses generally do not have verb-second in OE, as illustrated in (133) and also (137):

(137)sona swa ic þe ærest on þisse unrotnesse geseah

Instead of second position, the verb here occupies clause-final position (as does the non-finite verb in the verb-second sentence (134)), and it has therefore been suggested that OE, just like Modern Dutch and German, basically has verb-final order, except that in main clauses the finite verb moves to second position. The

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the texts (perhaps reflecting differences that cannot be fully recovered) to establish its exact form and nature.

This, then, is the situation in OE. In declarative main clauses, verb-second is frequent; it is rare when the subject is a personal pronoun; but it is categorical, even with pronouns, when the clause starts with the adverb þa ‘then’. Interrogative main clauses always have inversion. After the OE period the scope of inversion slowly decreases, though not in a monotonic fashion: throughout the centuries, it is preserved in interrogatives (though the use of an auxiliary becomes obligatory in the course of the early ModE period; see Section 3.3.6), but it becomes gradually rarer in declarative clauses, except when these are introduced by some negative or restrictive element or when they have a presentative function. Moreover, there are some late medieval texts which show an increase in the use of inversion compared with OE.

In ME prose, verb-second is still frequent, especially following an initial adverbial, but personal pronouns seem to retain their resistance to inversion in most texts. (142) is an example with non-inversion of a pronominal subject:

In some northern texts of the thirteenth century, the situation is somewhat different, in that verb-second applies in declarative clauses quite consistently, whatever the function of the initial element or the nature of the subject. An example from the early thirteenth-century text The Rule of St Benet is given in (143):

In these dialects, pronominal subjects appear to have lost their clitic status and were subsequently treated like any other subject, i.e. they became eligible for inversion. Significantly, as Kroch & Taylor (1997) show, the relevant texts are from the area in which there was heavy influence from Scandinavian, which has consistent verb-second and no clitic pronouns.

After 1500, a decline in the use of verb-second can be observed which finds its culmination in the seventeenth century, when only those patterns of inversion that are still possible in present-day English continue to be regularly used. This concerns clauses with an initial negative or restrictive element, and various clause types with initial there or a locative phrase and an intransitive verb signifying (dis)appearance or some related notion, as in the following early ModE examples:

(144)never will I go aboard another fleet (1709, Delarivier Manley, The New Atalantis 10, 2)

(145)Seldom have you seen anie Poet possessed with avarice (1594, Thomas Nash, The Unfortunate Traveller 44, 25)