Syntactic Features: Parametric Variation in the History of English
J. S. Lumsden, 1987
This study compares the syntax of Old English and early Middle English, with particular attention to the annals of the Peterborough Chronicle. It provides an account of the immediate changes in syntactic representations during this period and relates these changes to the revisions which swept the English lexicon during the Middle Ages. The thesis argues that the properties of substantive inflection (i.e., number, gender and Case) are best represented as binary features in underspecified matrices. These grammatical features are syntactic features. Grammatical feature matrices define phrases in the syntactic representation. The thesis proposes that a single binary feature distinguishes structural Case from inherent Case. In Old English, only structural Case was underlyingly marked. Inherent Case was assigned by a general rule in each derivation. In later English, this markedness was reversed in verb and adjective phrases. Because the Case feature is listed in verbal lexical entries, this reversal altered the markedness of verb classes in the English lexicon. During the Middle Ages, hundreds of verbs which had assigned inherent Case in Old English were revised to become structural Case assigners. More immediate changes in the syntax of early Middle English are evident in adjective phrases and in other constructions where Case is not specified in lexical entries. The analysis provides support for a "principles and parameters" view of variation in natural language. The grammars of Old English and early Middle English are argued to be massively similar. Relatively simple changes in the distribution of grammatical features can account for complex differences in the surface structures of these languages.