Word order
What word order became fixed and direct in ME and Early NE?
Subject + Predicate + Object (S + P + O).
What word order was required after an initial adverbial modifier in Old English?
Inverted word order: Predicate + Subject (P + S).
What language was believed by some scholars to influence English predicative constructions?
Latin
What happened to inflectional endings during the development of word order?
They were reduced and lost.
When did the stabilization of word order mainly take place?
From Early ME until the 16th or 17th century.
What made it possible to place the notional part of the Predicate after the Subject in questions?
Analytical forms of the verb and the use of the do-periphrasis.
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Why was the stabilization of word order a slow process?
It took many hundreds of years, from Early ME until the 16th or 17th century.
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When was full inversion in questions more common?
It was more common with Shakespeare than with later authors.
What continued to grow after the Literary Renaissance?
The frequency of predicative constructions.
What happened to the “impersonal” constructions?
They changed into “personal” constructions.
What type of word order prevailed in statements in the 17th and 18th centuries?
Fixed, direct word order.
Give one example of a question with simple verb inversion from the lecture.
How came you to this?
Which way looks he?
Were predicative constructions used in translations from Latin?
Yes, they were frequently used.
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How did the word order in questions change?
It became partially inverted, unless the question referred to the subject group.
What happened to the Subject and Predicate order in sentences beginning with an adverbial modifier?
The direct order remained: Subject + Predicate
What did some scholars believe about the origin of predicative constructions in English?
They believed that predicative constructions arose under the influence of Latin and were direct borrowings from Latin.
What role did Latin translations play in the growth of predicative constructions?
Literal translations from Latin probably contributed to their further growth.