Intertextual Variation in Old and Middle English

Abstract

ABSTRACT The existence of word order differences between individual authors in Old and Middle English is well known. Nevertheless, many empirical investigations of earlier English word order have focused on just one or two texts from each time period. In the early part of the Middle English period, subordinate clause word order changed from a mix between verb-final and subject–verb to overwhelmingly subject–verb. In the transition period between the old and the new order, synchronic variation is expected. In this paper, 2400 subordinate clauses from four late Old English texts and six early Middle English texts are analysed for word order variation between different texts with different authors. The analysis reveals a high degree of variation between texts from the same period, seemingly independent of dialect and genre. The analysis also indicates that the change in English word order must have been slow and gradual.