Revisiting Verb (Projection)Raising in Old English

Abstract

Verb Raising (VR) and Verb Projection Raising (VPR) are optional processes that permute the order of finite and non-finite verbs and their complements and adjuncts in modern West Germanic head-final languages. Similar variation in the placement of verbs can also be found in Old English. This paper starts by providing a descriptive quantitative overview of the word order variation found in verb clusters on the basis of a large corpus of Old English prose texts. It then explores the theoretical consequences of this variation by comparing the way in which two structural analyses of Old English deal with the variation observed with verb clusters.