Rome's destruction and the history of English

Abstract

Lightfoot (1977) argues (i) that the rule of 'NP Preposing' entered the grammar of English in the late ME period, and (2) that it did so 'fully armed', by which he means that from its first appearance in the language the rule displayed its final form; it did not enter English in a piecemeal way, first with a more restricted application before being extended later. But the first of these claims can easily be shown to be false, and from this it follows that Lightfoot's second claim likewise fails. It is assumed by Lightfoot that the rule of NP Preposing is involved in the derivation of (among other things) such phrases as Rome's destruction, phrases containing a pre-nominal genitive noun derived from an underlying postnominal 'object'. According to Lightfoot phrases of this type are found 'only from late ME' (2II). This is a surprising claim for Lightfoot to make, since he himself goes on in his next sentence to cite an example of the construction from /Elfric, who wrote centuries before the late ME period (though it should be noted that there are two errors in Lightfoot's quotation from IElfric: for Iuseiscra and Christes read Iudeiscra and Cristes). I can only assume that Lightfoot discounted the example from IElfric as an isolated exception. But it certainly is not; further instances are readily found in IElfric, e.g. Godes lof 'praise of God', Cristes liewa 'betrayer of Christ', se deofles biggenga 'the worshipper of the devil' (Skeat, I890I900: 152/135, I54/I57, I62/77; use of capitals modernized). Instances can also be found in earlier OE, e.g. hiora eardes lufan 'love of their country', bces landes sceawunge 'survey of the land', wwlstowe gewald 'control of the battle-field' (all from early West Saxon; Whitelock, I967: I2/27, I8/35, 30/8); and instances likewise occur in early ME, e.g. deaJes dred 'fear of death', Godes luue 'love of God', sawle bone 'slayer of the soul' (all from Ancrene Wisse; Tolkien, I962: fols 2a/24, 13a/3, 6oa/2I; use of capitals modernized). This list of instances is of course selective, not exhaustive, and could be extended without difficulty; in a single early ME text (Ancrene Wisse) I have noted some fifty examples of the construction, without attempting to draw up a complete list. From this it seems clear that phrases such as Rome's destruction were current in OE and early ME, and therefore that (in Lightfoot's terms) the rule of NP Preposing was part of the grammar of English long before the late ME period. This in turn undermines Lightfoot's claim that NP Preposing entered English 'fully armed', for that claim depends on assuming that a group of developments in English syntax, all of