The Development of Middle English Expletive Negative Sentences

Abstract

The late Middle English expletive negative (EN) construction, as in: (1) per wull no man gewe so myche for themPaston 209, 12 (1471) has been analysed in Ingham (1998, 2000) as involving movement of a negated subject NP from Spec VP to Spec NegP, thus appearing to the right of the finite verb. The prefinite position was occupied by expletive there. In the present study two questions are addressed: (a) whether the construction in (1) was an idiosyncratic feature of the Paston correspondents, and (b) whether it existed in earlier stages of Middle English. Three 15th century religious works (Middle English Sermons, Book of Margery Kempe, and Dives et Pauper I) were searched for this construction, as were eight early 13th century South‐Eastern and West Midland religious prose texts. The EN construction was common in all three 15th century texts, in both matrix and embedded clauses. In the 13th century prose texts, however, the EN construction was non‐existent. Postfinite subjects were found, but almost exclusively in matrix clauses, as in: (2) Ne mei nan uvel hearmen ðeHM 68 (a. 1225) Expletive there was always lacking in such cases. We analyse (2) in terms of movement of the finite verb to C, with the negated subject in Spec IP. An alternative analysis in which pro stood in Spec IP, and the negated subject moved to, but not through, Spec NegP, is considered but rejected. If movement only as far as Spec NegP had been possible, postfinite subjects would have been productive in embedded clauses, counter to the evidence obtained from these samples. Theoretical support for this analysis is obtained from the shift postulated by va: Kemenade (1997) from C to I as the dominant head in Middle English clause structure around the 14th century. An NP was assigned case in the minimal domain of C until the 14th century, thus forcing negated subjects to move higher than Spec NegP. When I became the dominant head in the 14th century a subject NP was assigned Case within its minimal domin, which could be NegP, as long as Spec IP in finite clauses was filled with an expletive. The emergence of the EN construction between the early 13th century and early 15th century is examined using 13th and 14th century verse, in which evidence is found for the decline of Infal to Comp movement in negated clauses, as well as some evidence for the EN construction.