Abstract
Abstract The loss of case distinctions detailed in Chapter 5 has generally been agreed to have played an important role in the history of the experiencer verbs in English. Two changes are commonly seen as having been triggered by the syncretism of nominative, accusative, and dative case in the nominal system: (1) the loss of the ‘impersonal’ constructions, in which there was no nominative NP, and (2) the replacement of object Experiencers by subject Experiencers with verbs such as like in constructions in which the Theme had been in the nominative case in OE. In this chapter, we will look at how these verbs developed in ME, with a view to evaluating the role of changes to case marking in the loss of the ‘impersonal’ constructions. The facts presented in this chapter will put us in a position to evaluate, in the next chapter, different hypotheses about the effects of the changes to the case-marking system on these constructions.
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