The Diachronic Change of Locative Inversion in English

The Diachronic Change of Locative Inversion in English

  The derivation of locative inversion constructions (LICs) is triggered by the thematic focalization of a locative PP in terms of locative inversion (LI) with verb second movement (V-2), residual V-2 or without V-2 from diachronic perspective. Although LICs between OE/EME and PDE are similar to each other in configuration, it appears that the internal structure of OE/EME may or may not be distinctive from that of PDE concerning V-2. Given that OE and EME were analyzed as C-oriented languages, whereas PDE are analyzed as a T-oriented language, the syntactic operation of V-2 for the derivation of LICs was applied in the functional head Focus before the fifteenth century, whereas it is applied in Focus or may be applied in T after the fifteenth century. Such evidence as this in PDE is proved by the thematic focalization of a locative PP that seems to undergo either A"-movement or A-movement in the process of feature Agree and the subsequent internal Merge of a locative PP by EPP. This means that LI in PDE reveals the syntactic properties of a C-oriented language or those of a T-oriented language in the derivational process of LICs. Therefore, if the LI of PDE is the same as that of OE/EME, it is analyzed as residual V-2, but if it isn"t, it is analyzed as non-V-2.