영어어순 연구

Word Order from Old English to Early Modern English

In this paper three sets of categorial rules based on Chomsky's theory of 1957 and 1965 are presented in detail for the Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. Not only are traced syntactic changes in English but also attempts are made to show the similarities and differences of the three sets to account for the word order in each of the three periods. In the categorial rules for Old English, rule 1 permits no selection of NP in order to provide the structure for certain impersonal verbs. The departure in rules 1 and 3, from the order of these elements in Early Modern English is motivated by differences in Old English word order patterns. In the categorial rules for Middle English, rule 2 reflects that by the thirteenth century the order Aux‿VP is favored. And rules 2 and 3 shows that the order SVO gradually came to prevail over all others and was finally fixed as the basic pattern of speech in Middle English. Middle English is a transition from Old English to Modern English and thus many rules are necessarily duplicated with Old English and Early Modern English rules. Finally, in the categorial rules for Early Modern English, it should be pointed out that rule 9 is different from that of Modern English. That is, rule 9 reflects that (1) progressive sentences are used from Early Modern English and (2) perfect aspect and progressive aspect don't occur in a string simultaneously in Early Modern English.