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Tracing the Loss of Boundedness in the History of English: The Anaphoric Status of Initial Prepositional Phrases in Old English and Late Middle English

  • Kristin Bech EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 22, 2014
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From the journal Anglia Volume 132 Issue 3

Abstract

The present paper considers the hypothesis advanced by Los (2009, 2012) that as English lost verb-second, it also changed from a typologically ‘bounded’ language to an ‘unbounded’ language. A bounded language anchors narrative sequences explicitly in time, whereas an unbounded language maintains the temporal aspect of the events implicitly. According to Los, in the bounded verb-second language Old English, the initial, preverbal, clause position was an unmarked, dedicated position for links to the preceding discourse. After English became an SVO language, the position preceding the subject became a marked position, and it is now used for text structuring rather than discourse linking. The present paper tests this hypothesis by examining initial prepositional phrases in Old English and late Middle English from three perspectives: local anchoring, semantic category, and information structure, with a view to establishing whether initial elements show traces of this assumed shift. It will be demonstrated that for initial prepositional phrases, there is in fact a development away from a backward-pointing discourse-linking function towards a forward-pointing framesetting function, but that the trend is weaker than expected for a typological shift linked to the loss of verb-second. The paper also discusses some issues that should be considered further in order to strengthen the hypothesis, such as the prevailing uncertainty about the exact syntactic positions of Old English clause elements, the heterogeneity of Old English word order, and the ‘boundedness’ hypothesis in relation to other verb-second languages that have retained or lost verb-second.

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Published Online: 2014-10-22
Published in Print: 2014-11-1

© 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Articles
  4. The Treatise on the Sacrament in Cambridge, St John’s College G.25: An Edition
  5. “Thes byne the knoyng off dremys”: Mantic Alphabets in Late Medieval English
  6. Tracing the Loss of Boundedness in the History of English: The Anaphoric Status of Initial Prepositional Phrases in Old English and Late Middle English
  7. Reflections on Reflexives in Modern English
  8. Reviews
  9. D. Gary Miller. External Influences on English: From its Beginnings to the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, xxxi + 317 pp., £ 65.00.
  10. Sara M. Pons-Sanz.The Lexical Effects of Anglo-Scandinavian Linguistic Contact on Old English. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, xv + 589 pp., € 125.00.
  11. T. L. Burton (ed.).The Sound of William Barnes’s Dialect Poems: 1. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, first collection (1844). Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2013, xix + 593 pp., $ 66.00.
  12. Richard Gameson (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Volume I: c. 400–1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xx + 827 pp., 54 plates, £ 110.00/$ 180.00.
  13. Michelle P. Brown.The Book and the Transformation of Britain c. 550–1050: A Study in Written and Visual Literacy and Orality. The Sandars Lectures in Bibliography, Cambridge University Library, 2009. London: The British Library, 2011, 184 pp., 12 color plates, 75 halftones, $ 70.00.
  14. Nicholas Orme.English School Exercises, 1420–1530. Studies and Texts 181. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2013, xi + 441 pp., $ 95.00.
  15. April London.The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 260 pp., $ 26.99 pb.
  16. Bryony Randall and Jane Goldman (eds.).Virginia Woolf in Context. Literature in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xviii + 502 pp., $ 99.00 hc.
  17. Jana Gohrisch and Ellen Grünkemeier (eds.). Listening to Africa. Anglophone African Literatures and Cultures. Anglistik und Englischunterricht 80. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012, 404 pp., € 26.00.
  18. Liliane Louvel.Poetics of the Iconotext. Ed. Karen Jacobs. Trans. Laurence Petit. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, 212 pp., £ 60.00.
  19. Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen.American Nietzsche. A History of an Icon and His Ideas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012, ix + 452 pp., 21 halftones, $ 30.00 hc/$ 20.00 pb.
  20. Heike Schwarz.Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction. American Culture Studies 8. Bielefeld: transcript, 2013, 456 pp., € 39.99.
  21. Alfred Hornung and Zhao Baisheng (eds.).Ecology and Life Writing. American Studies – A Monograph Series 203. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013, xix + 413 pp., € 48.00.
  22. Books Received
https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2014-0056

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Articles
  4. The Treatise on the Sacrament in Cambridge, St John’s College G.25: An Edition
  5. “Thes byne the knoyng off dremys”: Mantic Alphabets in Late Medieval English
  6. Tracing the Loss of Boundedness in the History of English: The Anaphoric Status of Initial Prepositional Phrases in Old English and Late Middle English
  7. Reflections on Reflexives in Modern English
  8. Reviews
  9. D. Gary Miller. External Influences on English: From its Beginnings to the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, xxxi + 317 pp., £ 65.00.
  10. Sara M. Pons-Sanz.The Lexical Effects of Anglo-Scandinavian Linguistic Contact on Old English. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, xv + 589 pp., € 125.00.
  11. T. L. Burton (ed.).The Sound of William Barnes’s Dialect Poems: 1. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, first collection (1844). Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2013, xix + 593 pp., $ 66.00.
  12. Richard Gameson (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Volume I: c. 400–1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xx + 827 pp., 54 plates, £ 110.00/$ 180.00.
  13. Michelle P. Brown.The Book and the Transformation of Britain c. 550–1050: A Study in Written and Visual Literacy and Orality. The Sandars Lectures in Bibliography, Cambridge University Library, 2009. London: The British Library, 2011, 184 pp., 12 color plates, 75 halftones, $ 70.00.
  14. Nicholas Orme.English School Exercises, 1420–1530. Studies and Texts 181. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2013, xi + 441 pp., $ 95.00.
  15. April London.The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 260 pp., $ 26.99 pb.
  16. Bryony Randall and Jane Goldman (eds.).Virginia Woolf in Context. Literature in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xviii + 502 pp., $ 99.00 hc.
  17. Jana Gohrisch and Ellen Grünkemeier (eds.). Listening to Africa. Anglophone African Literatures and Cultures. Anglistik und Englischunterricht 80. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012, 404 pp., € 26.00.
  18. Liliane Louvel.Poetics of the Iconotext. Ed. Karen Jacobs. Trans. Laurence Petit. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, 212 pp., £ 60.00.
  19. Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen.American Nietzsche. A History of an Icon and His Ideas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012, ix + 452 pp., 21 halftones, $ 30.00 hc/$ 20.00 pb.
  20. Heike Schwarz.Beware of the Other Side(s): Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder in American Fiction. American Culture Studies 8. Bielefeld: transcript, 2013, 456 pp., € 39.99.
  21. Alfred Hornung and Zhao Baisheng (eds.).Ecology and Life Writing. American Studies – A Monograph Series 203. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013, xix + 413 pp., € 48.00.
  22. Books Received
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