Chapter 2. From OV to VO in English

Abstract

The paper addresses word order change in the history of English and proposes a novel account arguing that an intricate combination of two factors led to the pertinent changes. In particular, I will address the data and generalisations in Kroch and Taylor (2000) and outline a scenario that may be seen as a first step towards cracking the nut posed by them. To this end, I argue that the grammaticalization of the definite determiner at the end of the Old English (OE) period in combination with the loss of Case in early Middle English (eME) destroyed the balances in a system in which mixed word orders were determined by information structural and prosodic conditions and led to a reanalysis in the interface between syntax, prosody and information structure.

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