From SOV to SVO
Old Norse Influence on English Constituent Order
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/lev.v0i6.118859Keywords:
English syntax, constituent order, language contact, Old Norse, Bachelor's project: Types of Language Variation in EnglishAbstract
The change in constituent order in English is one of the most thoroughly investigated changes in the history of the English language. Even so, there is still disagreement among scholars as to what caused the change. The aim of this article is to argue that it was the influence of the Scandinavians and their language, Old Norse, that caused English to abandon the SOV constituent order and instead adopt SVO constituent order. Because of the intense language contact between the two cultures, several linguistic features of Old Norse found their way into the English language. Numerous morphological features were borrowed from Old Norse, but especially the adoption of syntactic features such as stylistic fronting and CP-V2 suggests that Old Norse influence was strong enough to affect the basic syntax of English and thus strong enough to have initiated the change in English constituent order.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
You are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format).
However:
You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
