Introduction

In many ways ‘Middle’ is an appropriate term for the syntax of the period that will be the subject of discussion in this chapter. As Roger Lass says in chapter 2 (section 2.2) of this volume, ‘middle’ indicates the transitional nature of the language in this period; ‘transitional’, of course, only with hindsight. Lass further refers to the typological use of the term ‘middle’ within the family of Germanic languages, representing among other things a language with a relatively ‘poor’ inflectional system. Translated into syntactic terms, a ‘middle’ language tends to have a fairly strict word order, and to make greater use of periphrastic constructions; i.e. it relies more heavily on auxiliary verbs, prepositional phrases, etc.

Compared with the Old English period, when the syntax of the language was relatively stable (see vol. I, section 4.1), the Middle English period is indeed one of change. Much has been written about the causes of the rapid loss of inflections, which started in the Late Old English period in the northern part of the country and which was more or less concluded in the fourteenth century with the exception of some enclaves in the extreme south. Without doubt the fact that Old English had initial stress played a role. It must have contributed to the neutralisation of vowel qualities in inflectional endings and their almost total subsequent demise. However, when we consider the fact that other Germanic (initial-stress) languages did not all lose their inflections, it cannot have been a decisive factor.