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Article published In: Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 15:1 (2025) ► pp.44–77

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Old English perspectives on the complement shift

Toward the desententialisation of self-manipulative verbs

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad de La Rioja
Published online: 21 August 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.22009.oja
Abstract
This article gathers a motivated inventory of Old English self-manipulative verbs, including Abstain verbs and Refrain verbs, analyses their semantics and syntax and offers diachronic perspectives on the replacement of that-clause complementation with the from + -ing construction. Such perspectives go in two directions. Firstly, the semantics of the that-clause remains intact throughout the change to the from + -ing construction. Secondly, deverbal nominalisations contribute to the semantics and syntax required by the gerund. The main conclusion is that Refrain verbs are exceptional because the competition leading to the Complement Shift does not hold between finite and non-finite clauses, but between finite clauses and deverbal nominalisations. This has two important consequences: the status of derived nominal linked predications must be acknowledged, and deverbal nominalisations must occupy the top of the syntactic ranking of clause linkage.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Syntax and semantics in the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy
  • 3.The interclausal relations hierarchy as a predictor of diachronic change
  • 4.Method, sources and data
  • 5.The semantics of self-manipulative verbs
  • 6.The syntax of self-manipulative verbs Abstain and Refrain
    • 6.1Abstain verbs
    • 6.2Refrain verbs
  • 7.Results of analysis and diachronic perspectives
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

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2025. The Computational Study of Old English. Encyclopedia 5:3 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo

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