The Small Clause and Resultative Construction in Old English : Using the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose

Abstract

The resultative construction in the fifth sentence pattern is a special language structure in Germanic languages such as English, German and Dutch. This construction has been in common use since the late Middle English period. The previous study by Visser (1967: An Historical Syntax of the English Language I-IIIb) indicates there were only three examples of the resultative constructions in Old English and there were several examples in Middle English. In this paper, I reexamine the previous study conducted by Visser (1967) and Kamiya (2007). I attempt to examine the usage and frequency with which small clauses appeared in Old English using the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). I then confirm whether the resultative construction exists in the small clauses appearing in the YCOE manually.