On the Development of Passive Expletive Constructions in the History of English

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  • 英語史における受動虚辞構文の発達について

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<p>This paper aims to account for the development of passive expletive constructions (PECs) in the history of English, especially the changing distribution of their associates, in terms of the rise of a functional category Pred(ication), as well as the change of the underlying word order within VP. By extending Tanaka and Yokogoshi’s (2010) analysis of small clauses, it is argued that there was a structural change of the small clause complement to be in PECs: from the structure lacking a functional category to the structure headed by Pred, which appeared in the fourteenth century and was established in the eighteenth century. The rise and establishment of the PredP structure are shown to be responsible for the fact that the order in which the associate precedes the passive participle became predominant after Late Middle English, finally replacing in the eighteenth century the order in which the associate immediately follows the passive participle, because the latter order can be derived only from the structure without Pred. </p>

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