Enoch Aboh & Meg Smith (University of Amsterdam)

There should be no room for Modern English to exist: A view from the past

In the first part of the talk, we propose a novel approach to the optional alternation between OV
and VO word orders that was prevalent in the Old English (OE) period (roughly 450-1150 ce.).
Building on Ramchand (2008) we present an analysis of word order variation in OE that shows
that there are several intermediary positions for the verb to move to on its way to T. This study
indicates that even though Modern English (NE) lost V-to-T movement, other avenues for
movement may have survived into the present day.

In the second half, we demonstrate that the absence of V-movement in NE makes it an outlier in
West Germanic, but in the languages of the world as well. Oversimplifying a very rich literature
on V-movement, languages seem to fall in one of the following types:

Type 1. V-to-C languages (e.g., V2 in Germanic)
Type 2. V-to-T languages (e.g., Romance)
Type 3. V-to-(inner/outer)Asp languages (e.g., Gbe, Sinitic, and presumably Slavic)

Assuming this generalization is correct, NE would be the only language in which lexical verbs
stay put and the tense/aspect affix (e.g., 3SG –s) must hop onto the verb downstairs. Note that the
often claimed paucity of inflectional morphology in NE cannot be the right answer to this unique
pattern since Sinitic and Gbe in Type 3 are mostly isolating but still display V-to-Asp movement.

Rather than denying NE’s existence, we adopt an approach in which syntax is driven by features
that must be licenced, rather than overt morphological exponence. We argue that NE actually
displays V-to-Asp movement. Accordingly, third person singular –s encodes number (cf. Kayne
1989) associated with habitual aspect, rather than just present tense as commonly assumed in the
literature. This view suggests that NE is a past vs. non-past language in which the verb must
move to Asp to be licensed for aspect.