The Early English Impersonal Construction aims to demonstrate that an understanding of the functional and semantic aspects of impersonal verbs in Old and Middle English can shed light on questions that remain about these verbs today. The impersonal construction has been a topic of extensive research for over a hundred years. But three quandaries-their seemingly unsystematic development, the gradual loss of impersonal uses, and the difficulty of aligning this with structural changes in early English-have made explanations for their development unsatisfactory. Moehlig-Falke offers a detailed analysis of impersonal verbs within the framework of cognitive and constructional grammar. She focuses on the loss of the impersonal construction as a consequence of a redefinition of the grammatical categories of subject and object, and describes the diachronic development of impersonal verbs as a result of the complex interaction of verbal and constructional meaning. Her research comprises all verbs which are recorded in impersonal use in Old and Middle English, and takes account of their full range of syntactic uses. It is thus the most comprehensive investigation of the impersonal construction in early English available to date.

About the Author
Ruth Moehlig-Falke is Lecturer in English Linguistics at the University of Heidelberg.


Book Information
ISBN 9780199777723
Author Ruth Moehlig-Falke
Format Hardback
Page Count 576
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 953g
Dimensions(mm) 231mm * 157mm * 46mm