Predications in Competition and the Rise of Serial Verb Constructions in English

This book explains the competition in the complementation of Old English aspectual and manipulative verbs that arises between finite and non-finite clauses on the one hand and between clauses and noun phrases on the other hand. The book combines textual and lexicographical sources of Old English in order to address this question from the perspective of the complex syntactic configurations within the verbal classes under analysis. The main thrust of the book is synchronic and its basis is a full-fledged functional theory of language, such as Role and Reference Grammar. On the descriptive side, the book takes the line that the strictly synchronic analysis of a linguistic stage can give insight into the historical development of the language. On the explanatory side, the discussion is couched in terms of functional categories and relations, while typologically relevant constructions like verbal serialisation set the conclusions in the wider field of cross-linguistic comparison.