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NOWELE
Vol. 73:2 (2020) ► pp.193–220

Case and preposition stranding in Old English free relatives

| Australian National University
Taylor (2014) observes that some of the factual claims made in Allen (1980), the most thorough examination of free relatives in Old English to date, are not entirely correct. Taylor presents some examples that Allen’s analysis of Old English free relatives does not account for and proposes an alternative analysis in which the relative pronoun can be internal to the relative clause and the case of the pronoun is determined by the case hierarchy proposed by Harbert (2007) for Gothic. This corpus-based study supplies new data showing that while Taylor’s relative-internal analysis is needed for some examples, the evidence does not support the suggested case hierarchy except in regulating optional case attraction. Latin influence may account for examples that do not fit the usual patterns.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two analyses of free relatives
  • 3.Headed and free relatives in Old English
    • 3.1Headed relatives
    • 3.2Free relatives
      • 3.2.1 Wh- relatives
      • 3.2.2Demonstrative pronouns and free relatives
      • 3.2.3Case marking and free relatives
  • 4.The investigation: Aims and methodology
  • 5. Wh- free relatives
    • 5.1Case marking of subject, object, and indirect object FRLs
    • 5.2Preposition stranding and pied piping
  • 6.Demonstrative pivots
    • 6.1Demonstrative-headed relatives
    • 6.2FRLs with demonstratives
      • 6.2.1Case marking
      • 6.2.2Pied piping and preposition stranding
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele.00039.all
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