Theme: Word order in Middle English

Compound and Complex Sentences. 

The growth of the written forms of English, and the advance of literature in Late ME and Early NE manifested itself, among other changes, in the further development of the compound and complex sentence. Differentiation between the two types became more evident, the use of connectives — more precise. The diversity of sentence structures in Late ME and Early NE reveals considerable freedom in the nature and use of clauses. The flexibility of sentence patterns and the variable use of connectives were subjected to new constraints and regulations in the period of normalisation. The complicated hierarchical structure of the sentence in Late ME and also correlation of connectives inherited from OF is illustrated by the opening stanza of Chaucer’s CANTERBURY TALE.The poem begins with an adverbial clause of time introduced by whan that: the interrogative adverb whan (‘when’) is accompanied by the conjunction that, the two words together being used as a conjunction; another adverbial clause of time whan Zephirus... goes on for two and a half lines, then two temporal clauses are joined by and, and two more clauses are inserted an attributive clause beginning with That slepen... and a parenthetical clause; then, finally, the principal clause begins with the adverb thanne which correlates with whan that and whan in the first and fifth lines.

Many new conjunctions and other connective words appeared during the ME period: both.. .txnd, a coordinating conjunction, was made up of a borrowed Scandinavian dual adjective bath and the native and; because, a subordinating conjunction, was a hybrid consisting of the native English preposition by and a borrowed Latin noun, cause (by+cause ‘for the reason’); numerous connectives developed from adverbs and pronouns — who, what, which, where, whose, how, why. These connectives sometimes occurred in combination with that (like whan that in the above quotation from Chaucer), which probably served to show that the former pronouns and adverbs were employed in a new, connective, function.

The following examples from Chaucer’s works illustrate various types .of subordinate clauses in ME and some of the connectives used to join the clauses, especially the polyfunctional that:

Subject and object clauses:

And notified is thurghout the toun

That every wight, with greet devocioun,

Sholde preyen Crist that he this manage

Receyve in gree, and spede this viage.

(‘And it is notified throughout the town that every man should pray to Christ with great devotion that he receive this marriage favourably and make the voyage successful.’)

An attributive clause joined by that and which correlated with thilke (‘such’):

• 
  A knyght ther was and that a worthy man
  

That fro the tyme that he first bigan

To riden out, he loved chivalrie...

(‘There was a knight and he was a worthy man, that from the time he

first began to ride out (as a knight.’)

That oon of hem was blynd and myghte nat see,

But it were with thi Ike exen of his mynde

With whiche men seen, after that they been blynd

(‘That one of them was blind and could not see except with such eyes of

his mind, with which men see after they get blind.’)

An adverbial clause of result joined by so ... that:

And so ferforth she gan oure lay declare

That she the constable, er that it was eve

Converted, and on Crist made hym bileve. (‘Then they saw there such difficulty in it for the reason, to speak plainly, because there was so much difference between their two laws...’)

In the l6th-l7th c. the structure of the sentence became more complicated, which is natural to expect in a language with a growing and flourishing literature. The following passage from a prose romance by Philip Sidney, one of the best authors of the Literary Renaissance, shows the complex structure of the sentence:

“But then, Demagoras assuring himselfe, that now Parthenia was her owne, she would never be his, and receiving as much by her owne determinate answere, not more desiring his owne happines, then envying Argalus, whom he saw with narrow eyes, even ready to enjoy the perfection of his desires; strengthening his conceite with all the mischie vou counsels which disdayned love, and envious pride could geve unto him; the wicked wretch (taking a time that Argalus was gone to his countrie, to fetch some of his principal frendes to honour the manage, which Parthenia had most joyfully consented unto), the wicked Demagoras (I say) desiring to speake with her, with ummercifull force, (her weake arms in vaine resisting) rubd all over her face a most horrible poyson: the effect whereof was such, that never leaper lookt more ugly than she did: which done, having his men and horses ready, departed away in spite of her servants, as redy to revenge as they could be, in such an unexpected mischiefe.”

The structure of the sentence was further perfected in the 18th and 19th c. It suffices to say that from the 15th to 18th c. the number of coordinating connectives was almost doubled. As before, most conspicuous was the frequent use of and, a conjunction of a most general meaning; other conjunctions widened their meanings and new connectives arose from various sources to express the subtle semantic relationships between clauses and sentences, e. g. in consequence, in fact, to condude, neither.. .nor. In the Age of Correctness the employment of connectives, as well as the structure of the sentence, was subjected to logical regulation in the writings of the best stylists: J. Dryden, S. Johnson, R. Steele, J. Addison, J. Swift, D. Defoe, and others. Their style combined a clear order with ease and flexibility of expression, which manifested itself in the choice of words, grammatical forms and syntactic patterns.
The concern of 18th c. men-of-letters with language matters is illustrated by the debate about the use of relative pronouns. In 1711 R. Steele, one of the editors of the first English newspapers, published a letter entitled “The Humble Petition of Who and Which”, in which he claimed that the upstart that was ousting the older wh-forms. He was wrong in asserting that who and which as relative pronouns were older than thai: that was common as a relative (also as a conjunctive) pronoun since the earliest periods of history, while who and which — originally interrogative — turned into relative pronouns at a far later date — probably in ME.

R. Steele objected vehemently to the use of which in reference to human beings and suggested that the use of that should be restricted. Other authors, who took part in the debate, agreed that a strict distinction should be made between who and which, and argued that whose was the Gen. of who but not of which. It is noteworthy that the editors of Shakespeare’s plays in the 18th c. (Rowe, Pope) made many “corrections” of the forms of pronouns: they corrected who and what to which with an inanimate antecedent, emended who to whom as an interrogative and relative pronoun in the function of object.’ In this way they attempted to improve English syntax-— in line with the general tendency of 18th c. normalisators to make the language more logical and correct.

The development of English syntax at this stage of history — as well as later — was to a considerable extent determined by the formation and differentiation of styles which is beyond the scope of this course.
The distinction between who and which recommended by 18th c. grammarians has been established as a standard of ‘‘good”, educated English; the recommendations conceriling whose and whom have not been fully observed: whose is still used instead of o[ which and who interchanges with whom when used as an object. In this way they attempted to improve English syntax – in line with the general tendency of 18^th century normalisators to make the language more logical and correct.

Overall, the sentence structures in English are very flexible. Which structure you use depends on context and personal preference, although Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) is the most common structure. For example:

“I pet the cat.“

It’s also possible to form very simple sentences with only the subject and verb as long as they form a complete thought (SV):

“He ran.“

That said, there are four types of sentence structures that are commonly used in English.

1.