Stylistic Fronting in the Ormulum - Scandinavian Syntactic Phenomena in Early Middle English Texts

Abstract

This paper deals with Scandinavian influence in Early Middle English texts and especially with one syntactic phenomenon, stylistic fronting. It is claimed here that the OV/VO word order change in Early Middle English was triggered by language contact with Scandinavian (Kroch & Taylor, 1997) and that the occurrence of syntactic phenomena like stylistic fronting are taken to be evidence for the heavy impact on the English language that led to this change. The focus of the paper lies on the findings from one Early Middle English poetic text, the Ormulum, which shows non-syntactic as well as syntactic evidence for Scandinavian influence. It is shown that the orders that seem to reflect the fronting operation are indeed true instantiations of stylistic fronting. Moreover, in this text stylistic fronting is a phonological phenomenon, because it is used by Orm, its author, whenever the metrical pattern would otherwise be violated. Thus, it was part of Orm's grammar and he could use it for phonological reasons. The fact that the fronting operation is metrically driven supports Holmberg's (2000) analysis of stylistic fronting as a PF-operation.