Dative Subjects (was: Re: Genetic Descent)

[Douglas G Kilday]

Leo A. Connolly (7 Jul 2001) wrote:

>Yes, they are originally separate constructions and verbs, but OE
>_Tencean_ seems to have become extinct, its function being assumed by
>_think_ < _Tyncean_.  But I stick with my interpretation nonetheless,
>since it parallels the development seen in _me TyrstT_ > _I thirst_, _me
>hyngerT_ > _I hunger_, _me liketh_ > _I like_, where there was no
>parallel verb with a personal experiencer subject.  As for _meseems_
>(which sounds eminently plausible, though I cannot remember encountering
>it), it took the other path toward resolving the problem: put the object
>in object position and insert a dummy subject _it_ in preverbal
>position.  I really can't say that either of these solutions is better
>than the other, only that both occurred.

Yes, the vowels indicate that there must have been confusion of <thenken>
'to think' with <thinken> 'to seem' in Middle English, with the latter form
eventually usurping the meaning of the former. Chaucer sometimes has the
latter in the sense of the former, and the preterits are both <tho(u)ghte>:
the distinction between OE <tho:hte> 'thought' and <thu:hte> 'seemed' has
been obliterated.

Instead of the Fillmorian analysis, I would draw a parallel with the use of
<set> for <sit> by some speakers of current English. Again the factitive has
displaced the simple verb in the present. This is particularly common in the
impersonal intransitive, e.g. "That doesn't set well with me.". However,
since <sit> is much more common than <thenken> was, and occurs widely in
compounds, it seems unlikely that <set> will ever completely displace <sit>.

I must also question the Fillmorian view of "hunger" and "thirst". Chaucer
has both a personal <thursten> 'to have thirst' and an impersonal <thursten>
'to cause thirst', the latter presumably from a PGmc factitive in *-jan
which has fallen together in form with the simple verb. Likewise I posit
*hungran 'to have hunger' beside the factitive *hungrjan > OE <hyngran> 'to
cause hunger'. Instead of the brutally abrupt syntactic shift required by
the Fillmorian scenario, we have paired constructions (personal simple,
impersonal factitive) going back to Proto-Germanic of which one type
gradually becomes extinct after the severe phonetic and morphologic
restructuring of Middle English. Indeed Funk & Wagnalls (1903) give "hunger"
[archaic] 'to make hungry; famish; starve' and "thirst out" 'cause to be
thirsty; affect with thirst'. The factitives survived (as productive verbs,
not isolates like "methinks") into obsolete Modern English, so they can
hardly have been victims of abrupt Fillmorian shift in ME.

As for "like", Whitehall gives the sense development as 'to be of like form'
 > 'be like' > 'be suited to' > 'be pleasing to'. "Me liketh" is an example
of the fourth sense, which is now archaic in most dialects (but recall the
7-Up slogan "You like it; it likes you"). "I like" is a specialization of
the third sense "I am suited to". It cannot plausibly be regarded as derived
from the fourth sense by Fillmorian shift.

The replacement of "meseems" by "it seems to me" and the perfectly
acceptable variant "to me it seems" clarifies the matter. It has nothing to
do with "case-grammar analysis" or any alleged thirsting by speakers to
stick the "experiencer" in front of the sentence, since that didn't happen
here (in fact, the "experiencer" was booted out of initial position).
Instead, the radical restructuring of ME resulted in the obsolescence of
certain sentence-frames.

DGK