WORD ORDER IN OLD ENGLISH EMBEDDED CLAUSES: SYNTACTIC INSTANTIATION AND PRAGMATIC FACTORS.

In this paper we address the major word order patterns in Old English (OE) embedded clauses and examine to what extent it is possible to capture the motivation behind the variation observed in purely syntactic terms. As a representative of the syntacticocentric approach, we take the account by Biberauer and Roberts (2005) and critically evaluate it against the larger empirical background, while also pointing out certain theoretical challenges it faces. We then attempt to characterize the various information-structural inferences (focus, topicality, givenness, pragmatic presupposition) that arise for different word order patterns, and that must be taken into consideration in any successful analysis. We leave it open whether the IS/pragmatic effects we describe arise because notions like [+Focus] are represented in the syntax, or because languages exploit the contrasts that are independently generated by the syntax for discourse-pragmatic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]