'Impersonal' and Reflexive Constructions in Middle English

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This study aims at the accomplishment of the research which the present writer made in the publications in 1986 and 1989 on Old English 'impersonal' and reflexive constructions, so that the series of studies may cover the whole medieval period. 'Impersonal' is the construction in which the personal pronoun in the oblique case behaves like the subject of a personal construction. Reflexive in Old and Middle English is expressed by a coreferential, personal pronoun in the oblique case, with or without-self ; the reflexive without-self can be more properly termed 'reflexive'. The so-called change from 'impersonal' to personal constructions is not exactly a change but only a tendency found after the regular use of a preposition for or to with the dative pronoun, which tells the subject from the indirect object decisively. The use of a coreferential pronoun with no reflexive function is acceptable with verbs of motion and emotion throughout the medieval period, but in the Wycliffite Bible a tendency towards the non-use of this kind of 'pleonastic' coreferential pronoun becomes obvious. In other works, however, the use and non-use of the pronoun depends on the manuscripts.The following institutes have been visited for research and manuscript studies for these four years : Pembroke College, Oxford, King's College, London, English Departments st Sheffield, Manchester, Durham and Glasgow, Bodleian Library, British Library, and University of Helsinki. The result of this study will be published from Europe, where the feedback is to be expected.