A Diachronic Study of the Distribution of Objects in English Infinitival Clauses

基于历史语料库的研究发现，14世纪有限分句中的宾动顺序（除了某一类宾语）消失了，而不定式分句中的宾动顺序一直保留到16世纪。结论是，不定式分句保留了没有功能范畴的结构，因此，即使在14世纪失去了基本的动词-对象顺序（这导致了有限分句中表面OV顺序的丧失）之后，也可以通过对象从基本的动词-对象顺序中向左移动而派生出表面OV顺序。然后在16世纪，不定式分句建立了功能范畴的结构，对象不可能向左移动，从而导致表面OV秩序的丧失。

The investigation based on historical corpora has revealed that object-verb (OV) order was lost in the 14th century in finite clauses (except for a certain class of objects), while it was retained until the 16th century in infinitival clauses. It has been concluded that infinitival clauses retained the structure without functional categories, so that surface OV order could be derived by leftward movement of objects from underlying verb-object (VO) order, even after the loss of underlying OV order in the 14th century (which caused the loss of surface OV order in finite clauses). Then in the 16th century, infinitival clauses established the structure with functional categories, where leftward movement of objects is impossible, thereby leading to the loss of surface OV order.