onal government can also be found in OE. Thus, the preposition t ? governs the Dat. case: e. g. h? ? Ode t? hi s h? se he went to his house ; the preposition ymb governs The Accus. case: e. g. h? 3 iorne h? E wæ ron ... ymb liornun3a how aelous they were ... concerning learning ; the preposition from can sometimes govern the Dat. case: e. g. þ ? ? R? S h? from þæm slæpe then arose he from that sleep .
. There are 2 other ways of expressing syntactical relations between the components of a phrase in OE: adjoinment and enclosure) Adjoinment implies such subordination of the adjunct to its head which is achieved by their position and their meanings, but not by agreement or government or by any other special forms. The most typical OE example of adjoinment is between an adverb and a verb: e. g. Æ lfric munuc gr? t Æð elw æ rd ealdorman? adm? dl? ce monk Æ lfric greets alderman Æ thelward humbly (The adverb ? adm? dl? ce is subordinated to the verb gr? tan ). the phrase: h? m? ode went home the word h? m is adjoined to the verb h? n .
b) Enclosure as a means of expressing syntactical relations is of minor importance in OE. By enclosure we understand the setting of a component of a phrase between 2 constituent elements of another component. In OE an attribute may be put between a preposition or an article.
Middle Englishgradual weakening and loss of many inflections and, as a result of it, great changes in the morphological system of the language in ME brought about modification in the means of expressing syntactical relations. is reduced to a small number of cases. An adjective or a pronoun is no longer able to agree with its head in gender and case. Only occasionally agreement in number between a noun and adjective/pronoun is found in ME texts: e. g. in alle the gramere scoles of England in all grammar schools of England ; fresshe floures fresh flowers . in number is also preserved between the demonstrative pronoun and the noun.is retained in ME. A verb may govern the Objective case of a pronoun or the Common case of a noun: e. g. some gentlymen which late blamed me some gentlemen who blamed me not long ago . noun may govern the Genitive case of another noun: e . g. In his hertes botme in the bottom of his heart . Gains ground in ME since not only adverbs are subordinated to verbs by means of it, but also some adjectives and pronouns (used attributively) are adjoined to their heads: eg she understode him wel she understood him well . role of enclosure also increases. It becomes more important in the identification of the attributive function of the word which happens to be enclosed between an article/or a preposition and a head-word.NEthe decay of the adjective declension, agreement has totally lost except between the demonstrative pronoun and a noun: this book/these books which agree in number.also decreased greatly. It applies only to the Objective case forms of personal pronouns (me, him, her, us, them) and the form whom
