Argument Structure in Flux

lt;p>Verbs of Desire underwent important changes in the course of their histories. In earlier English they could be used impersonally in constructions lacking a nominative subject. When impersonal uses are lost, they are gradually replaced by personal patterns, in particular a pattern where the verb governs a prepositional complement.

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lt;p>The class of verbs of Desire comprises verbs whose syntax and semantics have undergone important changes in the course of their histories. Their argument structure involves a Desirer and a Desired, and in earlier English they could be used impersonally in constructions lacking a subject marked for the nominative case. The book presents three case studies based on a comprehensive survey of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary and on corpus data retrieved from EEBOCorp 1.0 (1470s-1690s). The results obtained unveil the loss of impersonal uses and their gradual replacement by personal patterns, in particular a pattern where the verb governs a prepositional complement representing the Desired as a metaphorical goal.