English as a North Germanic language: From the Norman conquest to the present

Abstract

This paper argues that Middle English (and therefore Modern English) originates as an amalgam of West Germanic Old English and North Germanic Old Norse, and that the fusion of the two languages dates back not to early Scandinavian settlement in England, but about 200 years later, especially the 12th century during the full impact of the Norman Conquest. Using examples of large numbers of daily life and grammaticalised vocabulary, I demonstrate that the nature of Scandinavian words incorporated into Middle/Modern English is distinct from and more central than later French loans and reflects a deep and typologically significant impact of Scandinavian on Middle/Modern English. Then I discuss several syntactic properties (e.g., word order, P-stranding, infinitival and directional particles, passive participles and case inflections) to show that with respect to all these characteristics Middle/Modern English groups with North Germanic and not with West Germanic.