Initial Syntactic Elements in Old English and Modern English Sentences

The paper outlines the main tendencies in the development of the English word order system and examines the function of syntactic elements occurring in the initial position in Old English and Modern English texts. It presents an interpretation of the communicative load of initial syntactic elements from the viewpoint of the Brno theory of functional sentence perspective and shows the potential of this theoretical approach for the diachronic study of English syntax. The analysis indicates that the transformation of English from a predominantly synthetic to a predominantly analytical language was accompanied by a rise in the potential of the initial syntactic element to introduce non-thematic information and to convey the goal of the message of a sentence.