@article{oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00028147,
 author = {Feng, Shuang},
 journal = {IVY},
 month = {Nov},
 note = {This paper analyzes the development of middles in the history of English in terms of the reanalysis of ergatives, combined with the development of modals as the triggering factor. In order to distinguish between middles and ergatives, three crucial properties of middles are shown as a diagnosis: (i) responsibility of the grammatical subject, (ii) genericity, and (iii) the modal interpretation of possibility. To begin ·with, a brief examination of the historical data of middles in Visser (1963- 1973) shows that all the relevant instances of middles before Modern English are in fact ergatives. Then based on the collection of the data of middles in OED, this paper suggests dividing the development of middles into three stages, by applying the analysis of Massam (1992) that they have a modal operator in T to be specified by a modal or an adverb. The development of English middles can be best characterized in terms of the change in the manner of specifying the modal operator in T: from the direct merge of a modal in T as a basic strategy, to the covert movement of a facility adverb, then to the covert movement of an event adverb. It is worthwhile to note that all the examples of middles in Stage I (the 16th Century) are Type II middles with a modal verb will, which are ambiguous between ergatives and middles. This paper proposes that the meaning change of will, and, more importantly, the reanalysis of modal auxiliaries in the 16th century (see Biberauer and Roberts (2010)) trigger the reanalysis of ergatives as middles. Moreover, this paper follows Alexiadou (2012, 2013) in arguing that the properties of middles are captured in syntactic terms, proposing that Voice middle in English is responsible for genericity on a par with Greek middles. Finally, this paper adopts the mechanism of secondary theta-role assignment (see Osawa (2001), Kume (2009) and Honda (2012)) and proposes that the Patient/Theme DP moves to [Spec, VoiceP] on its way to [Spec, TP] and is assigned a secondary theta-role (Agent) by Voice middle, thereby accounting for its responsibility., This paper is an extended and revised version of the paper read at the 7th International Spring Forum of the English Linguistic Society of Japan at Doshisha University (April 19, 2014).},
 pages = {21--39},
 title = {On the Development of Middles in the History of English},
 volume = {47},
 year = {2014}
}