Position-related subject properties change in English

Subjects in Old English can occur in a number of different positions. Their distribution changes over time, especially during and after the loss of the non-obligatory verb-second word order that characterised Old English. A question that has not been raised is whether the disappearance of subject positions is preceded by a loss of subject-specific properties connected with these positions. This paper investigates two such properties: subject-deletion under coordination, and subject-position related verb type selection. The decrease of the Middle Field and Post Field subject positions is, indeed, preceded by a steeper decline in the former property, while the latter property reveals an increasing specificity in terms of the types of verbs associating with the Post Field position