ABSTRACT
This chapter provides evidence of the change from object to subject experiencer in Old English and secti looks at this change in detail for the verb fear. It shows that this is true in Old English too and, as we know from, the causative morpheme was on its way out in this period. Considering the work by Levin and Grafmiller discussed the chapter, we might expect these verbs to arise to accommodate human Causers. The chapter also discusses the use of three subject Experiencer and three object Experiencer verbs by looking at the entire corpus of the three children in the Brown files of the Childes Corpus. It also provides a partial list of the first attested use of certain psych-verbs. Psych-verbs involve mental perception, cognition, and emotion and, cross-linguistically, show frequent alternations between verbs that have a Causer and those that have an Experiencer as their grammatical subject.
