Aspects of evolution of ditransitive construction in Old English
The paper analyzes diachronic development of Old English ditransitive construction involving verbs <i>sellan </i>and <i>giefan </i>in their either simplex or prefixed forms within the timespan of around five hundred years. It is claimed that <i>sellan </i>as one of the most widespread and polysemous verbs in earlier OE records has suffered a gradual decrease in frequency since then. This process was accompanied by the rise of <i>giefan </i>and its variants, of which prefixed forms <i>forgiefan </i>and <i>agiefan </i>played the major role, allowing for simplifying the construction, specifying the meaning and avoiding possible homonymy.