Old English V-initial and þa-VS main clauses Independent constructions or allostructions? Anna Cichosz University of Lodz This study is a corpus-based constructionist analysis of Old English (OE) constituent order, focusing on verb-initial declaratives and þa-VS main clauses. The main objective of the investigation is to determine the degree of the formal and functional similarity of both patterns in order to establish whether they functioned as two independent constructions (in Construc- tion Grammar terms), with their relation based on functional contrast. The other possibility taken into consideration in the analysis is that the two pat- terns should rather be treated as variants of the same construction, as sug- gested in some previous, non-constructionist studies of the topic, which would make it possible to analyse them as allostructions. The study shows that on the general level of the language network, the two clause types are surprisingly diferent in many respects: their form is less similar than previ- ously assumed, they have drastically diferent corpus distributions, they show diferent collocational preferences and perform diferent discourse functions. Nevertheless, on the lower level of the network, the two con- structions show some overlaps in the presentational, narrative and report- ing function. At the same time, however, there is a deep functional diference between texts authored by Ælfric and other OE prose records. Keywords: Old English, main clause, þa-VS, V-initial, narrative inversion, allostructions 1. Introduction This study is a data-driven analysis of two functionally and formally related Old English (OE) constructions, a verb-initial main declarative clause (V1) shown in (1) and a þa-VS main declarative clause shown in (2). https://doi.org/./cf..cic Constructions and Frames : (), pp. –. ISSN - | E‑ISSN - Available under the CC BY-NC . license. © John Benjamins Publishing Company