In Old English and Middle English the verb "to like" was more like our modern "to please" in that the pleased thing is the object rather than the subject, as in "Bread likes me" rather than our modern "I like bread."
Shakespeare has both usages even in the same text. Compare Hamlet II.ii.1173 "This likes us well" and V.ii.3907 "This likes me well" with Hamlet III.ii.2178 "For if the King like not the comedy"
When did the meaning of "to like" change to the modern usage?
First, note that in the expression used in OE and ME, This likes me, like is used as an impersonal verb.
This kind of structure we find in Shakespeare (e.g. methinks, this likes me, meseems, melists) is called Impersonal Construction, which slowly gave way to personal construction more and more. Ruth Möhlig-Falke's study, The Early English Impersonal Construction (2012) explains that there were three categories of changes in this process:
The loss of impersonal expressions apparently took three avenues:
- Loss of a number of verbs that were capable of impersonal use (e.g., ME thinken 'seem, appear,' böten 'avail,' reusen 'repent')
- Insertion of formal (h)it (e.g., It seems (to me) that.. .; It behooves (me) to .. .)
- Reinterpretation (reanalysis) of the dative argument of person as a nominative subject (e.g., to like, to hunger, to thirst, to need).
The construction you are asking about belongs to the third category. According to this study, the origins of this shift are to be found between late Old English and Middle English:
Between late Old English and early Middle English the English language had also undergone various structural changes that presumably made IMPacc/dat1 patterns [e.g. Methinks] increasingly nonfunctional: the tendency to an overtly expressed nominative subject had developed [I think]; the distinction among the nominal cases of accusative, dative, and genitive had been lost after inflectional endings had been leveled; and the surface word order SVO gradually became the rule whereas object-fronted word orders were increasingly marginalized.
This study quotes Lightfoot, who gives a more precise chronology of this change:
Lightfoot argues that, after nominative-dative case marking had become ambiguous, the reanalysis of the preposed object as a subject had to take place as soon as underlying SOV order changed to SVO (Lightfoot 1979: 235—239), a change he dates to the late 12th century (Lightfoot 1991: 67; see also Denison 1993:79). His reanalysis account entails that the change from oblique case marking of the argument of person in impersonal sentences to nominative case marking was an abrupt change that resulted in a parameter resetting in the newly acquired grammars of children in the early 13th century.
This change was completed by the early 16th century:
Preposed dative Experiencers were lost by the early 16th century and from then on were found only in petrified expressions with seem, think, lyst, and rarely with need, like, rue, be leuer, and be lost (Allen 1995: 279—283).
1 Impersonal construction where the verb is preceded by a personal pronoun in the accusative/dative.
However, even in the case of sentences such as Bread likes me, where like is not used impersonally, the change in the word order occurred for similar reasons:
Another study (On the impersonal-to-personal transition in English, by J Krzyszpień, 1984) quotes Jespersen and confirms the same and explains more in detail how the reinterpretation of the construction occurred:
In their treatment of the impersonal-to-personal transition, the authors (e.g. Gaaf 1904, Jespersen 1909—1949, Visser 1963—1973) give as the causes of this change the disappearance of the contrast between the case forms (nominative, dative and accusative) of the noun and the demonstrative pronoun and the establishment of the SVO word order as the canonical one in affirmative sentences. These two developments resulted in the Experiencer NP, which appeared on the surface before the verb as object, of the impersonal verb, being reinterpreted as subject of the verb. The construction thus ceased to be impersonal. This development was exemplified by Jespersen (1909A 949. art in the following way:
- þam cynge licodon peran OVS
- the king likeden peares OVS
- the king liked pears OVS or SVO
- he liked pears SVO
In (1) which is an OE sentence, the past tense plural form licodon indicates that, the verb is governed by the NP peran, which is its grammatical subject. The Experiencer NP þam cynge appears in the dative case form in preverbal position and it is the object of the verb. In (2) which is ME sentence, the past tense plural form likedem also indicates that the verb is governed by the NP peares, its grammatical subject. The Experiencer N P the king, appearing before the verb, is the object although it no longer is in the dative case form, as by then the dative ending had been lost. Sentence (3) represents a stage at which the verb no longer has its past tense plural suffix and thus formally it is impossible to determine whether it is governed by the NP pears or the NP the king. And it is in such sentences that confusion is said to have arisen: according to the earlier pattern, the king continued to be regarded as object and pears as subject, and according to the pattern produced by the spreading SVO word order, the king was interpreted as subject and pears as object.
It is not clear how the sense of like developed from “please” to current meaning and usage, but such usage began around late 1300 according to Etymonline:
The sense development is unclear; perhaps "to be like" (see like (adj.)), thus, "to be suitable." Like (and dislike) originally were impersonal and the liking flowed the other way: "The music likes you not" ["The Two Gentlemen of Verona"]. The modern flow began to appear late 14c.
The OED, for the meaning
transitive. To please, to be pleasing or agreeable to, to suit (someone). Now archaic. Originally with dative. In early use also intransitive with to, of, or till. (also impersonal and reflexive)
gives the first example from c.900, so it was in use sometime before then.
OE c900 Æghwylc man, sy þær eorðan þær he sy, þurh gode dæda Gode lician sceal. Blickling Homilies 129
The majority of the examples are found between the 13th and early 17th century but this probably is more indicative of the actual number of writings produced. The serious use seems to end in the late 18th century with the majority of the rest (to the present day) being poetic, dialect, Scots, or historical dialogue.
The current use of the verb "to like" - I like ice-cream - is first recorded around the early 13th century
a1200 Mildheorted beð þe man þe reouð his nehgebures unselðe, and likeð here alre selðe. MS Trinity Cambridge in R. Morris, Old English Homilies (1873) 2nd Series 95
