On bottle-necks in grammaticalization: the case of become (original) (raw)
Related papers
2016. On the semantics and syntax of Persian 'become'. UPenn Working Papers in Linguistics
2016
In the present study, we investigate the aspectual properties and the syntactic nature of Persian ‘become’. Based on the careful examination of degree-achievement predicates (including motion verbs and gradual change-of-state predicates), we show that Persian ‘become’ is not inherently telic (contra what has been proposed in the literature) and that resultativity, brought about by the preverb or a secondary predicate, gives rise to telicity in Persian complex predicates with ‘become’. Further, we argue, based on the so-called passive form of Persian complex predicates, that Voice and little v are two distinct projections and that Persian ‘become’ is a Non-Active Voice head above vP.
The functions of weorðan and its loss in the past tense in Old and Middle English
English Language and Linguistics, 2010
In this article, I relate the loss of weorðan in the past tense to the loss of an Old English grammatical subsystem that encouraged the expression of narrative by bounded sentence constructions. This type of construction represents a situation as reaching its goal or endpoint, and serves to mark progress in a narrative (e.g. then he walked over to the other side). Instead of this system, from Middle English onwards a mixed system emerges with differently structured bounded sentence constructions as well as, increasingly, unbounded sentence constructions – which structure events as open-ended, usually by means of a progressive form (e.g. he was walking). I show how weorðan in Old English was strongly associated with the Old English system of bounded sentence constructions – an association with boundedness is not surprising given its meaning of ‘(sudden) transition into another state’. In the thirteenth century this rigid Old English system started to break down, as primarily evidenced by the disappearance of the time adverbial þa and the loss of verb-second. Wearð, being strongly associated with the old way of structuring narrative, decreased too and eventually disappeared.
The Old English copula weorðan and its replacement in Middle English
Selected papers from the fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006. Volume I: Syntax and Morphology edition:1st pages:23-48, 2008
With the aid of a specially compiled corpus, this paper accounts for the replacement – mainly by become – of weorðan ‘become’, whose use rapidly decreased in Middle English. Drawing on Goldbergian construction grammar, the paper posits the existence of a lexeme-independent network of copular constructions [Copula + np/ap/…]. Copular uses of weorðan are associated with this network, but also form part of a second network exclusive to weorðan, which, already in Old English, served as a model for the extension of becuman to copular uses. In early Middle English, weorðan reacted to changes in the lexeme-independent copular network. Weorðan was no longer used with adjectival participles when these were constructionally separated from its most frequent collocates, namely human propensity adjectives. Furthermore, reacting to an influx of various adjectives in predicate position, becuman, which had no collocational preferences, extended its use to these adjectives and eventually took over from weorðan completely.
Constructional change in Old and Middle English Copular Constructions and its impact on the lexicon
Folia Linguistica Historica, 2009
Applying the framework of Radical Construction Grammar to diachronic phenomena, the present paper examines Copular Constructions in Old and Middle English, with special attention to the loss of the Copula weorðan ‘become’. First we reconstruct the extension of the OE Verbs is, beon, weorðan and becuman to various types of Copular Constructions. We further argue that schematic Copular Constructions emerge in overlapping usage areas resulting from these developments, in which abstraction is made of the Copulas’ particular aspectual semantics. These schematic Copular Constructions in turn undergo some changes themselves. In Middle English a Passive Construction developed out of an original Copula Construction involving Adjectival Participles. However, the constructional profile of weorðan comprised an association between Participial and Adjectival Subject Complements much stronger than in other copulas, and this conflicted with this development, with the archaisization of weorðan as a result. This process of archaisization was further strengthened by the takeover of Weak Verbs in -ian (type ealdian ‘become old’) by new copulas like becuman. In general, we show how diachronic construction grammar might account for the loss of a function word otherwise difficult to account for.
This paper aims to discuss some issues in the diachrony of the periphrasis " Be + present participle " , as a means of denoting aspectual meanings in Greek and Old English. After a brief presentation of the data and an outline of their history, I present the typological assumptions that frequently explain how these types of constructions develop through time, as well as the problems they present. I argue that the actual historical data may not readily fit to a single neat path of evolution, but, rather, more than one explanatory parameter should be taken into consideration.
On the distribution and merger of is and bið in Old and Middle English
Transactions of the Philological Society, 2012
This article accounts for the transition of Old English is ‘is’ and bið ‘will be’ from separate verbs with an overlapping past tense wæs into a single, non-overlapping suppletive paradigm in Middle English, in which is became limited to the indicative singular and bið to the indicative plural and all other forms. I first analyse the synchronic situation in Old English, showing that is was mainly used for predicating present states of specific subjects, and in identifying clauses. By contrast, bið was used to encode future situations and generic statements, which are connected to future situations through their implication of future validity (compare expressions like boys will be boys). Importantly, the high frequency of generic statements, which are about kinds instead of individuals, also led to plural forms of bið being more salient than those of is. Second, I show how environmental constructional change can account for their merger. Specifically, the grammaticalization of the construction [shall Inf] brought about semantic erosion of the sense of futurity in bið. The subsequent semantic confusion between bið and is led to a reanalysis of their distribution, which was guided by their number asymmetry: bið was restricted to plural and is to singular number.