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Weorðan "become" and begin as indicators of the unbounded to bounded shift in English

Weorðan "become" and begin as indicators of the unbounded to bounded shift in English. Peter Petr é Functional Linguistics Leuven (FLL) Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen). ICEHL 16 – 23-27 August 2010 P é cs. Introduction: topic, approach etc.; Corpus;

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Weorðan "become" and begin as indicators of the unbounded to bounded shift in English

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  1. Weorðan "become" and begin as indicators of the unbounded to bounded shift in English Peter Petré Functional Linguistics Leuven (FLL) Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen) ICEHL 16 – 23-27 August 2010 Pécs

  2. Introduction: topic, approach etc.; Corpus; Frequency overview of (ge)wearð and began; Construal of narrative: bounded and unbounded types of construal; Old English as a bounded language; Loss of (ge)wearð as a consequence of the breakdown of the OE bounded system; Increase of begin as an indicator of the emergence of unbounded construal in Middle English; Conclusions. Introduction Overview

  3. Two developments taking place between 950-1500, and their relation: • (A) Disappearence of copula and passive auxiliary (ge)weorðan ‘be(come)’; • (B) Increase of ingressive ‘gin-verbs’, especially begin 'begin'. Their relation is clearest in the past tense. Analysis is limited to past tense (ge)wearð and began. Introduction Topic

  4. Is there a relation between these two developments? Is there a relation with other developments in the grammar, such as word order shift, grammaticalization of the progressive, etc.? Introduction Research questions

  5. Both (A) and (B) are related to a shift in the grammatical status of bounded and unbounded construal. Development (A) is an index of the breakdown of an Old English grammaticalized system of bounded construal. Development (B) is an index of the grammaticalization of a new system of unbounded construal. Charting their development adds important information on the timing of the shift from a bounded system to a mixed system. Specifically, it provides earlier evidence for the grammaticalization of unbounded construal than what appears from the grammaticalization of the progressive. Introduction Hypotheses

  6. Previous research has focused • for (ge)weorðan:on dialectal distribution, competition with wesan and loss through external influence (Frary 1929, Kurtz 1931, Klingebiel 1937, Mitchell 1985, Kilpiö 1989). • for gin-verbs: on properties in either OE or ME, but not the diachronic development itself (Los 2000, Brinton 1988, 1996). My own approach draws attention to the relation between lexical developments and larger grammaticalized systems (constructional environments) (for the disappearance of (ge)weorðan, see Petré 2010a, b). Introduction Getting off the beaten track

  7. I restrict ingressive/inchoative aspect to those verbs that highlight the beginning of a process or state and leave unexpressed the endpoint of this process or state (unbounded). This is specifically the function of verbs like begin, start, in which case the state or process itself is expressed by the infinitive complementing these auxiliaries. I am specifically interested in those uses where a begin-clause sets the scene for the events described following that clause. • (1) She began sailing with her husband, Tom, in the BVI in 1986. To date she has chartered from many of the islands in the Caribbean. From 1986 to 1995 she was the mainsail trimmer and navigator aboard “Quetzal” a J-92 campaigned heavily on Long Island Sound. Introduction Terminology (1)

  8. Verbs like become, or indeed (ge)weorðan itself, have been called ingressives/inchoatives in the past (see e.g. Biese 1952, Comrie 1976). I will consider these verbs a separate category and refer to them as change-of-state verbs instead. They do not focus on the beginning of new state, but on the dynamic process by which one state changes into another one (in (2) the 'becoming-sick event'). The clauses containing them are generally bounded, and this is at odds with the semantics of open-endedness of 'true' ingressives. • (2) Then the baby became sick (~ the baby began to ail) • (3) that day she became hit by a car (*she began to be hit by a car) (Ingressive verbs can still shift into change-of-state verbs and vice versa, as the history of gin-verbs clearly shows.) Introduction Terminology (2)

  9. The corpora used for the frequency tables are YCOE and PPCME2 Additional examples are taken from various sources (LEON, MED, DOEC) The frequencies as appearing from these corpora are not entirely representative: • The period 1051-1150 contains few original late OE texts and many late copies of earlier texts • West-Saxon is too dominant in YCOE • Narrative is heavily underrepresented for the period 1251-1350 These problems result in frequency histories that are in some ways very improbable With this in mind, the main tendencies can be seen to show through In the future a more representative corpus will be used (LEON, see Petré 2009) Corpus and frequencies Corpus

  10. Corpus and frequencies (Ge)wearð, began, ongan pmw

  11. Corpus and frequencies Weight of (ge)wearð, began, ongan

  12. Genre correlates to a module within the grammar Genre can be considered a macro-constructional environment (a grammaticalized system) in which a large number of lexemes and constructions interact in a structured and regular way. An important distinction within narrative text construction is that between bounded and unbounded: • Bounded language use: the endpoint is included, marks progress (e.g. He walks over to the other side). • Unbounded language use: construes situations as open-ended, often by means of a progressive (e.g., he is walking about) (Declerck 2007). Bounded versus unbounded construal Genre and grammar

  13. Both types of use are not freely available in a language-independent fashion (Carroll & von Stutterheim 2003, Carroll & Lambert 2003 & Carroll, von Stutterheim & Nuese 2004): Grammatical form should be viewed as incorporating a system of meanings which is in a given language prominent in the conceptualisation of states of affairs (2004: 185). Cross-linguistic diversity consists less in what is possible to specify than in the relative ease with which meanings can be specified by the grammar. Depending on the availability of certain grammaticalized constructions, some languages show a strong preference for bounded construal of events (German, Dutch), while other languages more easily make use of unbounded construal (Present-Day English or Arabic). Bounded versus unbounded construal Nature of grammaticalized systems

  14. Languages with grammaticalized bounded construal: German, Dutch Similar to a camera filming through the eyes of the protagonist (4) Auf einmal hört der Mann Wasser tropfen Und dann gräbt er nach dem Wasser Bis der Sand dann unter ihm nachgibt Abundant use of time adverbials • divide the narrative in temporal segments (bound each segment): • define a topic-time (topic 1; Klein 1994: 3), for which the statement applies. • topic-time shifts with each segment • connect the preceding clause with the present clause • are often in first position (Vf2). The subject (topic 2) is the protagonist of the series of events Bounded versus unbounded construal Bounded construal

  15. Languages with grammaticalized unbounded construal : English, Arabic Like a camera filming with bird's eye view (5) The man is hearing the sound of dripping water and he is digging for the water and the sand is caving in under him  Topic-time remains constant and serves as a frame (an implicit 'long now') Events: • are construed in an unbounded manner (progessive) • are all anchored to the framing topic-time Subject • fixed in first position • only topic Bounded versus unbounded construal Unbounded construal

  16. Contrast bounded-unbounded is explained through present tense descriptions In real-time descriptions of events • Speakers of Present-Day English opt for a progressive form, linking them to an implicit topic time. • Speakers of German use a series of bounded, perfectively construed events (no progressive), anchoring subevents in time (and space) by means of adverbs like dann filling the first slot of the clause. Bounded versus unbounded construal Present versus past tense (1)

  17. The contrast works slightly differently in the past tense In past narrative, all events are already completed (have reached their end-points) in reality As a result: • Bounded construal is more accessible. • Unbounded construal strategies are less accessible Bounded versus unbounded construal Present versus past tense (2)

  18. Accordingly: • German behaves the same in the past and present tense. • Present-Day English uses a hybrid system: bounded construal is the default, but unbounded strategies regularly creep in, for instance by making use of ingressive constructions (start Ving) or switching to unbounded progressives in the present tense (Carroll, von Stutterheim & Nuese 2004: 204-211). • (6) He started to dig around, and like a cat kind of eh throwing up the sand behind him and he dug so hard that he fell through into a different kind of equally desolate world • A preference for unbounded construal in real-time descriptions therefore also correlates to syntactic strategies in retelling past events that are different from default bounded construal. Bounded versus unbounded construal Present versus past tense (3)

  19. Bounded language use is omnipresent in OE: (7) Ða æfter feawa dagum se gingra sunu forspilde his æhta. Ða he hig hæfde ealle amyrrede þawearð mycel hunger & he wearð wædla. Þa beþohte he hine & cwæð, Ic fare to minum fæder, & ic secge him, Eala fæder, do me swa anne of þinum yrðlingum. & þagytþa he wæs feorr his fæder he hyne geseah & wearð mid mildheortnesse astyrod. “Then after a few days the younger son wasted his possessions. When he had them all wasted, then a great hunger came (wurde) over the country & he became (wurde) a beggar. Then he thought by himself and said: “I will go to my father, and I will tell him: hey father, take me as one of your servants." And he arose then and came to his father, and when he was still far his father saw him and was (wurde) stirred by mercy”.” (c1025. Lk (WSCp): 13-20) We may speak of an OE bounded system. A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Grammaticalized boundedness in OE

  20. From c1300: • Vf2 breaks down, and SV develops • Drastic decrease of time adverbials, especially þa (Kemenade & Los 2006) • Present tense: increase of progressive be Vende/ing (Killie 2008) • Past tense: increase of partly unbounded ingressive constructions with (be)ginnen (Brinton 1988, Los 2000) Contrast the following ME translation (and note the absence of wearð) (8) And not aftir many daies the ȝonger sone wastide hise goodis. And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong hungre was maad, and he bigan to haue nede. And he turnede aȝen to hym silf, and seide, Y schal go to my fadir, and Y schal seie to hym, Fadir, make me as oon of thin hirid men. And whanne he was ȝit afer, his fadir saiȝ hym, and was stirrid bi mercy.((c1384). WBible(1) (Dc 369(2)): Luke 15.13-20) A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Breakdown of OE bounded system

  21. The change of state-semantics of (ge)wearð are very suitable for expressing narrative action (foreground) Narrative action constitutes the domain where bounded constructions are used (Ge)wearð is strongly associated with this type of constructions A first indication is its strong preference for main clauses (see Petré 2010a) Main clauses provide two types of evidence of the association: • semantic evidence: strong association with bounding time adverbs • formal evidence: strong association with verb-second word order The strength of this association can best be measured by comparing (ge)wearð with its most frequent competitor wæs. A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan (Ge)wearð and the bounded system

  22. Time adverbials bound sentences (define topic-time) A distinctive collexeme analysis shows the association between (ge)wearð with time adverbials of narrative progress vs. wæs The analysis of alternating pairs of constructions and their relative preferences for words that can (or should be able to) occur in both of them’ (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004: 101). Because of this strong association of (ge)wearð with (bounding) time adverbials of narrative progress, (ge)wearð disappears when these time adverbials disappear A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Semantic association: time adverbials

  23. Wearð + THO / + SOON (8)Heo hine freclice bat. Ðawearð heo sona fram deofle gegripen. "She beat him heavily. Thenwas/got she suddenly taken by the devil." (c1025) Wearð + AFTER_X (9) Meoduscerwen wearðæfter symbeldæge "A beer-bitterness aroseafter the feast-day." (c1000) Wæs without time adverbial (10) Yfelwæs Iudas ðe Crist becheapode. "Evilwas Judas who betrayed Christ." Wæs with ERE_X (in a subordinate clause) (11) Ða wæs se calic eft swa gehal swa he ærwæs. "Then the chalice was whole again as it had beenbefore."(c1000) Wæs with THROUGHOUT_PERIOD (12) Her forðferde Cnut cing æt Scieftesbyri, [...] & he was cing ofer eal Englaland welneah XX wintra. "In this year died king Cnut in Shaftesbury, [...] and he was/had been king over all England almost 20 winters." (c1107) A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Examples of semantic association

  24. First position in Vf2-system serves to construe textual coherence • Often, but not always, time adverbials are in first position • PPs of place or cause are also possible (e.g. dadurch wurde er krank) "verb-second was all but defunct by 1500" (Los 2009: 110; Warner 2007) Table 3: Word order of main clauses with (ge)wearð vs. wæs (prose) Preference for Vf2 associates wearð to bounded constructions formally A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Formal association: main clause order

  25. (Ge)wearð was very strongly associated to the OE bounded system When this system broke down from the 13th ct. onwards, (ge)wearð disappeared too. A – Disappearance of (ge)weorðan Conclusion

  26. In Old English onginnan and beginnan might be used with bare infinitive or to-infinitive with ingressive force. • (13) Þa þa he wæs þrittig wintra eald on þære menniscnysse. ða began he to wyrcenne wundra & geceas þa twelf leorningcnihtas. • "When he was 30 years old in this human shape, then he began to work wonders and chose then twelve disciples." (c1020(c995). ÆCHom I, 19 325.4) However, the action complementing begin does not continue in what follows. Therefore begin does not have a framing function here, and is not necessarily a sign of grammaticalized unbounded construal. B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Old English ingressives

  27. Often onginnan (and, less frequently, beginnan) - especially with bare infinitive - did not have an apparent ingressive meaning. Instead it was used as a perfectivizing auxiliary (bounded construal) (Los 2000: 259). • (14) Þa genam he his bogan & hine gebende, & ða mid geættredum stræle ongan sceotan wiþ þæs þe he geseah þæt hryþer stondan. • "Then he took his bow and bent it, and then with a poisoned arrow did (*began) shoot towards where he saw the bull stand." (c1000(c971). LS 25 (MichaelMor): 45) • (15) Mid ðam ða geseah he ðone strangan wind. and ongann to forhtigenne. • “Then he saw that strong wind, and became afraid (?began to be(come) afraid).” (c1020(c995). ÆCHom II, 28 223.73) • (16) Videns vero ventum validum timuit • seeing truly wind strong feared.Perf. Ind.3Sg • “But when he saw that strong wind, truly, he became afraid.” (Mt 14:30) B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Old English: ingressives under pressure

  28. From late Old English onwards the ingressive use rapidly gains ground. This holds especially for beginnan, which became much more frequent in Middle English, and whichBrinton argues to be ingressive as a rule (see Brinton 1988: 116, 161; Los 2000: 256). B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Middle English: ingressive revival

  29. Verbs of the ginnen-class, if used ingressively, focus on the onset of a new situation and on the ongoing (unbounded) character of that situation after it has started. In this respect they differ from (ge)wearð, which focuses on the transitional process itself from one state into another one, including the end result. Ingressive verbs like begin, now, are frequently found in past tense retellings of events as a counterpart to the progressive in present tense descriptions: they also may assume framing functions. Their framing use seems to be more frequent in unbounded languages (Carroll, von Stutterheim & Nuese 2004: 206). Their increase in Middle English therefore is a first indication that Middle English has a higher preference for unbounded constructions than Old English. B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Ingressives and unboundedness (1)

  30. ME example with a framing function: • (17) Þere he bygan to lyve an anker his lyf, and dede meny myracles, and hadde power over unclene spirites... • ‘There he began to live a hermit’s life, and did many miracles and had power over unclean spirits...’ (a1387) B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Ingressives and unboundedness (2)

  31. Sometimes ingressives replace (ge)wearð. See, e.g. (7) & (8), where bigan to haue nede ‘began to have need’ has replaced wearð wædla ‘became a beggar’. A similar difference between Old English (18) — which also contains þa — and Middle English (19) — which lacks a bounding time adverb — appears in two versions of Exodus. • (18) Þa læfdon hi hit sume oð hit morgen wæs, & hit wearð wyrmum creowyd & hit forrotode. • ‘Then some men left it until it was morning, and it gotcrowded by worms and rotted.’ (c1075. Exod [Ker]: 16.20) • (19) But sum therof lafte vnto the morwen, and it biganne to boyle wormes, and stonk. • ‘But some of them left until the morning, and it began to spawn worms, and stank.’ (a1425(a1382). WBible(1) [Corp-O 4]: Ex.16.20)  B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Begin replacing (ge)wearð (1)

  32. The underlying Latin Vulgate source twice has a form of coepio (see e.g. Tweedale 1598). The OE translators were highly unwilling to translate an unbounded ingressive construction with a direct Old English equivalent (some other examples can be found in Frary 1929: 44). This unwillingness shows how strongly grammaticalized bounded construal in Old English was. The occurrence of begin in the Middle Englsh version is somewhat less conclusive, since the translation may be literal, and a more detailed study of non-translated prose would be necessary to shed light on the status of ingressives in Middle English. At least it shows that ME grammar was less averse to the use of ingressive constructions than was Old English B – Increase of ingressive gin-verbs Begin replacing (ge)wearð (2)

  33. Loss of (ge)wearð due to loss of OE bounded system Increase of begin due to grammaticalization of unbounded construal in ME (probably already ongoing before grammaticalization of progressive is documented in early ModE) Replacement of (ge)wearð by begin is evidence that both developments interacted and that the loss of (ge)wearð is therefore also indirectly related to the grammaticalization of unbounded constructions. Conclusions Relation between two developments

  34. The current hypothesis is that the transition from bounded to unbounded has taken place during the EModE period (1500-1710), when – as is generally believed – the progressive be Ving-construction increased in frequency and became part of the core grammatical system (Kemenade, Los & Starren 2008). The infrequent attestation of the progressive before 1500, however, is probably mainly due to the poor documentation in the surviving ME material of present tense (real-time) descriptions, the genre in which the progressive is mainly used Evidence from ingressives, which perform similar functions in the past tense, suggest that the transition was already ongoing in ME. Conclusions Timing of the transition

  35. Biese, Yrjö M. 1952. Notes on the use of ingressive auxiliaries in the works of William Shakespeare. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 53. 9-18. Brinton, Laurel. 1988. The development of English aspectual systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brinton, Laurel. 1996. Pragmatic markers in English: Grammaticalization and discourse functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Carroll, Mary & Christiane von Stutterheim. 2003. Typology and information organisation: perspective taking and language-specific effects in the construal of events. In Anna Ramat (ed.), Typology and second language acquisition, 365–402. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Carroll, Mary & Monique Lambert. 2003. Information Structure in narratives and the role of grammaticised knowledge: A study of adult French and German learners of English. In Christine Dimroth & Marianne Starren (eds.), Information structure and the dynamics of language acquisition, 267-287. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Carroll, Mary, Christiane von Stutterheim & Ralf Nuese. 2004. The language and thought debate: A psycholinguistic approach. In Thomas Pechmann & Christopher Habel (eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to language production (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 157), 183-218. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Declerck, Renaat. 2007. Distinguishing between the aspectual categories ‘(a)telic’, ‘(im)perfective’ and ‘(non)bounded’. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 29. 48-64. Frary, Louise G. 1929. Studies in the syntax of the OE passive, with special reference to the use of ‘Wesan’ and ‘Weorðan’ (Language Dissertations 5). Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America. Kemenade, Ans van & Bettelou Los. 2006. Discourse adverbs and clausal syntax in Old and Middle English. In Ans van Kemenade & Bettelou Los (eds.), The Handbook of the History of English, 224–48. Oxford: Blackwell. References (1)

  36. Kemenade, Ans van, Bettelou Los and Marianne B.P. Starren. 2008. From bounded to unbounded events: what the rise of the progressive in early Modern English can tell us about the causes of typological shift. http://www.ru.nl/aspx/download.aspx?File= contents/pages/309843/aioplaats2008sep23.doc (31 August 2009). Killie, Kristin. 2008. From locative to durative to focalized? The English progressive and ‘PROG imperfective drift’. In Gotti, Dossena & Dury, eds., 69-88. Kilpiö, Matti. 1989. Passive constructions in Old English translations from Latin: With special reference to the OE Bede and the Pastoral Care (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 49). Helsinki: Société néophilologique. Klingebiel, Josef. 1937. Die Passivumschreibungen im Altenglischen. Bottrop: Postberg. Kurtz, Georg. 1931. Die Passivumschreibungen im Englischen. Ohlau: Dr. Hermann Eschenhagen. Los, Bettelou. 2000. Onginnan/beginnan in Ælfric with bare and to-infinitive. In Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds.), Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in English (Studies in Language Companion Series 53), 251-274. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Los, Bettelou. 2009. The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: Information structure and syntax in interaction. English Language and Linguistics 13(1). 97-125. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax, vol. 1: Concord, the parts of speech and the sentence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Petré, Peter. 2009. Leuven English Old to New (LEON): Some ideas on a new corpus for longitudinal diachronic studies. Presented at Middle and Modern English Corpus Linguistics (MMECL), Innsbruck. Petré, Peter. 2010a. The functions of weorðan and its loss in the past tense in Old and Middle English. English Language and Linguistics 14(3). 457-484. Petré, Peter. 2010b. On the interaction between constructional & lexical change: Copular, Passive and related Constructions in Old and Middle English. Leuven: Unpublished PhD thesis. Warner, Anthony. 2007. Parameters of variation between verb–subject and subject–verb order in late Middle English. English Language and Linguistics 11(1). 81–111. References (2)

  37. Peter Petré Department of Linguistics University of Leuven Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 B-3000 Leuven, Belgium Email: peter.petre@arts.kuleuven.be http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/fll Link to presentation: http://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0050685/2010_Petre1_ICEHL16.ppt Contact information

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