The growth of the transitivising Reaction Object Construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Bouso
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
Historical Trend ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Early Modern English

Abstract This paper explores the growth of the Reaction Object Construction (ROC) as in Pauline smiled her thanks, offering new insights into its characterisation and historical development from the perspective of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006, 2019) and its application to patterns of language change (Hilpert 2013; Traugott & Trousdale 2013). It is argued that the modern ROC qualifies as a traditional form-meaning pairing and, at a deeper level, as a polysemous construction that follows the path of development of other transitivising constructions such as the way-construction (Israel 1996), and of processes of constructionalisation in general. Once the ROC imposes a coreferential constraint on its object argument, acquiring in this way its status as a form-meaning pairing over the Early Modern English period (1500–1700), the construction increases its productivity and schematicity; at the same time it decreases its compositionality since the link between the form/syntax and the overall meaning of the construction becomes less transparent, as in The door jingled a welcome. The ROC can thus be argued to be part and result of a broader development in the grammar of English, namely the historical trend towards transitivisation.

scholarly journals Some (critical) questions for diachronic construction grammar

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sune Gregersen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Convincing Case ◽  
Early Modern English

Abstract The paper critically reviews a recent volume on Diachronic Construction Grammar. It is argued that a more convincing case for the diachronic construction grammar approach could have been made by more explicitly comparing it to other approaches to historical linguistics, and that a number of central notions, such as “constructionalization”, are not applied consistently throughout the volume. In addition, an analysis of the constructionalization of English be going to presented in the volume is examined and shown not to be supported by the Early Modern English data.

On the inherent semantic meaning of double object Latinate verbs in English in modern and historical perspective *

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Sówka-Pietraszewska
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Prepositional Object ◽  
The One

Abstract This paper shows the realization of arguments of Latinate double object verbs and an analysis of their inherent semantic meaning in the Late Middle English and early Modern English periods, hence in the time-span when they were borrowed into English. The main aim of this paper is to show that although Latinate verbs occur in a construction with what seems to be an allative preposition, not all of them lexicalize movement in the inherent meanings. In contrast, some Latinate verbs lexicalize only a caused possession. What is more, this paper shows that the caused possession Latinate verbs select a different variant of prepositional object construction than the one selected by Latinate verbs lexicalizing movement.

A critical and historical investigation into semantic prosody

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Aaron Smith ◽  
Dawn Nordquist
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Semantic Associations ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Semantic Prosody ◽  
Negative Outcome

While existing literature on cause frequently cites the negative meaning associated with that lexeme, i.e. the fact that cause tends to appear with a negative outcome, e.g. cause an accident, really no scholar has studied in any detail the historical development of the phenomenon. In order to address this missing line of scholarship concerning the diachronic development of, what we refer to here as, a semantic prosody, this paper presents a fine-grained historical study of the development of the negative semantic associations of cause by comparing tokens from the Early Modern English period to those from Present-day English. We are able to conclude that the semantic prosody involved with cause is an emergent diachronic phenomenon. In addition, we are also able to argue that it is at the level of construction that such a prosodic pattern operates. Following from the notion that the semantic prosody is a construction-level phenomenon, we offer an exemplar-based model to motivate certain of the diachronic and synchronic facts.

Register in historical linguistics

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merja Kytö
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
English Language ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Electronic Evidence ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
The 19Th Century

Abstract Merja Kytö is Professor of English Language at Uppsala University. In this article, she provides a detailed accounting of the role of register in research on the historical development of language. Her substantial body of work has focused on both the historical development of specific registers, as well as how historical change has been mediated by register. Her research has encompassed a range of time periods (from Early Modern English to the 19th century) and registers (for example, depositions, Salem witchcraft records, and dialogues). Her many edited collections have brought historical linguists together into comprehensive and rigorous volumes, including the Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics (Kytö & Pahta 2016, Cambridge University Press), English in Transition: Corpus-Based Studies in Linguistic Variation and Genre Styles (Rissanen, Kytö, & Heikkonen 1997, De Gruyter), and Developments in English: Expanding Electronic Evidence (Taavitsainen, Kytö, Claridge, & Smith 2014, Cambridge University Press). She has been a key contributor to the development of principled historical corpora, such as the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts project, which represents a range of registers from Old and Middle English to Early Modern English. Merja Kytö has long been a leader in demonstrating how systematic attention to register can result in rich profiles of historical development, and in addressing the inherent challenges involved in utilizing historical documents for linguistic research.

scholarly journals The Development of long in Early Modern English: Impersonal Verbs of Desire in Focus

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-132
Author(s):  
Noelia Chao-Castro
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Early Modern English

The class of English verbs of Desire in Present-Day English comprises verbs such as long or thirst, several of which are attested in earlier English in impersonal constructions characterised by the lack of a grammatical subject. In English, the impersonal construction decreased in frequency between 1400 and 1500, and effectively went out of use during the sixteenth century. Previous research has suggested that there is a need for a corpus-based study of not just Middle English, but also Early Modern English, in order to explore the different path(s) of development followed by individual impersonal verbs. The present article, therefore, investigates the development of the impersonal verb long (< OE langian) with the following objectives: a) to determine when long ceases to occur in impersonal constructions; b) to provide a diachronic overview of the personal syntactic patterns that came to replace impersonal constructions in Early Modern English; and c) to identify, within the framework of Construction Grammar, factors that may account for the development of long as a prepositional verb.

scholarly journals Early Modern English

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terttu Nevalainen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
New Research

The English language spoken and written in the 16th and 17th centuries has many names: it is variously known as Renaissance English, as the language of Tudor and Stuart England, and as Shakespeare’s English. These labels reflect the various criteria used to identify the period. This bibliography follows the common practice of referring to it as Early Modern English (1500–1700), in distinction to Middle English (c. 1150–1500) and Late Modern English (1700–1900). The Middle English period is often characterized as an era of dialects because the textual evidence that has come down to us shows extensive regional variation. In the early modern period, the language of many forms of writing converged to the extent that it could no longer be localized. Cultural historians associate this development with “modernity,” which is also reflected in regional mobility, urban as opposed to rural residence, and contact with mass media, notably through the rise of printing. More people were able to read than those who could also write at the time, but full literacy increased as the period advanced. A related process was vernacularization, the expanding use of English in new registers, which shows in styles of writing and the linguistic means of expressing them. Many features of Standard English were consolidated in the 16th and 17th centuries. Standardization is visible particularly in spelling and the vocabulary that was created as a result of the spread of English into new specializations. Gradual developments were also under way in pronunciation, in processes such as the Great Vowel Shift, and in grammar, where changes often resulted in new means of expression and greater transparency. Word order, for example, became more fixed over time. Many of these processes had started well before the early modern period, and some have continued into the present day. Digital resources have promoted new research not only on the traditional levels of language but also on various other aspects of Early Modern English. Regional variation is increasingly discussed in its own right rather than in the context of language standardization. Furthermore, there is a growing body of work on the users and uses of Early Modern English. Sociolinguistic research has helped tackle the question of what kind of people were the driving force behind language change at the time and whose language was therefore preserved for posterity. Studies in historical pragmatics have, in turn, looked into the ways in which language was used at the time and how these uses gave rise to new means of expressing communicative needs.

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