Perfects, Resultatives, and Auxiliaries in Earlier English

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas McFadden ◽  
Artemis Alexiadou
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Auxiliary Selection

In this article, we investigate the peculiar distribution of the auxiliaries have and be in Earlier English and its consequences for theories of the perfect and auxiliary selection. We argue on the basis of a large-scale corpus study that the periphrastic construction with be was restricted to a stative resultative interpretation, whereas that with have developed a wider range of uses, crucially including the experiential perfect in addition to resultatives. Support comes from comparing the Earlier English patterns with related ones in Norwegian and German for which native-speaker judgments are available. On the basis of this insight, we propose distinct formal analyses for the two constructions and show how they account for the attested patterns and changes in Middle and Early Modern English. Of particular theoretical relevance is the premise that what has been called the “perfect” is not a homogeneous, monolithic category, and that certain kinds of variation can only be understood by teasing apart the pieces involved. Earlier English and German auxiliaries have distinct distributions because their “perfects” have disinct syntactic and semantic makeups.

Referential Null Subjects in Early English

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian A. Rusten
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Verbal Agreement ◽  
Early English

This book offers a large-scale quantitative investigation of referential null subjects as they occur in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. Using corpus linguistic methods, and drawing on five corpora of early English, the book empirically addresses the occurrence of subjectless finite clauses in more than 500 early English texts, and excerpts of texts, spanning nearly 850 years of the history of English. The book gives an in-depth quantitative analysis of c.80,000 overt and null referential pronominal subjects in 181 Old English texts. On the basis of this substantial data material, the book re-evaluates previous conflicting claims concerning the occurrence and distribution of null subjects in Old English. The book critically addresses the question of whether the earliest stage of English can be considered a canonical or partial pro-drop language. It also provides an empirical examination of the role played by central licensors of null subjects proposed in the theoretical literature, including verbal agreement and Aboutness topicality. The predictions of two important pragmatic accounts of null arguments are also tested. In order to provide a longitudinal perspective, results are provided from an investigation of c.139,000 overt and null referential pronominal subjects occurring in more than 300 Middle and Early Modern English texts and text samples. Throughout, the book builds its arguments by means of powerful statistical tools, including generalized fixed-effects and mixed-effects logistic regression modelling, and is the most comprehensive examination so far provided of null subjects in the history of English.

scholarly journals Guidelines for normalising Early Modern English corpora: Decisions and justifications

ICAME Journal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Archer ◽  
Merja Kytö ◽  
Alistair Baron ◽  
Paul Rayson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
Do So

Abstract Corpora of Early Modern English have been collected and released for research for a number of years. With large scale digitisation activities gathering pace in the last decade, much more historical textual data is now available for research on numerous topics including historical linguistics and conceptual history. We summarise previous research which has shown that it is necessary to map historical spelling variants to modern equivalents in order to successfully apply natural language processing and corpus linguistics methods. Manual and semiautomatic methods have been devised to support this normalisation and standardisation process. We argue that it is important to develop a linguistically meaningful rationale to achieve good results from this process. In order to do so, we propose a number of guidelines for normalising corpora and show how these guidelines have been applied in the Corpus of English Dialogues.

Early Modern English again: a corpus study and semantic analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
REMUS GERGEL ◽  
SIGRID BECK
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Theoretical Modelling ◽  
Lexical Analysis ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Late Modern

This article investigates uses of the adverb again in Early Modern English (EModE) correspondence. The study collects occurrences of again and analyses their interpretation. It reveals interesting differences in the use of again between EModE and Late Modern English (LModE) as well as Present-day English (PDE). To bring out the grammatical significance of the results, we connect the study methodologically as closely as possible with Beck, Berezovskaya & Pflugfelder's (2009) study of LModE/PDE correspondence. We show that the key diachronic alteration we observe when considering EModE is not just numerical in nature but also qualitatively distinct from the later change at the transition between LModE and PDE. At the heart of our proposal is the finding that while a structural approach to again (Rapp & von Stechow 1999; Beck 2005) is successful for characterizing the transition between LModE and PDE, a uniform analysis for the entire diachronic trajectory is not warranted; a combined theoretical modelling is required instead. Specifically, a lexical analysis relying on counterdirectionality (e.g. Fabricius-Hansen 2001) is required to capture the differences in the EModE data.

The long-term diachrony of referential null subjects in early English

2019 ◽  
pp. 181-216
Author(s):  
Kristian A. Rusten
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Old English ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Early English

Chapter 6 investigates the long-term diachrony of null subjects in early English. On the basis of a large-scale empirical analysis of overt and null referential subjects in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English, it is argued that no real diachronic decline in the possibility of null subjects can be detected across a period spanning c.850 years of early English texts. It is argued that this is consonant with a story where Old English does not feature a productive pro-drop property. The chapter also shows that verb-initial clausal syntax and conjunct clause environments constitute the strongest favouring effects for null subjects in Middle and Early Modern English, as is also the case in Old English. An argument is made that this is consonant with a story where subject omission in early English is viewed as a form of argument ellipsis.

Positional spelling redistribution: word-initial / and / in Early Modern English (1500–1700)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
MARCO CONDORELLI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Printing Industry ◽  
Quantitative Investigation ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Early English ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
The Relationship

The alternations in <u>/<v> and <i>/<j> are among the most well-known and commented-upon changes in Early Modern English spellings, yet little has been said about the potential factors underlying their standardisation, and whether and how the two alternant pairs could be linked together. The reason behind this knowledge gap may be found in the absence of a large-scale, quantitative investigation of these spellings, and consequently, the impossibility of commenting upon the relationship between patterns of chronological development and potential causes of change. This article focuses on the standardisation of word-initial <u>/<v> and <i>/<j> between 1500 and 1700 in printed English, and uses a quantitative model for the analysis of patterns of diachronic development in the two alternant pairs, across a range of texts from a sampled version of Early English Books Online. The results describe a rather abrupt, synchronised change in the redistribution of word-initial <u>/<v> and <i>/<j> between the 1620s and the 1640s. The discussion argues for a close connection between the diachronic developments in word-initial <u>/<v> and <i>/<j>, and pragmatic factors that affected the Early Modern English printing industry.

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