Connectives in the History of English (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science)

Connectives in the History of English

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F.K. KOERNER (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Lyle Campbell (Salt Lake City); Sheila Embleton (Toronto) Brian D. Joseph (Columbus, Ohio); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Manfred Krifka (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.) Joseph C. Salmons (Madison, Wis.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)

Volume 283

Connectives in the History of English Edited by Ursula Lenker and Anneli Meurman-Solin

Connectives in the History of English

Edited by

Ursula Lenker University of Munich

Anneli Meurman-Solin University of Helsinki

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

4-

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American ­National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (13th : 2004 : Vienna University)   Connectives in the history of English : [selected papers from 13th ICEHL, Vienna, 23-28 August 2004] / edited by Ursula Lenker and Anneli Meurman-Solin.    p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, issn 0304-0763 ; v.283)  Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--History--Congresses. 2. English language--Grammar--Congresses. 3. English language-Connectives--Congresses. 4. English language--Grammar, Historical--Congresses. I. Lenker, Ursula. II. Title. PE1075.I57    2007 420'.9--dc22 2007011997 ISBN 978 90 272 4798 8 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2007 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

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Table of contents

Foreword Introduction Ursula Lenker and Anneli Meurman-Solin Adverbial connectives within and beyond adverbial subordination: The history of lest María José López-Couso

vii 1

11

To as a connective in the history of English Bettelou Los

31

From oþ to till: Early loss of an adverbial subordinator Matti Rissanen

61

Rise of the adverbial conjunctions {any, each, every} time Laurel J. Brinton

77

The evolution of since in medieval English Rafał Molencki

97

Grammaticalization and syntactic polyfunctionality: The case of albeit Elina Sorva

115

On the subjectification of adverbial clause connectives: Semantic and pragmatic considerations in the development of while-clauses Ana I. González-Cruz A relevance-theoretic view on issues in the history of clausal connectives Carsten Breul

145 167

Forhwi ‘because’: Shifting deictics in the history of English causal connection 193 Ursula Lenker Conditionals in Early Modern English texts Claudia Claridge

229

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Relatives as sentence-level connectives Anneli Meurman-Solin

255

‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts: Aspects of orality and literacy Thomas Kohnen

289

Word index

309

Subject index

313

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Foreword

This volume is a compilation of articles by international scholars active in the field of English historical linguistics. The majority of the studies are revised versions of papers presented at a workshop on “Clausal Connectives in the History of English” at the 13th International Conference of English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL) in Vienna on the 23–28 August 2004. The idea for the workshop – and thus also for this collection of papers – was born at the 12th ICEHL in Glasgow, where both the editors happened to present papers on connectives and found that numerous members of the research community considered new theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of linguistic features with connective function relevant and interesting. The keen interest in this subject was then further attested by the acceptance of our suggestion for a workshop at the 13th ICEHL in Vienna, and by the many proposals we received as a response to our call for papers, out of which eight were chosen for presentation at the workshop. These papers, as well as those by Laurel Brinton, Claudia Claridge and the editors, are now published in this volume. The editors would like to express their thanks to the contributors to this volume. We are also greatly indebted to the following colleagues, who acted as external reviewers at various stages in the preparation of this volume: Bas Aarts, Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, Joan Beal, Douglas Biber, Laurel Brinton, Ulrich Busse, Teresa Fanego, Daniel Hole, Matti Kilpiö, Lucia Kornexl, Merja Kytö, Kathryn A. Lowe, Lilo Moessner, Florian Schleburg, Toril Swan, Elizabeth Traugott, Anthony Warner, and, in particular, Cynthia Allen and Torsten Leuschner, who reviewed the whole manuscript, and from whose insightful comments both the editors and the authors have benefited greatly. Thanks are also due to the editorial staff of John Benjamins, in particular Konrad Koerner, series editor of CILT, for his interest and support in this project, and Anke de Looper for her unfailing spirit of collaboration. We are very grateful to Tuomas Tammilehto at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, for his assistance in the editorial work. All the chapters in this volume draw on large electronic databases and bear witness to recent corpus-linguistic advances in both synchronic and diachronic research. They will provide examples of how particular theoretical models can be used in new ways and new contexts, and illustrate how various kinds of methodo-

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 Foreword

logical synergies permit us to create a happy balance between quantitative and qualitative approaches. It is our very sad duty to announce that Elina Sorva died prematurely in January 2006, and we publish her paper in memory of a dear friend and highly respected colleague. Munich and Helsinki, January 2007 Ursula Lenker and Anneli Meurman-Solin

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Introduction Ursula Lenker and Anneli Meurman-Solin University of Munich / University of Helsinki

.

Connectives and current linguistic research

Clausal connection is one of the key building blocks of language in use, and thus a field where a wide range of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive phenomena meet. The availability of large databases as well as considerable advances in corpus-linguistic methods have strengthened the interest in the history of features linking clauses or larger chunks of text. However, in recent typology-oriented research, the inventories of clause-combining devices in English and other European languages have chiefly been construed by using secondary sources such as dictionaries and grammars (see, e.g., Devriendt et al. 1996 and Kortmann 1997). There is thus space for a greater degree of integration between cross-disciplinary corpusbased analysis and the reconstruction of taxonomies and typologies of connectives, the former detecting complex patterns of variation and change which may remain unidentified in insufficiently representative data. The papers collected in this volume therefore set out to combine a thorough corpus-based analysis of the history of individual connectors, their co-occurrence patterns, and patterns of variation and change from both intra- and inter-systemic perspectives with a variety of methodological tools, ranging from sophisticated methods of grammatical analysis to pragmatics, text linguistics and discourse analysis. Drawing on quantitatively and qualitatively improved data, the studies try to reconstruct the history of connectives in English from various new theoretical perspectives. The distinctive profile of this volume is based on a number of developments in current linguistic research. Firstly, the studies profit from the fact that solid analyses of texts from the various periods in the history of English are now greatly facilitated by balanced corpora, such as ARCHER, or large single-genre corpora, such as the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (for a more detailed account of corpora employed, see Section 7 below). Secondly, they illustrate how recent ad-

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vances in the fields of pragmatics and text linguistics have enriched the diachronic study of connective devices in English – see, for example, tracing of the path of new connectors from utterance-token to utterance-type meanings to their conventionalization as coded meanings (cf. the “Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change”, as proposed in Traugott & Dasher 2002). Such studies are, of course, only possible when the quantitative methods of corpus linguistics are combined with a careful micro-level analysis of the texts in question. In other words, even though the quantitative analysis is part and parcel of methods employed, the majority of the contributions also rely on a detailed analysis of individual examples in their contexts. This combination of corpus findings with a close analysis of co-text and context is particularly fruitful for those studies which apply recent findings of information processing to the history of connectors. For example, beginning with Thompson’s analysis of the different functions of initial versus final purpose clauses (Thompson 1985), there has been an increasing and continuing interest in the discourse factors which determine the position of subordinate clauses in Modern English (see Haiman & Thompson 1988; Ford 1993 and, most recently, Diessel 2005), an approach which is here seen as being essential for an understanding of the history of connectives, and in particular of clause combination not only on the local level, but also on the global level of text (see Claridge on the position of if -clauses, González-Cruz on that of while-clauses and Lenker on that of causal/resultive clauses). Thirdly, this view of sentence connection not only on the clause, but also on the sentence and discourse levels, requires the examination of functionally related features as systems. Thus, certain uses of relatives are analysed within the variational pattern of anaphoric reference at the sentence level instead of being interpreted exclusively in terms of the established grammatical categorization of relatives in English (Meurman-Solin). Systems consisting of co-occurrence patterns are the focus of the construct of “connective profile”, created by Kohnen as a new analytical tool for the assessment of varying degrees of orality and literacy in texts and genres.

. Connectives: Continua in clause linkage Linguistic literature has often neglected connectives in a wider sense, because many theories of grammar choose the sentence as the highest level of analysis. Thus, the established criteria mainly relate to the composition of compound sentences by coordinators such as and or or, or, as far as complex sentences are concerned, the differentiation between coordination and subordination, and their respective connectives (see Quirk et al. 1985: Chapters 13.2–19, 14.1–4; Biber et

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al. 1999: Chapters 2.4.7–8, 3.3; Huddleston & Pullum 2002: Chapters 11.8.1–2, 15.2.1). However, the concept of ‘connective’ essentially also refers to features which create relations not only between clausal structures but also larger units of text. Connectives which function only or predominantly on a more global level, connecting chunks of discourse, have only rarely been studied in detail; this also applies to zero-realization, a recurrent and important pattern attesting to variation and change in the history of linking systems in English. A variationist typology of connectives can only be achieved when we accept as the general assumption that there are typologically relevant relations between numerous different types of links at the clausal, sentential, discoursal and textual levels. The studies of the present volume reflect the view that the use of the traditional morpho-syntactic criteria and the subsequent classification of connectives in traditional categories, i.e., word classes such as adverb, subordinating conjunction or coordinating conjunction, are not in all cases adequate for identifying the relevant constructions or patterns. An inherent feature of the present corpusbased approach, then, is that developments over time can be depicted by continua based on inventories which include all variants with connective potential (for such approaches, see the cross-linguistic classifications by Lehmann 1988 and Raible 1992). Consequently, for an inventory to be valid for examining variation, it is necessary to give full membership to highly elaborated as well as compressed and zero realisations of links. A framework for such an inventory is provided by Lehmann’s generally applicable parameters of clause linkage (1988), which have emerged from his typological investigation of the most important aspects of complex sentence formation in the languages of the world. Lehmann’s broad view of connectives postulates continua of several parameters, ranging from two maximally elaborated paratactic clauses with finite verbs and no syntactic embedding at one end (so-called ‘relations of sociation’), all the way to a single clause containing an embedded predicate in a much-reduced form with no inflectional marking of person, aspect, tense and mood, and no complementizer or other element signalling embedding, at the other end (so-called relations of ‘dependency’). The possibilities thus range from a pole of ‘maximal elaboration’ to a pole of ‘maximal compression (or condensation)’, realized in continua within each of the following six parameters: (i) hierarchical downgrading of the subordinate clause (from weak parataxis to strong embedding), (ii) main clause syntactic level of the subordinate clause (from high sentence to low word), (iii) desententialization of the subordinate clause (from weak clause to strong noun), (iv) grammaticalization of the main verb (from weak lexical verb to strong grammatical affix), (v) the interlacing of two clauses (from weak clauses adjunct to strong clauses overlapping), and (vi) the explicitness of the linking (from maximal syndesis to maximal asyndesis).

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For several studies in this volume Lehmann’s typology is very useful; it, for example, provides a framework for the development of English lest from a subordinator (OE þy læs þe) to a complementizer, i.e., from a less to a more embedded connective structure (López-Couso). Following the diachronic path of an even more embedded structure, Los plots the Old English to-infinitive on the continua provided by Lehmann’s parameters, determines its position towards the low end of the parameters (indicating compression rather than elaboration) and compares this with the positions of the other two structures she considers to be parallels – the subjunctive clause and the to-prepositional phrase – thus reconstructing a scenario for category change. Los also poses the question of the extent to which the continuum from highly elaborated to compressed overlaps with grammaticalization continua (at first glance only obvious in Lehmann’s parameter (iv) from full verb to affix). Most of the other papers deal with connectives positioned at the ‘elaboration pole’ of the continua, namely explicit linkers such as coordinating and subordinating conjunctions or adverbial connectors. They are thus mainly concerned with intra-parameter paths in (vi) ‘explicitness of linking’, i.e., the path from syndesis to asyndesis, which Lehmann specifies as: ‘[elaboration] anaphoric subordinate clause – gerundial verb – prepositional phrase – connective adverb – specific conjunction – universal subordinator – non-finite verb form [compression]’ (1988: 213). In a prototypical study of such a path, Sorva shows how PDE albeit developed from an anaphoric subordinate clause (ME al be it (that)) into a subordinator in the standard language, but can also be used as an adverbial connector in some varieties of English past and present. This last point is similar to González-Cruz’s observation that while – when used to mark additive rather than temporal or concessive relations – shows ‘coordinator-like behaviour’ by becoming less dependent on the main clause. The volume also reflects an interest in covering developments from earliest extant documents up to Present-Day English (see, e.g., recent changes in the use of albeit (Sorva) and {any/each/every} time (Brinton)). Problems related to the reconstruction of the language of the past are highlighted by phenomena such as the loss of the group of lexicalized pronominal connectors (cf. OE forþæm (þe)) after the Early Middle English period (Lenker), the replacement of oþ by till (Rissanen) or by the category change of infinitival to, which Los concludes to have taken place in pre-Old English times.

. Domains: Typological findings Other studies deal with conjunctions which have basically remained stable, in the sense that they have served as conjunctions in all of the attested periods of English. Most of them developed from earlier adjectives or adverbs and show a high

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amount of semantic and syntactic polyfunctionality, which, however, decreases after the Old and, in particular, Middle English period. These studies illustrate another of the more recent typological findings by Kortmann (1997), namely that interclausal relations differ markedly with regard to their ‘cognitive basicness or centrality for human reasoning’ and also their ‘cognitive complexity or specificness’. According to Kortmann (1997: 342), highly grammaticalized, preferably monomorphemic or single-word connectors which are frequently used and stable over time indicate ‘cognitive basicness’ (‘lexical primes code cognitive primes’). While most of the basic relations also show a low degree of complexity, cognitive basicness and cognitive complexity must nevertheless be kept separate, since concession, for instance, exhibits ‘a high degree of cognitive complexity, and yet clearly belongs to the core set of cognitively basic relations’. These parameters yield a core of twelve basic relations (cause, condition, concession [CCC], result, purpose, simultaneity overlap, simultaneity duration, anteriority, immediate anteriority, terminus ad quem, place and similarity) and several layers of relations of an increasingly peripheral nature. Generally, the relations can be parcelled into four networks, i.e., temporal, CCC, modal and locative relations. Kortmann further shows that network-transcending changes are generally unidirectional, so that we can distinguish between source (locative, modal) and goal (CCC) domains. The CCCC or four-C relations (contrast is now commonly added as a fourth domain; see Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann 2000) constitute the prototypical goal network, i.e., endpoints of network-transcending semantic changes. Cross-linguistic polysemy patterns (Kortmann 1997: 175–211) also show that affinities are strongest between the temporal and the CCCC-networks, so that original temporal connectors often develop CCCC readings. These typological findings and frequencies are reflected in the studies in this volume. Two of the studies deal with temporal connectors: Rissanen examines the replacement of the Old English temporal subordinator oþ by till ‘till, until’ in the Early Middle English period, a counter-example to the usual stability in the field of temporal connectors; Brinton follows the rise of the adverbial conjunctions {any, each, every} time. Most of the other papers deal with prototypical goal domains, namely cause (Lenker) and, in particular, contrast/concession (Breul, González-Cruz, Molencki, Sorva), i.e., with items which have transcended their local (where, whereas) or temporal (while, since) source domain and have, in several steps, acquired a concessive meaning.

. Grammaticalization These processes commonly imply an increase in subjectification and are thus seen as prototypical instances of grammaticalization. This scenario has repeatedly been



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mentioned in the literature, but in the studies of this collection it is analysed in great detail with respect to the wider perspective of frequency patterns in balanced corpora on the one hand, and the narrow analysis of decisive bridging contexts on the other (see above for Traugott & Dasher’s “Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change” and Heine 2002). The perspective of variationist typology to connectives positions them in a variational space in which polyfunctionality and fuzziness are inherent features. A history of univerbated albeit based on the analysis of morpho-syntactic properties, for example, may permit the conclusion that we have here a straightforward case of grammaticalization. Evidence of categorial fuzziness and polyfunctionality, elicited from a wide range of digitized sources, suggests, however, that the history of this connective should rather be described in terms of two parallel processes, i.e., the development of the subordinator and that of the discourse marker (Sorva; see also Lenker on ME and EModE for). The corpus-based diachronic approach has also permitted the examination of grammaticalization vs lexicalization patterns (for a comprehensive up-to-date account of the various, often opposing views and conceptions on lexicalization and grammaticalization, see Brinton & Traugott 2005: Chapters 2 and 3). In discussing the contexts of the change in domain of where and whereas from local to concessive/contrastive, Breul focuses on the appropriateness of neo-Gricean principles as the conceptual basis for such explanations in grammaticalization theory, arguing that relevance theory is to be preferred over neo-Gricean approaches.

. Co-occurrence patterns The focus of this collection on semantic and pragmatic aspects and, in particular, its perspective on evidence above the clausal or sentential level is illustrated by Kohnen, whose analyses of co-occurrence patterns of linguistic features (see Biber 1988, 1995), i.e., of a particular set of subordinators and coordinators, can be used as a diagnostic tool for defining what he calls the “connective profile” of a text or genre. Both Kohnen and Claridge integrate corpus linguistics and historical stylistics by discussing corpus data from the perspective of genre and text type. They express an interest in the identification of general stylistic trends, either by positioning their investigation of a particular time period within the wider framework of how written discourse developed in Early Modern English texts (Claridge on conditional clauses in texts dating from the period 1640–1740 and representing the registers of politics and science), or by examining developments in two quite different genres over a long time-span (Kohnen). While Claridge discusses the dimensions of interactive vs. non-interactive (cf. Biber’s involved vs. informational) and argumentative vs. non-argumentative (cf. Biber’s persuasive vs. non-persuasive), Kohnen polarizes sermons and statutes, hypothesising that

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these two genres will reflect different degrees of orality and literacy in their use of specific sets of connectives. Meurman-Solin relates connectives to other cohesive devices in text structure by examining relative elements as anaphoric reference signals at sentence level. In addition to degree of topicality and referential accessibility, the choice of variant realizations of referential links is shown to be conditioned by the particular textstructuring properties and formulaic language use of epistolary prose. A further dimension is the finding that sequences of particular speech acts can be related to the choice or particular use of a connective (see also González-Cruz).

. Language contact Finally, the inspection of data originating from the Middle and Early Modern English periods (when English finally developed into an Ausbausprache) raises questions as to the influence of contact-induced change, which strengthens the typological orientation of current research on connectives. Thus, the role of borrowed syntax from Latin in the development of the subordinator and complementizer lest is discussed by López-Couso, and the hypothesis that the phrase all be it (that), later an atomic connective, is modelled on the Old French expression tout soit il/ce que (Sorva). Latin influence is a complex issue, and it is proposed here that some new light could be shed by drawing on multi-genre corpora including translations of Latin texts, and by examining variational paradigms of linguistic features which share a particular function in text structure from a comparative perspective.

. Theoretical and methodological synergies The rationale behind this compilation of studies can be described with reference to the theoretical and methodological synergies which are relevant and necessary for gaining a deeper understanding of the complex history of clause-combining devices, both from the perspective of a single language system and that of a comparative approach, including language contact phenomena. Such synergies can be identified in the following areas in particular: elaboration of corpus-linguistic tools for historical pragmatics, historical text-linguistics, historical stylistics, and historical typology; application of variationist principles to provide synchronic and diachronic accounts of linguistic features and systems; and integration of information about phonological, structural, syntactic and semantic properties with that acquired in micro-level analyses of discourse functions, especially as regards the framework of grammaticalization and subjectification theory.

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The ability to provide new information on clause-combining devices in the history of English is dependent on sufficiently large and representative diachronic corpora. There are still important gaps, in Late Modern English in particular, and differences between compilation principles and practices sometimes make comparisons between data drawn from different sources difficult, even impossible. In the studies in this volume, standard digital sources such as the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (HCOS), the Century of Prose Corpus (COPC), and the British National Corpus (BNC) are still used as originally constructed, but the benefits of producing tagged and/or parsed versions of at least parts of these databases, such as the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, are obvious (see Los in this volume). In addition to a number of new on-line dictionaries, most studies in this volume draw on a wide range of sources, complementing corpus data with data extracted from the Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC), the Middle English Compendium (MEC), the Literature Online (LION) database and the quotations corpus of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). In a number of articles, relatively new corpora, which have not been used as yet quite as extensively as the above-mentioned earlier-generation ones, also appear in the lists of sources, most of these being included in the ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora: the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts (Claridge), the Australian Corpus of English (López-Couso), the Newdigate Newsletters (Sorva), and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (González-Cruz, Sorva); González-Cruz and López-Couso also draw on ARCHER-2. In addition, the use of internet sources is becoming a standard (González-Cruz, Sorva). There is ample evidence in this volume of the potential of the comprehensive corpus-based inventories to provide important new information about previously unidentified variation at all levels of language use. Claridge, for instance, shows how focused corpora such as the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts (1640–1740) may permit us to analyse in great detail transition periods reflecting a process ‘to an increasingly more modern state of the language’. Corpora created with particular research questions in mind have also been compiled by extracting relevant texts from existing corpora and adding a considerable number of new texts, thus constructing a larger single-genre diachronic corpus. For example, Kohnen uses a corpus of sermons dating from Late Middle English to the late twentieth century which has been compiled using revised and extended versions of sermons in the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, extracting later sermons from the British National Corpus and the London-Lund Corpus, and increasing the size of this compilation by digitizing a number of new sermons. However, the studies with a text-linguistic rather than morpho-syntactic approach in particular also reveal some of the problems of computerized data. Corpus compilers have become increasingly aware of the fact that historical texts have

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sometimes been edited by the application of editorial principles which may reduce the validity of the data in research. It seems that this is the case especially when non-literary texts such as legal documents and letters have been edited, presumably on the assumption that the bulk of their readership would be historians. Some differences between original manuscripts and edited texts which have direct implications for the study of connectives are, for instance, that clause structure remains unrecoverable in texts in which modernisation has been resorted to in areas such as punctuation and the use of capitals (Meurman-Solin). With respect to the function of global markers of discourse structure, there are also other nonlinguistic features, such as spacing and paragraph structure, which play a role in syntactic and textual analysis and are unfortunately lost in the use of traditional computerized corpora. Since annotation in electronic corpora still largely focuses on morpho-syntax, the studies in this volume mostly retrieve information about semantic, pragmatic and text-linguistic features manually. This permits the authors to identify relevant examples reflecting change in periods of transition, and to keep track of parallel developments and continued variation in processes of change which take place over a long time-span. The chapters have been ordered to reflect focus areas ranging from more general aspects such as categorial continua (López-Couso, Los) to detailed analyses of particular connectives representing various semantic roles, i.e., connectives signalling temporal (Rissanen, Brinton), concessive/contrastive (Molencki, González-Cruz, Sorva, Breul) and causal (Lenker) relations. The last three chapters examine text-organisational aspects of connectives (Claridge on conditionals, and Meurman-Solin on relatives) and co-occurrence patterns of connectives in sermons and statutes (Kohnen), shedding new light on the evolution of genres and text types.

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Diessel, Holger (2005). ‘Competing Motivations for the Ordering of Main and Adverbial Clause’. Linguistics 43: 449–470. Ford, Cecilia (1993). Grammar in Interaction. Adverbial Clauses in American English Conversation. (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haiman, John and Sandra A. Thompson (1988). Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse. (Typological Studies in Language, 18). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Heine, Bernd (2002). ‘On the Role of Context in Grammaticalization’. In: New Reflections on Grammaticalization, ed. Gabriele Diewald and Ilse Wischer. (Typological Studies in Language, 49). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 83–101. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lehmann, Christian (1988). ‘Towards a Typology of Clause Linkage’. In: Haiman and Thompson, eds, 181–225. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Raible, Wolfgang (1992). Junktion. Eine Dimension der Sprache und ihre Realisierungsformen zwischen Aggregation und Integration. Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 1992/2. Heidelberg: Winter. Thompson, Sandra A. (1985). ‘Grammar and Written Discourse: Initial vs. Final Purpose Clauses in English’. Text 5: 55–84. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Richard Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Adverbial connectives within and beyond adverbial subordination The history of lest María José López-Couso* University of Santiago de Compostela

.

Introduction

Syntactic and semantic polyfunctionality is often mentioned as a property of a number of adverbial subordinators across languages (cf. Harris 1988: 75–76; Kortmann 1997: 58–69, 105; Bisang 1998: 759, among others). The great versatility of adverbial connectives manifests itself both intracategorially, i.e., within adverbial subordination, and extracategorially, i.e., beyond the domain of adverbial relations. Particularly interesting instances of the latter type of syntactic and semantic polyfunctionality in English are subordinators whose primary function is that of signalling certain types of adverbial relations but which, over the course of time, have developed a secondary use as declarative complementizers under specific conditions. The aim of this study is to trace the history of one of these connectives, namely lest, which to date has been almost wholly neglected in scholarly literature. Evidence will primarily be drawn from the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) and ARCHER-2. Supplementary sources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC) and the Middle

* I am grateful to the Autonomous Government of Galicia (grant no. PGIDT05PXIC20401PN), and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the European Regional Development Fund (grant no. HUM2004-00940) for generous financial support. I am also indebted to the Department of English of the University of Freiburg for granting me access to ARCHER-2 during my stay there in the summer of 2004. Thanks are also due to my colleagues Teresa Fanego and Belén Méndez-Naya who provided input at various points. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the editors of this volume and an anonymous reviewer for many valuable comments and useful suggestions on a previous version of the study.

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English Dictionary (MED), among others, will be used whenever relevant to the discussion.

. The subordinator lest in the history of English The subordinator lest goes back to the Old English phrasal connective þy læs (þe), literally ‘by-that less (that)’, a combination of the instrumental form of the demonstrative þæt, the adverb læs ‘less’ and the optional subordinating particle þe.1 In the course of time, the original multi-word subordinator gave way to the modern monomorphemic connective lest. The development involved both the eventual loss of the instrumental form of the demonstrative and the fusion of the two remaining elements of the phrase into a single morpheme through a process of univerbation.2 The detailed description of this process is beyond the purpose of the present study. Suffice it to say that non-fused formations constitute by far the most common pattern throughout the Old English period and occasionally survive in Middle English in forms such as læs þe, the lesse the or thi les the (MED s.vv. lesse conj.; thi les conj.), as in example (1): (1) Nemeð discipline of alle ðe misdades ðe Še deð, ðe las te godd take penance for all the sins that you do lest God him wraðþi, and Šie forfaren of ða rihte weiŠe! himself be-angry and you be-lost of the right way (HC a1225 Vices and Virtues, 125) ‘Do penance for all the misdeeds that you do, lest God become angry, and you go astray from the right way.’

In turn, fused formations are sporadically attested in late Old English texts, as in (2): (2) Ne sceal non swerie, læste hyre gelympe, þat hu forswerie; not shall none swear lest to-her happen that she perjure (DOEC 10th century The Benedictine Rule, 4.23.24) ‘No one shall swear, lest it happen to her that she may swear falsely;’

. I follow Mitchell (1985: § 2428) and Traugott (1992: 170–171, 221–222), among others, in taking þe as a subordinating particle. . A number of other subordinators in English have resulted from univerbation at different stages of the history of the language. Kortmann (1997: 370, n. 144) mentions the following adverbial connectives: in Old English siþþan < siþ ‘later’ + þan and eal(l)swa < eall ‘all’ + swa ‘so, as’, in Middle English whereas and although, and in Early Modern English whenever. Cf. also albeit (Sorva, this volume).

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These fused formations become the predominant form of the subordinator from Early Middle English onwards. Concerning the presence/absence of the optional particle þe in Old English times, a comprehensive survey of the DOEC shows that the variant without appended þe is, by far, the most common choice in poetry, and the preferred form in glosses of Latin texts. As regards prose, the data corroborate that the variant without þe is characteristic of early usage, while the phrase with appended þe ‘is almost a sure criterion of lateness’ (Shearin 1903: 95–96; cf. also Mitchell 1985: § 2929; Traugott 1992: 271). Thus, for example, the type without the subordinating particle is the only form occurring in Alfred’s Cura Pastoralis and Boethius, in Bede and in Laeceboc. By contrast, the form with þe is invariably found in the Catholic Homilies and the preferred variant in most Ælfrician texts and in The Benedictine Rule. There are, however, a few exceptions to this general pattern of distribution, among them Wulfstan’s Homilies, which show a divided usage between forms with and without optional þe, and, more significantly, the Blickling Homilies, where the connective does not occur with the appended particle. As in the case of other subordinators (cf. Beal 1988; Kortmann 1997: 308–309; Rissanen 1997), over the course of the Middle English period the optional particle that came to be added to the new monomorphemic connective lest. However, in the two corpora I have used, lest that clearly represents a minor variant. Only three examples have been recorded in the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, one in subperiod M4 (1420–1500) – given as (3) below – and two in E1 (1500–1570). Besides, a solitary instance (example (4) below) has been found in ARCHER-2 in subperiod 1700–1750.3 (3) But be-ware, I counsell þe, þat þou come not to þe feste, (. . .) leste þat oure Lorde Ihesu when þat he commeþ to behold þe, repreue þe, and ordeyne þe to be putt in-to euery lastynge peyne for þin evill lyvynge (HC c1450 Middle English Sermons, 18)4 ‘But beware, I advise you, of not coming to the feast, (. . .) lest our Lord Jesus, when he comes to examine you, reprove you, and ordain that you be committed to suffer the pains of hell because of your evil way of life.’ (4) But to endeavor her flight in a garb that was anything tolerable was a method not proper for her to follow, lest that some feature of Sylvia might be discov-

. All the examples of lest that that I have traced in the supplementary sources (OED, MED, Visser 1963–73) belong to the time span between the late fourteenth century and the second half of the seventeenth century. The variant seems to be particularly common in Chaucer’s works. . In this example notice also the use of optional that in the next adverbial clause of time (when þat).



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ered as she passed and entirely destroy her project. (ARCHER-2 1723 Arthur Blackmore, Luck at Last; or the Happy Unfortunate)

The analysis of the data in the Helsinki Corpus, ARCHER-2 and the supplementary sources allows us to identify two different functions of the connective lest through history: firstly, the adverbial subordinator lest, introducing clauses of negative purpose with the meaning ‘so that ... not, for fear that’; secondly, the complementizer lest, an alternative to the declarative complement-clause links that and zero in certain contexts. Instances of the former function are given in (1) to (4) above, while (5) and (6) below show lest in its complementizer use. (5) but bycause this texte of sayncte Paule is in latyn, and husbandes commonely can but lyttell laten, I fere leaste they can-not vnderstande it. (HC 1534 Fitzherbert, The Book of Husbandry, 99) (6) Perhaps, too, there was in her mind some latent dread lest an easy temper like Mark’s might not hold firmly fixed a severe resolution not immediately put into execution. (ARCHER-2 1878 Edward Eggleston, Roxy)

Table 1 below displays the distribution of the examples of lest in these two functions recorded in the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER-2.5 As the data in Table 1 show, in spite of its overall low frequency of occurrence (only 322 instances in circa 3.4 million words, the normalized frequency per 100,000 words being 9.5), the connective lest has been attested in all periods of the history of English. It seems, however, that it was somewhat more popular at the early stages of the language, its resistance to obsolescence having weakened considerably since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The decrease in use of lest as a negative purpose subordinator in post-Old English times may be related to the emergence in Middle and Early Modern English of a number of phrasal connectives serving the same function, among others an/on/in/upon/for adventure, enaunter (OED s.vv. adventure n.1.c; enaunter conj.; MED s.vv. aventure n.3; enaunter conj.), for fear (that) (OED s.v. fear n1 3b), to the intent that . . . not, to the end that . . . not, in order that . . . not, etc.6 Illustrative instances of some . No distinction is made here between the different variants of the connective throughout history, since such formal variation has proved to be immaterial to the analysis that follows. The figures therefore include both fused (least, lest) and non-fused forms (þy læs), forms with and without the particles ðe/that (þy læs þe, leste that vs. leaste), as well as different variants of the instrumental form in the earliest instances (þy, ði, þe, þæ, the, etc.). . As with other adverbial relations (Kortmann 1997: 301–302), the greatest impact on the inventory of subordinators expressing negative purpose is felt in the Middle English period. Many of the new phrasal connectives arising at this time are the result of French influence, either directly (i.e. calques) or indirectly, through the French model of forming adverbial subordinators incorporating nouns (Kortmann 1997: 307–308).

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Table 1. Subordinator lest in the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER-2 (normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Helsinki Corpus

ARCHER-2 – BrE

ARCHER-2 – AmE

TOTAL

Period

Negative Purpose

Complementizer

–850 (O1) 850–950 (O2) 950–1050 (O3) 1050–1150 (O4) 1150–1250 (M1) 1250–1350 (M2) 1350–1420 (M3) 1420–1500 (M4) 1500–1570 (E1) 1570–1640 (E2) 1640–1710 (E3) 1650–1699 1700–1749 1750–1799 1800–1849 1850–1899 1900–1949 1950–1990 1750–1799 1850–1899 1950–1990

– 44 (47.8) 71 (28.2) 16 (23.7) 18 (15.9) 1 (1.02) 16 (8.6) 7 (3.2) 24 (12.6) 29 (15.2) 16 (9.3) 13 (8.4) 6 (3.4) 8 (4.6) 3 (1.2) 6 (3.1) – 4 (2.0) 2 (1.2) 2 (1.07) 2 (1.2) 288 (8.5)

– – – – 2 (1.7) 1 (1.02) 2 (1.08) 2 (0.9) 9 (4.7) 3 (1.5) 1 (0.5) 1 (0.6) 1 (0.5) 2 (1.1) 1 (0.4) 2 (1.05) – – – 7 (3.7)7 – 34 (1.0)

of these alternative ways of expressing negative purpose in the history of English are given below: (7) With them it sits to care for their heire, Enaunter their heritage doe impaire (1579 Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Maye 77; from Visser 1963–73: §878) (8) He made them this faithful promise to the intent that they should not quaile (1555 Strype, Eccl. Mem., III. App. Xliii 122; from OED s.v. quail v1 I.3) (9) Receive the money now, for fear you ne’er see chain nor money more (1590 Shakespeare, Com. Err., III, ii, 182; from Visser 1963–73: §748) (10) His notes he cyphered with greeke characters to the end that they who waited on him should not read them (1630 Hayward Edw. VI, 9; from OED s.v. cipher v.2)

Although the six instances of the connective lest recorded in the last subperiod in ARCHER-2 (1950–1990) are dated between 1960 and 1974, my survey of the . Five out of these seven instances of the complementizer lest occur in one and the same source, namely Reverend Edward Roe’s fictional text Near to Nature’s Heart (1876).



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Table 2. Lest in contemporary British and American English (normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Negative purpose Complementizer

LOB

BROWN

FLOB

FROWN

1 (0.1) 2 (0.2)

12 (1.2) 5 (0.5)

6 (0.6) 1 (0.1)

10 (1.0) –

FLOB and FROWN corpora shows that it still occurs in contemporary English, though only occasionally, its use being considered highly formal, literary, and even ‘rather archaic’ (Quirk et al. 1985: § 8.86, cf. also § 15.48; Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1000).8 Lest constitutes therefore an exception to part of Zipf ’s (1949) Principle of Economical Specialisation, whereby the age of a lexical item in the language correlates inversely with its size and directly with its frequency.9 Furthermore, as shown in Table 2, the comparison of the LOB and FLOB with their American English counterparts BROWN and FROWN confirms Quirk et al.’s (1985: §§3.61, 14.12) assertion that lest is more current in American than in British English. Beside its presence in British and American English, the subordinator lest is also found in other varieties of English throughout the world. Thus, for example, the Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English (KCIE, texts from 1978) and the Australian Corpus of English (ACE, material from 1986) contain 5 and 9 occurrences respectively of connective lest,10 both in its adverbial subordinator function (3 and 8 instances) and in its complementizer function (2 and 1 examples). As the data in Tables 1 and 2 reveal, adverbial clauses of negative purpose have been the basic domain of the subordinator lest through the history of English (89.4 per cent of the lest-clauses recorded in the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER2). In Kortmann’s (1997) detailed typological study of adverbial subordinators in European languages, negative purpose is identified as one of the 32 interclausal relations into which the adverbial semantic space can be divided.11 More specifically, it belongs to the group of what Kortmann calls CCC interclausal relations, . Lest has been found to occur in a wide variety of genres, ranging from religion and science to press editorial, belles lettres and fictional texts. . As Kortmann (1997: 134–135) notes, almost all of the monomorphemic adverbial subordinators of Present-Day English go back to Old English and are among the top 3,000 entries in the frequency lists of the BROWN and LOB corpora. Lest is definitely not within this set of high-frequency adverbial connectives. . The normalized frequencies per 100,000 words are 0.5 and 0.9 respectively. . In contrast to Kortmann’s (1997) fine-grained division of the internal structure of the domain of adverbial relations, Thompson & Longacre (1985) do not distinguish between affirmative and negative purpose in their typological study of adverbial clauses. Purpose ‘in order that (not)’ is one of the 11 basic types of interclausal relations identified by these scholars.

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i.e., causal, conditional, concessive and related circumstantial relations. The precise description of negative purpose provided by Kortmann is the following: ‘lest p, q’ or ‘q, in order that not p’, where not p is an intended result or consequence of q that is yet to be achieved (Kortmann 1997: 86, 1998: 466). As all other negative relations, such as negative condition or negative cause, negative purpose is a cognitively complex relation which stands on the periphery of the domain of adverbial subordination (Kortmann 1997: 152ff.).12 The very low proportion of the readings of negative purpose provided by Kortmann (1997: 329, Table 10.14) for the different periods of English testifies to the non-basicness of such a relation: 1.1 per cent in Old English, 0.7 per cent in Middle English, 1.6 per cent in Early Modern English and 2.7 per cent in Present-Day English. The cognitive complexity of the conceptual space of negative purpose may also go a long way towards explaining why many languages make use of phrasal expressions of the type in order that . . . not for this semantic domain instead of having specific one-word subordinators such as lest.13 English, therefore, does not fulfil Kortmann’s ‘Euroversal 18’ (1997: 281, 1998: 544), according to which ‘[t]he overwhelming majority of the European languages which predominantly or exclusively make use of adverbial subordinators do not have any adverbial subordinator for the (exclusive or primary) expression of Concomitance, Manner and Negative Purpose’. However, as the data in Table 1 evince, the range of relations expressed by lest expanded over the course of time, and the subordinator came to assume a different connective function, namely that of a finite declarative complementizer, thus entering into variation with the two major complement-clause links that and zero. This expansion of lest outside its original domain in adverbial subordination is not an isolated development in English. A number of connectives prototypically introducing other clause types, such as how (that), but (that), (as) if, (as) though, among others, have come to be used as finite declarative complementizers since . In Kortmann’s view, negative purpose is perhaps even more complex than negative condition. This would explain why ‘all European languages which have an adverbial subordinator for the signalling of Negative Purpose (e.g. English lest) also have an adverbial subordinator for the signalling of Negative Condition (e.g. English unless), but not vice versa’ (1997: 284). Lexicalized markers of negative cause are even rarer cross-linguistically; negative cause would thus rank even lower in the hierarchy of negative adverbial relations (Kortmann 1997: 369, n. 136). . Examples of one-word negative purpose connectives, besides English lest, are ada in the Austronesian languages Toqabaqita and Lau (cf. Lichtenberk 1995: 294–306), de/dee in Fijian (also an Austronesian language; cf. Dixon 2002: 86) and tawa in Daga (a language spoken in Papua New Guinea; cf. Thompson & Longacre 1985: 188). According to Lichtenberk (1995: 325, n. 8), connectives of this kind are particularly common in the Oceanic group of Austronesian languages.



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Old English times. Illustrative examples from the Helsinki Corpus are given in (11) to (14) below. (11) And the eyes of both of them were opened, that they vnderstode how that they were naked (HC 1530 W. Tyndale, The Old Testament, III, 1G) (12) For the fyrst martyn luther can not denye. but this promesse is made vnto the vnyuersall chyrche (HC 1521 J. Fischer, Sermons, 1, 314) (13) and to shelter the Scholars against rainy weather, and that they may not injure the Schoole in times of play, it were good if some part of the Court were sheded, or cloystered over (HC 1660 C. Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art, 223) (14) he that dothe more expende, thanne his goodes wyll extende, meruayle it shall not be, thoughe he be greued with pouertee (HC 1534 A. Fitzherbert, The Book of Husbandry, 99)

However, while the variation between that and zero has been a favourite topic in complementation studies (Elsness 1982, 1984; Warner 1982; Fanego 1990; Rissanen 1991; Finegan & Biber 1995; López-Couso 1996, among others), very little attention has been devoted to these minor links. Notable exceptions are Warner (1982: 180–188), which deals with how meaning ‘that’ in the Wyclifite Sermons, López-Couso & Méndez-Naya (1996, 1998, 2001) on the history of declarative how, but (that) and if and though, and Bender & Flickinger (1999) on as if, as though and like.14 My analysis of the data shows that, as in the case of its companion minor complementizers, the use of lest as a complement-clause connective qualifies as a subsidiary function (10.6 per cent of the lest-clauses in the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER-2). This secondary use of the subordinator is constrained by strong contextual restrictions, the complementizer lest being confined to clauses dependent on predicates of fearing, i.e., those expressing ‘an attitude of fear or concern [on the part of the experiencer subject] that the complement proposition will be or has been realized’ (Noonan 1985: 119). In the two corpora, lest-complements have been attested with the predicates listed in Table 3. A similar picture results from the analysis of the instances of the complementizer lest in the supplementary sources, where lest-complements are invariably found after predicates of fearing. Such a close connection between predicates of fearing and the complementizer lest does not preclude, however, the selection of the major complementizers that and zero. Thus, for example, in subperiod E1 in . Passing references to some of these minor links, either for Present-Day English or for earlier stages of the language, are made in Lakoff (1968: 69, n. 7), Huddleston (1971: 177–178), Mitchell (1985: §§1960–1961), Noonan (1985: 104), McCawley (1988: 143) and Fanego (1990: 19–20).

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Table 3. Predicates selecting lest-complements in the Helsinki Corpus and ARCHER-2 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

be afeared (OED s.v. afeard, ppl.a.) be afraid be feared be frighted (OED s.v. fright v.) be in a state of terror be ofdred (OED s.v. ofdrede v.) be offeared (OED s.v. offear v.) doubt (n.) (OED s.v. doubt n. 3.a. ‘apprehension, dread, fear’) doubt (v.) (OED s.v. doubt v. II.5. ‘to dread, fear, be afraid of ’) dread (n.), 2 exs. dread (v.), 4 exs. fear (n.), 3 exs. fear (v.), 11 exs. fearful ferd(e) (n.) (OED s.v. ferd n.2 , ‘fear, terror’) suspicion (OED s.v. suspicion n. 4 ‘surmise of something future; expectation; esp. expectation or apprehension of evil’) – tremble (OED s.v. tremble v. 1.b ‘to be affected with dread or apprehension, or with any feeling that is accompanied by trembling’), 2 exs.

the Helsinki Corpus (1500–1570), the verbal predicate fear occurs on six occasions with that-complements and zero is chosen in four instances, while lest is selected in the remaining seven occurrences. Similarly, in subperiod E2 (1570–1640), finite complement clauses dependent on this predicate are introduced by that (4 examples) and by zero (8 instances), as well as by lest (2 examples). Instances of the variation between lest and the major complementizers that and zero are recorded even in the language used by one and the same author within the same text, as shown by examples (15) and (16) from More’s personal letters, and (17) and (18) from the diary of Richard Madox. (15) For therunto I had said to them, that I ferid lest the Kinges Highnes wolde as they saide take displeasure inough towarde me for the only refusal of the other (HC 1534 The Correspondence of Thomas More, Letter to Daughter, 504) (16) Than said my Lorde of Westminster to me, that how so euer the matter semed vnto mine owne minde, I had cause to feare that mine owne minde was erronious, when I see the great counsail of the realme determine of my mynde the contrary, and that therefore I ought to chaunge my conscience (HC 1534 The Correspondence of Thomas More, Letter to Daughter, 506) (17) I wrot by hym, to sir Frances and wold have gon also but our governowr wold not permit, becaus he feareth lest any wis comendashon shold go to Sir Fraunsis (HC 1582 R. Madox, An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls, 139) (18) The master towld me Alderman Barnes thowght our generaul but a folish flattering fretting creeper and so I fear Ø he wil prov (HC 1582 R. Madox, An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls, 139)



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Complementizer selection in such and similar cases may well be motivated by the existence of potential semantic differences between complementizers. This is, in fact, what can be inferred from the OED entry for the complement-taking predicate afraid (ppl.a. 2.c), where it is stated that clauses introduced by lest express ‘a deprecated contingency of which there is danger’, while those with that as complementizer refer to either ‘an unpleasant possibility’ (when the verb phrase is subjunctive) or ‘an unpleasant probability or contemplated reality’ (when the selected mood is the indicative).

. From negative purpose lest to complementizer lest As seen in Section 2 above, the subordinator lest originated as an adverbial connective of negative purpose, but it soon developed a secondary function as an equivalent (or near-equivalent) of the finite declarative complementizers that and zero selected after predicates of fearing. A number of interrelated questions arise in this process of expansion of lest beyond its original domain in adverbial subordination: How did its extension from adverbial clauses to complement clauses come about? Why was a rather infrequent subordinator (and one belonging to a periphery, non-basic adverbial relation) such as lest the target of this change? And why has it always been restricted to predicates of fearing? Negative purpose clauses introduced by lest can be characterized as expressing a prospective event or state which is not desired, something to be prevented, to be guarded against. In other words, adverbial lest-clauses inherently convey the idea of apprehension, anxiety, worry, danger or fear that some undesirable situation may obtain, the main clause describing the steps that should be taken in order to avoid such a contingency. In turn, complement clauses introduced by lest have been constrained all through the history of English to occur after predicates of fearing, which are characterized semantically by expressing a fear or concern on the part of the subject that the proposition in the complement clause has come or will come true (cf. Section 2 above). There exists, therefore, a close semantic proximity between the two types of constructions; on the one hand, sentences containing lest-complements convey a negative feeling about the realization of the complement proposition; on the other, the idea of anxiety or fear is inherent in constructions involving adverbial clauses of negative purpose introduced by lest. Such a semantic similarity may have contributed to the selection of lest from among the inventory of adverbial subordinators in order to be used as a complementizer after predicates of this particular semantic class. In this connection, I agree with Noonan in that ‘when a form functions as a complementizer and some-

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thing else, its meaning outside the complement system will likely be related to its use in complementation’ (1985: 104).15 In spite of the close semantic affinity between the two constructions at issue, adverbial and complement clauses are very far apart in syntactic terms. While adverbial clauses typically express satellite relations and belong to the periphery of sentence structure, complement clauses function as arguments of a predicate and, therefore, show a higher degree of integration into the matrix (cf. Lehmann’s (1988) ‘embedding’). The crucial question then is: how was this enormous gap between minimally integrated adverbial clauses and maximally integrated complement clauses bridged? In the light of the evidence available, the expansion of lest from the domain of adverbial subordination to complementation may have developed in the way described below. In all probability, the original construction involved a negative purpose clause introduced by the Old English adverbial subordinator þy læs (þe), as in (19) below. The only possible reading for this and similar instances is that of negative purpose, the idea of fear being merely a contextual inference. Thus, in (19) the relation to be established cognitively between the main clause and the subordinate clause is the following: The poor are to be given comfort and cheer, so that they do not become disheartened by their hardships, since I fear that they may lose hope because of their afflictions. (19)

Ða wædlan sint to frefranne & to retanne, ðylæs hi sien to the poor-men are to comfort & to cheer lest they be too ormode for hira earfeðum. despairing for their hardships (DOEC 9th century King Alfred’s West Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, 26.181.6)

A close analysis of the occurrences of the connective lest in the DOEC reveals, however, that in a handful of Old English examples the idea of fear and undesired result manifests itself in the overt presence of a predicate of fearing in the context preceding the lest-clause, as ondrædan in (20) below. Although the primary reading of instances of this kind may still be that of negative purpose (‘he, therefore, who intends to speak wisely ought to fear greatly, so that his words do not confound the unity of those who listen’), example (20) can also take an alternative reading: ‘he, therefore, who intends to speak wisely ought to be very much afraid that his words may confound the unity of those who listen’.

. Clear examples of the existence of such a connection are if and though in English (LópezCouso & Méndez-Naya 2001) or gan in Irish (Noonan 1985: 105).

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(20) Se ðonne se ðe fundige wislice to sprecanne, ondræde he him he therefore who intend wisely to speak fear he himself suiðlice, ðylæs his spræc gescynde ða anmodnesse ðara ðe greatly lest his speech confound the unity of-those that ðærto hlystað thereto listen (DOEC 9th century King Alfred’s West Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, 15.93.23)

According to the latter interpretation, ðylæs in example (20) would function as a complementizer introducing an object clause dependent on the verb of fearing ondrædan (cf. Mitchell 1985: §1960 for two similar instances). Examples of the type illustrated in (21) below seem to have played a decisive role in the expansion of lest from adverbial to complement clauses: (21) Alyse me of Esaues handa, mines deliver me from Esau’s hands my swyðe ondræde, þe læs ðe he cume & much fear lest he come & cildum children (DOEC c.1000 Genesis, 32.11)

broðor, for þam ðe brother because ofslea ðas modra kill the mothers

ic hyne I him mid heora with their

As in the case of (20) above, the sentence may allow a twofold reading: (a) on the one hand, the þe læs ðe-clause can be interpreted as an adverbial clause of negative purpose: ‘Deliver me from the hands of Esau, my brother, because I fear him very much, lest he come and kill the mothers with their children’; (b) on the other, the sequence can also be viewed as involving what Warner (1982: 91–99) calls a “CLAN-construction” (‘clause and nominal’). This is a special appositional type in which ‘a NP is followed by an associated finite clause or infinitive which apparently specifies further the respect in which what was said about the NP holds true’ (Warner 1982: 91). In such cases, noun phrase and clause are parallel in grammatical function, both ‘fulfilling the selectional and subcategorizational requirements of a single position in the matrix construction’ (Warner 1982: 92). The close relationship between clause and noun phrase is established by means of the presence in the former of a pronoun which refers back to the latter. Examples (22) and (23) below with that as a complementizer illustrate the structure at issue in Old English and Middle English. (22) Ic wundrige ðe snoterne wer, þæt ðu ðyssere lare fylian I wonder you prudent man that you this teaching to-follow wylt want

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(late 10th/early 11th century Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, i. 588. 28; from Mitchell 1985: §1969) ‘I wonder at you, prudent man, (I wonder) that you want to follow this teaching’. (23) But he knewe wel þes Jewis. þat þei han not Goddis love in hem but he knew well these Jews that they have not God’s love in them (c1400 Wyclifite Sermons, ii.65.22; from Warner 1982: 92) ‘But he knew these Jews well, (he knew well) that they do not have God’s love in them’.

In both cases, the CLAN-construction can be fractionated into two separate statements which seem to be true in context, one containing the noun phrase (Ic wundrige ðe; he knewe wel þes Jewis), the other containing the complement clause (Ic wundrige þæt ðu ðyssere lare fylian wylt; he knewe wel þat þei han not Goddis love in hem). According to Warner (1982: 92, 96), structures of this kind seem to have been especially appropriate in rendering the Latin Vulgate, which was in turn influenced by the Hebrew original. However, Warner also shows that in the Wyclifite Sermons the CLAN-construction is ‘free from direct dependence on Latin’ (1982: 96). An analysis parallel to the one provided for (22) and (23) above could be proposed for example (21): both the pronominal form hyne, coreferential with the subject of the þe læs ðe-clause (he), and the clause introduced by the connective þe læs ðe would function as complements of the predicate of fearing ondrædan: ic hyne swyðe ondræde (‘I fear him very much’) and ic swyðe ondræde þe læs ðe he cume & ofslea ðas modra mid heora cildum (‘I fear very much that he may come and kill the mothers with their children’). According to Warner (1982: 95), there seems to be no restriction as to the choice of complementizer in CLAN-constructions. Thus, besides that-complements, as in (22) and (23) above, to-infinitive clauses and wh-complements are attested (for instances, see Warner 1982: 92–95). As example (21) proves, the complementizer lest could also be added to the inventory of links allowed in structures of the CLAN-type. Notice that the occurrence of the predicate ondrædan is indispensable for interpreting the þe læs ðe-construction as a complement. If we dispense with the ondrædan-clause, as in (21a) below, the inference of fear is still present, but the only possible reading for the clause introduced by þe læs ðe is that of negative purpose. (21) a.

Alyse me of Esaues handa, mines broðor, þe læs ðe he cume & ofslea ðas modra mid heora cildum.

Interestingly, a similar situation is found in Latin, where ne functions both as the prototypical connective introducing adverbial clauses of negative purpose (Wood-

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cock 1959: 108–109; Ernout & Thomas 1964: 342–343) and as a complementizer selected after verbs of fearing (‘verba timendi’), such as metuo, timeo, vereor, etc. (Woodcock 1959: 100; Ernout & Thomas 1964: 306–307).16 Therefore, instances such as (24) below, the Latin original of the Old English example in (21), also allow a double reading, and, as is the case with its Old English counterpart, the analysis of ne as a complementizer relies heavily on the overt presence of the predicate of fearing timeo. (24) Erue me de manu fratis mei Esau, quia ualde eum timeo: ne forte ueniens percutiat matrem cum filiis.

The close parallelism between the Latin and the Old English structures just discussed can be taken as an indication of potential Latin influence on Old English texts.17 It may also be the case, however, that the expansion of an originally adverbial subordinator of negative purpose to complementizer function after predicates of fearing is not a language-specific phenomenon, but rather a more general tendency which reflects the inferences that humans draw in the act of communication and as a result of which different languages may have developed along similar lines (cf. Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 302). In fact, the cross-linguistic validity of the change from negative purpose connective to complementizer is proved by the data in Lichtenberk (1995), who shows that similar independent developments have taken place in several other languages throughout the world, including Toqabaqita (an Austronesian language spoken in the Solomon Islands) and Diyari (an Australian language), among others (cf. Lichtenberk 1995 and the references given therein). In these languages, as in English, the negative purpose use of the connective (the ‘avertive’ function in Lichtenberk’s terms) historically precedes the complementizer use (Lichtenberk’s ‘fear’ function). Examples of the type illustrated in (21) above may represent the ground for the extension of lest to complement constructions such as those in (25) and (26) below from the Helsinki Corpus, where negative purpose, if at all present, is a mere subsidiary meaning, and the primary reading of the lest-clauses is that of complements of the predicates is offearet and beon ofdred respectively. . An alternative to ne in negative purpose constructions is ut ne, while affirmative purpose clauses are introduced by ut. In turn, complement clauses which are negative select either ut or ne non, the former being commoner in Early Latin. . In point of fact, Latin influence is patent in other occurrences of þy læs in Old English. For example, þy læs is frequently selected in glosses to render Latin prohibitions with ne plus a subjunctive verb phrase (Woodcock 1959: 96; Ernout & Thomas 1964: 230–233). Compare Latin dixisti ne timeas quia ego sum dominus deus tuus and Old English ðu cuoede ðy læs ðu ondrede forðon ic am drihten god ðin (DOEC 10th century Durham Ritual 1, 20.16), ‘You said: Do not fear, because I am God, your Lord.’

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(25) Warschipe þt aa is waker is offearet lest sum gatekeeper that always is watchful is afraid lest one fortruste him. & feole o slepe. & forŠeme his warde be-over-confident himself & fall asleep & neglect his watch (HC c1225 Sawles Warde, 169) ‘The gatekeeper who is always vigilant is afraid that the watch may be overconfident, and fall asleep, and neglect his guard’. (26) Alswa þe helle weorrur ne asaileð nan wið fondunge. þe he also the hell warrior not tempts none with temptations that he haueð in his hond; ah deð þeo þe he naueð nawt. has in his hand but does (=tempts) those that he not-has not for þi leoue sustren hwa se nis nawt asailet; ha mei therefore dear sisters whoever not-is not tempted he may sare beon ofdred leste ha beo biwunnen exceedingly be afraid lest he be conquered (HC c1230 Ancrene Wisse, 117) ‘Also the warrior of hell does not incite with temptations those he has in his hands, but those he does not. Therefore, dear sisters, he who is not tempted should be very much afraid that he may be conquered’.

Evidence in favour of considering the lest-clauses in such and similar instances as cases of complementation is found in the variation between lest and the major complement-clause link that in different manuscripts of the same Middle English text. Consider in this connection examples (27a–b) – a CLAN-construction – and (28a–b) below (from MED, s.v. lest(e) conj. 3.a). (27) a.

Adrad ich am of þe feondene miŠte, laste heo with sunne me afraid I am of the devil’s power lest he with sin me schende destroy b. Adrad ich am of þe feondene miŠte, þat heo with sunne me schende (c1300 South English Legendary: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 613; Ld and CorpC manuscripts) ‘I am afraid of the power of the devil, that he may destroy me with sin’.

(28) a.

I drede lest þei wol him spille I fear lest they will him kill b. I drede þat þai wol him spille (a1400 Cursor Mundi, 12438; Trin-C and Göt manuscripts) ‘I am afraid that they will kill him’.

Examples like these prove that what started simply as conversational implicatures have now become conventionalized. This process of conventionalization results in a situation of extracategorial polyfunctionality: lest has developed a new function,

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that of a finite declarative complementizer, independent of its original meaning as a negative purpose marker. This extension of lest from adverbial subordination to complementation entails the gradual loss of the original semantic, pragmatic and syntactic features of the connective and the acquisition of novel properties characteristic of its new function. This becomes particularly evident in examples such as (29) and (30) below. In example (29) the lest-clause stands in apposition to the noun phrase object of the verbal predicate dread, the negative purpose reading being ruled out. Similarly, the earlier meaning of the connective does not make sense any longer in example (30), where the clause introduced by lest functions as a complement in a predicative structure. (29) (. . .), though he very much dreaded one effect it might have upon her, viz., lest her too-great sense of her own meanness should make her disbelieve the inclinations of a gentleman (ARCHER-2 1723 Arthur Blackmore, Luck at Last, or the Happy Unfortunate) (30) Her dread was lest he should hear it (ARCHER-2 1873 Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes)

. Concluding remarks The foregoing discussion has shown that the polyfunctionality of adverbial connectives in English is not confined to the domain of adverbial relations. The history of the subordinator lest convincingly proves that adverbial connectives can also be versatile in terms of multi-category membership. As seen in Section 2, negative purpose has been the basic domain of the subordinator lest from Old English to the present day, although, through time, the connective developed a secondary use as a finite declarative complementizer. The evidence presented in Section 3 indicates that, in all probability, the expansion of lest from its original function within adverbial subordination to complementation structures involving predicates of fearing stemmed from the semantic proximity between the two types of constructions. Moreover, it has been argued that the transition from adverbial lest to unequivocal instances of the complementizer lest may have taken place via an intermediate stage with ambiguous CLAN-constructions serving as bridging contexts.

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Sources ACE = Australian Corpus of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CDROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. ARCHER-2 = Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan, comp. (1990–1993/2002). A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers 2. University of Northern Arizona, University of Southern California, University of Freiburg, University of Helsinki and Uppsala University. BROWN = A Standard Corpus of Present-Day Edited American English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. DOEC = Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (1997). Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies. http://www.doe.utoronto.ca FLOB = Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. FROWN = Freiburg-Brown Corpus of American English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. KCIE = Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. LOB = Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. MED = Middle English Dictionary (2002), ed. Francis McSparren. Michigan: University of Michigan. OED = Oxford English Dictionary (2000–), ed. John Simpson. Third ed. (in progress, online).

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References Auwera, Johan van der, ed. (1998). Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology. EUROTYP, 3). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Beal, Joan (1988). ‘Goodbye to all ‘that’? The History and Present Behaviour of Optional ‘that”. In: An Historic Tongue. Studies in English Linguistics in Memory of Barbara Strang, ed. Graham Nixon and John Honey. London: Routledge, 49–66. Bender, Emily and Dan Flickinger (1999). ‘Diachronic Evidence for Extended Argument Structure’. In: Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics, ed. Gosse Bouma, Erhard Hinrichs, Geert-Jan M. Kruijff and Richard Oehrle. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information, 3–19. Bisang, Walter (1998). ‘Adverbiality: The View from the Far East’. In: van der Auwera, ed., 641– 812. Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca (1994). The Evolution of Grammar. Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dixon, Robert Malcolm Ward (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elsness, Johan (1982). ‘That v. Zero Connective in English Nominal Clauses’. ICAME News 6: 1–45. Elsness, Johan (1984). ‘That or Zero? A Look at the Choice of Object Clause Connective in a Corpus of American English’. English Studies 65: 519–533. Ernout, Alfred and François Thomas (1964[1951]). Syntaxe latine. Second ed. Paris: Klincksieck. Fanego, Teresa (1990). ‘Finite Complement Clauses in Shakespeare’s English I and II’. Studia Neophilologica 62: 3–21; 129–149. Finegan, Edward and Douglas Biber (1995). ‘That and Zero Complementisers in Late Modern English: Exploring ARCHER from 1650–1990’. In: The Verb in Contemporary English. Theory and Description, ed. Bas Aarts and Charles F. Meyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 241–257. Haiman, John and Sandra A. Thompson, eds (1988). Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse (Typological Studies in Language, 18). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Harris, Martin B. (1988). ‘Concessive Clauses in English and Romance’. In: Haiman and Thompson, eds, 71–99. Huddleston, Rodney (1971). The Sentence in Written English: A Syntactic Study Based on an Analysis of Scientific Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination. A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kortmann, Bernd (1998). ‘Adverbial Subordinators in the Languages of Europe’. In: van der Auwera, ed., 457–561. Kytö, Merja, comp. (1996 [1991]). Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. Third ed. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. Lakoff, Robin (1968). Abstract Syntax and Latin Complementation. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press.

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Lehmann, Christian (1988). ‘Towards a Typology of Clause Linkage’. In: Haiman and Thompson, eds, 181–225. Lichtenberk, Frantisek (1995). ‘Apprehensional Epistemics’. In: Modality in Grammar and Discourse, ed. Joan Bybee and Suzanne Fleischman. (Typological Studies in Language, 32). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 293–327. López-Couso, María José (1996). ‘That/Zero Variation in Restoration English’. In: English Historical Linguistics 1994, ed. Derek Britton. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 135). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 271–286. López-Couso, María José and Belén Méndez-Naya (1996). ‘How to Consider how: On how as a Declarative Complementiser in the History of English’. In: Proceedings of the XIX International Conference of the Spanish Association for English and American Studies (AEDEAN), ed. Javier Pérez-Guerra et al. Vigo: Universidade de Vigo, 347–352. López-Couso, María José and Belén Méndez-Naya (1998). ‘On Minor Declarative Complementisers in the History of English: The Case of but’. In: Advances in English Historical Linguistics, ed. Jacek Fisiak and Marcin Krygier. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 112). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 161–171. López-Couso, María José and Belén Méndez-Naya (2001). ‘On the History of if - and thoughlinks with Declarative Complement Clauses’. English Language and Linguistics 5: 93–107. McCawley, James D. (1988). The Syntactic Phenomena of English. 2 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Noonan, Michael (1985). ‘Complementation’. In: Shopen, ed., Vol. 2, 42–140. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rissanen, Matti (1991). ‘On the History of That/Zero as Object Clause Links in English’. In: English Corpus Linguistics. Studies in Honour of Jan Svartvik, ed. Karin Aijmer and Bengt Altenberg. London: Longman, 272–289. Rissanen, Matti (1997). ‘Optional THAT with Subordinators in Middle English’. In: Language History and Linguistic Modelling. A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th Birthday, ed. Raymond Hickey and Stanislaw Puppel. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 101). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 373–383. Shearin, Hubert Gibson (1903). The Expression of Purpose in Old English Prose. (Yale Studies in English, 18). New York: Holt. Shopen, Timothy, ed. (1985). Language Typology and Syntactic Description. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Sandra A. and Robert E. Longacre (1985). ‘Adverbial Clauses’. In: Shopen, ed., Vol. 2, 171–234. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. I: The Beginnings to 1066, ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 168–289. Visser, Fredericus Th. (1963–1973). An Historical Syntax of the English Language. Vols. I–III. Leiden: Brill. Warner, Anthony (1982). Complementation and the Methodology of Historical Syntax. London: Croom Helm. Woodcock, Eric C. (1959). A New Latin Syntax. London: Methuen. Zipf, George Kingsley (1949). Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An Introduction to Human Ecology. Cambridge/Mass.: Addison-Wesley Press.

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To as a connective in the history of English Bettelou Los* Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

.

Introduction

The cognitive motivation of the grammaticalization of infinitival to is described by Hopper and Traugott in their grammaticalization textbook as follows: The use of an allative-dative marker as a complementizer is common when (as in English want to V, etc.) the tense of the complement is determined by the nature of the main clause verb (Noonan 1985: 47–8), perhaps especially when the infinitive suggests an action which is potential or future. It is possible to see in this kind of phenomenon a common tendency toward a mental association of “prospective” space with “prospective” time. The pointing forward of the allative-dative to goal is inevitably linked to the “forwardness in time” of the complement of want. Most verbs expressing commands, requests, expectations, wishes, etc. have as part of their semantics a goal, whether another person’s action, or a desired object (. . . ). (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 189)

The aim of this study is to decompress the grammaticalization of infinitival to into a number of distinct stages, paying particular attention to the changes in syntax and morphology and relating these to Lehmann’s (1988) parameters of clause linkage.

* I would like to thank the editors of this volume and two anonymous referees as well as the audience of the workshop “Clausal Connectives in the History of English” at ICEHL 13, University of Vienna, 23–28 August 2004, for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper.

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. The categorial status of the to-infinitive in Old English . The to-infinitive is not a prepositional phrase In order to chart the development of infinitival to as a connective from Old English onwards, it is important to establish the category of the construction in that period. I will argue that the to-infinitive is verbal, and can therefore be the core of a clause already in Old English. This is an unsual position to take, as many authors have argued that the to-infinitive did not change category from PP to clause until Middle English (Lightfoot 1979; Kageyama 1992; Van Gelderen 1993; Jarad 1997) and that the change was triggered by the loss of the old dative inflection on the infinitive. Positing this change from P to, say, T (for Tense; e.g. Van Gelderen 1993) at this late stage has a number of attractions: not only does it show grammaticalization “in action”, as it were, but it could explain changes in other infinitival constructions that were first attested in Middle English: (i) the emergence of passive to-infinitives, as in (1), (ii) the emergence of to-infinitives containing Tense, or perhaps better, Aspect (primarily perfective have), as in (2), (iii) the emergence of to-infinitives with independent negation, as in (3), and (iv) the emergence of Exceptional Case-Marking constructions with to-infinitives, as in (4). (1) Hwi ne hihi we forte beon ifulhet (Kathe, 35.256; d’Ardenne 1977: 24–35) ‘Why don’t we hasten to be baptized?’ (2) Efter þat he wende forte habben idon al þat he wilnede. (Julia, 98.42) ‘After that he intended to have done all that he desired.’ (3) . . . Y say to Šou, to nat swere on al manere. (Wyclif, Matthew, 5.34) ‘I say to you not to curse in all ways.’ (4) þet hi makeþ ham-zelue to by hyealde foles. (Ayenbi, I, 259.477) ‘that they make themselves to be considered fools.’

Attestations of Old English to-infinitives coordinated with to-PPs are often presented in the literature as evidence of PP-status on the assumption that ‘any reasonable theory of coordination’ (Kageyama 1992: 97) requires some sort of parallel structure condition as part of Universal Grammar: both coordinates must be identical in form (i.e. category) and function. Descriptive grammarians have pointed out that this definition is too restricted: the only condition on coordination is similarity of function, not of category (see the examples in Greenbaum & Quirk 1990: 278 and the statement in Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1267 that ‘the coordinates do not have to be of the same syntactic category’). The fact that toinfinitives are found coordinated with a range of different constructions in Old English, including PPs and clauses, does not say anything about their category.

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Some authors have concluded from Middle English to-infinitives, which show more nominal behaviour than they do in Present-Day English, that the Old English to-infinitive must have been more nominal still (see e.g., Lightfoot 1979: 191–193), on the assumption that the to-infinitive shows straightforward progression from fully nominal in Old English to fully verbal in Present-Day English. The nominal behaviour of the to-infinitive in Middle English, however, is an innovation (Los 2005: 161–162). More substantial evidence suggestive of a change in the transition between the Old and Middle English periods is offered by the form of the to-infinitive, more specifically the fact that infinitival to is increasingly spelled te in Middle English, and by the presence of a dative inflection on the infinitive which is lost in Middle English. Te-spellings for to are becoming more frequent in Middle English (see e.g., the figures in Fischer 2000: 156). Phonetic reduction of a full vowel to schwa is a typical concomitant effect of grammaticalization, as the loss of lexical content leads to loss of stress. There are, however, occasional te spellings already in Early Old English, as in (5) (te in bold): (5) Hwæt we eac wiernað urum cildum urra peninga mid to lo we also prevent our children our money with to plegianne, ðæm ilcum ðe we eft tiochiað urne eard & play the same that we afterwards intend our land and urne eðel & ure ierfe eall ætsomne to our property and our inheritance all together to prep te forlætanne . . . to inf-element leave (CP, 50.391.27)1 ‘For the same reason we do not allow our children to play with our money, even though they are the same ones that we afterwards intend to leave all our land and our property and our inheritance to . . . ’

The West-Saxon Schriftsprache in Old English exhibited a far greater consistency in its spellings than the orthographies of the Middle English dialects that followed it; for this reason, the greater frequency of te spellings in Middle English is far more likely to be due to the loss of an orthographical standard rather than indicative of a change in the status of infinitival to. Note that the infinitival element is reduced in (5), whereas the preposition that precedes it, to which it is historically related, is still written out in full. The preposition and the infinitival marker had apparently already gone their different ways by the time of King Alfred. . Throughout this paper, the reference to an Old English text follows the system of the DOEC and the short titles as employed in Healey & Venezky (1985).

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A final piece of evidence in favour of a PP-analysis is suggested by the fact that Old English to-infinitives exhibit a dative ending, as in te forlætanne in (5). The dative ending is what we would expect if infinitival to is still a preposition in Old English, as the preposition governs this case. However, infinitival to and the infinitival ending do not show the same behaviour as unequivocal prepositions and the case endings they license. When two PPs are coordinated, the second preposition does not have to be repeated; although the second coordinate gearcunge in (6) lacks to, it still appears with the correct case ending: (6) Hwilc fulluht sealde he? His agen fulluht. on nanre synne which baptism performed he his own baptism on no gen sin gen forgifenysse. ac to behreowsunge. and gearcunge. to cristes pardon but to repentance dat and preparation dat to Christ’s fulluhte; baptism (ÆCHom II, 3 25.208) ‘Which baptism did he perform? His own baptism, not as a pardon for any sin but as repentance and preparation for Christ’s baptism.’

A search of the prepositions to ‘to’ and mid ‘with’ in Ælfric’s work showed that the second preposition was omitted in about half of all coordinations; its absence or presence did not affect the case of the second NP. In contrast, coordinated toinfinitives always require the second to to be present for the ending to appear on the second infinitive. There are cases where to is not present, but then the inflection is not there either.2 This behaviour could be interpreted as a difference in scope: the preposition apparently has scope over both NPs, whereas the scope of infinitival to is limited to the infinitive that immediately follows it. To is in fact inseparable from the infinitive, in a way that completely parallels the situation in Modern Dutch and German, where te and zu have been analyzed by some scholars as a clitic or prefix on a par with ge- (Bennis 1986; Haspelmath 1989: 296). These scope results show that the preposition to and the infinitival marker to have gone their separate ways by the time of recorded Old English. In the next section I will present some positional and structural evidence that cannot be accounted for by a PP-analysis but which points to the structure being a clause (as in Present-Day English). If this analysis is correct, the case-ending is a pointer to the origins of the to-infinitive but not to its category in Old English.

. Fischer (1996b) has argued conclusively that the second infinitive is a bare infinitive in that case. Note that Old English to-infinitives are not bare infinitives with to added, but a separate development, as discussed in Section 3.5; the situation may be different for Middle English.

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Table 1. The position of to-PPs and to-infinitives as goal arguments in the DOEC Complement

Percentage Vfinite – to X

Percentage to X – Vfinite

To-PP To-infinitive

59 (373) 98 (50)

41 (259) 2 (1)

. Evidence for clausal status There is some functional overlap between to-infinitives and to-PPs which point to their common descent: both can appear as adjuncts of purpose or goal arguments of verbs of persuading and urging. Comparing the two structures in these functions reveals some interesting positional differences. As goal argument of verbs of persuading and urging, to-PPs appear robustly both before and after their governing verb, but to-infinitives seem to be restricted to a postverbal position. In this, to-infinitives pattern like finite clauses, which are invariably extraposed to postverbal position. This difference is unexpected if both structures are of the same category, but makes sense if the to-infinitive is no longer a PP in Old English but a clause, as in Present-Day English: clauses are obligatorily extraposed. A second argument in favour of a verbal rather than a nominal analysis of the to-infinitive is case-assignment. The objects of a to-infinitive have accusative case, whereas any objects inside to-PPs have genitive case. Nouns, unlike verbs, cannot take accusative objects; instead, any objects of a nominalization that have been “inherited” from the original argument structure of the verb underlying the nominalization appear in the genitive or in an of -phrase. An Old English example is presented in (7), with the nominalization gereordung ‘nourishment’, which derives from the verb gereordian ‘nourish’. Its “inherited” object, lichama ‘body’, has genitive case: (7) eall swa hwæt swa mihton beon gesewene lustfullice to þæs all whatever might be seen desirable to the gen lichaman gereordunge . . . body gen nourishment (GD 2 (H), 13.129.5; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 76, fols. 1–54) ‘everything which might appear desirable for the body’s nourishment’

In contrast, the same object appears in the accusative in a parallel passage where we find a to-infinitive (to gereordianne) instead of the PP to gereordunge: (8) eall swa hwæt swa mihton beon gesewene lustfullice þone lichaman all whatever might be seen desirable the acc body acc mid to gereordianne . . . with to nourish . . . (GD 1 (C), 13.129.5; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 322) ‘everything which might appear desirable to nourish the body with’

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This is evidence that the to-infinitive in Old English is a verb and as such can function as the core of a clause. The third evidence that argues strongly a PP analysis is the presence, and position, of the stranded prepositions mid ‘with’ in (8) and to ‘to’ in (5) above. Prepositions can only be stranded in Old English by wh-movement (i.e., question movement or relativization), as still in Modern Dutch and German. In (8), the complement of mid, a null pronoun referring back to eall swa hwæt swa ‘everything’ (‘it is desirable to nourish the body with this’) has wh-moved out; in (5), the complement of to, a null pronoun referring back to urum cildum ‘our children’ (‘we intend to leave our land to them’). The standard formal analysis of wh-movement requires a SpecCP position as a landing site for the moved element, i.e., relative pronouns, overt or null; see Haegeman (1994: 463ff.) for a general discussion, and van Kemenade (1987: 163–171) for wh-movement in Old English. This explains why stranding is only possible in CPs (clauses). The PP to þæs lichaman gereordunge in (7) is a phrase and not a clause; stranded prepositions are not found with such PPs for that reason. Note that the prepositions mid in (8) and to in (5) occur obligatorily in exactly the same position as we would expect to find them in finite clauses: before the verb, which is the base-position of such PPadjuncts in the Old English subclause. The fact that stranding is robustly attested with to-infinitives but never with to-PPs is a strong argument in favour of a clausal rather than a prepositional analysis for the to-infinitive in Old English. Whatever caused the changes exemplified by (1)–(4), it is unlikely to have been a change in category of the to-infinitive from PP to CP, as the to-infinitive was already a clause in Old English.

. From PP to clause . Introduction It is clear from the etymology of the to-infinitive that there must have been a category change, but on the evidence presented in the previous section we have to conclude that it took place in pre-Old English times. In this section I will explore the syntactic status of the Old English to-infinitive (adjunct or argument?) and argue that its expansion beyond its original environment – that of a to-PP – is due to the fact that it came to compete with the finite subjunctive clause. In subsections 3.4 and 3.5, I will try to reconstruct a scenario of the category change that made competition with the finite clause possible.

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. The to-infinitive as purpose adjunct and goal argument The purpose adjunct has long been identified as the original function of the toinfinitive (see, e.g., Callaway 1913; Bock 1931): a constituent that is not an argument of the matrix verb and expresses the intended result of the action of that main verb. In Present-Day English, the commonest expression of purpose adjuncts is a non-finite clause with a to-infinitive (9a) or a PP with for (9b); finite clauses introduced by in order that or so (that) are more formal (9c) (Quirk et al. 1985: 564, 1107–1108). Purpose adjuncts appear in bold: (9) a. I left early to catch the train. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1107) b. How many actors will you need for this production? (ibid.: 564) c. The school closes earlier so (that) the children can get home before dark. (ibid.: 1108)

The three common expressions for the purpose adjunct in Old English are the to-PP, as in (10a), the to-infinitive, as in (10b), and the finite that-clause, as in (10c). As the event described by this clause has not yet come to pass at the time of utterance, its verb is typically in the subjunctive form, or a (pre-)modal verb followed by a bare infinitive, with the modal itself often in the subjunctive. Subjunctive forms are often indistinguishable from indicative forms, especially in the past tense, and with first and third person singular; it will eventually be ousted by the modal periphrasis, although modals are still used in their own right in Old English rather than as a substitute for eroded subjunctive endings (López Couso & Mendez Naya 1996). Modal verbs are primarily used for clearer and more concrete expression of the required nuance of volition, permission or obligation that the situation demands (cf. Standop 1957: 169: ‘ein Bestreben zur “Verdeutlichung”’, ‘a striving for clarification’), and this explains why there are great differences in the ratio of subjunctives to modal verbs between individual verbs: the wider the range of meanings that a verb will allow, the greater the need for modals (Ogawa 1989). In this paper, I use the term ‘subjunctive clause’ in a general sense, covering not only clauses in which the verb has distinct subjunctive morphology but also those where subjunctives would be expected (because the clause depends on a desire, request or command) even though the actual form is indistinguishable from an indicative because subjunctive and indicative endings have fallen together (‘neutralized forms’ in López Couso & Mendez Naya 1996). Purpose adjuncts in (10) appear in bold. (10) a.

he sende hine to þrowunge for manna alysednysse. he sent him acc to torment dat for men’s redemption (ÆCHom I, 16 308.47) ‘he sent him into torment for the redemption of mankind’

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b. [he] is ure hælend crist. se ðe com to gehælenne ure he is our saviour christ he who came to heal our wunda. wounds (ÆCHom I, 9 253.130) ‘He is our Saviour, Christ, he who came to heal our wounds.’ c. he com to mannum to ðy. þæt he wolde. beon he came to men to that instr that he wanted be gehyrsum his fæder oð deað obedient his father until death (ÆCHom I, 14 295.161) ‘he came to men to that end, that he wanted to be obedient to his father until death’

The second function, that of goal argument to verbs of persuading and urging (for a list and the exact distribution, see Table 3 in the Appendix), has the same three expressions as the purpose adjunct; the theme argument always appears in the accusative: (11) theme [ NPacc ] [ NPacc ] [ NPacc ]

goal [ to-PP ] [subjunctive clause] [ to-VP ]3

The dividing line between adjuncts and arguments is notoriously difficult to draw. An argument is a constituent that is a conceptually necessary participant in the action of a verb and will bear a semantic role associated with that verb. Subjects and direct and indirect objects are clearly identifiable as arguments, but there is a grey area when it comes to locative PPs. Van Valin (2001: 94–96) argues that constituents that express the spatio-temporal coordinates of an event are adjuncts, but that locative PPs that specify the location of one of the participants (normally the theme NP) is a semantic, and therefore syntactic, argument. The PPs in bold in the following examples are all arguments under that definition (from Van Valin 2001: 94): (12) a. Leslie arrived at the office. b. Kim sat on the sofa. c. Dana put the book on the table.

Many of the verbs of persuading and urging derive from verbs of spatial manipulation (‘forcing or manoeuvering something into a certain position’) and are . The few attestations of bare infinitives all occur in slavish translations; for extensive discussion, see Los (1999: 148–152, 2005: 58–60).

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therefore semantically akin to (12c). It follows from this that the goal-constituent of the verbs of urging and persuading must have been an argument from the start, or as soon as the verb in question became a verb of persuading and urging.4 Gothic does not show clear cases of du-infinitives with this group of verbs, but only subjunctive ei ‘that’ clauses, and this may be an indication that (11) represents an extension of the original distribution of the to-infinitive. Additional support for the identification of the goal-constituent as an argument is provided by example (13): (13) On hwilcum godum tihst þu us to gelyfenne? On which gods urgest thou us acc to believe inf (ÆLS (George), 145) ‘In which gods do you urge us to believe?’

If the assumption that constituents can be moved out of arguments, but not out of adjuncts is correct (Chomsky 1980: 13ff.), the fronted position of the PP on hwilcum godum ‘in which gods’, as an argument of to gelyfenne ‘to believe’, suggests that the to-infinitival clause itself is an argument of tyhtan ‘urge’ and not an adjunct. . The to-infinitive as theme argument Although the to-infinitive is in origin a to-PP, and must have followed the distribution of the to-PP, it has extended its range well beyond its early environment by the time of the earliest Old English, occurring as the theme argument of monotransitive verbs with meanings like ‘want’ and ‘try’ and ditransitive verbs with meanings like ‘command’ and ‘permit’. These verbs do not occur with to-PP complements. Verbs of commanding and permitting have the argument structure of (14) below

. Niedan ‘urge, force’ also occurs with the meaning ‘necessitate’, and an argument structure that differs from the persuading-and-urging argument structure of (11), as for instance in (i)

forðon seo feanis nedde þara sacerda, þætte aan biscop sceolde beon ofer tuu folc. (CP 50.391.27) ‘because the paucity forced of-the priests that one bishop should be over two nations.’ Lat.: Paucitas enim sacerdotum cogebat unum antistitem duobus populis praefici. (Colgrave & Mynors 1969: 280) ‘because the paucity of the priests necessitated that one bishop should be [set] over two nations.’

If (i) exemplifies an earlier meaning, and niedan ‘urge, force’ developed as a secondary meaning, the argument structure as in (11) would not have been original but would have developed with that meaning.

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(cf. the very different argument structure of verbs of persuading and urging in (11); for a list of verbs, see Table 4 in the Appendix). (14) recipient [ NPdat ] [ NPdat ] [ NPdat ] [ NPdat ]

theme [ NP acc ] [subjunctive clause] [ to-VP] [ VP]5 [NPacc VP]6

How did the to-infinitive come to appear here? A possible factor could be the handful of verbs that appear to have dual membership in that they appear with both argument structures, such as (11) and (14). The clearest example is læran ‘teach, instruct’. Bosworth and Toller’s Old English Dictionary give the following meanings for this verb: ‘teach, instruct, educate, preach, exhort, admonish, advise, persuade, suggest, enjoin, urge’. With most of these meanings, the verb occurs with the argument structure of (11); when the verb is used with the meaning ‘preach’, however, we find the argument structure of (14), indicating that the role of the first internal argument of the verb in that meaning is a recipient, or addressee, rather than a fully-affected theme. Since the distinction between meanings and argument structures is rigidly maintained, it does not seem likely that the four verbs having such dual membership7 were solely responsible for the expansion of the to-infinitive to the argument structures of these other verbs. Traditionally, this expansion has been attributed to competition between to- and bare infinitive (e.g., Sweet 1903: 118; Callaway 1913: 70 (who quotes Sweet); Jespersen 1940: 10–11; Mustanoja 1960: 514; Visser 1963–73: 948; Lightfoot 1979: 190), with the to-infinitive gradually winning out over the bare infinitive. A dissenting voice is Fischer (1996a), who suggests on the basis of a quantitative study by Manabe (1989) that the to-infinitive may have competed with the finite clause rather than with the bare infinitive, but could not be more specific since Manabe’s figures only distinguish between finite and non-finite complements (subsuming bare and to-infinitive under non-finite, and indicative and subjunctive . A very restricted minority pattern; see Los (1999 and 2005). . This construction is an accusativus-cum-infinitivo (AcI), a single constituent expressing the theme role. There are indications that the monotransitive AcI construction is used for peremptory commands, whereas the ditransitive construction with dative NP is used to express greater tentativeness. The accusative NP in the AcI can be inanimate, unlike the dative NP, which is always animate; this suggests that the dative NP is a recipient, while the accusative NP is primarily the executor of the action of the infinitive (Los 2005: 124–137). . The three other verbs are biddan ‘ask, pray’, hatan ‘command, summon’ and wissian ‘guide, direct’ (see also the tables in the Appendix).

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under finite). My own work on the distribution of the to-infinitive in Old English led me to conclude that the distribution of the to-infinitive matched that of the subjunctive clause (Los 1998). The distribution of the bare infinitive turned out to be very restricted already in Old English, especially in texts that do not have a Latin exemplar (see Los 1999: 43–46 for a reinterpretation of Callaway’s 1913 data) and did not change much in the transition to Middle English. In its most robust use,8 i.e., after monotransitive verbs with meanings of ‘want’, ‘intend’ and ‘try’, the ratio of bare infinitives remain the same at least until 1350 (Los 2005: 187). I have no figures from later periods. The situation in Present-Day English suggests a general restructuring of the verb system so that bare infinitives eventually only occurred with modals. There may well have been competition between the two infinitives at this later stage, but apparently not earlier. What did change in the transition to Middle English was the ratio of subjunctive that-clauses and to-infinitives. I examined the occurrence of the that-clauses with “recoverable” or “controlled” subjects, i.e., the types I try that I . . . and I order/urge John that he . . . that have to-infinitival counterparts, and compared their numbers to those of the to-infinitive after the same verbs, i.e., monotransitive verbs with meanings of ‘want’, ‘intend’ or ‘try’, and the ditransitive verbs of both groups (persuading and urging, and commanding and permitting) in three sub-corpora of the Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-Helsinki Corpus (BGAH),9 representing three periods of Old English: 850–950, 950–1050 and 1050–1150, and the first two of the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (PPCME), representing two periods of Early Middle English: 1150–1250 and 1250–1350. The changing ratios reveal that the to-infinitive gained ground at the expense of the subjunctive thatclause. Ratios between that-clauses and to-infinitival complements turned out to be as in Table 2. These figures show that, although the to-infinitive and subjunctive clause are both possible expressions in these three environments, the former is selected more often in later periods. When these figures are plotted as ratios (in percentages) on a diagram (see below), it is clear that the to-infinitive is a minority-choice in Old English, but becomes the favourite option in Early Middle English, especially as adjunct of purpose (the original function of the to-infinitive): in ca. 900 the ratio . That is, robust compared to the occurrence of the NPdat VP pattern of (11), for instance, but not robust in absolute figures: 17 of the verbs with meanings like ‘want’, ‘intend’ and ‘try’ occur with both bare and to-infinitives, 10 occur exclusively with bare infinitives and 48 occur exclusively with to-infinitives (Los 2005: 75–77). . The BGAH has been extended (to 1.5 million words of parsed and syntactically-annotated texts) since the research for this book was completed and is now known as the YorkToronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). See for further details.

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Table 2. Absolute numbers of to-infinitives and subjunctive that-clauses in the tagged versions of the Helsinki Corpus (BGAH and PPCME) Function

Expression

850– 950

950– 1050

1050– 1150

Total OE

1150– 1250

1250– 1350

Total EME

Purpose adjunct

subj that-cl to-infinitive

60 55

91 86

26 18

178 163

6 121

6 72

12 193

Argument of monotransitive verbs

subj that-cl to-infinitive

164 31

145 31

69 13

383 75

48 80

35 53

83 133

Argument of ditransitive verbs

subj that-cl to-infinitive

175 28

183 27

95 11

464 67

44 84

33 53

77 137

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

ca.900

ca.1000

purpose adjuncts

ca.1100

ca.1200

monotransitive

ca.1300 ditransitive

Diagram 1. Ratios in percentages of to-infinitives to subjunctive that-clauses in the last three sub-periods of Old English and the first two sub-periods of Middle English

of to-infinitives against subjunctive clauses as an expression of a purpose adjunct is 50:50, but by ca. 1300, the ratio is 93:7. When the Fischer Exact test is applied to the figures in Table 2, the variation we see in the three Old English periods turns out not to be significant, and neither is the variation between the two Early Middle English periods. The difference between the Old English and Early Middle English totals, however, is highly significant, with p < .001. Differences found between the various sub-corpora of the Helsinki Corpus need not indicate a diachronic change, since the Middle English sub-corpora do not contain the material from the same areas as the Old English sub-corpora – the latter are mainly from the West-Saxon area (Southern), and this dialect is badly

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represented in the Early Middle English selection because few Early Middle English texts from the South have survived. I therefore carried out a similar study of a text fragment in the M1 sub-corpus, Vices and Virtues (ca. 1200, edition Holthausen 1967 [1888]), which, although too eastern to be considered a direct continuation of West-Saxon,10 has been shown generally to be more conservative in its syntax than the AB texts that make up the bulk of the M1 sub-corpus (Kroch & Taylor 2000). The findings from this text confirm the abrupt jump in the ratio of toinfinitives versus subjunctive clauses: 83 per cent to-infinitives versus 17 per cent that-clauses after the monotransitive verbs, which is even higher than the overall percentages for these verbs in Table 2. The steep cline suggested by the figures in Table 2, then, cannot be ascribed to dialectal variation, but represents a genuine change. Overall, these findings suggest that the spread of the to-infinitive beyond its original distribution is the result of competition with the subjunctive clause. The competition lasted well into the Early Modern English period (Rohdenburg 1995). In Present-Day English, finite clauses with recoverable subjects are no longer possible with verbs of the want, try, intend group (*I try that I . . .) nor with verbs of commanding and permitting (*I order John that he . . .); the to-infinitive has completely ousted the clause in these environments. . Subjunctives, nominalizations and to-infinitives compared We turn once again to the verbs of persuading and urging, and the three expressions they allowed as their goal argument: the to-PP in (15), the to-infinitive in (16) and the subjunctive clause in (17), all in bold: (15) se dema . . . hine þa nydde to deofolgylde11 begonge. the ruler him acc then urged to idols gen worship (Mart, 5 Ap. 28, A.6) ‘the ruler then urged him to the worship of idols.’ (16) Ðone nydde Decius se kasere deofolgeld to begangenne. him acc urged Decius the Emperor idols acc to worship (Mart, Se 14, A.2.1703) ‘The Emperor Decius urged him to worship idols.’ . Laing (1993) locates it in Essex. . Deofolgylda would be the expected form here for the genitive plural, and it does appear as such in another MS; the -e is probably the result of scribal error, which does not make this the best example to illustrate the use of the genitive, as a reviewer pointed out. The parallelism between the N-head begong in (15) and the related verb began in (16) makes it easier to clarify my main point about the expression of “inherited” arguments of nominalized verbs as in (15), which is why I have decided to retain (15). The robustness of the appearance of genitive case on such inherited arguments is sufficiently illustrated by (7), (10a) and (18a, d).

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(17) þær hy mon nydde þæt hy deofulgyld weorðedon. there them acc one urged that they idols acc worshipped subj (Mart, Oc8, A.5 1924) ‘there someone urged them that they should worship idols.’

Note that all three expressions carry the same semantic content; in spite of their different categories, they all express a “non-actuated” event, even the to-PP in (15). It contains a nominalization of a verb, and it is this that allows it to express the same information as the non-finite clause in (16) and the finite clause in (17). In the nominalization inside the to-PP, the verb’s two semantic roles are still conceptually present. The agent is readily inferred or recovered as identical in reference to hine ‘him’, whereas the theme – ‘devil-worship’ – can be expressed by a genitive, as it is in this example. Note that “to-PP” in the remainder of this study refers to this type of PP, i.e., one containing a nominalized verb. The to-infinitive in (16), as a V-head rather than an N-head, requires its theme argument to be expressed (as an accusative object), but similarly recovers its agent argument from the main clause (as identical in reference to þone ‘that one, him’), as to-infinitives still do in Present-Day English.12 In contrast, the finite verb weorðedon in (17) requires both its roles to be expressed. Note, however, that the presence of a subject and a tense-inflection -ed- in the subjunctive clause is forced by the syntax, but neither subject nor tense is independently meaningful: verbs of persuading and urging require the subject of the embedded clause to be identical to, i.e., determined by, the object of the higher clause (hy ‘they’ in (17)), just as the PRO subject of the to-infinitive in (16) is controlled by þone. The tense of the embedded subjunctive is similarly dependent on that of the higher clause; this is typical of subjunctives, as they do not constitute a separate tense-domain. Crosslinguistic studies indicate that tense-markings on the subjunctive are typically the result of tense-copying and are not independently meaningful (Noonan 1985: 53). My point is that these three expressions are completely equivalent in that they can all express a non-actuated event and its participants. This is perhaps unexpected in view of their very different structures. There is, however, one particular way in which the nominalization in a toPP is less versatile than the other two structures and more limited in its scope of expression: as a nominalization, it contains a derivational suffix (e.g., -ung- in (10a), ø in begang/begong in (15)). A typical characteristic of derivation is that it attaches to only a subset of a major category (in this case, V); -ung- attaches . Formal theories assume a non-overt pronoun in the subject position (PRO). PRO is generally controlled by the subject or object of the higher verb, but can also refer generically (‘people in general’). See Los (2002) for a discussion of this PROgen and its overt counterpart in Old English.

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to verbal stems of class II of weak verbs, for instance, and (-ing- to verbal stems of class I of weak verbs, but other suffixes attach to subsets of V that are more difficult to define, and whose membership is more fluid through time. (18a–d) present some more examples of to-PPs incorporating such nominalizations (in bold): (18) a.

he tihte þæt . . . folc to þæs hælendes slege; (ÆCHom I, 20 343.243) ‘he urged the people to the Saviour’s murder’ b. he ut wolde faran to gefeohte. (Or, 5.8.122.11) ‘he wanted to go out to battle’ c. hi . . . heora hors æt him to bryce & to nytnesse onfengon. (GD 1 (C), 2.15.35) ‘they . . . received their horses from him for their use and benefit’ d. þa sende he þone ylcan sunu to ure alysednysse13 (ÆCHom I, 1 187.244) ‘then he sent that same son to our redemption’

Note that all such to-PPs can be readily replaced by to-infinitives: þone hælend to sleanne ‘to kill the Saviour’ in (18a), to feohtenne ‘to fight’ in (18b), to brucenne and to notienne in (18c) (actually attested in this passage in the H manuscript of this text), us to alysenne ‘to redeem us’ in (18d). The converse is not true, however, because there are always some verbs that cannot be nominalized because there is no derivational affix that fits them. It is this that limits the purposive to-PP in the range of what it can express, and this is where the subjunctive clause and the toinfinitive have an advantage: the verbal stem is slotted into the syntactic structure directly and is not dependent on the existence of a suitable derivational affix. . From derivation to inflection: The category change If the to-infinitive is a verb in Old English, the category change from PP to clause must have occurred earlier, in pre-Old English and even pre-Gothic times (the Gothic du-infinitive is already fully verbal and does not have a case-ending; see Köhler 1867), too early to leave traces in the written record. The scenario I describe below is therefore speculative, but I think persuasive.

. The -ness suffix converts adjectives into nouns; as participles are adjectives for the purposes of morphological derivation, this is yet another way in which to arrive at N-heads containing a verbal stem, and hence express events.



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The etymology of the to-infinitive betrays its origins as a purposive to-PP: (19) OE to berenne ‘to bear’14 Common Germanic: *to beranjói Etymology: to +ber+-*anjaP verbal stem derivational suffix OE: to berenne

+-*i dative sg inflection

The anja-element is a derivational suffix that creates a nominalization from a verbal stem – absolutely on a par with the derivational suffixes in the nominalizations gereordung, slege, alysednysse that we have encountered in the to-PPs so far. Note that this etymology differs from that provided by Bopp (1974), who assumes that the to-infinitive incorporates a bare infinitive. Bopp’s etymology is the one usually copied into later works, even though its problems were noted already in the nineteenth century (see e.g., Grimm 1870–1898, vol. IV: 105; Jolly 1873: 150– 154). Because *beranja is an N-head, it appears with dative inflection when in the complement of the preposition to, and its category at this stage is PP. Typical for derivational morphology is that it is category-changing and that there is always more than one suffix with the same function (see (18a–d) above). Unlike inflectional suffixes, derivational suffixes always attach to a subset of a major category rather than to all its members, and typically show competition, with the subset of suitable stems for each affix waning and waxing at each other’s expense (Booij 1997, 2000: 360–369). If a nominalizing affix competes so successfully that the subset of verbal stems to which it attaches keeps increasing with the passage of time, a situation may eventually be reached that it attaches to nearly all of the verbal stems. This is the point at which it is reanalysed as inflectional rather than derivational, since the ability to apply to an entire major category (V, in this case) is a characteristic of inflection, not of derivation. If it is analysed as inflection, it would no longer be category-changing (another characteristic of inflection), and the V-head to which it would attach would remain a V-head rather than become N. Such a scenario is not new: it has been posited for infinitives and gerundial forms by Kuryłowicz (1964: 36–37) and, more implicitly, by Beekes (1995: 251), who notes that action nouns are the major source of infinitives in Proto-Indo-European. Derivation developing into inflection is explicitly argued to constitute grammaticalization by Kuryłowicz (1964: 36), who notes that several types of infinitives may develop independently in this way in the same language. Bopp’s (1974) etymology of the bare infinitive shows a fossilized accusative case ending, which suggests that something . I am indebted to the late Dirk Boutkan, then of the Department of Comparative Linguistics of Leiden University, for these etymological data.

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similar has happened in Germanic: the to/du/te/zu- and bare infinitives in Germanic represent two independent developments of non-finite inflection, with the bare infinitive being the older form. The morphological reanalysis would be the point at which the to-infinitive splits off from the to-PP. They are analysed as V, which means that they can take direct objects and form the nucleus of a clause. From then on, the to-infinitive aligns itself with the subjunctive that-clause, that third expression of purpose adjunct and goal argument. It is apparently analysed as a non-finite alternative of this clause, and it is this analysis that allows it to spread beyond its original model, the to-PP, to contexts which were formerly the preserve of the finite clause: the expression of the theme argument of verbs with meanings like ‘want’, ‘intend’ and ‘ try’ and the verbs of commanding and permitting. It is so successful in this function that many of these verbs no longer allow a finite clause at all, only a to-infinitive.

. To as a connective . Lehmann’s parameters The stages in the rise and spread of the to-infinitive sketched in the preceding section can be schematized as follows: Stage 1, Proto-Germanic Purpose adjuncts can be expressed by a subjunctive clause and a to-PP. Stage 2, Proto-Germanic The to-infinitive splits off from the to-PP. Purpose adjuncts can now be expressed by three structures: a subjunctive clause, a to-infinitive and a to-PP. Stage 3, Gothic Purpose adjuncts can be expressed by three structures: the subjunctive eiclause, a du-infinitive and a du-PP. Stage 4, pre-Old English Some purpose adjuncts are reanalysed as goal arguments. Both purpose adjuncts and goal arguments can be expressed by a subjunctive clause, a toinfinitive and a to-PP. Stage 5, pre-Old English Purpose adjuncts and goal arguments can be expressed by a subjunctive clause, a to-infinitive and a to-PP. The to-infinitive is reinterpreted as a non-finite alternative to the subjunctive clause and appears in functions that could be expressed by a subjunctive clause but not by a to-PP, most notably the function of theme argument.



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Stage 6, Early Modern English Purpose adjuncts and goal arguments can be expressed by a subjunctive clause, a to-infinitive and a to-PP. Theme arguments can no longer be expressed by a subjunctive clause, but only by a to-infinitive. The to-infinitive splits off from the to-PP when it becomes analyzed as V rather than N, as described in Section 3.5, and its phrasal status changes from PP to clause. The fact that the new infinitive, a V-head, and the old to-PP, with an Nhead, have continued to exist side by side to this day is the layering that is typical of grammaticalization processes. In terms of Lehmann’s (1988) typology of clause linkage, to is a connective; it signals an embedding. Lehmann’s typology is particularly useful to our discussion because he defines connective as any element – clause, phrase, word or affix – that signals embedding in its widest sense: of a clause, an infinitive or a nominalization of a verb. Both infinitival to and the preposition to from which it developed qualify as connectives, as does the complementizer that of the subjunctive clause. This allows us to plot the to-infinitive on the continua provided by Lehmann’s parameters and to compare its position to that of the other two structures. The continua range from two maximally elaborated paratactic clauses, with finite verbs and no syntactic embedding at one end, all the way to a single clause containing an embedded predicate in a much-reduced form, with no marking of person, or aspect-tense-modality, and no complementizer or other element signalling embedding, at the other end; Lehmann’s example of such a “compressed” complement is that of a Latin bare infinitive as complement to a verb of the want, try, intend group (Lehmann 1988: 207, 218). In general, the Old English to-infinitive scores towards the low end on Lehmann’s parameters, indicating compression rather than elaboration. Four parameters seem particularly relevant: the parameter of hierarchical downgrading, the parameter of the main clause syntactic level, the parameter of desententialization and the parameter of explicitness of linking. Although the parameters show some degree of overlap with grammaticalization continua, there are no cases of any individual structure travelling in its history through all the stages of the continuum, from highly elaborated to highly compressed. Subjunctive clauses may well represent a grammaticalization of a more independent type of clause, but infinitival forms, which are positioned further down on all of the continua, are more likely to represent “upgraded” nominalizations, as we saw in Section 3.5. The parameter of the grammaticalization of the main verb is an exception: the process of full lexical verbs becoming auxiliaries or even affixes through all of the stages of the continuum set out by Lehmann (ibid.: 204) is well-documented, and here grammaticalization and the continuum of compression overlap. The message of Section 4 of this paper, then, is that

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Lehmann’s notion of “downgrading” does not necessarily represent a diachronic trajectory. . The parameter of hierarchical downgrading The parameter of hierarchical downgrading of the subordinate clause signals the degree of embedding. The finite subjunctive clause, which was argued to be the functional equivalent of the to-infinitive, shows greater integration and deeper embedding than the indicative clause, but is in turn less integrated than the toinfinitive, witness the difference between the subjunctive that-clause in (20) and the to-infinitive in (21): (20) þu hit secest, þæt þu wilt witan, hwilc his mod wære you it seek that you want know what his mind were (GD 1 (C), 5.44.30) ‘you seek it that you want to know what his state of mind was [between the miracles that he performed]’

In (20), there is a cataphoric pronoun, hit ‘it’ which satisfies the theme argument of secest ‘seek’. The following finite clause is syntactically an adjunct (see Bennis 1986: 104–105 for syntactic tests that show that elements such as hit in such constructions are, at least in Modern Dutch, not dummies but referential expressions with a thematic role). In contrast, the to-infinitive that replaces the finite clause in another, later version of this manuscript has a thematic role; there is no hit: (21) þu secst to witanne, hwilc his mod wære . . . you seek to know what his mind were (GD 2 (H), 5.44.29) ‘you seek to know what his state of mind was’

Not a single to-infinitive in extant Old English appears in a construction with a pronoun, as in (20), although the phenomenon is reasonably common with finite clauses (to ðy ‘to that’ in (10c) above is another example of such a cataphoric pronoun). Downgrading is associated with a more fixed position in the clause (Lehmann 1988: 186–187), and we see this reflected in the fact that the to-infinitive as purpose adjunct is less restricted in its position in the sentence than the to-infinitive as goal or theme argument. The to-infinitive as goal argument is in turn more restricted in its position in the clause than the to-PP, its source, as we saw in Section 2.2.



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. The parameter of the main clause syntactic level The to-infinitive is situated halfway on the continuum of the main clause syntactic level of the subordinate clause (Lehmann 1988: 192): as an argument of the main clause, it is within the VP, but both the higher verb and the infinitive are fully lexical and have not grammaticalized into auxiliaries or affixes. There do not appear to be significant differences between the three constructions in this respect, as all three can appear as argument (i.e., within the VP) and as adjunct (adjoined to VP); the only difference is that the distribution of the to-PP as argument is more restricted: it expresses only the goal, not the theme. . The parameter of desententialization The situation is similar with respect to the parameter of desententialization of the subordinate clause. We saw in Section 2.2 that the stranding facts indicate that the to-infinitive has enough functional structure to accommodate wh-elements, which is why we argued for CP-status. One respect in which to-infinitives might differ from full-blown CPs, however, is provided by instances such as (22), where the object of the to-infinitive has moved up to the higher clause: (22) and þæt gefremede man gewilnode to bediglianne and that committed crime wanted to conceal (ApT, 1.14) ‘and wanted to conceal the crime he had committed’

Although it is not easy to determine the process by which the object has been moved, a likely candidate appears to be “scrambling”. A word order pattern as in (22) would be analysed as such if occurring in Modern Dutch or German. Scrambling, a label due to Ross (1967), is a multi-purpose notion that subsumes various permutations of constituents in “free word order” languages, often motivated by focus-considerations (witness the fact that scrambling of objects in Dutch and German is limited to definite objects, “old information”). For Dutch, where te-infinitives show similar behaviour, the resulting theoretical dilemma – extraposition and stranding facts argue for CP-status, but scrambling argues against it – is usually solved by assuming that the functional structure of te-infinitives can be “pruned”; it starts out with a CP level but may lose it under certain conditions (Ross 1969; Koster 1984; see also Wurmbrand 2001 for a thorough treatment of such clause union phenomena). Whatever its analysis, (22) shows that the clause boundary of an Old English to-infinitive is not a barrier for movement, in contrast to finite clause boundaries in Present-Day English. The problem here is that the boundary of finite clauses may not have been as solid in earlier periods, witness instances like the following from Middle English:

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(23) & euch her þuncheð þt stont in his heaued up and each hair seems that stands on his head up (SAWLES,169.51; see also Denison 1990: 129) ‘and each hair seems to stand on end on his head’ (24) þis put he hat þt beo ilided this pit he commands that be lidded (ANCRIW, II.48.449) ‘this pit he commands to be lidded’

In (23), euch her ‘each hair’ has moved out of the finite clause, and in (24) the same has happened with þis put ‘this pit’. All in all, example (22) is possible, but not unequivocal, evidence of to-infinitives having a more desententialized position on the scale of this parameter than the finite clause. Desententialization is also marked by “dependent subject control”, i.e., cases where the subject of the embedded clause is “recoverable” and controlled by main clause subjects or objects (see Section 3.4 above). Subjunctive clauses as expressions of dependent requests and commands have overwhelmingly “controlled” subjects, as I discovered when doing the research for the data of Table 2; this was especially true of verbs of persuading and urging. Verbs of commanding and permitting had lower rates of controlled subjects (about 70 per cent); the remaining 30 per cent often had no matrix object to act as controller, but in those cases the indefinite pronoun man appeared as subject of the subjunctive clause, almost as an overt form of the “generic” PRO in corresponding to-infinitives: He bebead þæt man V. . . ‘He ordered that onegeneric V. . .’/He bebead to V. . . ‘He ordered PROgeneric to V. . . ’.15 Indicative clauses seem to be freer in their choice of subject (cf. I think/see that I/you/he/she/it/we/they V), which would make them less desententialized than subjunctive clauses, but this would still need to be confirmed by a corpus study. To-infinitives would be more desententialized than subjunctive clauses as having no slots for overt subjects at all, and always containing controlled or generic PRO. Their low position on the sententiality scale is supported by the fact that they do not inflect for person or T-M-A, and that their mood is obligatorily subjunctive. They do not appear with independent negation in Old English – another marker of low sententiality (Lehmann 1988: 197), but one that is undoubtedly linked to the fact that they represent controlled complements, i.e., positive acts (one intends to perform an act, one orders someone else to perform an act, etc.). Subjunctive clauses with “controlled” subjects, the type in (20) above that is eventually ousted by the to-infinitive, rarely appear with negation in Old English for the same reason. . More on the correspondences between OE man and generic PRO can be found in Los (2002).



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Bettelou Los

. The parameter of explicitness of linking The final parameter that is relevant here is the parameter of explicitness of linking, with complete clauses used as linking devices at one end of the scale, and the complete absence of an explicit linker at the other end (Lehmann 1988: 213). The second lowest position of Lehmann’s scale is that of universal subordinator (such as English that): not a clause, nor a phrase, but a single word. The very lowest position is represented by those cases where the subordination is marked only by the infinitival inflection, e.g., a Latin bare infinitive as complement to a verb of the want, try, intend group. If we go by morphological status only, Old English to, as a clitic or prefix, occupies this lowest position. Interestingly, it becomes a free form in Middle English and in Present-Day English it would have to be classified as a subordinator rather than inflection for this reason, which means that it is moving up the cline towards greater explicitness. Lehmann defines inflection in purely morphological terms. If we define inflection in semantic/syntactic terms, i.e., as an element base-generated in the Inflection-head I, the parameter of explicitness of linking becomes even more relevant to the discussion of the behaviour of to. In generative thinking, the lexical category V in the projection VP has a functional shell consisting of functional projections that contain information about, say, clause-typing (CP, “Complementizer Phrase”) and TMA (IP, “Inflection Phrase”); this functional information is assumed to be linked to the relevant projections irrespective of morphological status: if what is expressed by subjunctive endings in one language is the same type of information as expressed by modal auxiliaries in another, both subjunctives and modals are linked to the Inflection Head.16 Moving inwards towards the verb, the order of these projections is CP – IP – VP. Infinitival to is positioned in the Ihead in mainstream generative theory (as in Haegeman’s 1994 textbook), mainly because it expresses non-finiteness. More specifically, Zwicky and Levin (1980), Fiengo (1980), Pullum (1982) and Hudson (1984) have argued, mostly independently, that to is a non-finite modal in Present-Day English, a free form expression of the subjunctive mood. (This analysis has recently been revived in Law 2000 and Koopman & Szabolcski 2000.) The main arguments are provided by contraction of infinitival to in informal speech into forms like wanna, hafta, gonna, oughta, gotta, sposta (cf. contraction of auxiliary have in mighta, woulda) and stranding facts/VP ellipsis (e.g., (25a) from Pullum (1982), cf. the modal in (25b)):

. Where free and bound forms differ is the manner in which this linking is achieved. Free forms are base-generated in their functional heads, whereas the linking of bound forms to these same heads involves movement.

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(25) a. I’ve never met a Klingon, and I wouldn’t want to Ø. b. I’ve never met a Klingon, and I never will Ø.

In the case of the wanna forms, a comparison with Lehmann’s parameters is complicated by the fact that in Lehmann, the inflection marking subordination would be on the embedded verb, whereas with wanna we find it on the higher verb; the stranding facts, on the other hand, offer more solid support for the notion that to is a non-finite modal verb and therefore in I rather than C. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1185–1187) have modified the position taken in Pullum (1982) in that they propose a complementizer analysis for to. To can be left out (All I did was (to) ask a question), like the complementizer that, although omission of to is far more circumscribed than omission of that. On the downside of such an analysis is the fact that to does not always occupy the first position in a subordinate clause: adverbs and not may precede (She taught her children always to tell the truth). To is unlike any other complementizer in this respect, and complementizers do not strand. However, to is also unlike any other modal, as infinitival to does not strand as readily as the modals, and is subject to constraints that are as yet unclear; cf. (26a–b) (from Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1186): (26) a. *You don’t have to sell your shares: to Ø could lead to a conflict of interest. b. You have to sell your shares: not to Ø could lead to a conflict of interest.

The earliest unequivocal case of VP ellipsis/stranding with infinitival to that I could find is (27), which dates from 1632 (in Visser 1963–1973: §1062; it has been corrected on the basis of the original text): (27) Pursue your project real, Master Compass advised you to (Ben Jonson, Magnetic Lady, I 162)

There are many examples in Visser with much earlier dates, but they involve whmovement and could be stranded prepositions (the verbs involved appear to be verbs of persuading, which may take to-PPs as goal argument, as we saw in (11)). If VP ellipsis is taken as evidence of reanalysis of to as a non-finite modal, this would mean that the shift of infinitival to back to the lowest position on the scale occurs in Early Modern English. The evidence for the position of to on the continuum of this parameter, then, is conflicting. Perhaps this is a case of “layering”, with two positions being available to to: C, as a “universal subordinator”, and I, as a “non-finite inflection”. . Recapitulating the position of the to-infinitive on Lehmann’s continuum Three of the four parameters discussed in the previous section position the toinfinitive slightly more towards the compression-end of the scale of clause linkage



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than its competitor, the subjunctive that-clause. Positioning the to-infinitive relative to its historical source, the to-PP containing a nominalized verb, is not as straightforward, since the parameter of downgrading identifies the to-PP, although ‘maximally compressed’ on other parameters, as less downgraded than the other two structures because its position in the clause is far freer; see also the discussion in Lehmann (1988: 214). With respect to the parameter of explicit linking, the subjunctive clause and the to-PP have free form connectives (the complementizer þæt and the preposition to), whereas infinitival to has grammaticalized into a bound morpheme in Old English and as such occupies a lower position on the scale. Its degrammaticalization in Middle English to a free form brings it more in line with the other two. The parameter of desententialization, which is intimately bound up with the categorial status of the to-infinitive, and therefore one of the central concerns of this study, positions the to-infinitive midway between the two other structures, which confirms the scenario in which the to-infinitive has split off from the more compressed, less sentential to-PP and is aligning itself with its more sentential counterpart, the subjunctive clause.

. Conclusion I have argued in this study that the to-infinitive is verbal, and hence clausal, already in Old English. I have sketched a scenario in which its category change in prehistoric times is due to a reanalysis of its morphological make-up: a nominalizing derivational suffix competed so successfully with other suffixes that it came to allow almost any V as input. This must have led subsequent learners to reanalyze it as inflection rather than derivation. This was the point at which the to-infinitive split off from the to-PP and became clausal. Its distribution no longer followed that of the to-PP but of the subjunctive clause, whose rival it became. Lehmann’s parameters of clause linking (Lehmann 1988) allowed us to position the three structures – to-infinitive, subjunctive clause and to-PP – on a scale between maximally elaborated and maximally compressed complements. The continua provided by the various parameters overlap with grammaticalization continua for only part of their trajectories. The Latin bare infinitive as verb complement, the prototype of the most compressed end of the scale, does not derive historically from a full sentence, but from a nominalization, which is positioned even further on the desententialization continuum, as an extreme case of sentential reduction (Lehmann 1988: 200). Similarly, the parameter of desententialization positions the Old English to-infinitive midway between the to-PP and the subjunctive clause, but this does not mean that the to-infinitive is itself

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desententialized in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact: it represents a sententialized to-PP, and as such it is positioned further towards the sententialized end of the scale than the nominalization from which it sprang. This illustrates the fact that Lehmann’s continua do not straightforwardly map on to grammaticalization trajectories, particularly at the point where verbal and nominal categories meet.

Sources BGAH = Brooklyn-Geneva-Amsterdam-Helsinki Corpus. This is the Old English part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts that has been syntactically annotated and parsed as part of an ongoing joint project of Ans van Kemenade and Frank Beths (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), Willem Koopman (University of Amsterdam), Susan Pintzuk (University of York) and Eric Haeberli (University of Geneva). The annotation scheme includes verb complementation patterns. The BGAH Corpus is now known as the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. See also Note 9. (YCOE; ) DOEC = Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (1997). Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second Ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. PPCME = Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, annotated under the direction of Prof. Anthony Kroch (University of Pennsylvania) with the support of the National Science Foundation and with supplementary support from the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation. The annotation scheme was designed by Anthony Kroch and Ann Taylor and implemented by Taylor.

References Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bennis, Hans (1986). Gaps and Dummies. Dordrecht: Foris. Bock, Helmut (1931). ‘Studien zum präpositionalen Infinitiv und Akkusativ mit dem toInfinitiv’. Anglia 55: 115–249. Booij, Geert E. (1997). ‘De verhouding tussen derivatie en flexie in het Nederlands’. In: Grammaticaal Spektakel: Artikelen aangeboden aan Ina Schermer-Vermeer, ed. Els Elffers-van Ketel, Joop van der Horst and Willem Klooster. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 13–21. Booij, Geert E. (2000). ‘Derivation and Inflection’. In: Morphology. An International Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation. Vol. I, ed. Geert E. Booij, Christian Lehmann and J. Mugdan. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 360–369.

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Bopp, Franz (1974 [1816]). Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic Languages, shewing the Original Identity of their Grammatical Structure. Ed. E. F. K. Koerner. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bosworth, Joseph and Thomas Northcote Toller (1882). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Clarendon Press: Oxford. Idem, (1921). Supplement. Callaway, Morgan (1913). The Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Chomsky, Noam (1980). ‘On Binding’. Linguistic Inquiry 11: 1–46. Colgrave, Bertram and R. A. B. Mynors, eds (1969). Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Delbrück, Berthold (1907). ‘Das gotische du und das westgermanische Gerundium’. Indogermanische Forschungen 21: 355–357. Denison, David (1990). ‘The Old English Impersonals Revived’. In: Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, ed. Sylvia M. Adamson, Vivien A. Law, Nigel Vincent and Susan Wright. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 65). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 111–140. Fiengo, Robert W. (1980). Surface Structure: The Interface of Autonomous Components. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fischer, Olga (1996a). ‘Verbal Complementation in Early ME: How do the Infinitives Fit in?’ In: English Historical Linguistics 1994, ed. Derek Britton. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 135). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 247–270. Fischer, Olga (1996b). ‘The Status of to in Old English to-infinitives: A Reply to Kageyama’. Lingua 99: 107–133. Fischer, Olga (2000). ‘Grammaticalisation: Unidirectional, Non-reversable? The Case of to before the Infinitive in English.’ In: Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English, ed. Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein. (Studies in Language Companion Series, 53). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 149–169. Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman, and Wim van der Wurff (2000). The Syntax of Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaaf, Willem van der (1933). ‘The Split Infinitive in Middle English’. English Studies 15: 15–20. Gelderen, Elly van (1993). The Rise of Functional Categories. (Linguistik Aktuell, 9). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Greenbaum, Sidney and Randolph Quirk (1990). A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman. Grimm, Jacob L. K. (1870–1898 [1819–1837]). Deutsche Grammatik. 4 vols. Second ed. Berlin: Duemmlers Verlagsbuchhandlung. Haegeman, Liliane (1994). Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Second ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Haspelmath, Martin (1989). ‘From Purposive to Infinitive – a Universal Path of Grammaticization’. Folia Linguistica Historica 10: 287–310. Healey, Antonette DiPaolo and Richard L. Venezky (1985). A Microfiche Concordance to Old English. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Holthausen, Ferdinand, ed. (1967 [1888]). Vices & Virtues: A Soul’s Confessions of its Sins with Reason’s Description of the Virtues. 2 vols. (EETS. Original Series 89, 159). London: Oxford University Press. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2003). Grammaticalization (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, Richard A. (1984 [1982]). Word Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jarad, Najib (1997). The Origin and Development of for-Infinitives. University of Wales, Bangor Dissertation. Jespersen, Otto (1940). A Modern English Grammar. Vol. 5. London: Allen & Unwin. Jolly, Julius (1873). Geschichte des Infinitivs im Indogermanischen. Munich: Theodor Ackermann. Kageyama, Taro (1992). ‘AGR in Old English to-infinitives’. Lingua 88: 91–128. Kemenade, Ans van (1987). Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris. Koster, Jan (1984). ‘On Binding and Control’. Linguistic Inquiry 15: 417–459. Koopman, Hilda and Anna Szabolcsi (2000). Verbal Complexes. (Current Studies in Linguistics, 34). Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press. Kroch, A. S. and A. Taylor (2000). ‘Verb-object Order in Early Middle English’. In: Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, ed. Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas and Anthony Warner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 132–163. Köhler, A. (1867). ‘Der syntaktische Gebrauch des Infinitivs im Gotischen’. Germania 12: 421– 462. Kuryłowicz, Jerzy (1964). The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter. Kytö, Merja, comp. (1993). Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. Second ed. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, English Department. Law, Paul (2000). ‘On Relative Clauses and the DP/PP Adjunction Asymmetry’. In: The Syntax of Relative Clauses, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, Paul Law, André Meinunger and Chris Wilder. (Linguistik Aktuell, 32). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 161–199. Lehmann, Christian (1988). ‘Towards a Typology of Clause Linkage’. In: Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse, ed. John Haiman and Sandra A. Thompson. (Typological Studies in Language, 18). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 181–225. Lightfoot, David W. (1979). Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laing, Margaret (1993). Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English. Cambridge: Brewer. López-Couso, María José and Belén Mendez-Naya (1996). ‘On the Use of the Subjunctive and Modals in Old and Middle English Dependent Commands and Requests: Evidence from the Helsinki Corpus’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 97: 411–422. Los, Bettelou (1998). ‘The Rise of the to-infinitive as Verb Complement’. English Language and Linguistics 2: 1–36. Los, Bettelou (1999). Infinitival Complementation in Old and Middle English. (LOT Dissertation Series, 31). The Hague: Thesus. Los, Bettelou (2002). ‘The Loss of the Indefinite Pronoun man: Syntactic Change and Information Structure’. In: English Historical Syntax and Morphology, ed. Teresa Fanego, María José López-Couso and Javier Pérez-Guerra. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 223). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 181–202. Los, Bettelou (2005). The Rise of the to-infinitive. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manabe, Kazumi (1989). The Syntactic and Stylistic Development of the Infinitive in Middle English. Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press. Mustanoja, Tauno F. (1960). A Middle English Syntax. Part I. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Noonan, Michael (1985). ‘Complementation’. In: Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vol. 2, ed. Timothy Shopen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 42–140.

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Ogawa, Hiroshi (1989). Old English Modal Verbs: A Syntactical Study. (Anglistica, 26). Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1982). ‘Syncategorematicity and English infinitival to’. Glossa 16: 181–215. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Grammar of Contemporary English. Harlow: Longman. Rohdenburg, Gunther (1995). ‘On the Replacement of Finite Complement Clauses by Infinitives in English’. English Studies 76: 367–388. Ross, John Robert (1967). Constraints on Variables in Syntax. MIT Dissertation. Published 1986 as: Infinite Syntax. Norwood/N. J.: Ablex. Ross, John Robert (1969). ‘A Proposed Rule of Tree-Pruning’. In: Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transformational Grammar, ed. David A. Reibel und Sanford A. Schane. Englewood Cliffs/N. J.: Prentice Hall, 288–299. Seppänen, Aimo (2004). ‘The Old English Relative þe’. English Language and Linguistics 8: 71– 102. Standop, Ewald (1957). Syntax und Semantik der modalen Hilfsverben im Altenglischen: magan, motan, sculan, willan. (Leipziger Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, 38). BochumLangendreer: Pöppinghaus. Sweet, Henry (1903). A New English Grammar. Vol. 2: Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Van Valin Jr, Robert D. (2001). An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Visser, Fredericus Th. (1963–1973). An Historical Syntax of the English Language. Vols. I–IIIb. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Wurmbrand, Susanne (2001). Infinitives: Restructuring and Clause-structure (Studies in Generative Grammar, 55). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zwicky, Arnold M. and N. Levin (1980). ‘You Don’t Have to’. Linguistic Inquiry 11: 631–636.

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Appendix

Table 3. The verbs of persuading and urging and their complements in Old English Verb

Acc+ to-VP

Acc + ðæt

Acc + to-PP

abisgan engage in afysan impel aweccan incite bædan urge biddan ask, urge biegan compel bisenian instruct by example cierran turn, persuade drefan excite forspanan seduce, entice fultuman help fysan incite gremian provoke halsian entreat, adjure hatan summon hwierfan turn, persuade læran teach, advise laðian summon, invite manian admonish medemian humble (oneself) mynegian remind neadian compel niedan urge, force onælan incite onbryrdan excite onstyrian stir, bestir ontendan inflame, incite onwendan turn, persuade scyhtan impel, prompt, urge settan set, appoint spanan persuade spryttan incite stieran guide, direct tyhtan induce, urge trymman encourage đreatian force underðeodan subject, force weman persuade wissian instruct

x case? x x x x

x

x

x x

x x x x x x

x x x x x

x x x

x x x x x x x x

x x x x x x x x x x x

case? x x x

x x x

x x x x

x x x x x x x x

x case? x x x

x x x x x x

x

x x

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Table 4. The verbs of commanding and permitting and their three-place complements in Old English Verb

Dat + to-VP

Dat + ðæt

Dat +Acc

aliefan allow bebeodan order beodan order beteon bestow bodian preach dihtan direct don make, see to it forbeodan forbid hatan command læran preach lætan let liefan allow lofian allow onteon release reccan direct sellan give, grant tæcan teach tiðian grant đafian allow unnan grant wissian direct

x x x

x x x x x case?

x x x x x x

x x x

x x x x

x case? x x case? x x case? x x x x

x x x x x x x x

x x x x

x

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From oþ to till Early loss of an adverbial subordinator Matti Rissanen* University of Helsinki

.

Introduction

The development of the system of adverbial connectives in the history of English begins at the earliest stages of the language. Many Old English adverbial subordinators are closely related to, and probably developed from, adverbs (þeah ‘though’, siþþan ‘since’, ‘after’, þy læs ‘lest’, combinations with swa) or adverbial prepositional phrases (æfter/ær/betwix/for/mid/to/wiþ + demonstrative pronoun). A few are related to prepositions (ær ‘ere’, butan ‘except’, oþ ‘until’). Þa hwile þe ‘while’ goes back to the noun hwil ‘space of time’, and forms derived from the demonstrative/deictic stem þæt can be used to indicate adverbial relationships (þær ‘where’, þanon ‘whence’, þider ‘whither’, þa, þonne ‘when’, þæs ‘so that’, ‘to such an extent that’, ‘in accordance with’, þenden ‘while’, ‘until’, etc.). This variety of sources supports the suggestion that at the earliest stages of Old English the distinction between adverbial, prepositional and subordinator uses of adverbial connectives was far from clear-cut (cf. Mitchell 1978, 1985: §§ 1060–1080, 2444–2449, 2536– 2560). Some of the forms, such as þeah, siþþan, butan and oþ, seem to have been fully grammaticalized in the Old English period, while with some others, particularly with those formed with prepositional phrases, grammaticalization was still in progress. The use of the overt subordination marker þe or þæt increases during the Old English period with many adverbial connectives; it could be assumed that this in* I wish to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues, Dr. Leena Kahlas-Tarkka and Dr. Matti Kilpiö for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to Ms. Bethany Fox for her excellent work in preparing the final version. The research reported here was supported in part by the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence funding for the Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English at the Department of English, University of Helsinki.

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crease stands in evidence of a growing consciousness of the hierarchical order of the clauses of the sentence, and of a wish to mark subordinate linking. In the Middle English period, further grammaticalization brings about the simplification and univerbation of many Old English adverbial subordinators, particularly those going back to prepositional phrases. New subordinators emerge, either derived from native sources or, more often, borrowed from French or Latin. In most cases, the development of the borrowed subordinators shows the following general pattern: 1. The loan-word (noun, adjective or verb) offering the basis for the connective appears in Early Middle English. 2. The grammaticalized connective develops in the course of the fourteenth century along with the strengthening position of English in various written contexts. This process may be supported by a corresponding grammaticalized form in the source language. 3. The grammaticalized connective is established and used in new syntactic contexts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The pattern of development is in most cases from prepositional and adverbial to subordinator use. In some cases, the introduction of the new connective results in the loss of the Old English one, but more often the old connective exists side by side with the new one(s), although its use is restricted semantically, syntactically and/or stylistically. Thus, for instance, the borrowed causal connective because appeared in the fourteenth century, while for still exists as a minority variant and has acquired some characteristics of a coordinating link (see Rissanen 1998; see also Kohnen & Lenker in this volume); without lost its subordinator use to except in Middle English, and even its prepositional senses narrowed (Rissanen 2002); and ere gave way to before at the same time, although it still exists as a stylistically marked form. In the present study I will discuss the uses of the Old English connective oþ, and its rather abrupt replacement by another connective, till, in Early Middle English in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This course of events shares some general features with the early development of adverbial subordinators described above. There are, however, some features which differ from the general pattern. 1. The new subordinator was not borrowed from French or Latin, but from Old Norse. 2. The replacement takes place early, in the thirteenth century. 3. The old subordinator disappears completely in a relatively short time. 4. The new subordinator had existed in the language as a dialectal form for centuries. There were obviously a number of reasons for the early replacement of oþ by till, which will be discussed below. The subordinator oþ þæt was grammaticalized

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at a very early date, when compared with many other adverbial subordinators. Univerbation from oþ þæt to oþþe or aþet resulted into homonymy with other grammatical elements in Middle English (oþþe ‘or’ and oþe/aþe ‘on the’), and till, although rare and dialectally restricted, was already available in the language. Increasing contact with Old Norse in Late Old and Early Middle English supported the adoption of this subordinator. The textual evidence for this article is collected from major Old and Middle English corpora: the Old and Middle English parts of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC) and the Middle English Compendium. The Helsinki Corpus parts have c. 500,000 words each, while the DOEC includes practically all Old English texts, c. 3.5 million words altogether. The Middle English Compendium consists of all the quotations of the Middle English Dictionary and the more than sixty prose and poetical texts which form the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (CME). The structured Helsinki Corpus, which is divided into roughly hundred-year sub-periods and includes a number of parameter codings giving information on each text, its author, dialect, etc., has been used systematically as a source of evidence and quantifications in the present paper. Wherever necessary, the evidence it gives has been supplemented from the other corpora and from major dictionaries, namely Bosworth-Toller’s AngloSaxon Dictionary, the Middle English Dictionary (MED) and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

. Old English adverbial subordinators As pointed out at the beginning of this paper, the Old English adverbial subordinators are derived from a variety of sources, mainly adverbs, prepositions or prepositional phrases. Gif ‘if ’ is not used in any other function in the recorded Old English period. Oþ can be used both as a preposition and as a subordinator; in this respect it can be compared with butan ‘except’. Perhaps the most common source of adverbial subordinators, of considerable interest in view of the origin of the subordinating oþ, is, however, formed by prepositional phrases, such as æfter/ær/for/mid/to/with governing an oblique form of a demonstrative pronoun (þæm/þon/þy). Subordinators formed with an adverb followed by þæt, such as forþ þæt and nu þæt, are also worth noting.1 . For lists of Old English subordinators, see also Mitchell (1985: §§ 1232–1233), Kortmann (1997: 292) and Rissanen (forthcoming). Mitchell does not separate adverbial subordinators from other clausal connectives, but he does distinguish prepositional from non-prepositional conjunctions. Kortmann’s useful survey mainly supports his discussion of the typological aspects of adverbial subordination.

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Table 1. Oþ and oþ þæt in the Old English sub-periods of the Helsinki Corpus. Absolute figures. Figures per 100,000 words in brackets

OE1 (–850) OE2 (850–950) OE3 (950–1050) OE4 (1050–1150) Total

Preposition

Subord. oþ

Subord. oþ þæt/þe

Total

5 68 115 31 219

0 31 13 4 48

1 62 189 39 291

6 161 317 74 558

(228.3) (73.0) (49.7) (46.0) (53.0)

(33.7) (5.2) (5.9) (11.6)

(45.7) (65.2) (75.1) (57.9) (70.4)

(274.0) (171.7) (126.0) (109.8) (135.0)

When a preposition, adverb or adverbial prepositional phrase develops a subordinator use, an overt subordination marker, with simple items mostly þæt and with prepositional phrases mostly þe, can be appended to the connective. The marker is optional, but towards the end of the period the proportional use of þe or þæt increases with most subordinators.

. Old English oþ: Preposition and subordinator Oþ was the unmarked Old English temporal connective indicating forward span,2 ‘until’, ‘(up) to’. Its cognates in other Germanic languages are Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Norse and Gothic und, and Old Saxon and Old High German unt, which go back to the Indo-European base of ancient Greek άντ¢H ‘against’ (see OED, s.v. oth, prep. and conj.). It has the same etymology as un- in until, which was borrowed from Old Norse into Middle English. There are more than 3,500 occurrences of oþ in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus and 558 in the Helsinki Corpus. Of the HC occurrences, 219 are of the prepositional use and 339 of the subordinator use (Table 1). The value of the figures in OE1 is of course diminished by the fact that the total number of words in this sub-period is only 2,190. The one very early occurrence of the subordinator use of oþ þæt (example (9), below) is, however, noteworthy in reference to the following discussion. The trend of decreasing use of oþ in the course of the Old English period can be clearly seen in the figures from OE2 to OE4. The decrease in the proportional figures for the prepositional and subordinator uses of the simple form oþ without þæt/þe from OE2 to OE3 is particularly remarkable.

. For the use of this term, see Quirk et al. (1985: 690).

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. Oþ as a preposition As a preposition, oþ can have either a temporal (examples (1) and (2)) or local (examples (3) and (4)) meaning: Temporal: (1) se Ecgberht þær in elþeodignesse fore Godes noman awunode oð his lifes ende. (HC OE2 BEDEHE Bede, History, 270)3 ‘Ecgberht lived in exile for God’s name until the end of his life.’ (2) Toeacan þæm hie derede ægþer ge þurst ge hæte, & ealne ðone dæg wæron þæt þafiende oþ niht. (HC OE2 OROS Orosius, 230) ‘In addition to that they were troubled by thirst and heat, and all the day were suffering from that until the night.’

Local: (3) Her Cerdic & Cynric ofslogon ænne Brettisc cyning, þam was nama Natanleod. & v þusendu wera mid him, æfter þan þæt lond wearð nemned Natan leaga oþ Cerdicesford. (HC OE2 CHRONA2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 14) ‘In this year Cerdic and Cynric killed a British king, whose name was Natanleod, and five thousand men with him, after that the country up to Charford is called Netley.’ (4) Her Ceolwulf Miercna cyning oferhergeade Cantware oþ Mersc, & gefengun Praen hiera cyning. (HC OE2 CHRONA2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 56) ‘In this year Ceolwulf, king of the Mercians ravaged the people of Kent up to the Marsh, and they captured Præn their king.’

. Oþ as a subordinator As pointed out above, the subordinator and prepositional uses of the connectives are closely related, and it is possible that the subordinator developed from the preposition by a shift of the grammatical category of the constituent governed by the preposition from a noun phrase to a clause. In terms of traditional grammatical categorization, we can, indeed, suggest that the prepositional use of oþ preceded the subordinator use (cf. Adams 1907: 131 and Kivimaa 1966: 158). With oþ, the optional subordination marker was þæt; the particle þe occurs only sporadically. There are three instances in the Helsinki Corpus (examples (5)–

. The capitalised abbreviations of texts in the Helsinki Corpus reference lines are explained in the Manual (Kytö 1996: 167–230) or .

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(7)). Three more can be found in the DOEC, one of them of the phrase oþ þe þæt (example (8)):4 (5) Alecgað hit ðonne forhwæga on anre mile þone mæstan dæl fram þæm tune, þonne oðerne, ðonne þæne þriddan, oþ þe hyt eall aled bið on þære anre mile. (HC OE2 OHTHR3 Ohthere, 20) ‘They place it [the money] then at the distance of about one mile from the village, the largest part, then the second, then the third, until it has all been placed within that one mile.’ (6) þa foron forð oþþe hie comon to Lundenbyrg. (HC OE2 CHRONA2 AngloSaxon Chronicle, 86) ‘Then they went forth until they came to London.’ (7) besæton hie þær utan, oþþe hie him sealdon gislas. (HC OE2 CHRONA2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 98) ‘They besieged them there until they gave them hostages.’ (8) budon ofer ealle eorðan þæt eal folc sceolde fæsten ðri dagas oð ðe þæt heo on eafensteorran geseagan. (DOEC Hom Wednesday in Rogationtide, 10) ‘They asked that all people in the world should fast for three days until they saw the evening star.’

It is noteworthy that oþ þæt is not normally followed by þe like the subordinators which go back to adverbial prepositional phrases (for þam þe, etc.). There are five instances of this collocation in the HC examples (9)–(13). In two of them, þe is assimilated to þæt, the spelling implying a phonological change of the initial consonant (examples (12)–(13)). It is possible that these sporadic forms with þe occur by analogy with the forms of the other subordinators going back to prepositional phrases. (9) ðonan benioðan wuda on geryhte ut on hreodpol ðonne up on afene oððæt ðe se alda suinhaga utscioteð to afene. (HC OE1 BIRCH Documents, 34) ‘Then through the forest directly to the reed pool, then up to the river, up to the point where the old swine enclosure touches the river.’ (10) Gif hie þonne cumað of oþrum biterum & yfelum wætum þa þe wyrceað oman þonne beoþ þa elcran to stillanne oþþæt þe hie unstrangran weorþan. (HC OE2 LAECEB Laeceboc, 178) ‘If they then come from other bitter and evil humours which cause inflammations, then the latter are to be stilled until they become weaker.’ . As the number of the instances of oþþe spelt as one word is over 5,000 in the DOEC, only those instances were checked in which oþ and þe were spelt as two words. The low frequency of þe in this combination is, however, obvious.

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(11) He ða eac in Cent mæssepreostas & diaconas hadode, oðþæt þe Theodor ærcebiscop to his seðle cwom. (HC OE2 BEDEHE Bede, 260) ‘Then he also ordained priests and deacons in Kent until Archbishop Theodore came to his see.’ (12) þe steorra þe hiae ær gesægon in eastdæle foreeade hiæ oþþætti he cumende gestod bufan ðær se cneht wæs. (HC OE3 RUSHW Rushworth Gospels, 31) ‘The star that they had seen in the east went before them until it stopped above the place where the boy was.’ (13) þa cyningas þe æfter Romuluse ricsedon wæron forcuðran & eargran þonne he wære ... oð þætte Tarcuinius, ðe we ær ymbe sæadon, þe hira eallra fracoþast wæs ealra þara Romana wif ða þe he mehte he to geligre geniedde. (HC OE2 OROS Orosius, 66) ‘The kings that ruled after Romulus were more wicked and vile than he was ... until Tarquinius, of whom we spoke earlier, who was the most abominable of all, compelled all Roman woman that he could to have sexual intercourse with him.’

It is also striking that the form oþ þæt is more frequent than the simple form oþ even in ninth- and early tenth-century texts, as shown by Table 1. In this respect, too, this subordinator differs from most other prepositional phrase subordinators, with which the use of the subordination marker increases considerably in the course of the Old English period; see Rissanen (1998) on the causal for þam (þe), and Rissanen (forthcoming) on ær þam (þe). It is also noteworthy that oþ þæt is the prevailing form in Old English poetry, and that the higher frequency of the simple oþ is restricted to a few prose texts only, in the Helsinki Corpus mainly to Orosius (18 instances as compared with 7 of oþ þæt) and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (8 instances as compared with 6 of oþ þæt); see also Mitchell (1985: § 2751). This suggests that the combination oþ þæt was grammaticalized at an early stage in the Old English period, earlier than the subordinators derived from adverbial prepositional phrases. The prevalence and early grammaticalization of the form oþ þæt may be relevant in our attempt to trace the origin of this subordinator. There are two possible lines of development. The simpler one is that þæt is the accusative form of the demonstrative pronoun, and that the subordinator goes back to the adverbially used prepositional phrase meaning ‘up to that (place/moment)’. This interpretation would connect the development of oþ þæt with that of the other subordinators formed from prepositional phrases, such as for þam (þe), to þon þæt, etc. One problem with this suggestion, however, is the rare occurrence of the combination oþ þæt þe mentioned above. Furthermore, with most other prepositional adverbial/subordinator phrases there is no shortage of instances of the adverbial use, while there are no unambiguous occurrences of the adverbial use of oþ þæt (cf., however, Mitchell 1985: §§ 2754–2756). The early grammaticalization of oþ þæt compared with other prepositional phrase subordinators is also noteworthy.

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The other possible line of development would be that þæt in oþ þæt is a subordinator going back to the prehistory of Old English, comparable to the use of the same word to introduce noun clauses (see Mitchell’s thorough and insightful discussion of this question, 1985: §§ 2427–2432). Ultimately, of course, even this connective þæt goes back to the demonstrative stem. Another prepositional phrase subordinator which, in an interesting way, shows the prevalence of þæt instead of þe and is semantically close to oþ þæt is to þon þæt. The subordinators forþ þæt and nu þæt are also worth noting. The question of the appearance and frequency of Old English adverbial subordination markers still needs more detailed research based on all phrasal subordinators. When oþ is used as a subordinator, the temporal sense is the most natural and most common (examples (14)–(15)). (14) Hi gewunodan ðær swa on ðære ylcan wicstowe, oð ðæt hi gehælede wurdon. (HC OE3 AELFOLD Aelfric, Old Testament Joshua, V 1) ‘So they lived there in the same dwelling-place until they were healed.’ (15) Hie ðær þa winnende wæron oð hie þa burg abræcon, & æfter þæm wið þa londleode on ælce healfe unablinnendlice winnende wæron, oð hie ærymbutan hæfdon monega byrig begietena. (HC OE2 OROS Orosius, 66) ‘Then they fought there until they captured the town, and after that they fought with the inhabitants of the country unceasingly on each side until they had captured many towns in the surroundings.’

In some instances a local destination is indicated, but even in most of those cases the verb indicating motion suggests duration of time (examples (16)–(17)). Most clearly local are the contexts in charters where boundaries are defined, as in example (9) above, cf. Mitchell (1985: § 2746). Less than thirty occurrences with a local destination expressed can be found in the Helsinki Corpus. (16) Se Cnut gewende him ut mid his flotan. & wearð þet earme folc þus beswican þurh hine. & wænde þa suðweard oð þæt he com to Sandwic. & let þær up þa gislas þe his fæder gesealde wæron. (HC OE2 CHRONE Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 145) ‘Canute put out to sea with his fleet and the poor people were thus deceived by him, and he then turned to the south until he came to Sandwich.’ (17) on þæt steorbord him bið ærest Iraland, & þonne ða igland þe synd betux Iralande & þissum lande. þonne is þis land oð he cymð to Scirincges heale. (HC OE2 OHTHR3 Ohthere, 19) ‘To starboard he has first Iraland and then the islands that are between Iraland and this country then this country until he comes to Skiringssal.’

Mitchell (1985: § 2745) points out that, as with other temporal subordinators, the sense of oþ þæt can ‘shade into clauses of result’ as in (17):

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(17) Swa rixode ond wið rihte wan, ana wið eallum, oðþæt idel stod husa selest. (HC OE3 BEOW Beowulf, 144–146) ‘So he ruled and fought against what was right, alone against all, until the best of houses stood empty.’

As to the other subordinators indicating ‘until’ in Old English, there are isolated instances of fort(e), (swa lange) fortþan, forþ þæt, ongean þæt, þe gyt þe, to þam/þan/þon þe/þæt and for þæt (Mitchell 1985: § 2760). All these are peripheral, however, and can hardly be taken as genuine fully grammaticalized functional alternatives to oþ þæt. The most likely alternative is, of course, the complex preposition governed by to, but this combination is the unmarked subordinator indicating purpose or result, and is only sporadically found in temporal contexts indicating ‘until’. The connotations, however, often overlap, at least to some extent (cf. Mitchell 1985: §§ 2748–2750). . OE til: A rare northern preposition The preposition til is found only a few times in Old English texts. It can be used in the same functions as the preposition to, governing both noun phrases and inflected infinitives (example (20)). It is traditionally described as a borrowing from Old Norse (OED s.v. till prep., conj., adv.). This etymology cannot be disputed, but it is noteworthy that the earliest occurrence is found in an early eighth-century manuscript of Cædmon’s Hymn (example (18)). This would be quite early for a borrowed grammatical lexeme. Another early poetical example occurs in Ruthwell Cross (example (19)). In these instances, til is an equivalent to the preposition to; the West Saxon version of Cædmon’s Hymn reads heofon to hrofe. (18) He aerist scop aelda barnum heben til hrofe, haleg scepen. (HC OE1 CAEDMON Caedmon’s Hymn, 105) ‘He first created for the children of men, heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.’ (19) Krist wæs on rodi Hweþræ þer fusæ fearran kwomu æþþilæ til anum. (HC OE1 RUTHW Ruthwell Cross, 28) ‘Christ was on the cross, nevertheless the diligent and noble ones came from afar to the same place.’5

. For this interpretation, which replaces the older ‘to the solitary person’, see Rissanen (1967) and Swanton (1987). The new interpretation is based on a thorough survey of the functions of Old English an ‘one’.

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Two more occurrences of OE til can be found in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, both in the Lindisfarne Gospels (examples (20)–(21)). (20) huer wiltu þæt we gearuiga ðe til eottanne eastro. (DOEC Lindisfarne Gospels, Matthew 26.17) ‘Where do you wish that we prepare for you to eat the passover?’ (21) ða cued til him ðe hælend alle ge ondspyrnise ge ðrowiges on mec. (DOEC Lindisfarne Gospels, Matthew 26.31) ‘Then Christ said to them, you shall all be offended or suffer because of me.’

The DOEC also comprises two occurrences of til from the Peterborough Chronicle (MS E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and more than a dozen from charters, but these occurrences date from the Middle English period. In the Lindisfarne Gospels, there are 43 occurrences of oþ (preposition and subordinator) as compared with the two til occurrences quoted above. It is thus obvious that til was not a serious competitor to oþ in Old English.

. Early Middle English replacement of oþ by til . The loss of oþ Oþ disappears rapidly in the Early Middle English period. There are altogether thirty-four instances in the ME1 sub-period (1150–1250) of the Helsinki Corpus, but not a single one dating from the later sub-periods. Occurrences can be found in eight texts, as shown by Table 2. With one exception (example (22)), the subordinator is used in clearly temporal contexts; the prepositional use is more varying. The first three texts in the list probably go back to Old English originals, and the fairly high frequency of oþ in the Vespasian Homilies and Holy Rood Tree samTable 2. The occurrences of oþ in the Middle English part of the Helsinki Corpus. Absolute figures. Dialect of the texts indicated (S = South; SE = South East; WM = West Midland) Vespasian Homilies (a1150 SE) Peri Didaxeon (c1150 S) Holy Rood Tree (c1175 S) Layamon’s Brut (a1225 WM) Lambeth Homilies (a1225 WM) Sawles Warde (c1225 WM) St Katherine (c1225 WM) Hali Meidhad (c1225 WM) Ancrene Wisse (c1230 WM) Total

8 2 9 1 2 2 3 2 5 34

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ples is therefore understandable. In these instances, the full form oþ is regularly used (examples (22)–(23)): (22) he wæs se ilca Tirus swa unhal on his andwliten, þt þt adle, þe cancre hatte, him wæs on þan nebbe fram þan swyðre nosþyrlle, oððet hit com to þan ege. (HC ME1 VESPD32 Vespasian Homilies, 88) ‘He, the same Tirus, was so ill in his face that the illness called cancer affected his face from the right nostril until it reached the eye.’ (23) ða sende he forð all þæt ferd & him sylf þer wunode oð ða niŠoðan tid þæs dæŠes. (HC ME1 HROOD Holy Rood Tree, 2) ‘Then he sent forth all the army and stayed himself there until the ninth hour of the day.’

Oþ also occurs in West Midland texts dating from the early thirteenth century.6 In this group, the phonetic weakening of the connective is implied by the spellings aþet, a/o þat/þet, which occur in fourteen out of the fifteen examples in these texts (examples (24)–(25)). (24) ne we nusten hwet we duden a ðet he undutte us & tahte us treowe ileaue. (HC ME1 KATH Katherine, 42) ‘We did not know what we did until he opened us [= made us receptive to instruction] and taught us true faith.’ (25) A wummon þe haueð ilosed hire nede. oðer a sutere his eal; secheð hit ananriht & towent euch strea aþet hit beo ifunden. (HC ME1 ANCR Ancrene Wisse, 166) ‘A woman who has lost her needle, or a shoemaker his awl, seeks for it at once and turns over every straw until it is found.’

Beside phonological weakening, homophony with two other forms may have contributed to the rapid loss of oth in Middle English. One of these forms was the coordinating link oþþe ‘or’ (example (26)), which was fairly common in twelfth and thirteenth century texts and which became homophonous with oth ‘until’ after having lost its unstressed final [6] in Early Middle English pronunciation. The other form was the weak oþe ‘on the’ which must have been common in allegro speech and appears even in writing (example (27)). (26) Efne heo bið smeke ilic, oððe rænæs scuræs. (HC ME1 HOM BOD12 Bodley Homilies, 132) ‘Lo! They are like smoke or showers of rain.’ . The manuscripts of the Katherine Group texts included in the Helsinki Corpus represent the AB language (MS Cotton Titus D xviii). The Layamon text comes from the C manuscript (MS Cotton Caligula A ix).

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(27) þenne ha seruið wel þe ancre hare leafdi; hwen ha notieð ham wel in hare sawle neode. hwen þe ehe is oþe boc. oþer o sum oðer god. (HC ME1 ANCR Ancrene Wisse, 90) ‘Then they [the five senses] serve well the anchoress, their lady, when she uses them well for her soul’s need, when the eye is on the book or on some other good thing.’

The evidence provided by the Middle English Compendium confirms the rapid disappearance of oþ. The thirteenth-century texts included in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse do not supply any instances, and the latest example quoted by the Middle English Dictionary dates from 1225. . The popularization of til While oþ is waning in Early Middle English, the use of til is gradually gaining ground. In the ME1 sub-period of the Helsinki Corpus, however, the latter occurs mainly in East Midland texts, as shown by Table 3. This dialectal bias clearly indicates that contact supported the popularization of the new subordinator. The earliest two instances of til as a subordinator, dating from the mid-twelfth century, can be found in the Peterborough Chronicle (examples (28)–(29)). The only text in which it occurs frequently is the Ormulum (example (30)), which shows a strong Old Norse influence in its grammaticalized vocabulary. The single instance found in the West Midland Sawles Warde (example (31)) is of interest, as this sample, from the Helsinki Corpus, also has two instances of oþ. The Corpus

Table 3. The occurrences of til in the Early Middle English sub-sections of the Helsinki Corpus. Absolute figures. Dialect of the texts indicated (EM = East Midland; S = South; SE = South East; WM = West Midland). Frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets ME1 (1150–1250) Peterborough Chronicle (c1150 EM) Ormulum (c1200 EM) Trinity Homilies (a1225 EM) Sawles Warde (c1225 WM) Total

2 60 1 1 64 (56.6)

ME2 (1250–1350) Havelok (c1300 EM) Bestiary (a1300 EM) Bevis of Hamptoun (c1330 EM) King Horn (c1300 S) Dame Sirith (a1300 S) Total

41 11 5 6 4 67 (68.7)

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of Middle English Prose and Verse adds one instance from Hali Meidenhad (example (32)), which also represents the West Midland dialect and has instances of oþ. (28) þar he nam þe biscop Roger of Serebyri & Alexander biscop of Lincol & te canceler Roger, hise neues, & dide ælle in prisun til he iafen up here castles. (HC ME1 PETERB Peterborough Chronicle, Annal for 1137, 55) ‘There he took Roger of Salisbury and Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln and the Chancellor Roger, his nephews and put all in prison until they gave up their castles.’ (29) he besæt heom til hi aiauen up here castles. (HC ME1 PETERB Peterborough Chronicle, Annal for 1140, 59) ‘He besieged them until they gave up their castles.’ (30) All mannkinn, fra þatt Adam wass Þurrh Drihhtin wrohht off eorþe, Anan till þatt itt cumenn wass Till Cristess dæþ o rode, All for till helle ... (ORM ME1 INTR Ormulum Introd., 1) ‘All mankind since Adam was created by God on the Earth, until the time came for Christ’s death on the cross, all went to hell ...’ (31) Ant til ilke unhope is ham meast pine. þt nan naueð neauer mare hope of nan a couerunge. (HC ME1 SWARD Sawles Warde, 172) ‘And to the same despair the greatest torment is added for them in that no-one will never have any hope of any deliverance.’ (32) Moni halt him til an make, ne nule after þat lure neauer nimen oðer. (CME Hali Meidenhad, Cotton Titus D.18, 22) ‘Many stick to one mate and do not want to take another one after the loss of the one.’

In the next Helsinki Corpus sub-period (1250–1350) there are 67 occurrences of til (Table 3). Most of these still occur in East Midland texts (Havelok 41; Bestiary 11; Bevis of Hamptoun 5), but there are also six instances in King Horn and four in Dame Sirith, both southern texts. In the next Helsinki Corpus sub-period (1350– 1420), the number of instances of til rises to 283 (153 per 100,000 words) occurring in some twenty texts. Thus, this change from oþ to til in the English connective system was completed by the fourteenth century. As for the other variant connectives indicating ‘until’, oþ and til do not seem to have any serious competitors in Early Middle English. To can, of course, be used as a preposition in roughly similar contexts, including the temporal, but the subordinator group governed by to hardly exists in Early Middle English. The corpora and dictionaries give only a few scattered occurrences from twelfth- or thirteenth-century texts (examples (33)–(34)):

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(33) His braŠen Šeseoð on þrym sestrum eles on niwen croccen to ðat [OE oðþæt; L donec] þryddan dæl si bewealled. (MED c1150 [OE] Hrl.HApul. [Hrl 6258B] 237/7) ‘Boil its brain in three sesters of oil in a new pot until one third has boiled away.’ (34) Me dide cnotted strenges abuton here hæued & uurythen to ðæt it gæde to þe hærnes. (MED a1160 Peterb. Chronicle, [LdMisc 636] an. 1137) ‘Knotted ropes were tied around their heads and twisted until they penetrated to the brains.’

Until, a borrowing from Old Norse, is first recorded in the Ormulum, but the next instances do not appear until the fourteenth century. Thus, it probably does not contribute to the loss of oþ. Of interest are the spread of until from the North to all dialects in late Middle and Early Modern English, and the long competition of this form with til in Modern English, with a fairly clear distribution by genre, register and function. I have discussed these questions in another context (Rissanen 2005).

. Concluding remarks In this study I have presented an account of the short history of an adverbial connective, preposition and subordinator, which gave way to another at a remarkably early date. Oþ shares a number of features with other Old English adverbial connectives; the preposition and subordinator exist side by side, and the subordinator is either the simple form oþ or the phrase oþ þæt. The phrasal form is more frequent than the simple form even in early Old English texts and in Old English verse. This suggests very early grammaticalization, and possibly a different origin for oþ þæt than for most other subordinators going back to prepositional phrases. One contributing factor to the substitution of til for oþ may have been that til /CVC/ was phonetically weightier than oþ /VC/, particularly as the phonetic weakening of oþ þæt resulted in homophony with oþþe ‘or’ and oþe ‘on the’. The complete loss of oþ and its replacement by til takes place remarkably early in Middle English. This is, of course, connected with the fact that til existed as a dialectal prepositional variant as early as the Old English period. Scandinavian contact also explains the early date of the process.

Sources DOEC = Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (1997). Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies.

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HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM), Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. Kytö, Merja (1996 [1991]). Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. Third ed. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. CME = Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Middle English Compendium (2002). Michigan: University of Michigan.

References Adams, Arthur (1907). The Syntax of the Temporal Clause in Old English Prose. (Yale Studies in English, 32). London: Routledge. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1882–1898). Oxford: Clarendon Press. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth: Supplement, ed. T. Northcote Toller (1921). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kivimaa, Kirsti (1966). Þe and þat as Clause Connectives in Early Middle English with Especial Consideration of the Emergence of the Pleonastic þat. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Middle English Dictionary, ed. Sherman M. Kuhn et al. (1956–2001). Ann Arbor/Mich.: University of Michigan Press. Mitchell, Bruce (1978). ‘Old English ‘oð þæt’ Adverb?’. Notes and Queries 223: 390–394. Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of English. London: Longman. Rissanen, Matti (1967). ‘Two Notes on Old English Poetic Texts: ‘Beowulf ’ 2461, ‘Ruthwell Cross’ III 3’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 68: 76–88. Rissanen, Matti (1998). ‘Towards an Integrated View of the Development of English: Notes on Causal Linking’. In: Advances in English Historical Linguistics (1996), ed. Jacek Fisiak and Marcin Krygier. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 112). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 389–406. Rissanen, Matti (2002). ‘Without except(ing) unless ...: on the Grammaticalisation of Expressions Indicating Exception in English’. In: Of Dyuersite & Chaunge of Langage: Essays Presented to Manfred Görlach on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, ed. Katja Lenz and Ruth Möhlig. Heidelberg: Winter, 77–87. Rissanen, Matti (2005). ‘The Development of till and until in English.’ In: Recent Trends in Medieval English Language and Literature in Honour of Young-Bae Park. Vol. I, ed. Jacek Fisiak and Hye-Kyung Kang. Seoul: Thaehaksa, 75–92. Rissanen, Matti (forthcoming). ‘Development of Adverbial Subordinators in Early English’. Swanton, Michael, ed. (1987 [1970]). The Dream of the Rood. Exeter: University of Exeter.

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Rise of the adverbial conjunctions {any, each, every} time Laurel J. Brinton* University of British Columbia

.

Introduction

This paper looks at the relatively recent use of any time/anytime, each time/eachtime, and every time/everytime in a conjunctive function (i.e., governing a clause) with the meaning ‘whenever’, as exemplified in (1) to (3): (1) a.

Any time we get lonely we can just come home and commune with the dead (ACE Australian English) b. Walter is willing to hand over the entire estate to you anytime you wish (BNC British English)

(2) a.

Each time they smoke they give Nell a cigarette, too (FROWN US English) b. The artist’s attention to detail, from dewdrops to ladybugs, will have you discover something new eachtime you view her paintings. ( 11 September 2006)

(3) a.

Chomsky pointed out that the rats were always rewarded when they did what was required of them, but children were not rewarded every time they made a correct utterance (Wellman New Zealand English) b. everytime our hopes for Linda’s recovery were revived, they were dashed again (Strathy Canadian English)

* I am grateful to the audiences at Studies in the History of English (SHEL-4) in Flagstaf in September 2005 and Directions in English Language Studies (DELS) in Manchester in April 2006 for their helpful discussion of this paper, as well as to the two readers for this volume for their insightful comments.

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Although – interestingly – this usage is not recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED),1 it is quite widely attested in contemporary English varieties, especially in registers at the more informal end of the continuum. Historical evidence suggests that every time started to be used in this conjunctive use in the sixteenth century, each time in the late seventeenth century, and any time in the early/mid nineteenth century. Note that this conjunctive use of any time, every time, each time is distinct from the more common adverbial use, as in: (4) a.

Canadians can tickle their taste buds anytime with the delectable taste of tropical fruit (Strathy 1993 St. John’s Evening Telegram) b. So we met in our own homes, going to a different house each time (Wellman 1986 Thurston, ‘Working in a Local Peace Group’) c. It is not in the nature of the job, or of live [sic], to be successful every time (FROWN 1992 McInery, Desert Sinners, 25)

In each instance, as we will see below, the adverbial use is historically prior to the conjunctive use. Of the other adverbial compounds with any- (anyplace, anyway(s), anywise, anyhow, anymore, anywhen, anywhere), every- (everyplace, everyway(s), everywhen, everywhither, everywhere), and each- (each place, each way), only anywhere and everywhere have acquired conjunctive uses,2 though again these are not recorded in the OED. Examples may be found as early as the nineteenth century: (5) a.

He would live with his grandmother anywhere she liked (Thackeray, Newcomes, 551; from Jespersen 1927: 151) b. Everywhere the members of this empire had begun to knit; the cohesion was far closer (OED 1832–34 De Quincey, The Cæsars 1859, X. 10)

. Grammatical function of the forms in Modern English According to Quirk et al. (1985), these expressions belong to a class of ‘marginal subordinators’ whose syntactic status is not entirely clear. Citing the moment (that) and every time (that), they conclude:

. The Oxford English Dictionary (s.v. every, I1e) records the use of the expression every time in the sense ‘on all occasions, without fail or exception, certainly’; however, the citations exemplify every time in a purely adverbial function. . Rare instances of the other forms functioning conjunctively can be found. For example, Jespersen (1927: 152) gives one example each of conjunctive anyhow and anyway.

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We consider these to be more like free syntactic constructions than like complex subordinators. The relationship between the moment and the following clause, for example, can be explained as the head of a noun phrase modified by a restrictive relative clause, the noun phrase functioning as adverbial of time (1002).

Later they include every time (that) again among a set of noun and prepositional phrases that ‘combine with relative clauses to convey a meaning similar to that of subordinators’ (1086n., also 1080n.). Evidence for this analysis, namely, as the adverbial head of a relative clause with that deleted, may be provided by the Longman Grammar (Biber et al. 1999: 624–629) in which it is observed that certain head nouns ‘corresponding to major adverbial categories’, such as place, time, day, reason, and way, are very common with a zero relativizer in all genres. Among this set, the word time occurs most frequently in such ‘contact clauses’ (Jespersen 1927: 132ff.). This paper will argue, in contrast, that any time, each time, and every time are in fact functioning as subordinating conjunctions. They belong to the class of forms that Kortmann (1998a, 2001) calls ‘adverbial subordinators’ or ‘adverbial conjunctions’ (AdvConj), i.e., ‘free morphemes which operate over a subordinate clause serving as an optional adverbial modifier of the main clause’ (2001: 842). In Kortmann’s classification, the expressions considered here would be classified as markers of ‘temporal contingency’, typically expressed by forms signaling simultaneity overlap such as ‘when, whenever’ (1998a: 465, 2001: 845). In this paper, support for interpreting any time, each time, and every time as AdvConjs is diachronic. Yet synchronic evidence can also be adduced in favor of this analysis. Kortmann (2001: 842) specifies four characteristics of AdvConjs: (1) they are ‘non-inflecting free forms’; (2) they ‘operate over a (typically finite) subordinate clause . . . which has the status of an optional adjunct’; (3) they ‘do not fulfil a syntactic function (e.g. subject, object, adverbial) in the subordinate clause’; and (4) they ‘assume a fixed position at the margin of the subordinate clause’. Any time, each time, and every time clearly meet criteria (2)–(4). The clause they govern serves as an adjunct adverbial of time in respect to the main clause. Any time, each time, and every time (like conjunctive that) do not serve any syntactic function (subject, object, adverbial) within their own clause, and like wh-words and conjunctions generally, they assume a fixed position at the left margin of the subordinate clause. In respect to Kortmann’s criterion (1), the evidence is less clear. Quirk et al. (1985: 1002) argue that the variability of at the moment that (e.g., {at, from} the {first, next, last, very} {moment, instant, minute, time} {that, when}) points to its status as a free syntactic construction rather than a complex subordinator. However, any time, each time, every time, although in rare instances showing minimal

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variation (e.g., each and every time, every single time, any old time),3 would appear to be virtually fixed. Discourse factors also point to the function of the -time clause as an adverbial clause rather than a reduced relative clause. It has been noted that initial adverbial clauses do ‘text-organizing work’ (Ford 1993: 17). Chafe sees such clauses as having a ‘guidepost’ function, ‘signaling a path or orientation in terms of which the following information is to be understood’ (1984: 444). Ford concludes that the role of initial temporal clauses (as opposed to conditional or other types of adverbial clauses) is ‘to provide temporal background for accounts, to encode new time frames . . . and to move from specific to generic time frames’ (1993: 41).4 In contrast, final temporal clauses do not have a discourse function but simply complete sentence information (Ford 1993: 85). My corpus provides many examples of fronted clauses headed by any time, each time, and every time, with the contrast in function between initial and final clauses noted by Ford. For example, comparing (1a) and (1b), we find that in (1a) the anytime-clause, ‘getting lonely’, is the topic or background for the suggested course of action expressed in the main clause, ‘our coming home and communing with the dead’, whereas in (1b) the main clause provides the topic (‘Walter’) and the comment (‘his willingness to hand over the estate’), with the anytime-clause adding the time of the proposed action.5 The remainder of this paper presents historical evidence for the AdvConj analysis, based on theories of grammaticalization and lexicalization, focusing on the development of any time, each time, and every time from Old English (c. 650–1150), through Middle English (c. 1150–1500), Early Modern English (c. 1500–1700), and Late Modern English (c. 1700–1900). Historical data were collected from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC), the quotation bank of the Middle English Dictionary (MED), The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), The Lampeter Corpus (Lampeter), the University of Virginia Modern English Collection (UofV), Chadwyck-Healey English Drama . In the BNC, for example, there are 10 instances of every single time and 7 of each and every time (as opposed to 2,180 examples of every time and 991 examples of each time [gross figures including conjuctive, adverbial, and nominal uses]). A number of the variant forms have a conjunctive function, as in At Hilton International, it’s our intention to make you feel welcome and at home each and every time you’re our guest or Every single time I do this job I find a new record by Rancid Hell Spawn on top of the pile. However, any old time, which occurs 6 times (as opposed to 2,083 examples of any time), serves only as an adverbial. . Ford includes every time among the conjunctions introducing temporal clauses (1993: 23, 27). . Note the difference in information structuring that would result from fronting the clause in (1b): Anytime you wish, Walter is willing to hand over the entire estate to you. This would topicalize the anytime-clause and become a sentence about ‘your wishes’.

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(CH-D) and Early English Prose Fiction (CH-P), and the quotation bank of the Oxford English Dictionary.6

. Development of any time Throughout its history, any time has occurred in an adverbial prepositional phrase on/in/at any time. This structure is rare in Old English (7 examples in DOEC),7 but increasingly common in Middle English (Middle English Dictionary, s.v. an¯ı, 2g), and predominant by Early Modern English. Here, any functions as a modifier (pre-determiner) and time is a noun complement of the preposition: (6) a.

Gyf heo eft on ænige time hig sylfe to mynstres wununge gefæstnian wille (DOEC c1000 Rule of St. Benedict [Winteney Version], B 10.3.4) ‘If she again at any time herself to the dwelling of the monastery will secure.’ b. what is ther in hem that mai be thyn in any tyme (MED ?a1425 [c1380] Chaucer, Boece, 2.pr.5.6–7) ‘what is there in them that may be yours in any time.’ c. We schulde not ne ouŠte not to take þe vss of eny sensual delectabil þing at eny tyme (MED c1443 Pecock, The Rule of Christian Religion [Mrg M 519], 272) ‘We should not, nor ought not, make use of any sensual delectable thing at any time.’

The use of any time as nominal complement of a preposition continues into contemporary English. Another common nominal use is in fixed collocates containing any time as complement of a verb. These first appear in Middle English (7a); the inventory of verbs in such collocates expands in Early Modern English (7b–f) and Late Modern English (7g–l):8 (7) a.

So wol I noght that eny time Be lost (MED a1393 Gower, Confessio Amantis [Frf3], 3.2702) ‘So I would not that any time be lost.’ b. and will not cause you stay vpon any matter, or prolong any time about any thing (CH-P 1580 Saker, Narbonus: The Laberynth of Libertie, 34)

. A full listing of the corpora used in this paper is contained in the ‘Sources’ section at the end of the paper. . Two examples of ænigum timan [dative] ‘(in/on) any time’ occur. . An interesting nominal use of anytime is the following: The great already known, and the great any-time/ after today (UofV 1856 Whitman, Leaves of Grass).

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c. d.

e.

f. g.

h.

i. j. k. l.

who . . . can hardly allot themselues any time to their bookes (CH-P 1607 Anon., Dobsons Drie Bobbes, Chap. 13, 90) I would advise him not to let any time slip but to take Horse and be gone that night (CH-P 1671 Head and Kirkman, The English Rogue, Part 4, Chap. III, 56) for there is not one in a hundred of us that dedicate any time to the Improvement, or Pleasures of the Mind (CH-P 1692 Gildon, The Post-boy Rob’d of his Mail, 211) But pray, Sir, (pursu’d she, without giving me any time to answer) (CH-P 1693 Anon., The Player’s Tragedy, or Fatal Love, 25) ’Twould be altogether needless to wast any Time in insisting upon the Necessity of understanding this part of Pharmacology (Lampeter 1712 Guybon, An Essay concerning the Growth of Empiricism; or the Encouragement of Quacks) I shall not therefore spend any time in Proving these Things to be profane and vain bablings (Lampeter 1730 Bedford, A Sermon [. . . ] Occasioned by the Erecting of a Play House in the Neighbourhood) she cannot fix any time for their beginning (UofV 1796–1817 Jane Austen’s Letters To Her Sister Cassandra and Others, 232) The middle of July is Martha’s time, as far as she has any time (UofV 1796–1817 Jane Austen’s Letters To Her Sister Cassandra and Others, 391) I have no idea whether this took any time (UofV 1850 Dickens, David Copperfield, Chap. 38) “Our choice of friends”, she answered, smiling faintly, “is not so great, that I need any time for consideration” (UofV 1848 Dickens, Dombey and Son, Chap. 33)

The adverbial use of any time appears by the end of the fourteenth century, remains fairly uncommon throughout Early Modern English, and becomes established by Late Modern English: Cheresche here & chaste Šif . . . þat sche wold miswerche wrongli any time (MED a1375 William of Palerne [KC 13], 5148) ‘Exhort her and subdue [her] if . . . that she would commit an offense wrongly anytime.’ b. and in Jhesu Criste þay kan fynde na swettnes; or if þay any tyme fele oghte, it es swa lyttill and swa schorte (HC c1440 [a1349] Rolle, The Bee and the Stork) ‘and in Jesus Christ they can find no sweetness, or if they anytime feel ought it is too little and too short.’ c. God . . . cannot any time either erre, or conceiue any false opinions, or repugning counsels (OED 1577 H.I., Bullinger’s (H.) Fiftie Godlie . . . Sermons Diuided into fiue Decades, 251)

(8) a.

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d. Went he any time away with the worse? very pleasant he was and laughed at himselfe most of all (OED 1632 Holland, Xenophon’s Cyrupædia, I.12) e. he would hazard his Person any time, and fight for him that would give him the best Promotion (CH-P 1693 Anon., Vertue Rewarded, or The Irish Princess, 16) f. When once a Man has been any Time on the left Hand of Gain, it must be [etc.] (OED 1722 Mist’s Weekly Journal, I.252) g. for Bill’s worth two of Toby any time (UofV 1838 Dickens, Oliver Twist, 232) h. The weather breaking might send me off any time, as my uncle stops here only so long as it is fine (OED 1887 Yeats, Letters, I.51)

Only one univerbated form is cited in the corpus of the Middle English Dictionary (9a). In Early Modern English and Late Modern English, I have found only the nominal and adverbial univerbated forms cited in (9b–d): (9) a.

Ther er venial syns: First, when a man etes or drinkes mara Anytime þan myster ware (MED a1425 [a1400] Prick of Conscience [Glb E.9 and Hrl 4196], 3347) ‘There are venial sins: First when a man eats or drinks more anytime than there is need.’ b. weher he gius no other body leaue to visit him at anytime but a certaine priest (CH-P 1593 Sidney, The Covntesse of Pembrokes Arcadia Book 1, 7) c. the amount could be drawn at anytime without difficulty (UofV 1861 Brooks, Letter to Eleanor Stuart Brooks, Sept. 18) d. They are quite averse to going I will write to you anytime soon (UofV 1862 Augusta County: Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara A. Hotchkiss, March 18)

The earliest examples of the AdvConj usage are found in personal letters in the early/mid nineteenth century in American texts: (10) a.

so please call on me any time you think proper I am Respectfull Yrs (UofV 1818–19 Jefferson, 45 Letters to and from Jefferson) b. Any time you have a chance to get pictures of the children I wish you would have them taken & send them to me (UofV 1864 Franklin County: Samuel M. Potter to Cynthia Potter, Jan. 11)

In its earliest manifestations, it often appears in represented and recorded speech: (11) a.

“for you could find a sunset some-where any time you wanted one!” quoth Briggs (UofV 1867 Lanier, Tiger-Lilies: A Novel, Chap. XIII, 97) b. Any time you see something’s up, in the night, just skip right around and maow (UofV 1876 Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chap. XXVII, 258)

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c.

and since it was the fashion to be in love with married people, why, she could run away any time she liked to New Orleans with Celina’s husband (UofV 1899 Chopin, The Awakening, Chap. XXXIX, 296) d. Any time you’re in need of work, report to me (UofV 1899 Wetmore, Last of the Great Scouts; the Life Story of Col. William F. Cody (‘Buffalo Bill’), Chap. XV, 142)

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, AdvConj anytime is still rather uncommon but gains frequency after 1920: (12) a.

Well, then, any time you find it convenient to move in, they are ready (UofV 1900 Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Chap. XLIV) b. We eat any time we are hungry; we can kneel down and say our prayers (UofV 1906 Carleton, The Whale, 120) c. Any time you are in Philip Ammon’s presence, exert the charms of which you boast, and take him (UofV 1909 Stratton-Porter, A Girl of the Limberlost, 399) d. Any time you want to you can glance around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a hair-pin (UofV 1910 Twain, ‘The Dress of Civilized Women’, Mark Twain’s Speeches)

. Development of each time Like any time, each time first appears as part of a prepositional phrase, in/on ælce tide/ælcne timan in Old English (13a) and a(n)/in/at/from ech/ilk time in Middle English (13b).9 Examples of this construction appear in Early Modern English (13c), but it falls out of use thereafter: (13) a.

Ic herige mine drihten on ælcne timan (DOEC c1000 Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series 18, B 1.1.20) ‘I praise my lord each time.’ b. Thenne put your threde in at the hose twys or thries & lete it goo at eche tyme rounde abowte the yerde of your hoke (OED 1450 Fysshynge with an Angle [1883], 15) ‘Then put your thread in at the sheath twice or thrice and let it go each time round about the stick of your hook.’

. In Middle English, there is overlap in the forms of ilke < OE ilca ‘same’ and ech < OE ælc ‘each’ making it difficult at times to distinguish expressions meaning ‘the same time’ from those meaning ‘each time’.

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c.

Let them boile at eche time but onelye one wawme (OED 1558 Warde, The Secretes of Alexis of Piemont [1568], 63b) ‘Let them boil at each time but only one spell of boiling.’ d. He drank about a quart a day, a naggin at each time (OED 1745 Gentleman’s Magazine, 425)

Though a few early examples of each tide (in Old English) and each time (in Middle English) functioning adverbially are attested (14a–c), such uses do not appear to be common until later (14d–f):10 (14) a.

ac ælc tid us drifð forð to deaþe unþances (DOEC c1000 Ælfric’s Lives of Saints [Maurice], B 1.3.28) ‘but each time drive us to death unwillingly.’ b. Galyngale, that is clepid in fysike ciperus, it may be taken ech tyme of the Šere (MED c1450 Medical Recipes (1) [Med-L 136], 146/434) ‘Galingale, that is called in medicine ciperous, it may be taken each time of the year.’ c. Withdrawe his mete in the mewe sevennyghe and wasch it eche tyme, and sumtyme with vinegre til he be enceymyd (OED 1450c The Booke of Hawkyng in Reliquiae Ant., I. 308) ‘Withdraw his food in the coop weekly and wash it each time and sometimes with vinegar until it is cleansed.’ d. The dried Mass to be ground each time upon a Porphyry (OED 1694 Salmon, Bate’s (G.) Dispensatory [1731], 341/2) e. He rally’d thrice his Troops, each time repuls’d (CH-D 1720 Shadwell, Rotherick O’Connor, IV, 228) f. [she] often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort (UofV 1837 Hawthorne, The Great Carbuncle, 934)

The earliest AdvConj uses appear in the late seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth century they are widely attested: (15) a.

Mankind would all of ’em for wonders own. Think Gods appear’d, and fall upon the knee, Each time, perhaps, they did a Rain-bow see (CH-D 1677 Crowne, The Destruction of Jerusalem III, ii, 11–13) b. Each time I kneel before you, I shall rise As well a better, as a happier Man, Indebted to your Virtue, and your Love (CH-D 1719 Young, Busiris, II, i, 184–186) c. The Weaver should . . . likewise be careful each time he throws the Shuttle, that he draws the Thread straight and light to the Cloth (OED 1743

. Occurrences of each time (and every time, see below) are rare in Early Modern English. No examples are found in the Shakespearean corpus, for example.

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Maxwell, Transactions of the Society for Promoting Agriculture in Scotland, 342) d. I prithee ask me not; my heart-veins bleed Each time I think of it (CH-D 1756 Bickerstaffe, Leucothoe, III, iv, 5–6) e. Each time I view thee, Again I seem to urge, he bleeds again (CH-D 1796 Jephson, Conspiracy, III, i, 217–218) f. “Well?” said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider (UofV 1860–61 Dickens, Great Expectations, Vol. 2, Chap. 20, 329)

Modern English usage of each time seems to be evenly split between adverbial and conjunctive functions.

. Development of every time In the DOEC, æfre timan ‘every time’ occurs only once as a gloss of Latin umquam tempore. The prepositional phrase at every time (less often in/for every time) is the most common structure in Middle English, but becomes quite rare after 1600: (16) a.

Yis bede and preyer shal bene reherside and seyde at euery tyme (MED 1389 Norfolk Guild Returns, 23) ‘This bead and prayer shall be rehearsed and said every time.’ b. It may be in euery tyme opened or yschet to wheþir it is constreyned (MED c1475 [1392] Surgical Treatises in Wellcome, 564, 41b/b) ‘It may be opened or shut every time to determine whether it is constrained.’ c. At euery tyme obeye vnto youre lorde Whenne yee answere (MED c1475 The Babies’ Book, 85 in F. J. Furnivall, Early English Meals and Manners (1868), 253) ‘Obey your lord every time when you answer.’ d. þis precept . . . bynt nout for alwey . . . ne for euery tyme ne for euery place (MED a1500 [c1410] Dives and Pauper Htrn 270, 1.316) ‘This precept . . . is not for always . . . nor for every time nor for every place.’ e. At euery time the bishop shall come vnto ye church dore & strike ye threshold thereof with his Crossier staffe (OED 1553 Beson, Reliques of Rome [1563], 256b)

Adverbial uses of every time begin in the late Middle English period: (17) a.

Euery time he wole take His flesshely lust . . . And þat is pure lyf of beest (MED a1500 *Sidrak and Bokkus [Lnsd 793], 6503) ‘Every time he will take his fleshly lust and that is the pure life of a beast.’

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b. Slepynge nurshith the body euery tyme of the yere, and myche wakynge makyth the body lene and hit destrueth (MED a1500 [1422] Yonge, Secreta Secretorum [Rwl B.490], 247/9) ‘Sleeping nourishes the body every time of the year and much waking makes the body lean and destroys it.’

The earliest example of the AdvConj dates from Middle English (18a), though the use does not seem to become common until the sixteenth century (18b–d): (18) a.

Eueri tyme he awakithe, he ought to yeve God reconisaunce, . . . that he is his lorde cretour, and maker (OED 1450a Knight of La Tour-Landry [1868], 5) ‘Every time he awakens, he ought to give God acknowledgement . . . that he is his lord creator and maker.’ b. They that lye in a plewrosy, thinke that euery time they cough, they fele a sharp sweorde swap them to the heart (OED 1534 More, A Dialoge of Comforte Against Tribulation, II. Wks. 1256/2) c. And euery time the sunne at West goes downe, They looke another man should clayme the Crowne (CH-D 1581 Studley, Herculas Oetaeus, II, 435–36) d. But well I see that euery time thou strayest, Thy lust but lookes for strumpet stars belowe (CH-D 1597 Lyly, The Woman in the Moone, II, i, 56–57)

In Modern English, the conjunctive function of every time predominates. Univerbated forms of everytime are very rare. One example of adverbial everytime is attested in Middle English and several examples of conjunctive everytime appear in the nineteenth century: (19) a.

Thys place aforne his clensynge . . . right vncleene it was . . . and fenny, with water almost euerytyme habowndynge (MED c1425 Foundation of St. Bartholomew’s Church, 12/23) ‘This place before his cleansing . . . very unclean it was . . . and muddy with water almost everytime abounding.’ b. Upon my word, Mrs. Bess, you improve in beauty, everytime I see you (UofV 1843 Cooper, Wyandotte; or, the Hutted Knoll, Vol. 1, Chap. XIII, 206)

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. Accounting for the development There are two possible ways to explain the origin and development of the -time forms as AdjConjs:11 a. as head noun of a reduced relative clause (with that deleted), or b. from a prepositional phrase. . Derivation from a relative clause Kortmann (2001: 850) observes that cross-linguistically it is common for a noun meaning ‘time’ to develop into an AdvConj: ‘As the head noun of relative clauses it developed into a temporal adverbial conjunction meaning ‘when, while’ in many languages across the world, English while being a case in point’. Traugott and König (1991) propose that while originates in the Old English phrase þa hwile þe (= ‘that space of time that’, Demonstrative + Noun + invariant subordinator); in late Old English the subordinator þe is lost and, by a process of grammaticalization, the noun wile assumes the subordinator function. For -time forms, an early proposal in this vein is Curme (1931: 272–273). In a section of his grammar entitled ‘Temporal Phrases and Adverbs Used as Conjunctions’, he suggests that when that is deleted in adverbial expressions such as the day (that), the moment (that), the week (that) followed by an ‘explanatory’ (relative) clause, they become ‘relative conjunctions of time’. He notes that the evolution of while as a conjunction has progressed further in that both the and that are deleted. Furthermore, forms such as anywhere, nowhere, everywhere as well as directly, immediately, instantly (the latter preserving that) are also, by analogy, employed as relative conjunctions.12 Examples of any time, each time, and every time followed by relative clauses introduced by that or when are in fact attested: (20) a.

Any time when John is away and you get frightened, Mrs. Meg, just swing that out of the front window, and it will rouse the neighborhood in a jiffy (UofV 1869 Alcott, Little Women, Part 2) b. “Any time that we are short of mastodon or other good game,” said Ayrault, “we need not hunger if we are not above grilled snake” (UofV 1894 Astor, A Journey in Other Worlds, 177)

. A third proposal is made by Jespersen (1927: 151). He suggests that forms such as anywhere or everywhere followed by a contact clause were an extension from structures containing a ‘pleonastic’ verb such as please or like in the relative clause, i.e., anywhere she liked or anywhere he pleased. This suggestion is not well supported. . A similar source could be proposed for in order that, on condition that, for fear that, but these have undergone less reduction.

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c.

the Lady Eleanore’s embroidered mantle, – which the gossips whispered was invested with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace to her figure each time that she put it on! (UofV 1837 Hawthorne, Legends of the Province House, 974–975)

Following the reasoning in this argument, deletion of that in (20b), for example, would yield ‘anytime we are short . . .’, which could then be reanalyzed as an adverbial clause. There are some early (Middle English) examples of every time that/when, and sporadic examples thereafter, but these are very infrequent: (21) a.

at euery tyme that a man eteth or drynketh moore than suffiseth to the sustenaunce of his body in certein he dooth synne (MED c1390 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Parson’s Tale’, I.371) ‘at every time that man eats or drinks more than suffices for the sustenance of his body certainly he sins.’ b. We rede of him [Peter] þat at euery tyme whan he remembrid þis negacion euyr wold he wepe (MED c1450 Capgrave, Description of Rome [Bod 423], 136) ‘We read of him that at every time when he remembered this act of denial ever would he weep.’ c. May a man gete a child, by þi lyf, Euery time þat he touchiþ his wyf? (MED a1500 *Sidrak and Bokkus [Lnsd 793], 1480) ‘May a man beget a child, by your life, every time that he touches his wife?’

Relative structures with anytime and each time are not attested until the nineteenth century (see the examples given in (20)). Whatever the source of the relative construction – perhaps as a hypercorrection or a reanalysis – it clearly did not become common until a relatively late date and thus cannot have provided a model for the AdvConj construction. Arguments for a relatival derivation are thus unconvincing. . Derivation from a PP An alternative explanation views the development as involving two steps: PP > Adv and Adv > AdvConj. .. PP > Adv In each of the cases discussed here, the prepositional phrase predates the adverbial. The first step thus involves reduction of the prepositional phrase at any time/each time/ every time to the adverbial any time/each time/every time. English

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provides other examples of similar shifts from nominal complex (PP or Adj + N) > adverbial:13 (22) indeed (Adv) < deed (N) in fact/fact (Adv) < fact (N) instead (Adv) < stead (N) anyway (Adv) < way (N) anyplace (Adv) < place (N) after all (Adv) < all (N/Pro) by the way/in {a, the, no} way < way (N)

The lack of any trace of the preposition in the adverbial form, any time, each time, and every time, is seen also in the cases of anyway and anyplace, and occasionally in the case of in fact > /fæk/ (Traugott 1995). Dropping of the preposition is common in spoken English, where this change would be assumed to originate (see also below on an attested shift in Anglian English showing a similar complete loss of the preposition). .. Adv > AdvConj The second step in the process is the change from adverb > adverbial conjunction. We have seen in the cases discussed above that the adverbial predates the AdvConj, often by several centuries. Speaking of European languages in general, Kortmann sees adverbs, in addition to prepositions, complementizers, and interrogatives, as the major sources for adverbial conjunctions (2001: 144, 850). He traces a unidirectional shift from adverb to conjunction: ‘The reverse direction of change has hardly been documented in the world’s languages’ (2001: 845; but see GonzálezCruz on while, this volume). Adverbial conjunction is what he calls an ‘overlay function’ (1998b: 216, 2001: 845). In the history of English, Kortmann sees a movement towards complex or phrasal AdvConjs, involving a decrease in polysemy and syntactic polyfunctionality among such conjunctions (1998b: 215–216) as well as a minimum of fusion, loss of ‘at least some properties of the original phrase’, and/or at least one adverbial reading which is not fully reconstructable from the meaning of the parts (1998a: 459–460). Over time, AdvConjs have become established as ‘an autonomous syntactic category’ in English (1998b: 216). The shift from Adv > AdvConj has been attested with manner/time adverbs such as while or before (23) or focusing/limiting adverbs such as only (24):

. On the development of these forms, see Schwenter & Traugott (1995, 2000), Traugott (1995, 1997, 2003), Tabor & Traugott (1998), and Traugott & Dasher (2002).

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(23) a.

adverb: Eal þæt folc þæt þær beforan ferde (DOEC c971 Palm Sunday The Blickling Homilies, 0033 [86]) ‘All that people who there before traveled.’ b. conjunction: Councell hym that he wull lete the mater be . . . vnderstondyn before he procedyth ony ferder ther-jn (MED a1461 Paston Letters, 2.226) ‘Counsel him that he will make the matter . . . understood before he proceeds any further therein.’

(24) a.

adverb: At Ierusalem was a leche þat heled sike men onliche wiþ a word (MED a1387 Trevisa, Higden’s Polychronicon [StJ-C H.1], 4.321) ‘At Jerusalem was a doctor who healed sick men only with a word.’ b. conjunction: She is as innocent of all these things as I, or any Man here; only she received a Letter from my Lord Cobham, to prepare her (HC 1603 The Trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, I, II, 160; quoted in Brinton 1998: 24)

A parallel shift from prepositional phrase to adverb,14 and then from adverb to conjunction can be observed in the case of beside(s) from < Old English be + sidan (+ adverbial s). However, this shift is short-lived; although besides is occasionally attested as a conjunction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is exclusively adverbial in Modern English (Rissanen 2004: 165–166): (25) which besyde yt was unmeasurably beyond al modesty, the conceyt was also so grosse that yf a mans head had but Aked he wold put them in fear of the frensy (1582 Madox, The Diary of Richard Madox, 130; quoted in Rissanen 2004: 166) ‘which in addition to the fact that it was immeasurably beyond all modesty, the conceit was also so gross that if a man’s head had but ached he would put them in fear of a frenzy.’

A number of forms seem to have bypassed the adverbial stage in the process of grammaticalization. Most germane to the discussion of any/each/every time here is the development of time as a conjunction with the meaning ‘while’ in East Anglian English (e.g., You remember what old Martha used to say, time she were alive) as discussed in Trudgill (1995).15 He sees the grammaticalization of time from noun to conjunction as complete and surmises that this form ultimately derives from omission of a preceding preposition such as during or for, though the source is not recoverable from the data (ibid.: 139). The word case functions as a conditional conjunction in the same dialect (e.g., We mustn’t carry any, case they stop . Rissanen (2004: 160) suggests that the order of derivation in this case may be from adverb > preposition. . I am grateful to Ilse Wischer for alerting me to the existence of this study.

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us); the existence of unreduced forms allows Trudgill to postulate the origin of this conjunction in the prepositional phrase in case (ibid.: 138). He sees this grammaticalization as incipient or ongoing. In a similar vein, Traugott (2003: 636–638) discusses the rise of conjunctive function in the ‘nominal complex’ in stead of (from the Old English noun stede ‘place, position, rank, etc.’). Originally taking only noun complements (functioning as a PP), it begins to take gerund (-ing) complements in Early Modern English, and then finite verbs in the modern period. A further example of the shift from prepositional phrase to conjunction is because from by + cause, which seems to have likewise bypassed the adverbial stage to become an adverbial conjunction.

. Conclusion: An example of grammaticalization How can we characterize the changes undergone by the expressions any time, each time, and every time in the history of English? Is there evidence to decide between the two proposed developments? The rarity16 of relativized structures for all of the -time forms, as well as their late appearance in the history of English, provides strong evidence against the first proposed origin, that is, as head noun of a reduced relative clause (with that deleted). The second proposed origin, from a prepositional phrase, conforms well with the chronology of the attested data. In all three cases the PP predates the Adv, which predates the AdvConj. Moreover, both of the steps in this derivation are consistent with well-understood changes within the process of grammaticalization. And there are analogous developments of other forms in English for both of the proposed steps, PP > Adv and Adv > AdvConj. The shift from PP > Adv involves functional shift of time from lexical head (N) to functional head (Adv). It also involves decategorization, or loss of characteristics of the original category and adoption of characteristics of the new): that is, time loses the ability to be modified as a noun (note the unacceptability of any more time, each short time, every long time as adverbs),17 and it assumes a position within the verbal complex. Both functional shift and decategorization are seen . To give an example of the infrequency of clauses with that: in the BNC, any time that appears 14 times, while any time followed by a pronoun, article, or determiner (i.e, mostly although not exclusively AdvConj uses) occurs 195 times; every time that occurs 28 times, while every time followed by a pronoun, article, or determiner occurs 1,596 times; each time that occurs 9 times, while each time followed by a pronoun, article, or determiner occurs 581 times. . Except in rare instances, see Note 3.

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as central to grammaticalization (see, e.g., Roberts & Roussou 2003; Hopper & Traugott 2003). In the shift from Adv > AdvConj, we find a host of changes characteristic of grammaticalization (see Hopper 1991; Lehmann 1995; Hopper & Traugott 2003), including: a. restriction of the form to clause-initial position (i.e. syntactic fixing) b. functional reanalysis from adverb to conjunction (more major > more minor word class, adverb being intermediate between major and minor word classes) c. decategorization, especially loss of the syntactic mobility associated with adverbs d. semantic change from ‘at any/each/every time’ to temporal connective meaning ‘whenever’ e. divergence (Hopper 1991), with all three adverbs continuing to exist; nominal uses of any time,18 each time, and every time persisting; and the PP at any time remaining in use (though at every time and at each time fall out of use) f. layering (Hopper 1991), as in the coexistence with the older form whenever (whose use as an AdvConj dates from Middle English). I would like to emphasize that the later fusion or univerbation we see in the case of the -time forms (any time > anytime, every time > everytime [each time > eachtime is well attested on the internet]) is not criterial to grammaticalization, nor is it indicative of its supposed obverse, lexicalization. As Brinton and Traugott (2005) argue, both lexicalization and grammaticalization may involve univerbation but only grammaticalization involves functional shift, as from N > Adv > AdvConj which we see in this set of examples. In conclusion, this paper has traced the rise of three adverbial conjunctions expressing simultaneity overlap in the history of English. While the synchronic form and discourse functions of any time, each time, and every time point to their status as clausal connectives rather than the adverbial head nouns of reduced relative clauses, it is their diachronic development which argues most persuasively for their connective status. The corpus data presented in this paper provides evidence of their development via known paths of grammaticalization from nominal complex (PP) to adverb to conjunction.

. Any time is particularly common as the nominal complement of a verb in a wide variety of fixed collocates (see examples in (7)).

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Sources ACE = Australian Corpus of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CDROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. BNC = British National Corpus. Searched using VIEW (Variation in English Words and Phrases) developed by Mark Davies, Brigham Young University. CH-D = English Drama. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd. CH-P = Early English Prose Fiction: 1500–1700 (1997), comp. Holger Klein. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd. DOEC = Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form (2004), ed. Antonette di Paulo Healey. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/National Endowment for the Humanities. FROWN = Freiburg-Brown Corpus of American English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. Lampeter = Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. MED = Middle English Dictionary (2002), ed. Francis McSparren. Michigan: University of Michigan. OED = Oxford English Dictionary (2000–), ed. John Simpson. Third ed. (in progress, online). Strathy = Strathy Corpus of Canadian English. Strathy Unit. Queen’s University. (The corpus is not publicly available.) UofV = University of Virginia, Electronic Text Center. Modern English Collection. Wellman = Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

References Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.

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Brinton, Laurel J. (1998). “‘The flowers are lovely; only they have no scent”: The Evolution of a Pragmatic Marker’. In: Anglistentag 1997 Giessen Proceedings, ed. Raimund Borgmeier, Herbert Grabes, and Andreas H. Jucker. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 9–33. Brinton, Laurel J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2005). Lexicalization in Language Change. (Research Surveys in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chafe, Wallace (1984). ‘How People Use Adverbial Clauses’. In: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Claudia Brugman and Monica Macaulay. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 437–449. Curme, George O. (1931). Syntax. Vol. II of A Grammar of the English Language. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company [Verbatim reprint, 1977]. Ford, Celicia A. (1993). Grammar in Interaction: Adverbial Clauses in American English Conversation. (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopper, Paul J. (1991). ‘On Some Principles of Grammaticization’. In: Traugott and Heine, eds, Vol. 1, 17–35. Hopper, Paul and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2003). Grammaticalization. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jespersen, Otto (1961 [1927]). A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part III. Syntax (Second Volume). London: George Allen and Unwin/Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard. Kortmann, Bernd (1998a). ‘Adverbial Subordinators in the Languages of Europe’. In: Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe, ed. Johan van der Auwera in collaboration with Dónall P. Ó Baoill. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology. EUROTYP, 3). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 457–561. Kortmann, Bernd (1998b). ‘The Evolution of Adverbial Subordinators in Europe’. In: Historical Linguistics 1997, ed. Monika S. Schmid, Jennifer R. Austin and Dieter Stein. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 164). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 213–228. Kortmann, Bernd (2001). ‘Adverbial Conjunctions’. In: Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook, ed. Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher, and Wolfgang Raible. (Handbücher für Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaften, 20, 2). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 842–854. Lehmann, Christian (1995 [1982]). Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rissanen, Matti (2004). ‘Grammaticalisation From Side to Side: On the Development of beside(s)’. In: Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English, ed. Hans Lindquist and Christian Mair. (Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 13). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 151–170. Roberts, Ian G. and Anna Roussou (2003). Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 100). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwenter, Scott A. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (1995). ‘The Semantic and Pragmatic Development of Substitutive Complex Prepositions in English’. In: Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English, ed. Andreas H. Jucker. (Pragmatics & Beyond. New Series, 35). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 243–273. Schwenter, Scott A. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2000). ‘Invoking Scalarity: The Development of in fact’. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1: 7–25.

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Tabor, Whitney and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (1998). ‘Structural Scope Expansion and Grammaticalization’. In: The Limits of Grammaticalization, ed. Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paul J. Hopper. (Typological Studies in Language, 37). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 229–272. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1995). ‘The Role of the Development of Discourse Markers in a Theory of Grammaticalization’. Paper presented at the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, Version of 11/97. Available at Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1997). ‘The Discourse Connective after all: A Historical Pragmatic Account’. Paper presented at ICL, Paris, July 1997. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (2003). ‘Constructions in Grammaticalization’. In: The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ed. Brian D. Joseph and Richard D. Janda. Oxford: Blackwell, 624– 647. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Ekkehard König (1991). ‘The Semantics-Pragmatics of Grammaticalization Revisited’. In: Traugott and Heine, eds, Vol. 1, 189–218. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine, eds (1991). Approaches to Grammaticalization. Vol. 1: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues. (Typological Studies in Language, 19). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Richard B. Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trudgill, Peter (1995). ‘Grammaticalisation and Social Structure: Non-standard ConjunctionFormation in East Anglian English’. In: Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons, ed. F. R. Palmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 136–147.

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The evolution of since in medieval English Rafał Molencki* University of Silesia

.

Introduction

The preposition/conjunction since is etymologically derived from the archaic Old English adjective/adverb siþ (meaning ‘late’) as a result of a series of grammaticalization processes. We have here a clear example of decategorialization down the cline from a major to a minor word-class (cf. Hopper & Traugott 1993). This article will be concerned with the orthographic, phonological, morphosyntactic and semantic developments of the adverb/preposition/conjunction siþþan > sithen > sithenes > since. This will not only be an account of the earlier publications on since, but the evolution of the word will be discussed in the light of more recent theories, particularly in the context of subjectification (Traugott 1989, 1995). The availability of large electronic databases of medieval English has allowed me to obtain rich relevant historical material. Some new findings will be presented concerning the gradual replacement of since by after, which became the central preposition and conjunction of anteriority in the fourteenth century. The story of since will be traced until the Early Modern English period on the basis of its occurrence in the following corpora: the Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC) texts, the medieval part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED), Middle English Dictionary Online (MED) and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (CME) in the Middle English Compendium (MEC).

* I am very grateful to both the anonymous referees and the editors of the volume for a great number of useful suggestions and necessary corrections of the first draft of this study. Needless to say, all the errors that remain are my own responsibility.

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. Etymology and form S¯ıþ is an original Old English adjective/adverb meaning ‘late’, a cognate of German seit < Old High German s¯ıd/s¯ıt, Old Saxon s¯ıð(or), Old Frisian sether, Gothic seiþus. Etymological dictionaries point to the fact that in early Germanic it often has the comparative sense of ‘later’, for example Holthausen (1934: 296): ‘nur im Komp. u. Superl.’ [‘only in comparative and superlative forms’], though he does not specify whether he is talking about the adjective or the adverb. Kluge’s (2002) dictionary derives German seit from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic comparative form of the adverb *seiþiz. This is confirmed by the DOEC corpus data, where we only find comparative (siþra) and superlative (siþast, siþmest) forms of the adjective, for example: (1) bið seo siþre tid sæda gehwylces mætræ in mægne. (DOEC GuthA,B, 15) ‘In its later time every seed is of lesser worth.’ (2) Þæt ðam þeodne wæs siðast sigehwila sylfes dædum. (DOEC Beo, 2709) ‘For the lord this was the last victory in his deeds.’

The positive forms siþ are attested only for the adverb: (3) Him ða siþ oncwæþ, sona ne meahte oroð up geteon. (DOEC Guth A/B, 304) ‘He then answered him, but soon could not draw his breath.’

In glosses (cf., e.g., Quinn 1956 and Lindisfarne Gospels, John 6.16), Old English siþ is the equivalent of the Latin adverb sero derived from the adjective serus ‘late’, related to the comparative form setius/secius/sequius meaning ‘less, worse, later’. The Indo-European ancestry of the Germanic *seiþiz is also evidenced in etymological dictionaries by the presence of an Old Irish cognate, namely the adjective sir, meaning ‘long-lasting’ and also Sanskrit s¯ayám ‘evening’. The adverb siþ is, however, rarely found in Old English as attested in the DOEC, perhaps to avoid the confusion with the common homonymous noun siþ meaning ‘journey’, ‘passage’, ‘exploit’. Siþ collocated with ær, both in positive and negative contexts (ær and/oþþe siþ meaning ‘sooner or later’ and ‘ever, always’, and ne ær ne siþ meaning ‘never’): (4) Lyt ic wende þæt ic ær oþþe sið æfre sceolde ofer meodubence muðleas sprecan. (DOEC Rid 60, 7) ‘Little did I think that sooner or later I should ever speak mouthless across the mead-bench.’ (5) Ic to soþe wat þæt ic ær ne sið ænig ne mette in woruldrice wif þe gelic. (DOEC Jul, 546) ‘I certainly know that I have never met in the world a woman like you.’

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Even in the earliest Anglo-Saxon texts we find the form siþþan, where the origin of the element -þan is a matter of controversy. In the DOEC, apart from most common siþþan, siþþon, we find the following alternative spellings: syþþan, seþþan, sioþþan, soþþan, seoþþan, obviously with ð alternating with either or both þ and the vowel e in the second syllable, which evidently stood for schwa. Other, less frequent spellings are seodþen, siodðan, siþan, siðan, siþen, siðen, soðða, syddan, sydde, syþan, syðan, syðen, syððæn, syðæn. For Sweet (1892) þan is the dative of the neuter demonstrative pronoun, but this is difficult to accept, as the standard Old English dative form þæm did not become þan until late Old English. Siþþan, however, is found in the earliest Old English texts. Besides, the form *siþþæm with the canonical dative does not occur in the Old English corpus at all. Indeed, there are no forms with the final -m, except for three isolated instances of siþþam in the Soliloquies (DOEC Solil 1, 10.8, 46.3, and 55.5). Mitchell (1985: § 2666) is more inclined to accept Adams’s (1907) interpretation of s¯ıþ as a comparative adverb meaning ‘later’ compounded with ‘the instrumental in a phrase of comparison’. Yet, there is a problem with such interpretation, as adverbs normally do not govern case. On the other hand, the non-occurrence of the positive degree of the adjective *siþ in the whole Old English corpus (and in the cognate languages) prevents us from positing such a hypothetical form in the reconstruction of siþþan. The etymological section in the OED (s.v. since) explains the origin as *s¯ıþ þon/þan, i.e., the phrase ‘subsequent to that’, analogous with the attested Old English prepositional phrases such as æfter þon or for þon. Campbell (1959: 291) believes that we have here a combination of siþ and the instrumental singular neuter of the demonstrative pronoun þæt. He also points to other comparative uses of (instrumental?) þon, which often appeared in the form þan, especially in later texts (Brunner 1942: 273). In very early Old English the long vowel of s¯ıþ was shortened in siþþan, which might be treated as evidence of grammaticalization, one of the most conspicuous characteristics of which is phonetic attrition (cf. Lehmann 1985; McMahon 1994). No matter which explanation for the origin of siþþan we accept, we have here a clear example of the univerbation of the phrase *siþ þon to siþþan, just like its High German cognate conjunction seitdem, or Norse siðan.1 This process must have occurred in the preliterate period, as all the Old English instances are spelt together as one word. This is strong evidence for univerbation regardless of what one may think of medieval spelling as a reliable diagnostic of word boundaries. Nevertheless, siþþan must have been regarded as a complex form by Old English speakers. Unlike other Old English subordinating . The same etymology can be claimed for the Polish adverb potem ‘afterwards’, derived from the prepositional phrase po + tem, i.e., the preposition ‘after’ + archaic instrumental of the neuter demonstrative pronoun to.



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conjunctions – it was very rarely followed by the particle þe or þæt; indeed, this occurs only in Ælfric’s, i.e., Late Old English, prose. But these examples can also be given a different interpretation (see (41)–(43) below). Interestingly, in the ninthcentury Old High German Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch, the cognate adverb sid is used on its own: (6) Sid tho thesen thingon fuar Krist zen heimingon. (Ev.2, 14.1; after Mettke 1970: 86) ‘Afterwards Christ went on the way home.’

Similarly, the simple adverb sit continued to be used in later German, including Middle High German (Mettke 1983: 161). In all its uses, siþþan sometimes appeared in later Old English texts in a reduced form siþþa or siþþe, especially in the Lindisfarne Gospels: (7) Ðios uutedlice of ðon vel siðða in ic foerde ne blann cossetunges foeta mine. (DOEC LkGl (Li), Luke 7.45) ‘Truly, this [woman], from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.’

Such loss of final nasals and the neutralization of final vowels was characteristic of all word classes at that time. With the loss of the final schwa the form became similar to its early Old English ancestor s¯ıþ, except for the length of the vowel. Sith was a very frequent form in Wycliffe’s writings. Another contraction of sithen was sin/syn, quite common especially in Chaucer’s texts. Here are some Middle English examples of the phonetically reduced forms: (8) Þa iwende seint Austin vorð; æst and west and suð and norð, and seoððe þurh-ut Englelond. (MEC c1275(?a1200) Layamon, Brut (Clg A.9), 14741) ‘Then went St. Austin forth; east and west and south and north, and later all over England.’ (9) Sydðe iohannes geseald wæs com se hælend on galileam. (c1160 West Saxon Gospels (Hatton), Mark 1.14) ‘After John was betrayed, the Saviour came to Galilee.’ (10) telle hym eek alle the synnes that thow hast doon syn thou were last yshryven. (MEC c1395 Chaucer, Parson’s Tale, 1011) ‘Tell him also about all the sins you have committed since you were last shriven.’

In the fourteenth century the word sithen started to occur with the adverbial suffix -es, the original masculine and neuter genitive ending attested in adverbial phrases such as dæges, nihtes (also in anes, twies, later with a different spelling once, twice), and in against, amongst (with -t added later). In this way, sithen was extended

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to sithenes, exemplified below in the functions of an adverb, a preposition and a conjunction, respectively: (11) I wil sowe it my-self and sitthenes wil I wende To pylgrymage. (MEC 1377 Langland, Piers Plowman B, 6.65) ‘I will sow it myself and then I will go on pilgrimage.’ (12) The revenues of the same . . . sethens Michilmesse last past. (MEC 1483 Ellis, Orig.Let.Ser., 3.1.102) ‘The revenues of the same since last Michaelmas.’ (13) Myn housbond is to me þe worste man þat euer was siþenes þe world bygan. (MEC c1395 Chaucer, Shipman’s Tale, B.1352 [Corpus Ms.]) ‘My husband is for me the worst man that has ever been since the world began.’

In Late Middle English sithens lost the middle fricative consonant and became sins (again phonetic attrition), whose earliest MED attestations are found in the Ilchester manuscript of Piers Plowman C, dated for c1425. The earlier manuscripts still have the fricative (sitthe, sutthe, etc.). By analogy with once, twice, thrice, hence the spelling since was finally adopted in Early Modern English, though the first examples are found in Caxton (1480s). But the form is relatively rare before the mid-sixteenth century when the modern spelling is established. Here are some MED examples of the adverb, the preposition and the conjunction sins in various spellings: (14) She . . . did right so and syns seide to me . . . (MED c1450 C. d’Orl., Poems, (Hrl 682) 177/5288) (15) Syns that daye, puis ce jour la (1530 Palsgr., 812/2; cf. OED, s.v. since) (16) Sennys I was with Šow, I have be ryŠth seke. (MEC c1450 Stonor Letters, 1.52) (17) Was neuer gome vpoun þis grounde, synnes god made þe worlde, Fairer vnderfonge. . . þanne me self. (MEC c1430 Piers Plowman B, 10.224 (MS Rawl); MS Trinity Coll. sith) ‘There has never been a man on earth, since God made the world, more courteously received than myself.’ (18) But since all humane flesh is mortall . . . what auailes my sorowful grones and passions? (MEC c1489 Caxton, Blanchardyn, 44.213)

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. The adverb Old English siþþan was used as an adverb, gradually replacing the earlier morphologically simple siþ altogether. The earliest OED attestation of the adverb siþþan comes from the Charters (a831): (19) Wes hit becueden Osbearte. . .7 siððan neniggra meihanda. ‘It was bequeathed to Osbert and later to no relatives.’

In Old English, it is definitely the most frequent use of the word. Out of 648 instances of siþþan in the Helsinki Corpus, 441 are clear adverbial uses, which amounts to 68 per cent. It is also very common in Middle English, for example: (20) Þe Laferrd Crist. . .sennde siþþenn HaliŠ Gast Till hise Lerninngcnihhtess. (MEC c1180 Orm (Jun 1), ded. 236) ‘Lord Christ sent later the Holy Ghost to his disciples.’ (21) Sithyn, whan God wolde, hys wife had a childe, a fayr mayde-child. (a1438 MKempe, I, 223) (22) They were browght upp theyr and syns sworne unto the jurdyccyon of the towne. (1483 Cely Papers, Camden 139)

But towards the end of the Middle English period the adverb sithen/sithenes/since meaning ‘later, afterwards’ becomes obsolescent. The last OED occurrences are dated for the 1580s. At the same time, the new sense of since ‘from that time until now’ appears, often reinforced by ever: (23) Euer syns he hath kepte me at his owne will. (1485 Malory, Arthur, ix.xli.407)

. The preposition There is a controversy as to whether Old English siþþan was also a preposition, as the instances are rather rare and ambiguous. In Mitchell’s (1985: § 1178) list of Old English prepositions, it is marked with a question mark and we find a reference to his § 3832, where the following example from Ælfric is discussed: (24) and [Philippus] gewat siððan seofon and hundeahtatig geara to ðam lifigendan Drihtne. (DOEC ÆCHom II.18, 170.51) ‘and Philip departed after 87 years to the living Lord.’

Mitchell believes this was a prepositional use of siþþan, though he has found ‘no other examples of siþþan preposition’. What is interesting here is the genitive form geara instead of the expected dative/instrumental by analogy with other temporal prepositions, e.g. æfter. But when we look at the sentence more closely, we will see that the genitive follows a large number, and these numbers (like partitives) gov-

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erned the genitive case of their complements. In addition to Mitchell’s example, in the DOEC corpus I have found one more, which – questionably – might be treated as an instance of the preposition siþþan indicating anteriority (equivalent to modern after): (25) siþþan lytle hwile hie genamon friþ him betweonum. (DOEC Or5, 7.121.1) ‘?after a little while they had peace among themselves.’

However, since the phrase lytle hwile is in the accusative, a more plausible interpretation of the sentence is ‘then, for a little while, they had peace among themselves’. Thus, siþþan here is most probably an adverb. The earliest OED attestations of the prepositional use of siþþan come from the early Middle English period, from the Peterborough Chronicle (c1122): (26) Ðis wæs gedon syððon ure Drihtnes acennednesse dcccclxxii. (ChronE (Irvine) 963.57) ‘This was done 972 years after the birth of our Lord.’

But the preposition did not become really common until the thirteenth century: (27) underfoð eche lif and blisse mid englen of heuene þat is giarked siðen þe biginninge of þes woreld. (MEC a1225 (?a1200) Trin. Hom., 5) ‘Receive the eternal life and bliss with angels of heaven, which is ordained since the beginning of this world.’ (28) Parisch prestes playneþ . . . þat heore Parisch haþ ben pore seþþe þe Pestilence tyme. (MEC c1362 Langland, Piers Plowman A, Prol. 81) ‘Parish priests complain that their parish has been poor since the time of pestilence.’ (29) Siþen quen was þu vr domesman? (MEC c1400 Cursor, 5670 (Gött. MS)) ‘Since when have you been our judge?’ (30) Seth the writing of this lettre, I haue receyue one from you, wherof I thanke you hertely. (MEC 1456 Paston, 2.136)

. The conjunction Another important function of Old English siþþan was that of a subordinating conjunction. In the Helsinki Corpus, the conjunction makes up 26 percent of the occurrences of siþþan in Old English. We find some of the early uses of siððan as a temporal conjunction in King Alfred’s prose: (31) Gif þu nu gemunan wilt ealra ðara arwyrðnessa þe ðu for þisse weorulde hæfdest siððan ðu geboren wære oð disne dæg. (DOEC Bo, 8.20.1) ‘If you want to remember now about all the honours that you have had for this world since you were born until today.’

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At that time it was the central conjunction of time clauses marking anteriority, and was far more common than æfter þæm/þan (þe), which later replaced it (cf. Molencki 2005: 57–58). Traugott (1992: 261) observes that, while æfter þæm þe expressed simply sequencing of events, siþþan (like its Modern English descendant since) had the function of specifying the beginning point of an event. Mitchell (1985: § 2654) states that, out of the three conjunctions indicating anteriority (æfter, siþþan and þæs þe), æfter occurred only in prose and was never used alone as a conjunction in Old English (only in the phrase æfter þæm þe). In such contexts, the tense in both the siþþan-clause and the main clause was identical (i.e., the preterite): (32) Ne mette he ær nan gebun land siþþan he from his agnum ham for. (DOEC Or 1, 1.14.20) ‘He did not come across any inhabited land since he left his own home.’

But there are also sporadic instances, both in poetry and prose, with the pluperfect form for an earlier action: (33) fifelcynnes eard wonsæli wer weardode hwile, siþðan him Scyppend forscrifen hæfde in Caines cynne. (DOEC Beo, 102) ‘This unhappy being long lived in the land of monsters after the Creator had proscribed them as kindred of Cain.’ (34) þa cwæð se cyningc to his mannum siððan Apollonius agan wæs . . . (DOEC ApT, 14.1) ‘Then the king spoke to his men after Apollonius had gone: . . .’

In some cases siþþan appears to have expressed simultaneity rather than anteriority, thus being closer to Present-Day English when. Mitchell (1985: § 2674) quotes two such instances from Beowulf, having noted ‘no similar examples in prose’: (35) Þone hring hæfde Higelac Geata . . . nyhstan siðe, siðþan he under segne sinc ealgode. (DOEC Beo, 1202) ‘Hygelac the Geat had the necklace on the last expedition, when he defended the treasure before the standard.’ (36) No þæt læsest wæs hondgemota, þær mon Hygelac sloh, syððan Geata cyning guðe ræsum, freawine folca Freslondum on, Hreðles eafora hiorodryncum swealt. (DOEC Beo, 2354) ‘That was not the least hand-to-hand combat when Hygelac was slain, when that king of the Geats, friendly lord of people, son of Hrethel, among the hurl of battle, in Friesland died from the blood-drinking blade.’

However, when the main clause had a present tense verb form (including the ancestor of the Present-Day English present perfect) and the temporal clause a past

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tense verb, the sense of siþþan was very much like its modern descendant since, i.e., ‘from the time that’: (37) Manige gear syndon agan nu seoþþan ure bisceopas geond eal Romana rice an to me gewreoto sende (DOEC LS 32 (Peter & Paul), 270) ‘Many years have gone now since our bishops through all the Roman empire sent me a letter.’ (38) Hu lang tid is syððan him þis gebyrede? (DOEC Mk WSCp, Mark 9.21) ‘How long is it since this happened to him?’

The tense criterion became the basis of the distinction into the two senses of siþþan in Bosworth and Toller, but Mitchell (1985: §§ 2675–2678) shows that such an approach ‘is satisfactory up to a point’ only and gives some clear counterexamples to the tendencies shown above: (39) Ne gemealt him se modsefa, ne his mæges laf gewac æt wige; þæt se wyrm onfand, syððan hie togædre gegan hæfdon. (DOEC Beo, 2628) ‘His spirit did not melt, nor did his kinsmen’s legacy fail at war; the worm found that out when they had got to grips with one another.’ (40) We synd on þisse worlde ælþeodige, 7 swa wæron siþþon se æresta ealdor þisses menniscan cynnes Godes bebodu abræc. (DOEC Blickling Homily 2, 143) ‘We are exiles in this world, and so have been ever since the progenitor of mankind broke God’s orders.’

Pasicki (1987: 94) claims that the Old English conjunction siþþan ‘is never followed by þe’. However, we can find some sporadic instances of the sequence siþþan þe in Late Old English, in Ælfric’s prose: (41) and seo eorðe siþþan þe þæt wæter underfeng wearð manegum to bote. (DOEC ÆLS (Oswald), 194) ‘and the ground then which received the water became a remedy to many.’ (42) Seo ylce rod siððan þe Oswold þær arærde on wurðmynte þær stod. (DOEC ÆLS (Oswald), 126) ‘The same cross then which Oswald there raised stood there in dignity.’

In the DOEC, we find three such instances. But in all of them a more likely interpretation of the function of þe is that of an indeclinable relative particle, siþþan being an adverb in all the three sentences, as suggested in the modern translations. Similarly, in the eighteen DOEC instances of siþþan followed by þæt, we should treat siþþan as an adverb and þæt either as the object clause conjunction or the subject pronoun or the demonstrative pronoun (as respectively shown below) rather than a subordinating particle:

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(43) Hit gelamp ða siððan þæt se gesæliga Florus gewat of worulde wuldorful to Criste. (DOEC ÆLS (Maur), 270) ‘It happened then afterwards that the holy Florus departed from the world to Christ, full of glory.’ (44) Siððan ðæt þa gelamp, þæt monega ðeoda Cristes geleafan onfengon, þa wurdon monega seonoðas geond ealne middangeard gegaderode. (DOEC Laws Alfred-Ine, 49.7) ‘Afterwards it happened that many nations received the faith of Christ, then many councils gathered all over the world.’ (45) Siþþan þætt gewin angunnen wæs . . . (DOEC Or 3, 65) ‘After the conflict was begun . . . .’

Kivimaa (1966: 166–167) does not believe that the combination syþþan þæt existed in Old English. The first clear instances of the conjunction followed by the subordinating particle are found in early Middle English: (46) Þa for mid him & æfter him swa micel folc swa næfre ær ne dide siððon þæt se firste fare was on Vrbanes dæi. (MEC a1131 Pet. Chr., an. 1128) ‘Then more people went, either with him or after him, than ever before since the first crusade, which was in the day of (pope) Urban.’

But they do not become really common until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries:2 (47) How might Robert Holonde fynde in his hert me to bitraye, siþens þat y haue Louede him so miche? (MEC c1400 Brut, 196)

Like other Old English subordinating conjunctions, siþþan often appeared with a correlative element in the main clause, which additionally marked the relationship of subordination (cf. Mitchell 1985: § 2667), most commonly þa or another siþþan: (48) Her Daniel forðferde. Þa wæs xlvi wintra agan syððan he onfeng biscopdome. (DOEC c1122 ChronE (Irvine), an. 745) ‘This year Daniel died. 46 years passed since he became a bishop.’ (49) ac syððan hi comon to Iudeiscum earde syððan he wæs heora latteow. (DOEC ÆCHom, I.108.32) ‘but after they came to Judea, he was their leader.’

In some cases siþþan is ambiguous, as it it is difficult to decide whether we have an adverb or a conjunction. In the Helsinki Corpus, about 6 per cent of the instances . For analogous Middle High German examples with sît daz see Paul and Mitzka (1960: 263), for example: sît daz niemen âne fröide touc, sô wolt ouch ich vil gerne fröide hân (Walther von der Vogelweide 99.13, fl.1170–1230).

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of OE siþþan can have either interpretation. Sometimes the Latin original or the context can help, whereas the imposed punctuation of the early EETS editors can be misleading; cf. Mitchell (1980) and (1985: § 2669), who draws our attention to the different handling of siððan in Beowulf (line 470) by various editors: (50) a.

Siððan þa fæhðe feo þingode; sende ic Wylfingum ofer wæteres hrycg ealde madmas. (adverb siððan – editions by Wrenn, Sedgefield, Wyatt, and Alexander) ‘Then I settled the feud; I sent ancient treasures to the Wylfings over the water’s back.’ b. Siððan þa fæhðe feo þingode, sende ic Wylfingum ofer wæteres hrycg ealde madmas. (conjunction siððan – editions by Klaeber, Mitchell and Robinson) ‘After I settled the feud, I sent . . . ’

. Semantic developments In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the conjunction and preposition sithe(n) indicating anteriority were gradually replaced by after. This fact seems to have received little attention in the literature so far. Sometimes there are significant differences between manuscripts (cf. MED s.v. sitthe (conj.) for more examples): (51) a.

Seoððe him comen þæ tiðinde of Crist Godes childe, ne leouede þe king mære buten ten Šere. (c1275 (?a1200) Layamon, Brut, (MS Caligula A.9) 4579) b. After þat com þe tidinge of Crist Godes childe, ne liuede þe king more bote one Šere. (c1300 MS Otho C.13) ‘After the news of Christ, God’s child came to him, the king lived no more but ten years/a year.’

In the late fourteenthth century sithe(n) meaning ‘after’ became rare3 and the last isolated OED instances come from the sixteenth century. This must have been connected with the sudden expansion of after (that) in the new role of the subordinating conjunction of anteriority, which also occurred in the latter half of the fourteenth century (cf. Molencki 2005: 59–60), for example: (52) He cam to the carpenteres hous A litel after cokkes hadde ycrowe. (MEC c1390 Chaucer, Miller’s Tale, A.3357) ‘He came to the carpenter’s house shortly after cocks had crowed.’ . A similar process affected Middle High German sît (cf. Kortmann 1997: 372).

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In the other temporal sense of continuation ‘from a certain point of time’, sithe(n) was still very common in Late Middle English: (53) This womman, sithen sche entride, ceesside not to kisse my feet. (MEC c1385 Wycliffe, Luke 7.45) (cf. example (7) above) (54) How have yee fare Sith I was with Šew last? (MEC c1460 (?c1400) Beryn, 55) (55) And Sire, as ffor my sone Betsonne I herde no worde ffrome hyme sith you departyd. (MEC 1476 Stonor Letters, II,15) ‘And Sir, as for my son Betson, I have not heard from him since you departed.’

In Early Middle English, we see the tendency for the sithe(n) prepositional phrases and sithe(n)-clauses to co-occur with the present perfect verb forms, which emphasized the sense of duration, as in (56) Ifurn ich habbe isuneŠet mid wurken & midd muðe & mid alle mine lime siððe ich sunehi cuðe. (MEC a1300 Leuedi sainte (Add 27909), 30) ‘Before I have sinned with my deeds and with my mouth and with all my limbs ever since I could sin.’ (57) Sutthen þis barn was ybore, beoþ þrityy wynter passed. (MEC c1387 Langland, Piers Plowman. C, 21.138) ‘Since this child was born thirty years have passed.’ (58) I dar safly sey in my conceyte, that shee on her parte sithe your departier hath ben vexed and trowbelyd with þe þrowes of love more fervently in her mynde þen ye have ben syth vexid wiþ her seyinges. (MEC 1472 Stonor Letters) ‘I dare safely say in my opinion that she, on her part, since your departure has been vexed and troubled with the anxieties of love more fervently in her mind than you have been then vexed with what she said.’

In this way, the conjunction sithe(n) came to specialize in this function and was no longer ambiguous, which strongly supports Kortmann’s (1997: 346–347) observation about ‘a decrease in semantic polyfunctionality, both in terms of the total of polyfunctional subordinators and the number of readings per polyfunctional subordinator’ in Late Middle English. Some Old English examples of the clauses introduced by siþþan admit a causal interpretation (cf., e.g., (40) above), which supports Traugott’s (1989) theory of subjectification, i.e., the direction of the semantic extension from a more concrete toward a more abstract sense, from a meaning ‘based in the sociophysical world’ to a meaning ‘based in the speaker’s mental attitude’ (Traugott 1989: 46). It also gives strong support to Kortmann’s (1997: 347) finding concerning adverbial subordinators: ‘semantic changes involving CCC [causal, conditional, concessive] and non-CCC relations seem to be unidirectional, in that adverbial subordinators generally acquire CCC senses later than locative, modal, or temporal senses’.

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But Kortmann (1997: 321) believes there were no clear Old English cases allowing for ‘a causal interpretation entirely independent of a temporal one’. Mitchell (1985: § 2670) seems to be less certain in this respect. He refers to Adams (1907), for whom ‘the temporal sense is dominant in all but three’ out of the 244 instances of the conjunction siþþan that he managed to collect. Particularly clear examples are in the Alfredian translations, where siððan renders the Latin conjunctions of cause: (59) Ac siððan he ongeat ðæt he wæs aðunden on upahæfennesse for his godan weorcum, ða gecyðde he swiðe hræðe æfter ðæm hwæt he siððan dreag. (DOEC CP, 465.17) (Latin quia) ‘But when he understood that he was inflated with the pride of his good works, he proclaimed very soon after what he afterwards suffered.’ (60) Ac ic þe wille nu giet getæcan ðone weg . . . siððan ðu ongitst þurh mine lare hwæt sio soðe gesælð bið. (DOEC Bo, 104.26) (Latin quoniam) ‘But I want now to teach you the way since you understand through my teaching what the true happiness is.’ (61) Fela wæron forbodene godes folce on ðære ealdan æ þe nu syndon clæne æfter Cristes tocyme siððan Paulus cwæð to þam cristenum ðus . . . (DOEC ÆLS (Maccebees), 25.74) ‘Many things were announced to God’s people in the old law which are now clean after Christ’s coming, since Paul said to the christians thus . . .’

In Middle English texts we find more instances of causal sithen, as in (62) Whu shal þat wurðe siððen [Lat. quoniam] wapman me ne trineð? (MEC c1200 Trin. Hom., 21) ‘How shall it happen since man does not lay a hand on me?’

Here are some more examples of causal since from the MED, corresponding to PDE ‘now that, seeing that’: (63) Siþ þei alle been deed in bodi, Cristis wordis may be taken of hem. (MED c1380 Wycliffe, SelWks, 3.339) (64) Why calle Še hym cryst . . . sithenes iuwes calle hym ihesus? (MED 1377 Piers Plowman B, 19.15)

In many other cases sithe(n) is equivalent to ‘because’, often rendering French puisque and Latin quoniam:4

. Again, we find parallel developments with Middle High German sît, which also developed causal senses (Paul & Mitzka’s (1960: 263) examples all come from Walther von der Vogelweide).

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(65) Siððe god nam sa michele wreche for are misdede, we swa muchel end oft misdoð, we muŠen us eaðe adrede. (MED a1225 Poema Morale, 205) ‘Since God took such great vengeance for our wrongdoings, we so much and so often do evil, we may easily be afraid.’ (66) For Iohn Baptist was contrarye to syche men in boþe þese, siþ he dwelte in desert and was fed wiþowte foode þat was maad by mannys crafte. (MEC c1400 Wycliffe, Sermons, I, 337) ‘For John Baptist was unlike such men in both these matters, because he dwelt in the desert and was fed without the food that was made by man’s skill.’ (67) Šit worldli clerkis axen gretli what spiryt makith idiotis hardi to translate now the bible into English, sithen the foure greete doctouris dursten neuere do this? (MEC c1388 Purvey, I,59) ‘Yet worldly clerks earnestly ask what spirit makes it difficult for laymen to translate now the Bible into English since the four great doctors never dared to do it?’

In some cases the MED allows for a concessive interpretation (sith = PDE though), even a more abstract one, though in this example the concessive reading is supported by nevertheless: (68) The whiche, syth it is harde all to expresse, neuertheles oone by grace of example I shall knytte to the forseyed. (MEC c1425 Found. St. Barth., 62/17) ‘Which, though it is hard to express everything, nevertheless one [miracle] by grace of example I shall add to the foresaid.’

Despite these new CCC uses, which make up at most 5 per cent of the Middle English corpus material, the most common function of the conjunction sithe(n) throughout the Middle Ages was that of the adverbial subordinator introducing temporal clauses. However, the range of temporal senses was declining. In the fourteenth century, sithen was no longer used to express simultaneity whereas the new conjunction after gradually replaced it as the marker of anteriority, as has been shown above. Interestingly, by that time after had lost some of the locative senses it had had in Old English and Early Middle English (cf. Molencki 2005). It was not until the sixteenth century that the causal interpretation began to dominate for since (cf. Fischer 1992: 347; Kortmann 1997: 321). The Early Modern English usage of both the conjunction and the preposition since appears to be very similar to that in Present-Day English, but this would require a separate study, especially because older spelling variants like sithen(s), sith(e), syth(e) still persist in the period. One can observe parallel processes in other Germanic languages. For example, Norse siðan acquired causal meaning in later medieval texts (cf. Gordon 1957: 171). In High German, the causal sense of sit > seit-clauses, which had developed in the Late Middle Ages (cf. Paul & Mitzka 1960: 263), was

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later lost and in Present-Day German seit(dem) can only be used as a temporal preposition/conjunction (Behaghel 1928: 248–250).

. Conclusion To sum up, the word since < siþþan developed from the original phrase made up from the adverb s¯ıþ and the instrumental form þon of the neuter demonstrative pronoun þæt univerbated as a result of a grammaticalization process, most probably in the preliterate Old English period. The Old English word siþþan was mostly used as an adverb and a conjunction, and perhaps marginally as a preposition. The conjunction had three basic temporal senses corresponding to modern ‘after’ (anteriority), ‘from the time that’ (duration) and ‘when’ (simultaneity). Some Old English uses also allow for a causal interpretation. In Middle English all the manifold forms derived from the Old English siþþan by virtue of various phonetic and morphological processes are found in the function of the adverb, the conjunction and the novel preposition. But the number of semantic readings for the temporal conjunction is declining, which corroborates Kortmann’s (1997: 346–347) hypothesis about the decrease of semantic polyfunctionality of Middle English adverbial subordinators. Thus the Middle English temporal conjunction sithe(n) lost its potential to express simultaneity, gave way to after as the chief subordinator of anteriority and only retained its sense of duration ‘from the time that’. Simultaneously, it considerably increased its use as a conjunction introducing adverbial clauses of cause and occasionally occurred as a concessive subordinator. These more abstract senses in turn are consistent with Traugott’s (1989, 1995) theory of subjectification. This, together with change from a major (adjective/adverb) to a minor (conjunction/preposition) word-class, accompanied by several independent processes of phonetic weakening in different periods of medieval English, is clear evidence of grammaticalization, which affected the original phrase *siþ þon before it became since. This evolution has some parallels in the cognate Germanic languages.

Sources DOEC = Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (1997). Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

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MEC = Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Middle English Compendium. (2002). Michigan: University of Michigan. MED = Middle English Dictionary, ed. Francis McSparren. Michigan: University of Michigan. OED = Oxford English Dictionary (2000–), ed. John Simpson. Third ed. (in progress, on line).

References Adams, Arthur (1907). The Syntax of the Temporal Clause in Old English Prose. New York: H. Holt and Co. Behaghel, Otto (1923–1932). Deutsche Syntax: eine geschichtliche Darstellung. 4 vols. Heidelberg: Winter. Bosworth, Joseph and T. Northcote Toller (1898). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. (1921). Supplement by T. Northcote Toller. (1972). Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda by Alistair Campbell. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Brunner, Karl (1942). Altenglische Grammatik nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. Halle/Saale: Niemeyer. Campbell, Alistair (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fischer, Olga (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol 2: 1066– 1476, ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 207–408. Gordon, Eric Valentine (1957). An Introduction to Old Norse. Second ed. revised by A. R. Taylor. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934). Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg: Winter. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (1993). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kivimaa, Kirsti (1966). Þe and þat as Clause Connectives in Early Middle English with Special Consideration of the Emergence of the Pleonastic þat. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarium Fennica. Kluge, Friedrich (2002). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. 24th ed. Elmar Seebold. Berlin: de Gruyter. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lehmann, Christian (1985). ‘Grammaticalization: Synchronic Variation and Diachronic Stage’. Lingua e Stile 20: 303–318. McMahon, April (1994). Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mettke, Heinz, ed. (1970). Altdeutsche Texte. Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut. Mettke, Heinz (1983). Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik. Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut. Mitchell, Bruce (1980). ‘The Dangers of Disguise: Old English Texts in Modern Punctuation’. Review of English Studies 31: 385–413. Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mitchell, Bruce, Christopher Ball and Angus Cameron (1975). ‘Short Titles of Old English Texts’. Anglo-Saxon England 4: 207–221.

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Molencki, Rafał (2005). ‘On the Syntactic and Semantic Development of after in Medieval English’. In: Naked Wordes in Englissh, ed. Marcin Krygier and Liliana Sikorska. (Medieval English Mirror, 2). Frankfurt: Lang, 47–66. Mustanoja, Tauno (1960). Middle English Syntax. (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki, 23). Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Pasicki, Adam (1987). Temporal Adverbials in Old and Middle English. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. Paul, Hermann and Walther Mitzka (1960). Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik. Eighteenth ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Quinn, John Joseph, ed. (1956). The Minor Latin-Old English Glossaries in MS Cotton Cleopatra A.iii. University of Stanford Dissertation. Sweet, Henry (1892 [1955]). A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical. Part Two: Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1989). ‘On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: an Example of Subjectification in Semantic Change’. Language 65: 31–55. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol 1: The Beginnings to 1066, ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 168–289. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1995). ‘Subjectification in Grammaticalization’. In: Subjectivity and Subjectivisation in Language, ed. Dieter Stein and Susan Wright. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 31–54. Visser, Frederikus Th. (1963–1973). An Historical Syntax of the English Language. 3 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

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Grammaticalization and syntactic polyfunctionality The case of albeit Elina Sorva* University of Helsinki

.

Introduction

This study presents the results of a corpus-based diachronic study of the English concessive connective albeit. Consisting of the elements all, be, and it, albeit was originally a connective phrase all be it (that), possibly modelled on the Old French tout soit il/ce que. The history of albeit is examined from its origins in Middle English up to the present day, and the article describes its grammaticalization but also highlights its syntactic polyfunctionality (for a discussion of its role in the inventory of concessive connectives and its syntactic and semantic specialization, see Sorva 2007). Syntactic polyfunctionality, or heterosemy, is a property shared by many connectives. As this study will show, albeit has been used not only as a conjunction, but also as an adverb and a preposition. When the appropriate categorization of each individual instance as a conjunction, adverb or preposition is clear, the polyfunctionality is of a straightforward kind. However, the corpus data studied here also include instances in which the categorization of albeit is more problematic. This kind of ambiguity reflects the fuzziness of the subcategories of connectives. The most important sources of evidence used for this diachronic study of albeit are the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) and the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (HCOS). Various other corpora, including the Literature Online corpus (LION), the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS), and the * I am grateful to the editors of this volume and the anonymous referees for their comments on this study, and to the members of the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English, University of Helsinki, for their support.

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Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC), have also been used. As for Present-Day English, the bulk of the evidence comes from the British National Corpus (BNC). Again, other sources, including the Internet,1 will be referred to.

. The origin of albeit . Plain inversion and the all + inversion pattern In Middle English, inverted word order with the verb in the subjunctive mood was sometimes used as a marker of conditionality, and, under certain conditions, as a marker of concession. The following instances of this plain inversion pattern include the elements be and it:2 (1) ut of his ðrote cumeð a smel mid his rem forð oueral, ðat ouer-cumeð haliweie wið swetnesse, ic gu seie, and al ðat eure smelleð swete, be it drie be it wete. (HC a1300 (a1250), Bestiary, 24) ‘Out of his throat comes forth a smell with his shout over everything that exceeds balsam in sweetness, I tell you, and all that ever smells sweet, whether it is dry or wet.’ (2) ‘Do greet diligence,’ seith Salomon, ‘in kepyng of thy freend and of thy goode name; for it shal lenger abide with thee than any tresour, be it never so precious.’ (HC (c1390) Geoffrey Chaucer, The Tale of Melibee, 234.C2) ‘“Exercise great diligence,” says Solomon, “in the caring for of your friend and of your good name; for it will stay with you longer than any treasure, however precious it may be.”’ . Using an Internet search engine, I have attempted to get a broader and even more up-to-date, if far less systematic, view of the use of albeit in Present-Day English than is feasible with the BNC alone. Since my web searches returned approximately 1,500,000 webpages and 900,000 newsgroup messages featuring one or more instances of albeit, I could not carry out any systematic study of albeit as used on the Internet. Nevertheless, I feel that these data are useful in further illustrating the use of albeit in Present-Day English, especially its more marginal, but still noteworthy uses. Whenever possible, I have tried to make sure that the informants I quote are native speakers of English, but in many cases I have simply had to rely on my own judgment on the apparent fluency of the writer (or speaker, in the case of transcriptions). . Cf. a similar use of plain inversion in Present-Day English: ‘most of our customers really prefer a system based on property type, be it semi detaches [sic], terrace, detached, mansion, castle or whatever’ (BNC undated G4U 292 Leisure); ‘Every scientific paper, be it ever so short and its subject ever so tiny, is nevertheless supposed, at least in principle, to make claims about and build upon, in a logical and verifiable fashion, our knowledge of the rest of the entire natural and social world; an ambitious aim’ (BNC 1983 CMS 252 Philip Lewis and Robert Dingwall eds., The sociology of the professions).

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The element all was used as an intensifying adverb with adjectives, adverbs, and verbs (Mustanoja 1960: 316–317, 468), and it came to be combined with plain inversion in the expression of concessivity, forming the all + inversion pattern. The earliest attested instances are from the thirteenth century: (3) [Pride] bihat eche wununge alle hire modres, al beon ha meidenes, wið hare awariede fader in inwarde helle . . . Ne telle þu nawt eðelich, al beo þu meiden, to widewen ne to iweddede. (MED, s.v. al (adv. & conj.), a1250 Hali Meidenhad (Tit. D. 18), 39/642,653) ‘Pride promises an eternal dwelling-place for all her mothers, although they are maidens, with her damned father in inner hell. . . . Do not undervalue, although you may be a virgin, widows or married women.’

. The all-element In various cross-linguistic studies, words meaning ‘all’ (English/German all, French tout, etc.) have been established as one of the recurrent sources of concessive connectives (see, e.g., König 1985, 1986, 1988 and Harris 1988). Generally, ‘expression of universal quantification’ has been shown to be one of the central categories for the formation of concessives (cf. PDE although, all the same, for all; German allerdings, bei all; French toutfois, tout . . . que; König 1985: 266).3 Harris (1988: 80) argues that ‘the use of words meaning “all” needs little explanation. On any scale, a situation which is depicted as being entirely at one end is clearly ready made to be used concessively, provided that the end specified is that least readily compatible with the main clause, which is nevertheless represented as true.’ Similarly, König states that ‘what emphatic elements like all do is to give a factual character to a clause which expresses no commitment of the speaker with respect to its truth or falsity without such a particle’ (1985: 13). In other words, König argues that a hypothetical concessive clause can be ‘strengthened’ into a factual concessive one through the addition of all. As an example, he cites a hypothetical concessive though-clause and a factual concessive although-clause from Chaucer. However, as pointed out by Chen (2000: 97–100), König’s case for the strengthening function of all does not seem to hold, at least not with although. In the Early Modern English part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, Chen finds that both . Poutsma (1929) notes that in concessive clauses with as, predicative nominals occasionally used to be preceded by all: ‘Get out of there, Monsieur, all pastor as you are, or I will send this soup at thy ugly head, and the saucepan afterwards’ (Poutsma 1929: § 86; a1863 William Makepeace Thackeray, Denis Duval, 211). He also cites an instance where that appears instead of as: ‘How conscious you must be, all beautiful that you are, that those charming airs serve only to heighten the bloom of your complexion!’ (Poutsma 1929: § 86; 1778 Fanny Burney, Evelina, XIII: 38).

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though and although are predominantly factual concessive markers, but both also occasionally mark hypothetical concession. In the Oxford English Dictionary, too, several of the quotations in the entry for although are hypothetical. As for albeit and the all + inversion pattern that it is based on, this idea that the all-element possesses a strengthening function of this kind is not supported by the evidence provided by my corpus-based analysis. There may also have been a more specific sense in which the all-element contributed to the concessive meaning in the all + inversion pattern. Here I will draw on the semantic distinctions between the three subcategories of hypothetical concessivity: simple, disjunctive, and irrelevance concessivity. The earlier pattern, with plain inversion, seems to have been more typically employed in the expression of complex concessivity, with disjunctive concessivity marked by repetition or with the disjunctive connective or, as in example (1), and irrelevance concessivity marked by the phrase never so, denoting, as the OED puts it, an unlimited degree or amount, as in example (2) above. Molencki (1997) argues that, since the concessive relation could be expressed by the inversion alone, the attachment of the all-element to it was optional. He gives the following two examples, pointing out that they seem to exhibit free variation between all be it and be it: (4) It is ful perilous, al be it never so lite. (Molencki 1997: 169; (c1390) Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parson’s Tale, 294) (5) thynkynge that oure Lord Jhesu Crist quiteth every good dede, be it never so lite. (Molencki 1997: 169; (c1390) Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parson’s Tale, 688)

It is worth noting, however, that this is a very restricted context, the inversion being both preceded by all and followed by never so. In fact, this use might be seen as a case of double marking: all is made superfluous, or optional, by the expression never so. Variation of a similar kind can be illustrated by instances of disjunctive concession in which the disjunctive elements point to a concessive reading: (6) Ye sonnes of Venus, play your sports at will, | For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toyes, | Thinks more vpon her paradise of ioyes, | Then what ye do, albe it good or ill. (LION 1595 Edmund Spenser, Epithalamion, 367) (7) Bot thou were worthi be cled in Stafford blew, For thou art | alway adred, be it fals or trew. (HC a1500 (a1460) The Wakefield Pageants in the Towneley Cycle, 19)

These types of constructions, then, do not appear to depend on the all-element for any aspect of their concessive function. Plain inversion was used in the expression of disjunctive and irrelevance concessivity before the emergence of the all + inversion pattern, and it continued to be used with the same functions after

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the emergence of the latter pattern. And in fact, it is still so used in Present-Day English (see the examples in Footnote 2). However, plain inversion was rarely if ever used in the expression of simple concessivity, and this seems to be the function that the all + inversion pattern came to perform (cf. example (3), for instance). This also made it possible for the conjunctival phrase all be it that to emerge. To sum up this section on the all-element, I would like to suggest that the emergence of the all + inversion pattern as a marker of concessivity appears to have required a reanalysis of the conceptual structure underlying such expressions. At the early stage, it may still have been possible to interpret such an instance as a case of plain inversion, with all functioning as a simple intensifier of the VP or a subject complement. Only after the all + inversion construction as a whole had acquired concessive meaning was it possible for elements incompatible with the intensification to appear in the construction – full clauses, for example – making it possible for the new conjunctival phrase, all be it that, to emerge. It is in this sense that the emergence of the all + inversion pattern as a productive marker of concessivity can be seen as resulting from reanalysis: all must have been associated with the inversion as a whole rather than conceptualized as part of the predicate only. This covert rule change must have happened in a context compatible both with the older reading of all as an intensifier and with the newer reading of the all + inversion pattern as a marker of concessivity. The rule change could only have become evident when the construction spread through analogy to contexts incompatible with the older reading. The development of the all-element from an intensifier to a part of a concessive connective seems to be in accordance with the trend that, in grammaticalization, semantic bleaching is counterbalanced by pragmatic enrichment: some original, relatively concrete meaning is lost, but some new, abstract, speaker-based meaning is gained (Hopper 1991: 30–31; Hopper & Traugott 2003: 94–98). It is also here that Harris’s comment on the applicability of all to the expression of concessivity (see above) is relevant. All lost its intensifying function (that is, its content-level, ‘objective’ meaning), but it gained the concessive force of the entire construction (that is, a personal-level, ‘subjective’ meaning). This is based on the assumption that concessivity is inherently based in the speaker’s belief state. Thus, the development of concessive meaning would be in consonance with Traugott’s Tendency III, which states that meaning change tends towards the speaker’s belief state or attitude toward the proposition. . The conjunctival phrase all be it (that) After the establishment of the all + inversion pattern, the next step in the development of albeit was the emergence of the conjunctival phrase all be it (that) as a

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particular realization of that pattern. The earliest attested instances of the phrase are from the fourteenth century: (8) Al be it þai be theues all, þat þai war breþer elleuen þat ham, þai neuend me þe yongeist nam. (a1340 Cursor Mundi, 4978) ‘Although they be all thieves, that they were eleven brothers in that home, they took me, naming me the youngest.’ (9) Al be it that it is agayn his kynde, Of al this stryf he gan remedie fynde. (MED, s.v. ben, c1385 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale, A.2451) ‘Although it is against his nature, he began to find a remedy for all this strife.’

The conjunctival phrase also had the variant all be it so (that), with the word so added: (10) And al be it so that thise thinges ben diverse, yit natheles hangeth that oon of that oother. (HC ?a1425 (c1380) Geoffrey Chaucer, Boethius, 451.C2) ‘And although these things are different, yet nevertheless the one depends on the other.’

There was also a past tense variant all were it (so) (that), denoting either pastness or non-factuality. Through generalization of meaning, albeit spread into linguistic contexts where the past tense variant had been used before, and the past tense variant was lost. The last (and only) instances in the HC are from the sixteenth century (there are no instances in the HCOS): (11) Howbeit, this one thing, sonne, I assure thee on my faith, that if the parties will at my handes call for iustice, then, al were it my father stood on the one side, and the Divill on the tother, his cause being good, the Divill should haue right. (HC 1556 William Roper, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, 42)

We also find a variant of the conjunctival phrase without the pronoun it: (12) But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre. (HC (c1387–95), Geoffrey Chaucer, The General Prologue, 28.C1) ‘But although he was a philosopher, he had only a little gold in his coffers.’

This is the only instance of all be (that) or albe in the HC, and there are no instances in the HCOS. Indeed, on the whole, albe seems to have been relatively rare throughout its history, although the LION corpus shows that certain Middle English and Early Modern English authors, such as John Lydgate (1370?–1451?) and Edmund Spenser (1552–1599), used it frequently: (13) He durst it nat withseyn, Al-be þat hym was ful loþe þer-to. (MED, s.v. withseien, c1425 (a1420) John Lydgate, Troy Book, 3.5128) ‘He didn’t dare to oppose it, although he was very loath to do it.’

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(14) But Ladies none they were, albee in face And outward shew faire semblance they did beare. (LION 1590–1596 Edmund Spenser, Faerie Qveene, Bk. IV: Cant. I, 153)

. Parallels in Old French: tout soit il que and the tout + inversion pattern According to some sources (Bødtker 1908–1910: 45–46; Mustanoja 1960: 317, 468; Molencki 1997), all be it (that) may have been modelled on the Old French expression tout soit il/ce que. This conjunctival phrase is discussed in Klare’s (1958) diachronic study of concessive connectives in French, which also discusses its variant forms, such as tout soit il ainsi que, tout fust il (ainsi) que, and tout soit que. Interestingly, the variants that Klare reports turn out to be parallel to the variants of all be it (that) in Middle English mentioned in Section 2.3 above: all be it so (that), all were it (so) (that), all be (that). Table 1 lists these parallels between Old French and Middle English. It is worth noting, however, that the potential Old French influence goes further than the conjunctival phrases presented in Table 1. These phrases, as Klare (1958) reports, were built upon an Old French pattern in which tout was followed by inverted word order, with the verb in the subjunctive mood. This tout + inversion pattern seems like a possible model for the all + inversion pattern upon which the conjunctival phrase all be it (that) was built in the scenario presented in Section 2.3 above. This hypothesis of Old French influence complicates the otherwise fairly straightforward picture of the history of albeit that has been depicted so far in this study. It may be impossible to determine whether the all + inversion pattern was a native development or a result of transfer from Old French. It is likely that it was not purely one or the other. Similarly, it seems likely that the conjunctival phrase all be it (that) emerged in Middle English as a particular realization of the all + inversion pattern, as presented in Section 2.3 above, but at the same time, this type of use was supported by the parallel use in Old French, where the conjunctival phrase tout soit il que emerged as a particular realization of the tout + inversion pattern. Table 1. Parallel conjunctival phrases in Old French and Middle English Old French

Middle English

tout soit il/ce que tout soit il ainsi que tout fust il/ce que tout fust il ainsi que tout soit que

all be it (that) all be it so (that) all were it (that) all were it so (that) all be (that)

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Apart from the use in the conjunctival phrase all be it (that), there are only two attested instances of the all + inversion pattern in the HC and a single one in the HCOS. The first part of the Old French hypothesis (tout + inversion > all + inversion) is corroborated by the fact that each of these instances occurs in a translation from French (or French and Latin): (15) Ne a fouler thral may no man ne womman maken of his body than for to yeven his body to synne. Al were it the fouleste cherl or the fouleste womman that lyveth, and leest of value, yet is he thanne moore foul and moore in servitute. (HC (c1390) Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parson’s Tale, 290.C2) ‘No fouler a slave may any man or woman make of their body than to give their body to sin. Even if they were the foulest peasant or the foulest woman alive and of the least rank, yet they are still more foul and more in servitude.’ (16) For al be he oure fadre, Šit is he riŠtwis and not moueable. (HC c1450 (c1400) The Book of Vices and Virtues, 103) ‘Even though he is our father, he is still righteous and immovable.’ (17) And thar’fore Alexander’ thou worthy and maist lele Emperour’ yat thou kepe thyne aithis – & thy sacramentis condiciouns and appointmentis – and all thyne alliauncis / – all be thai neuer sa scathefull na sa hinderand na grevable. (HCOS 1456 Sir Gilbert Hay, The Buke Of The Ordre Of Knychthede And The Buke Of The Gouernaunce Of Princis, 80) ‘And therefore, Alexander, worthy and most loyal Emperor, keep your oaths – and your sacraments, conditions and appointments – and all your alliances – however scatheful, hindering or grievable they may be.’

Corpus evidence for the second part of the Old French hypothesis (tout soit il que > all be it that) will be presented in Section 3.

. The rise and fall of the univerbated connective albeit Gradually, the conjunctival phrase all be it (that) developed into a fixed phrase and its word boundaries became fuzzier, until, by the Early Modern English period, it had fused into the univerbated concessive conjunction albeit: it was no longer conceptualized in terms of its parts, but rather as a single lexeme. The beginning of the Early Modern English period also saw albeit at the peak of its popularity. This will be shown in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, which give quantitative evidence of the use of albeit in the HC and the HCOS.

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Table 2. Albeit in the HC (F = absolute frequency, M = mean frequency/1,000,000 words) Corpus

Time

Words

F

M

HM1 HM2 HM3 HM4 HE1 HE2 HE3 Total

1150–1250 1250–1350 1350–1420 1420–1500 1500–1570 1570–1640 1640–1710 1150–1710

113,010 97,480 184,230 213,850 190,160 189,800 171,040 1,159,570

0 0 18 4 20 7 0 49

0 0 98 19 105 37 0 42

. Quantitative analysis of albeit in the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts .. Frequency In the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), there are a total of 49 instances of albeit.4 There are none in the first two sub-periods of Middle English (1150-1350) or in the last sub-period of Early Modern English (1640–1710). The distribution of the attestations across the Middle English and Early Modern English sub-corpora is presented in Table 2. Table 2 shows that albeit is fairly frequent in the sub-periods HM3 (1350– 1420) and HE1 (1500–1570), with the mean frequencies 98 and 105, respectively, but the intervening HM4 (1420–1500) has the lowest mean frequency of all the four sub-periods where albeit occurs, dropping to 19, less than a fifth of the mean frequency in HM3. Similarly, after the peak in HE1, the mean frequency of albeit drops to 37 in HE2 (1570–1640), just over a third of that peak, and in HE3 (1640– 1710) albeit does not occur at all. Table 3 lists all the texts in which albeit occurs in the HC. The 18 instances of albeit in HM3 occur in seven different texts. The strikingly high frequency of albeit in HM3, and consequently the dramatic drop in HM4, with only four instances, may be due to the strong presence of Chaucer in the HM3 sub-corpus. Notably, 13 of the 18 instances of albeit in HM3 are from Chaucer. Twelve of the instances occur in translations from French: Mandeville’s Travels (one instance), Chaucer’s Boethius (French and Latin; five instances) and Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee (six instances). The latter two texts account for eleven . In the quantitative analysis, an occurrence of albeit is defined as any instance of a connective or a connective phrase incorporating the elements all, be, and it, in this order. It should be noted that there is no principled way of distinguishing between instances of the all + inversion pattern and the connective albeit in certain cases where the elements all, be, and it are followed by a single constituent (e.g., all be it small versus albeit small). Thus, these ambiguous instances have been included here. (For a discussion of this ambiguity, see Section 5.)

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Table 3. Albeit in the texts of the HC (F = absolute frequency) Text

Corpus Date

F Variants

Geoffrey Chaucer, Boethius Geoffrey Chaucer, The Tale of Melibee Geoffrey Chaucer, Astrolabe John Gower, Confessio Amantis Mandeville’s travels Henry V, Letter(s) Proclamations Middle English Sermons William Paston, Letter(s) Richard Fitzjames, Sermo Die Lune The Statutes of the Realm (III) Thomas Howard, Letter(s) Thomas More, The History of King Richard III Henry VIII, Letter(s) Thomas More, Letter(s) Thomas Wolsey, Letter(s) Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour John Fisher, The English works of John Fisher Thomas Cromwell, Letter(s) The Trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton William Roper, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore George Colville, Boethius The Statutes of the Realm (IV) Blundevile, Tables of the Three Speciall Right Lines Belonging to a Circle John Hayward, Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth

HM3 HM3 HM3 HM3 HM3 HM3 HM3 HM4 HM4 HM4 HE1 HE1 HE1

?a1425(c1380) (c1390) a1450(1391) (a1393) ?a1425(c1400) 1418–1419 1419 c1450(c1415) 1426–1427 ?1495 1509–1510 1513 1514–1518

5 6 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 4

al be it so that al be it so that all be it that, all be it so that al be it so all be it þat albehit that, al be hit yat albeit þat al-be-it, all-be-itt þat all be it þat albeit that albeit that albeit albeit

HE1 HE1 HE1 HE1

undated 1529–1534 a1530 1531

1 3 2 1

albeit albeit (2), all beit (1) albeit all be it

HE1

1535

1 albeit

HE1 HE1 HE1

1538 1554 1556

1 albeit 3 albeit 1 albeit

HE1 HE2 HE2

1556 1592–1593 1597

1 albeit 1 albeit 1 albeit

HE2

a1627

5 albeit

of the 18 instances of albeit in HM3, and are the only samples in the sub-corpus where albeit occurs more than twice. These facts support the hypothesis, discussed in Section 2.4 above, that albeit was modelled on Old French. In contrast to the dominance of Chaucer in HM3, there is no obvious explanation for the peak in the frequency of albeit in HE1. The 20 instances are more evenly distributed across text types and authors, occurring in twelve texts altogether. The works of Thomas More account for seven of the instances, and letters are strongly represented, with eight instances. Albeit also occurs three times in the speech-based Trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (recorded as spoken by Throckmorton himself). In HE2, albeit occurs in only three texts. Five of the seven instances of albeit in this sub-corpus occur in a single text, Hayward’s Annals.

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.. Variants In the earliest sub-corpus of the HC where albeit occurs, HM3, its three main elements are mostly spelled as separate words, reflecting its status as an analytic conjunctival phrase. Eleven of the instances are of the form ; this is in accordance with Molencki’s (1997) finding that this variant is dominant in Chaucer’s prose. In the two latest HM3 text samples, albeit also occurs twice as a single orthographic word (, ), showing that a process of univerbation is likely to have occurred as early as the fifteenth century in some varieties of English. In HM4, all four instances of albeit are spelled differently: in three of them (from the early fifteenth century) the three main elements of albeit are separated by either hyphens or spaces, and in one (from the late fifteenth century) they are spelled together. In striking contrast to the attestations in the Middle English part of the HC, albeit appears fairly uniformly as a single orthographic unit in the Early Modern English part, with an all but standardized written form. In 18 of the 20 instances in HE1, albeit is spelled , and the only two instances (, ) that deviate from this norm, are both from the earlier half of the sub-corpus. In HE2, the spelling of albeit is virtually uniform: it is a single orthographic word in all instances. Despite the overall trend of standardization in spelling in the Early Modern English period, the developments in the spelling of albeit reflect a process of univerbation which had taken place by the beginning of this period. (See Section 3.4 for occasional variant spellings that deviate from the standard and also reflect a process of univerbation.) The complementizer that is used in all but one instance of albeit in both HM3 and HM4, and is left out in all but one instance in the Early Modern English part of the HC (the earliest instance being in HE1). In fact, this is another aspect of the variants of albeit that highlights the differences between the evidence extracted from the Middle English and Early Modern English parts of the HC. The finding is in accordance with Rissanen (1997), which discusses the rise and fall of optional that, arguing that, in Early Modern English, ‘the re-establishment of the structure of the language brought about sufficient differentiation between the subordinators and the other grammatical elements of English to make the optional that pleonastic in most contexts’ (Rissanen 1997: 382). . Quantitative analysis of albeit in the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots .. Frequency Overall, albeit is far more frequent in the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (HCOS) than in the HC: there are a total of 155 instances in the former as compared with 49 in the latter. Table 4 presents the distribution of albeit in the HCOS.



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Table 4. Albeit in the HCOS (F = absolute frequency, M = mean frequency/1,000,000 words) Corpus

Time

Words

F

M

HCOS0 HCOS1 HCOS2 HCOS3 Total

1450–1500 1500–1570 1570–1640 1640–1700 1450–1700

95,900 200,495 302,317 247,004 845,716

0 21 91 43 155

0 105 301 174 183

In the HC, albeit apparently emerges as a connective phrase by the late fourteenth century, while the evidence from the HCOS suggests that, as a univerbated connective, it was not adopted into frequent use in Scottish English until the sixteenth century. There are no instances in the first sub-corpus of the HCOS (1450–1500). Furthermore, in all the occurrences in the HCOS, albeit is spelled as a single orthographic word. However, given that the corpus only goes back to 1450, and that the pre-1500 sub-corpus is relatively small, no firm conclusions can be drawn. As mentioned in Section 2.4, there is a single fifteenth-century instance of the all + inversion pattern in HCOS0, and the Dictionary of Scottish Language (DSL, s.v. all, conj.) gives three instances from the fourteenth century. In HCOS1 (1500–1570) the mean frequency of albeit is 105, i.e., exactly as high as the highest peak in the HC. In HCOS2 (1570–1640) albeit is remarkably frequent, with the nearly tripled mean frequency of 301. In HCOS3 (1640–1700), the mean frequency of albeit drops to 174, a little over half of that of the preceding sub-period. However, whereas albeit does not occur at all in the HC after 1627, it continues to be relatively frequent in the HCOS through the seventeenth century – more frequent, in fact, than at its highest peak in the HC. The 155 instances of albeit in the HCOS are distributed across texts as shown in Table 5. The 21 instances of albeit in HCOS1 occur in 11 different texts, mostly official documents, formal treatises and official correspondence. In addition to the high frequency in HCOS2, the fact that the 91 instances of albeit occur in a wide range of texts from various genres, including personal letters and diaries, suggests that it is well established in the language. In HCOS3, though the overall frequency of albeit drops considerably from the peak in HCOS2, the 43 instances, occurring in both formal documents and informal diaries, suggest that in the Scottish English of the seventeenth century the decrease in the use of albeit was not as dramatic as it was in the south. .. Variants The spelling of albeit is nearly uniform throughout the HCOS. In HCOS1, there are 18 instances of , two instances of , and a single instance of . (Cf. DSL, s.v. albeit, for the variant : ‘The form with d is the

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Table 5. Albeit in the texts of the HCOS (F = absolute frequency) Text

Corpus

Date

F

Variants

Official letters

HCOS1

1515–51

4

Sheriff Court Book of Fife William Lamb, Ane resonyng of ane scottis and inglis merchand Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland Quintin Kennedy, Two eucharistic tracts: Ane litil breif tracteit Quintin Kennedy, Two eucharistic tracts: Ane compendious ressonyng St.Andrews Kirk Sessions Criminal trials in Scotland Gilbert Skeyne, Ane breve descriptioun of the pest George Buchanan, Chamaeleon John Lesley, The history of Scotland David Fergusson, Tracts by David Fergusson

HCOS1 HCOS1

1516 1550

1 1

albeit (3), albeid (1) albeit that albeit

HCOS1 HCOS1

1525–55 a1561

3 3

albeit albeit

HCOS1

1561

7

albeit

HCOS1 HCOS1 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2

1561 1561–67 1568 1570 1570 1571

1 1 8 4 7 6

Diary of John Lesley, Bishop of Ross Gilbert Skeyne, Ane breif descriptioun of the well Sir Patrick Waus, Journal of his Journey Private letters

HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2

1571 1580 1587 1587–1629

2 2 1 11

William Fowler, An answer to Hammiltoun

HCOS2

1590

4

Robert Bruce, Sermons Criminal trials in Scotland Letter by King James VI James VI, Basilicon Doron David Moysie, Memoirs of the affairs of Scotland William Birnie, The blame of kirk–buriall Sir James Melville of Halhill, Memoirs

HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2

1590–91 1576–91 1594 1598 1590–98 1606 1610

2 2 1 4 2 1 9

Official letters Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland Alexander Huntar, A treatise of weights, mets and measures of Scotland James Row, Pockmanty Preaching Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, Diary John Spalding, The history of the troubles and memorable transactions in Scotland and England Alexander Brodie of Brodie, Diary Andrew Hay of Craignethan, Diary Council Register of the burgh of Aberdeen George Sinclair, The hydrostatics

HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS2

1613 1587–1621 1624

3 10 4

HCOS2 HCOS2 HCOS3

1638 1632–39 c1650

1 7 7

albeid albeit albeit albeit albeit albeit (5), albeit that (1) albeit albeit albeyt albeit (10), abeit at (1) albeit (3), albeit that (1) albeit albeit albeit albeit albeit albeit albeit (8), albeit that (1) albeit albeit albeit (3), albeit that (1) albeit albeit albeit

HCOS3 HCOS3 HCOS3 HCOS3

1653–71 1659 1660–85 1672

9 1 5 2

albeit albeit albeit albeit

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Table 5. (continued) Text

Corpus

Date

F

Variants

James, 11th Lord Somerville, Memorie of the Somervilles James Brodie of Brodie, Diary Records of the royal burgh of Stirling John Reid, The Scots gard’ner Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland

HCOS3

1679

3

albeit

HCOS3 HCOS3 HCOS3 HCOS3

1680 1667–80 1683 1661–86

3 2 8 3

albeit albeit albeit albeit

result of the normal Sc. change of the pronoun it to ’d after vowels.’) Similarly, in HCOS2, there are only minor deviations from the uniform spelling : two instances of , as well as single instances of and . (Cf. DSL, s.v. all, for the variant : ‘In later Sc. the l [of all] was vocalized, giving the forms aw and a, current in the modern dialects.’) In HCOS3, the spelling is entirely uniform, with all 43 instances spelled . The spelling variants of albeit in the HCOS reflect the fact that a process of univerbation had taken place by the sixteenth century. The two instances of in HCOS2 may also reflect phonetic attrition and a pronunciation variant with two instead of three syllables. Further evidence of univerbation and phonetic attrition from other corpora will be presented in Section 3.4. The complementizer that is mostly left out, occurring only six times altogether. This corresponds with the finding that the complementizer is scarcely used with albeit in the Early Modern English part of the HC. . Syntactic functions .. Syntactic category Although all of the instances of albeit attested in the HC and the HCOS allow a reading as a conjunction, five instances in the HC and five in the HCOS are syntactically ambiguous, in the sense that they can be interpreted either as conjunctions or adverbs. The following examples illustrate this ambiguity: (18) Proper she was & faire: nothing in her body yt you wold haue changed, but if you would haue wished her somewhat higher. Thus say thei yt knew her in her youthe. Albeit some that now se her (for yet she liueth) deme her neuer to haue ben wel visaged. (HC 1514–1518 Thomas More, The History of King Richard III, 55) (19) An honest man, or an honest woman would be much ashamed to brek their promise, & specially to theyr friend? Albeit the worlde is now full of such lorrells, that doo no more regard to break their promise, then to drink when they be drye. (HC 1535 John Fisher, Sermons, 402)

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Further, less ambiguous instances of albeit as an adverb can be found in other corpora. In most of these instances, albeit is positioned sentence-initially, often separated from both the preceding and the following discourse by punctuation. Since the HC and HCOS are based on editions, the punctuation is likely to differ from that in the original texts. Example (20), extracted from the manuscript-based Corpus of Scottish Correspondence, provides evidence of the original punctuation, supporting a reading of albeit as an adverb: (20) I refuised to reportt this to zour / Lo /: albeitt, I thochtt itt wtt my self the best to advertis zour / Lo / thatt this is his ordinar objectioine to ewerie man. (CSC 1632 Thomas Erskyne of Pittodrie to John, 7th Earl of Mar, Lord Erskine)

Sporadic instances of albeit as an adverb in other positions, in the sense of ‘despite this/that’, have also been attested (e.g. sentence-finally, as in example (21), or following a paratactic connective such as and, as in example (22)). (21) And sinc my being with you I have not had iij dayes of health; I thank God albeit. I am better now. (CEECS 1549? William Woodruffe to Isabel Plumpton, 254) (22) And by your herauld Isley ye made answere that you were right joyeous of my desire, and would not faile to accomplishe the same and to abide me there, where you were at the tyme of my message so shewed unto your Grace. And albeit it hathe pleased yow to change your said promise and put your self into a ground more like a fortresse or Campe then upon any indifferent ground for battel to be tryede, wherefore considering the day apointed is so nighe approching I desire now of your Grace for the accomplishment of your honorable promise. (HC 1513 Thomas Howard, Letter(s), I, 86)

Finally, there are sporadic instances of albeit used as a preposition in the sense of ‘despite’: (23) So that he thought euery houre a yeare, till by their departure they might preuent danger, not ceasing still to go euery day to his Sheepe, not so much for the care of the flocke, as for the desire he had to see his loue, and sweete heart Varrona, who oftentimes when opportunitie would serue priuately repaired thither (albeit her fathers prohibition to the contrary) to feede her fancie with the sweete content of Lysimachus presence. (LION 1604 John Hind, Lysimachus and Varrona, 46)

.. Scope of the conjunction Within the conjunctival use, there is a further sub-categorization to be made, relating to the scope of the conjunction, i.e., whether albeit is followed by a finite clause complement or by a non-finite or verbless complement. In Early Modern English, albeit was mostly used with finite clause complements. In the HC, there

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are no instances of albeit + non-finite clause. Example (24) illustrates the typical use of albeit + finite clause in Early Modern English: (24) And albeit his Holynesses demeanor in that behalf, is not so laudable, ne of such sort, as I would it were, yet it is not so evill as it hath ben bruted & reported. (HC a1530 Thomas Wolsey, Letter(s), II, 21)

In the HCOS, however, there are 19 instances of albeit in non-finite or verbless clauses. Three of the instances are from the late sixteenth century (example (25)), and the others are from the seventeenth century (examples (26) and (27)): (25) At the tyme of the Governouris residens in Jedbruche, Maister Dauid Panter bischope of Ros, albeit not than consecrat, quha had bene contenowalie ambassadour resident in France sevin yeris preceding, arryvit in Jedburgh. (HCOS 1570 John Lesley, The history of Scotland, 244) (26) soe that the troupers, albeit stout fellows, had but small advantage by ther number. (HCOS, 1679 James, 11th Lord Somerville, Memorie of the Somervilles, II, 430) (27) We must not put off prayer or duties, albeit not inlarged or assisted to them. (HCOS 1653 Alexander Brodie, Diary, 101)

LION has the following fifteenth-century instance with all, be, and it connected by hyphens (for a discussion of the ambiguity reflected in this and many other instances, see Section 5): (28) Owt of thys werd passyd seynt Elyzabeth, Wy[c]h the kyngys doughtyr was vngarye, & wyf to Langrauye, pryince of turyngye; Whos lyf my wyl ys to declare In englyssh tonge, al-be-yt but bare. (LION 1393?–1447? Osbern Bokenham, Legendys of Hooly Wummen; The proloug into seynt Elyzabeth Lyf, 9466) ‘Out of this world passed Saint Elizabeth, who was the daughter of the King of Hungary, and wife of Louis, price of Thuringia, whose life it is my desire to declare in the English tongue, although it is unadorned.’

. Additional evidence of univerbation and phonetic attrition The quantitative evidence of the univerbation of albeit presented in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, above, showed that the spelling practice changed over time from Middle English to Early Modern English; with a few exceptions, the three main elements of albeit are spelled as separate words in the Middle English part of the HC, and as a single orthographic unit in the Early Modern English part. In the HCOS, where it occurs from the sixteenth century onwards, albeit is virtually uniformly written as one word. This section will present a number of instances from these and other

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corpora as further evidence of univerbation, and also comment on the possible phonetic attrition of albeit. One type of evidence relates to spelling variants reflecting a bisyllabic pronunciation variant of albeit. Beside the two HCOS instances of , there are sporadic spelling variants such as , , and in other corpora, e.g., the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler and the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence: (29) he must nedes be had, albyt all devyces ar used to putt him out from being a councellor. (CEECS 1585 Robert Dudley to Mr. Secretary Walsingham, 33) (30) Alwayis I hawe bein wsing my best meanes / to your lo / behowes / albet I cwm litill sped heir. (CSC 1627 Francis, 8th Earl of Erroll to the Earl of Morton) (31) it will be a trubill to your mother to haue it solemnisid heir albit neuer so priuatly. (CSC, 1657, Jean Gordon to Sir Lodovick Gordon of Gordonstoun)

There is also syntactic evidence of univerbation having taken place and of the conceptualization of albeit as a single unit. In the following instance, albeit occurs in the sequence albeit it be (i.e., the combination of albeit with a clause beginning it be): (32) Quhy vil þow nocht inlikvise beleif þe body of our saluiour to be really in þe sacrament, albeit it be nocht therin feild, sein, nor grapit, consydderinge þat Goddes vord hes alse plainly declarit the ane as the other? (HCOS a1561 Quintin Kennedy, Two eucharistic tracts: Ane litil breif tracteit, 130)

Yet another type of evidence is the puzzling variant albeit it, i.e., the addition of an apparently redundant it:5 (33) What thing? did you, any tyme, demaund, Albeit it sport, but I haue done it. (LION 1575–1648 William Percy, The cuck-queanes and cuckolds errants, Act II: Sc. 7, 32)

. Numerous unambiguous Present-Day English instances of the variant albeit it have been attested: ‘Ignatieff (1978) suggests that Bentham like the prison reformer John Howard, also arrived at the idea of the corrigibility of man by re-education directed at the mind, albeit it by a different route’ (BNC 1989 CCRX 150 Bob Roshier, Controlling crime). I have no explanation for the apparently redundant it in the variant albeit it. My purpose in bringing up the variant here is simply to present it as another piece of evidence showing that albeit, in such instances, is not conceptualized in terms of its component parts. (Assuming that the variant albeit it also occurs in spoken language, it is likely that in such use the pronunciation of albeit must be bisyllabic instead of trisyllabic, obscuring the first it element and creating an opening for the additional it element.)



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Finally, the use of albeit with a counterfactual clause shows that albeit is indeed not conceptualized in terms of its component parts (in contrast to all were it in example (11) above): (34) Quhairin I am constrynit of necessitie to use the prescriptioun of sum Medicinis in latine, quhilkis can not guidlie be put in vulgare langage, & albeit thay war, zit suld be als obscure to the vnlernit redar as thay ar in latine. (HCOS 1568 Gilbert Skeyne, Ane breve descriptioun of the pest, 17) (35) Besids, the French had stopped the current of the river that night, whereby the ditches were so anoyed with water, that they were troublesome to passe, albeit no other impediment should have bene offered. (HC a1627 John Hayward, Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 64)

. The marginalization of albeit The peak in the frequency of albeit at the beginning of the Early Modern English period was followed by a dramatic drop by the eighteenth century. It was shown in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 that the last instances of albeit in the HC are from the early seventeenth century, and in the HCOS, too, the frequency of albeit drops in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Evidence from various other corpora corroborates the hypothesized drop in the use of albeit during the seventeenth century, and suggests that albeit had fallen into relative obscurity by the eighteenth century. In the Newdigate Newsletters, comprising approximately one million words of newsletters from 1673 to 1692, there is only a single instance of albeit. In the Lampeter Corpus, comprising 1,1 million words of tracts and pamphlets from the period 1640–1740, there are only three instances of albeit altogether, all of them from the seventeenth century. In the Century of Prose Corpus, with half a million words of prose from the century between 1680 and 1780, we find no instances of albeit. In the OED quotations database, there are over 70 instances of albeit in the seventeenth-century part of the database, but only six instances in the eighteenth-century part. In the vast Literature Online corpus (LION), there are only 19 instances of albeit in eighteenth-century prose.6 Three of these quote a famous phrase from Shakespeare word for word, and one alludes directly to it.7 In fact, there are only nine instances of albeit with no obvi. Information about the exact size of the LION corpus or its sub-corpora is not available. . The original passage is from Shakespeare’s Othello: ‘Speake of me, as I am. Nothing extenuate, Nor set downe Albeit vn-vsed to the melting moode, Drops teares as fast as the Arabian Trees Their Medicinable gumme’ (LION 1604 William Shakespeare, Othello, Act V: Sc. 2, 415). Cf. the following eighteenth-century instances of albeit: ‘and even the Philosopher Square wiped his Eyes, albeit unused to the melting Mood’ (LION 1749 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, II, 177); ‘yet whenever she found Mr. Pattenson really angry, she, albeit unused to the condescending

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ous model in an earlier well-known text. All of these are conjunctions with a finite clause complement: (36) And albeit I cannot compliment you with the name of a learned man; yet are you a sensible man. (LION 1751 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, 3rd ed. Vol. VII, 386)

The marginalized status of albeit in the English language of the eighteenth century is reflected in the following statement made by George Campbell in his 1776 work The Philosophy of Rhetoric (LION 1776 Vol. II, 378): It is a secret sense of the truth of this doctrine with regard to language, which imperceptibly, as taste improves in a nation, influences their writers to prefer short to long conjunctions. [...] Almost all the polysyllabic conjunctions are now either disused altogether, or occur but rarely. [Footnote: These are, however, moreover, nevertheless, notwithstanding that, in somuch that, albeit, furthermore, forasmuch as. The three last may be counted obsolete, except with scriveners. The rest cannot entirely be dispensed with.]

. Resurfacing and use in Present-Day English . Rise in frequency The data contained within the LION corpus suggest that albeit resurfaced in the nineteenth century. Although the nineteenth-century prose section of the LION is larger than the eighteenth-century section, the 393 instances of albeit in the nineteenth-century section nonetheless suggest a striking rise in frequency, as compared to the handful of eighteenth-century instances. The evidence from LION also suggests that it was in the nineteenth century that non-finite clause and verbless complements, which went on to be the most typical complements of albeit in Present-Day English, started gaining ground over finite clause complements. However, the evidence from the LION corpus suggests that albeit continued to be most commonly used with finite clause complements right up to the twentieth century. Further study would be required to confirm these tentative results. Various sources suggest that the hypothesized rise in the popularity of albeit continued in the twentieth century. In a 1970 usage guide, Copperud (1970)

mood, began to palliate and apologize’ (LION 1793 Charlotte Turner Smith, The Old Manor House, I, 126).

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notes that albeit was ‘[c]onsidered archaic a generation ago’ but is ‘now being revived’. While Fowler (1937) gives no entry for albeit apart from pointing out that it is an avoidable archaism, the second edition (Fowler 1965) states that ‘it has since been picked up and dusted, and, though not to everyone’s taste, is now freely used’. Evidence from further corpora suggests that the popularity of albeit continued to grow in the latter half of the twentieth century. A comparison of BROWN and FROWN (ca. 1,000,000 words of American English from the 1960s and 1990s, respectively) on the one hand, and of LOB and FLOB (ca. 1,000,000 words of British English from the 1960s and 1990s, respectively) on the other, suggests that the popularity of albeit may have increased between the 1960s and 1990s. As shown in Table 6, the absolute frequency of albeit goes up from four in LOB to 16 in FLOB and from two in BROWN to ten in FROWN. A study of larger corpora would obviously be required to confirm or reject this hypothesized rise in frequency. Table 6. Albeit in BROWN, FROWN, LOB, and FLOB (absolute frequencies)

1960s 1990s

British

American

4 (LOB) 16 (FLOB)

2 (BROWN) 10 (FROWN)

In any case, it is clear that albeit is by no means a prototypical concessive connective in Present-Day English. Its absolute frequency in the entire BNC is 1,385, producing the mean frequency of 14/1,000,000 (cf. the mean frequency of although, 438/1,000,000). Like many other concessive connectives, albeit is more common in the written language than in the spoken language, with mean frequencies of 15 and 5, respectively. It is worth noting that the relative distribution of albeit between the written and spoken sections of the BNC is not different from that of although, for instance. (The corresponding figures for although are 471 and 160.) . Syntactic functions The vast majority of the instances of albeit in the BNC are conjunctions, and the vast majority of those have a verbless complement: (37) Knowing that you are watching events, albeit from a distance, is a powerful stimulant to better performance. (BNC 1992 AYJ 2155 Andrew Leigh, Twenty ways to manage better) (38) Hitler was driven by a political vision, albeit a perverse one. (BNC 1991 ABJ 420 The Economist)

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Table 7. Syntactic distribution of albeit in the BNC (F = absolute frequency; % = percentage of all instances) Type of instance

F

%

albeit + non-finite or verbless clause complement albeit (that) + finite clause complement unclear instances albeit as an adverb albeit as a preposition albeit + after-clause Total

1323 48 6 5 2 1 1385

96 4 0 0 0 0 100

However, just as with earlier varieties of English, there is Present-Day English evidence of the use of albeit not only as a conjunction but also as an adverb and a preposition. Table 7 shows the syntactic distribution of albeit in the BNC.8 Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002: 736) generalization that albeit only takes a verbless clause as complement may be seen to apply fairly well to the BNC as a whole, where finite clause complements reach the proportion of only 4 per cent of all the instances of albeit. When only the written part of the BNC is considered, the percentage drops further to 3 per cent. In spoken language, however, the situation is different: remarkably, as many as 24 per cent of the instances of albeit in the spoken part of the BNC have a finite clause complement (that is, 12 instances out of the total of 51): (39) No I think, I thought we still had a chance, albeit you know the odds had gone down a bit [...]. (BNC 1986 HUY 224 Interview) (40) And and that to me is indicative albeit er in a small way of a failure to adequately phase the release of land albeit that the figures I accept are are relatively small. (BNC 1993 HVG 408 Meeting)

Table 8 shows the distribution of albeit (that) + finite clause across the written and spoken sections of the BNC. Albeit (that) + finite clause is almost three times as common in the spoken section as in the written, with mean frequencies of 1.16 and 0.41, respectively. For albeit + finite clause (i.e., without the complementizer that), the figures are even more striking: it is over four times as frequent in the spoken as in the written section of the BNC, with mean frequencies of 0.97 and 0.23 respectively. It is worth pointing out that the occurrences of albeit (that) + finite clause in the BNC are not due to idiosyncratic language use: apart from three . For a fuller discussion of the syntactic and semantic variability of albeit in Present-Day English, see Sorva (2007).

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Table 8. Albeit (that) + finite clause in the written and spoken sections of the BNC (F = absolute frequency; M = mean/1,000,000 words; % = percentage of all instances) Spoken section albeit albeit that Total

F 10 2 12

M 0.97 0.19 1.16

Written section % 83 17 100

F 20 16 36

M 0.23 0.18 0.41

Entire BNC % 56 44 100

F 30 18 48

M 0.31 0.18 0.49

% 63 37 100

text samples with two instances each, all the instances of albeit (that) + finite clause occur in different texts (also, all spoken instances are by different informants). On the Internet, it is easy to find an abundance of instances where albeit is used with a finite clause complement, as in the following transcript of an interview with Princess Diana: (41) [...] when we went abroad we had separate apartments, albeit we were on the same floor, so of course that was leaked, and that caused complications. [...] And each time one enjoys oneself – albeit it’s in a different situation – you have to pay for it, because people criticise, which comes with the patch, as I said previously. [...] Well, with William and Harry, for instance, I take them round homelessness projects, I ve taken William and Harry to people dying of Aids – albeit I told them it was cancer [...] I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand that. But someone’s got to go out there and love people and show it. (‘The Panorama Interview’ broadcast Nov 1995, <www.bbc.co.uk/politics97/diana/panorama.html>)

Individual instances have also been attested where the pattern albeit + finite clause is used as a building block for a new conjunctival phrase: (42) This subject is certainly ‘going to be. . .lengthy! Do you not think it is due, in part, to the fact that no single person is led by exactly the same path; albeit it be that all paths are along similar lines? (Re: ‘Carmelite Thesis Discussion’ by Johan, 31 Dec 2002, quoted by Patrick Dwyer, 2 Jan 2003, )

In five instances in the BNC, albeit is used as an adverb, as in (43): (43) In 1916 conditions of life behind the French lines stood roughly midway between those prevailing in Britain and Germany. Britain had still not mobilised her war effort quite to the same extent as France; even the good-living Colonel Repington was slightly shocked to note, by the following year, that at home the only signs of war are that the men now usually wear short coats and black ties in the evenings, the dinners are shorter, and the servers are fewer and less good. Albeit, one of his hostesses still managed to employ “twenty pretty maids”. (BNC 1993 K91 1171 Alistair Horne, The price of glory: Verdun 1916)

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Instances such as the following, from the Internet, suggest that in some idiolects, albeit has become a fairly salient sentence-initial adverb: (44) The exact date that I got Final Fantasy IX was November 17th, 2000. I remember being piss-in-my-pants happy about it. I had waited so long. Albeit, I wasn’t that disappointed with the game. I found it rather easy and passed about a disc every week or two (seeing as I had school on the side). It was time for the site’s first revamp. (Twas Dec. 2000) I added tons more information, game play info, and probably one of the first gaming sites to have a “Cosplay” section. Albeit, it was still not as big as I wanted it to be. [...] I decided to revamp it once again in Oct. 02, a year later and expand it the best I could. I hope you enjoy viewing the site. I can say I’m proud of it..seeing it grow from a small empty site with terrible design to something almost nice. Albeit, it’s not the best, but I tried hard. :). (‘MISUNDERSTOOD; site history’ by [email protected], )

Present-Day English instances of albeit as an adverb in various non-sentenceinitial positions have also been attested in the BNC and on the Internet (e.g., sentence-finally, as in (45), and following a relative pronoun, as in (46)): (45) [...] because I don’t think we have any competition on this at all. We do on the folders albeit. (BNC 1994 JA1 357 Interview) (46) It’s great fun, and I prefer the twin-sprung naked bikes to the monoshocksprung and faired sports-tourers like the CBX750 (which, albeit, is a pretty old sports-tourer). (‘Some bike pictures’ by Steve, )

Finally, albeit appears to be sporadically used as a preposition in Present-Day English, in the sense of ‘despite’: (47) Albeit the rainy weather, everyone still seemed to shine on the dance floor. (‘Dentistry Associates Annual Dinner Dance, March 2003’, University of Southern California School of Dentistry, 2003, )

. An alternative line of development There is an interesting ambiguity in certain types of instance of the all + inversion pattern and the univerbated connective albeit. Molencki (1997: 175) points this out, commenting on the structural similarity of the Middle English instance presented in example (48) and the typical Present-Day English use of albeit illustrated here by example (49):



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(48) and by a maner þouŠt al be it nat clerly ne perfitly Še looken from a fer til þilk verray fyn of blisfulnesse. (CME ?a1425 (c1380) Geoffrey Chaucer, Boethius, Bk. III, fol. 16b) ‘and by a manner thought, although not clearly nor perfectly, you look from afar on such a true end of blissfulness.’ (49) Mention must be made, albeit briefly, of the voluntary effort in the field of mental welfare. (BNC 1990 FS6 1231 S. Payne & M. Brown, Introduction to social administration in Britain)

Molencki (1997: 163) goes so far as to suggest that in Present-Day English ‘the conventional spelling of albeit together only disguises its genuine character as a clausal phrase’. He states that ‘one might claim that we are back in Chaucer’s time, where al is the concessive conjunction, be the main verb in the subjunctive form and it the pronominal subject’ (Molencki 1997: 177). Indeed, many Present-Day English instances of albeit + verbless clause, including example (49) above, are in principle compatible with an all + inversion reading (and conversely, certain Middle English instances of the all + inversion pattern are compatible with a reading as albeit + verbless clause). The ambiguity applies to the following types of instances: (i) instances of all + inversion where the elements be and it occur, followed by a predicative complement or an adverbial (e.g., all be it small, all be it briefly) (ii) instances of albeit + verbless clause where no element in the linguistic context is incompatible with either the element be or the element it (e.g., albeit small, albeit briefly, given the appropriate context) Instances of these two types only differ in the way they are conceptualized. Even though their structural difference is a major one, it does not translate into any difference on the level of linguistic form, except in cases where the univerbated connective albeit has undergone phonetic reduction. As a result, actual instances of the two types often cannot be distinguished from each other. On the level of the written word, the analyzability of the all + inversion pattern is typically reflected in spelling, in that all, be, and it are spelled as separate orthographic words. Such spelling shows an awareness of the composite elements, and suggests a conceptualization of the whole as a realization of the all + inversion pattern. The spelling of albeit as a single orthographic word suggests a conceptualization as a univerbated connective, but is not sufficient to prove it, except in the occasional instances where a non-standard spelling (e.g. ) reflects reduced pronunciation. In ambiguous instances where spelling is not sufficient to prove the validity of one of the readings, one needs to rely on external evidence, such as knowledge of other instances of all + inversion or albeit from the same time period. Indeed,

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instances such as example (49), above, are not the full story of the use of albeit in Present-Day English. There are also instances which are only compatible with a reading of albeit as a univerbated connective. In example (50), for instance, the plural referent of ranches could not be referred to with the pronoun it. The all + inversion reading can therefore be eliminated, and as a consequence, albeit is unambiguously a univerbated connective rather than a transparent sequence. Since there is nothing unusual about instances such as this, it seems that Present-Day English speakers do not conceptualize albeit in terms of all + inversion. (50) It envisaged the development of other commercial ranches (albeit governmentowned). (BNC 1990 A6M 791 Laurence Cockcroft, Africa’s way: a journey from the past)

An issue raised by the surface similarity of the two structural patterns is whether there could have been a direct line of development from one to the other, i.e., from instances of the type all be it small to instances of the type albeit small. This would be an interesting case of structural reanalysis. However, the prevailing use of albeit in Early Modern English was with a full finite clause, and it was only in the twentieth century that the type albeit + verbless clause became the prevalent pattern of use. Furthermore, as mentioned in Section 3.3.2, above, the majority of the instances of albeit + verbless clause in the HCOS are from the seventeenth century (and none occur in the HC). This does not support the hypothesis that there was a direct development from all + inversion to albeit + verbless clause. It seems more likely that, as described in Sections 2 and 3, there was a direct line of development from all be it (that) + finite clause (with all be it as a realization of the all + inversion pattern) to albeit (that) + finite clause (with albeit as a univerbated connective). Since all be it (that) was already in use with a conjunctival function, there is no reanalysis involved in this scenario, only univerbation. After this line of development, the univerbated connective albeit could also have been adopted into use with complements other than finite clause ones. This could have happened through analogy with other connectives with both patterns of use, such as though. . Conclusion The all + inversion pattern, with all followed by inverted word order, emerged in thirteenth-century English, possibly through the reanalysis of the intensifying adverb all followed by plain inversion, but also modelled on a similar pattern, the tout + inversion pattern, in Old French. The connective phrase all be it (that) emerged in the fourteenth century, built upon the all + inversion pattern, but also modelled on the Old French tout soit il/ce que, which was in turn built upon the Old French tout + inversion pattern. The all + inversion pattern also had various other realizations, including various conjunctival phrases (all be it so (that), all were it



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(so) (that), all be (that)), but it was the sequence all be it (that) that outlived the others and, through univerbation, became the univerbated concessive connective albeit by the Early Modern English period. The Early Modern English period was also the time when albeit was at its most frequent. Soon after this, albeit rapidly diminished in frequency, and became fairly marginal by the eighteenth century. It is obvious that, in comparison with its heyday in the Early Modern English period, albeit is not very frequent in Present-Day English either. Nevertheless, it seems to have resurfaced in the nineteenth century, and to have become increasingly frequent in the twentieth. Throughout its history, albeit has been most commonly used as a conjunction, though sometimes also as an adverb, and sporadically even as a preposition. In its conjunctival use, it mostly appeared in combination with the complementizer that through the Middle English period, and without the complementizer from the Early Modern English period onwards. Although it is difficult to draw a definite line between the all + inversion pattern and the use of albeit with complements other than finite clause ones, it seems that the univerbated connective albeit was sometimes used with the non-finite and verbless complement types from the beginning of the Early Modern English period. This leaves open the possibility of a direct line of development from all + inversion to albeit + non-finite or verbless clause, involving both structural reanalysis and univerbation. It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that the pattern of use albeit + non-finite or verbless clause started to become more common, and only in the twentieth century, in connection with the increasing frequency of albeit, did it become the prevailing pattern of use for this connective. It therefore seems likely that the pattern albeit + non-finite or verbless clause developed only after albeit had already been established as a univerbated connective, i.e., only after the pattern albeit + finite clause had developed out of the conjunctival phrase all be it (that) through univerbation. In this scenario, there is no reanalysis involved in the development from all + inversion to albeit, only univerbation.

Sources BNC = British National Corpus. BROWN = A Standard Corpus of Present-Day Edited American English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

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CEECS = Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. CME = Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Middle English Compendium. (2002). Michigan: University of Michigan. COPC = Louis T. Milic, comp. (1995). Century of Prose Corpus. Cleveland: Department of English, Cleveland State University. CSC = Anneli Meurman-Solin, comp. (2003), Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (1542–1708). First edition. Helsinki: Department of English. DSL = Dictionary of the Scots Language. FLOB = Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. FROWN = Freiburg-Brown Corpus of American English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. HCOS = Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (1995). Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. Lampeter Corpus = Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. LION = Literature Online. LOB = Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. MED = Middle English Dictionary (2002), ed. Francis McSparren. Michigan: University of Michigan. Newdigate Newsletters. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

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OED = Oxford English Dictionary (1989), ed. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Second ed.; (1993–1997), ed. J. A. Simpson, E. S. C. Weiner and Michael Proffitt. Additions; (2000–), ed. John Simpson. Third ed. (in progress, online).

References Bødtker, A. Trampe (1908–1910). Critical Contributions to Early English Syntax. (Videnskabsselskabets skrifter. II. Historisk-filosofiske klasse, 3, 6). Christiania: J. Dybwad. Chen, Guohua (2000). ‘The Grammaticalization of Concessive Markers in Early Modern English’. In: Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English, ed. Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein. (Studies in Language Companion Series, 53). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 85–110. Copperud, Roy H. (1970). American Usage: The Consensus. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Fowler, Henry W. (1937 [1926]). Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fowler, Henry W. (1965 [1926]). Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Second, revised ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Harris, Martin (1988). ‘Concessive Clauses in English and Romance’. In: Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse, ed. John Haiman and Sandra A. Thompson. (Typological Studies in Language, 18). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 71–99. Hopper, Paul J. (1991). ‘On Some Principles of Grammaticization’. In: Approaches to Grammaticalization, ed. Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine. (Typological Studies in Language, 19). 2 vols. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 17–35. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2003 [1993]). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klare, Johannes (1958). Entstehung und Entwicklung der konzessiven Konjunktionen im Französischen. (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Romanische Sprachwissenschaft. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 13). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. König, Ekkehard (1985). ‘On the History of Concessive Connectives in English: Diachronic and Synchronic Evidence’. Lingua 66: 1–19. König, Ekkehard (1986). ‘Conditionals, Concessive Conditionals and Concessives: Areas of Contrast, Overlap and Neutralization’. In: On Conditionals, ed. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Snitzer Reilly, and Charles A. Ferguson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 229–246. König, Ekkehard (1988). ‘Concessive Connectives and Concessive Sentences: Cross-linguistic Regularities and Pragmatic Principles’. In: Explaining Language Universals, ed. John A. Hawkins. Oxford: Blackwell, 145–166. Molencki, Rafał (1997). ‘Albeit a Conjunction, yet it is a Clause: A Counterexample to Unidirectionality Hypothesis?’. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 31: 163–178. Mustanoja, Tauno (1960). A Middle English Syntax. Part I: Parts of Speech. (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique, 23). Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Poutsma, Hendrik (1929). A Grammar of Late Modern English. Part I: The Sentence. Second Half: Composite Sentence. Second ed. Groningen: Noordhoff.

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Rissanen, Matti (1997). ‘Optional THAT with Subordinators in Middle English’. In: Language History and Linguistic Modelling: A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th Birthday, ed. Raymond Hickey and Stanisław Puppel. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 101). 2 vols. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 373–383. Sorva, Elina (2007). ‘The Concessive Connective Albeit. A Diachronic Corpus-based Study’. In: Types of Variation: Diachronic, Dialectal and Typological Interfaces, ed. Terttu Nevalainen, Juhani Klemola and Mikko Laitinen. (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 121–148.

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On the subjectification of adverbial clause connectives Semantic and pragmatic considerations in the development of while-clauses Ana I. González-Cruz* University of Santiago de Compostela

.

Introduction

The case of while has been frequently mentioned in the literature as one of the prototypical illustrations of grammaticalization, not only in terms of the development of a lexical item into a grammatical word, but also as a typical example of subjectification. Research on the grammaticalization of the connective while usually describes (and explains) the emergence of a unique ‘adversative, concessive reading’, as illustrated in (1), from the original temporal reading (Traugott & König 1991; Traugott 1995). (1) Whill others aime at greatnes boght with blood, Not to bee great thou stryves, bot to bee good. (1617 Sir W. Mure, Misc. Poems, xxi.23)

* I am grateful to the Autonomous Government of Galicia (grant no. PGIDT05PXIC20401PN) and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the European Regional Development Fund (grant no. HUM2004-00940) for financial support. My thanks are also due to the participants in the Workshop on Clausal Connectives in the History of English at the 13th ICEHL, the editors of this volume, María José López Couso, Torsten Leuschner, Cynthia Allen and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments and suggestions. Needless to say, any remaining shortcomings are my own responsibility.

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From a synchronic perspective, standard reference grammars often ascribe, together with temporal simultaneity, two other separate semantic roles to while (Quirk et al. 1985: 1099, 1102):1 contrast, as in (2), and concession, as in (3). (2) Mr. Larson teaches physics, while Mr. Corby teaches chemistry. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1102) (3) While he has many friends, Peter is often lonely. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1099)

However, only few semasiological studies (notably Kortmann 1997; Trotta & Seppänen 1998; Chen 2000) establish an explicit distinction between the development of contrastive and concessive uses of the connective. The tendency to (con)fuse the contrastive and concessive roles of while under the same general label of concession has been criticized by Chen (2000: 103) in his work on concessive connectives in Early Modern English. Chen claims that the first instances of concessive while identified by Traugott and König (1991: 201), such as (1) above, do not in fact convey a semantic relationship of concession, but one of contrast.2 Just as the distinction between the contrastive and the concessive uses of while has only rarely been made, the subsequent semantic development of this connective has been practically unremarked. Only sporadic mention of other readings for while has been found in the various sources, including mention of a reading of cause by Rissanen (1999: 311), exemplified in (4), and a cautious admission of a reading of addition in the OED, illustrated in (5). (4) [the horse] fell downe, and whiles hee was not able to endure the paine, walloweth along, and happeneth to besprent his caparison. (Holland Ammianus Marcellinus, 23, 22) (5) A very good move, for while it brings the Queen into a more attacking position, it at the same time defends White’s Queen’s Pawn. (1860, Löwenthal, Morphy’s Games Chess, 165; OED, s.v. while, B. conj. 2.c.)

This study sets out to explore the different meanings developed by the subordinator while through time, with a view to describing the operation of subjectification in semantic change. In order to do so, Section 2 addresses the methodology and, more specifically, the notions of grammaticalization and subjectification employed in the study. Section 3 discusses the analysis of a corpus of historical data ranging . Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 735–737) do not, however, include while in their list of concessive connectives proper, but refer to it as ‘semantically related to concession’ by conveying a meaning of contrast (a term I prefer to adversativity). . Although I agree with Chen (2000) that Traugott and König’s example should be better interpreted as contrastive rather than concessive, my corpus analysis provides material which refutes Chen’s position that ‘[n]o genuine concessive use of while is found in the Helsinki Corpus’ (2000: 103).

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The development of while-clauses 

from Late Middle English to the twentieth century. In addition to tracing the development of the different meanings of the connective, attention will also be devoted to analyzing the positional patterns of the different semantic types of while-clauses from the perspective of information structure (Section 4).

. Methodology The definition of grammaticalization, inherited from Meillet’s work as the recruitment of lexical material for grammatical function (1926 [1912]), has recently been broadened to ‘the change whereby lexical material in highly constrained pragmatic and morphosyntactic contexts is assigned functional category status’ (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 81; Traugott 2003: 645). It is thus acknowledged that the morphological, semantic and phonological changes involved in grammaticalization (see, for example, Lehmann 1985) do not occur in isolation, but are closely linked with contextual conditions. Central to the present study are the semantic changes involved in the process. Traugott (1982) proposed a unidirectional path of semantic change outlined as ‘propositional > (textual >) expressive’ (1982: 257), which she subsequently expanded to yield three major tendencies of semantic change (Traugott 1989: 34– 35). Tendency III, stating that ‘[m]eanings tend to become increasingly based in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition’, soon became known as subjectification. In recent work, Traugott and Dasher have claimed that Tendency III prevails over the rest and, consequently, consider subjectification to be ‘the major type of semantic change’ (2002: 97). Again, pragmatic contextual conditions are assigned a prominent role in semantic change, given the redefinition of the concept of subjectification as a ‘semasiological process whereby SP[eaker]/W[riter]s come over time to develop meanings for L[exeme]s that encode or externalize their perspectives and attitudes as constrained by the communicative world of the speech event’ (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 30; my emphasis). The semantic development of while is a prototypical representation of how the propositional meaning of temporal simultaneity, based on the observation of the real world, can give way to meaning based on the speaker’s reasoning, conceding co-existence but simultaneously highlighting the intrinsic incompatibility between two terms. The idea is also formulated that, whereas structural unidirectionality in grammaticalization can be and has been challenged, semantic unidirectionality always obtains; that is, meanings always proceed in the direction of increased subjectivity (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 87). Notwithstanding the intrinsic relationship between subjectification and grammaticalization, the regular semantic developments associated with the former do not constitute a sufficient condition for the operation

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of the latter. This study will try to clarify whether the subsequent semantic development undergone by while qualifies as an instance of semantic unidirectionality and subjectification. In describing the rise of new readings for while, the study follows Traugott and Dasher’s ‘Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change’ (IITSC), whereby, in the development of polysemy, meanings follow a path from coded meaning to utterance-token meaning to utterance-type meaning and, finally, to a new coded meaning, with the rise of a new polysemy (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 34– 40). The boundaries between the different types of meaning on this cline are not always clear. Utterance-token meaning, or invited inference, is largely idiosyncratic, inasmuch as semantic change has taken place, but only in isolated cases, where the enriched interpretation is not especially relevant. Utterance-type meaning, or generalized invited inference, comes about when the semantic innovation of utterance-token meaning is generalized so that it becomes the most salient interpretation, but still co-exists with the original meaning. Finally, the new coded meaning arises only when the original meaning is no longer a possible interpretation (for a relevance-theoretic explanation of inferential processes in the semantic development of clause connectives see Breul, this volume). Corpus-based research is of vital importance when tracing the evolution of meaning through these four stages. My approach here has been to assign new coded meaning status to a reading if the following conditions are met: (A) the new meaning is not just sporadically attested, (B) the new interpretation does not depend entirely on context, and (C) the original coded meaning is cancelled or, at least, secondary or not very informative with respect to the enriched interpretation.

. Semantic change in while-clauses: A corpus-based study . The corpus For this diachronic study, I have used four historical corpora: The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS), The Century of Prose Corpus (COPC) and ARCHER-2 (see Sources). For the purposes of this study, I have made a chronological selection of the texts in the Helsinki Corpus (selection size: 764,850 words), so that my analysis only includes texts, in all their generic diversity, dating from 1420 to 1710. The remaining corpora have been used in toto. The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (c. 450,000 words) provides a collection of private and official letters dating from 1417 to 1681. The Century of Prose Corpus (c. 500,000 words) comprises prose texts by British authors from between 1680 and 1780. Finally, ARCHER-2

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contains a considerable range of registers covering a longer time-span, from 1650 to 1990. For the sake of clarity, the periodization established in the Helsinki Corpus has been preserved for Middle English (ME4: 1420–1500) and Early Modern English (EModE1: 1500–1570; EModE2: 1570–1640; EModE3: 1640–1710). The late Modern English period (LModE) has been divided into three sub-periods: LModE1: 1710–1800; LModE2: 1801–1900; and LModE3: 1901–1990.3 . Semasiological development Traces of the original meaning of simultaneity are to be expected, even in cases in which the new polysemy has been conventionalized (see Hopper’s principle of persistence 1991). With regard to the concessive meaning, for example, it is precisely co-occurrence in time that permits the reinterpretation of the temporal construction as concessive (König 1985: 11). However, this persistence does not prevent the new coded meaning from prevailing, and thus becoming the primary reading. The same caveat applies to all other new coded meanings of the connective. While admitting the existence of numerous border-line cases where the new readings are to be interpreted as invited inferences, the tables presented in this study refer, as a rule, to coded meanings (with the notable exception of the earliest concessive readings reported in Table 1 below). Border-line cases, commonly referred to as contextual or pragmatic meanings, such as (6) below, are grouped together with temporal clauses. In (6), the context yields an inference of contrast between the English and the French actions, but the reading of simultaneity still applies and is not cancelled or weakened by the inferential interpretation. (6) The king of England seeing the war inevitable, enters upon it with his usual vigor, and, with incredible celerity, transporting a brave English army, invades France, and takes several towns in Poitou, while the French took the city of Vernon. (COPC EModE3 1699 Temple, Introduction to the History of England).

It is worth noting, however, that the proportion of examples of while-clauses in the roles of cause and addition is not high enough to justify dealing with these readings in terms of coded meanings. Rather, they seem to constitute illustrations of utterance-type meanings or generalized invited inferences, but I have chosen to include them in my discussion here since the original coded meaning of temporality is not dominant (although still accessible in most cases). . Given the overlap between some of the corpora, there is a considerable imbalance in size between the different sub-periods. In order to compensate for this, normalized frequencies per 100,000 words have been provided together with absolute numbers.

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Table 1. Overall semantic development of while-clauses (LME to LModE) (absolute number of occurrences, with normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Time Contrast Concession Cause Addition Total

ME4

EModE1

EModE2

EModE3

LModE1

LModE2

LModE3

29 (9.51) 0

33 (13.93) 0

2 (0.66) 0

0

63 (16.78) 3 (0.80) 0

0

1 (0.42) 0

2 (0.53) 0

153 (23.89) 20 (3.12) 10 (1.41) 4 (0.62) 0

31 (10.16)

34 (14.35)

68 (18.11)

187 (29.04)

298 (35.99) 79 (9.30) 34 (4.23) 6 (0.60) 6 (0.72) 423 (50.84)

231 (36.09) 95 (14.84) 35 (5.47) 2 (0.31) 16 (2.50) 379 (59.21)

195 (31.67) 59 (9.58) 47 (7.63) 2 (0.32) 11 (1.79) 314 (50.99)

The analysis of the corpora reveals that the semantic characterization of while, as represented in Table 1, is far more complicated than most dictionaries suggest. By far the most frequent reading of while throughout the history of the connective is the original temporal meaning.4 Second in frequency is the reading of contrast. concession is not only the third major reading of while, but also the only reading whose frequency has shown a constant increase. Even in the last subperiod, when the relative frequency of all other meanings declines, the frequency of concessive readings still rises. Much less frequent, and also later to develop than time, concession and contrast, are the readings of cause and addition. It must also be noted that the first signs of polysemy in while are attested in the last Middle English sub-period, with two examples of concessive uses. The development of the new meanings of while does not, however, become systematic or find a clear continuation until the Early Modern English period. A description of the different meanings developed by while follows. .. While-clauses in the role of contrast In the cognitive universe of interclausal relations, the semantic domain of contrast has been traditionally called adversativity and is associated with coordination with but (see Lakoff 1971). A more elaborate perspective on this semantic domain is taken in Kortmann (1997) and Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann (2000), . The emergence of while as a one-word subordinator proper has been traced back to the Early Middle English period, in particular the early twelfth century (see Traugott 1995: 40; Pasicki 1983: 291). The decision not to deal with the early stages of the history of the connective in this study was taken in response to the finding that the development of the different meanings is not witnessed until Late Middle English, namely ME4.

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where contrast stands side by side with cause, condition and concession, among others, as part of a category of adverbial relations: the so-called triple or, later, four-C category. The identification of this four-C category is justified because these relations are cognitively more complex than time, place and manner relations, and consequently take longer to process. More importantly for research on semantic change, it is claimed that the adverbial relations included in this four-C category constitute the end-point of interpretative augmentation in semasiological developments. In the adverbial relation of contrast, the two, or more, propositions which are joined together must fulfill the following conditions: (A) they belong to the same conceptual domain, that is, they share at least one property, and (B) they also differ in at least two properties (see Rudolph 1996: 46–47).5 Additionally, the truth condition formulated for the relationship of contrast, that the propositions are ‘valid simultaneously’ (Rudolph 1996: 47), accounts for the suitability of a marker of temporal simultaneity like while for contrastive inferences. In cases of contrastive while, these requirements are fulfilled throughout history. The following examples, taken from different historical stages, illustrate how the commonality of subject matter (means of traveling in (7), learning in (8), shoot reproduction in (9), and delimitation of resin canals in (10)) and the divergence of at least two properties between the two propositions (in most cases in terms of (A) a different subject in matrix and adverbial clause and (B) diverging qualities ascribed to it) are satisfied. (7) I was faine to wade ouer the Riuer of Annan in Scotland, from which Riuer the County of Annandale hath it’s name. And whilst I waded on foot, my man was mounted on horse-backe, like the George without the Dragon. (HC EModE2 1570, John Taylor, The Pennyles Pilgrimage) (8) He had the charge to enrich and polish my mind with learning and judgement, whilst another master had the care to teach me such bodily exercises as were fit for a person of my quality. (ARCHER-2 EModE3 1664, John Bulteel, The History of Merame) (9) When thawed, the young shoot was found flaccid. It was planted; the first and second shoot we found retained life, while the third, or growing shoot,

. Rudolph (1996) considers contrast to be a superordinate notion which encompasses both concession and adversativity. Even though these two notions are treated as two separate semantic domains in this study, Rudolph’s characterization of the semantics of the superordinate contrast can easily be adapted for the notion of contrast employed here. Rudolph’s perspective was already anticipated by König (1985: 7), who saw some indications in his analysis of different world languages suggesting ‘that adversative relations are more general and basic and the concessive relations are a specific variety of the former’.

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withered. (ARCHER-2 LModE1 1775, John Hunter, Experiments on Animals and Vegetables with respect to the Power of Producing Heat) (10) In young spruce with few wounds the resin canals are in isolated groups associated with the individual wounds, while in old trees which have undergone many injuries the delimitation is not complete, because of overlapping among the responses. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1925, Robert B. Thomson, Resin Canals in the Canadian Spruce)

That the connective in (7) retains temporal overtones is indisputable, but the most salient and informative interpretation is the one where the two forms of crossing the river are signaled as contrastive. The weight of context in assigning a contrastive interpretation in this example is strong, so that it may well qualify as an example of generalized invited inference. In (8), the simultaneous validity of the two propositions does not necessarily affect the time of occurrence. In fact, the lexical aspect of the predicates in both matrix and adverbial clause detracts from the temporal reading and favours the enriched contrastive interpretation (see similar remarks in Traugott (1995: 42) on the development of concessive while). In (9), the retention of temporal nuances is still evident, without preventing the higher saliency of the contrastive reading. The retention of life and the withering of the different plants may well occur at the same time, but what is relevant here is the opposition between these various reactions. Finally, the presence of a stative verb in (10), especially in combination with the present tense, rules out the possibility of a temporal connection between the two propositions, and the contrastive reading turns out to be the only possible interpretation. .. While-clauses in the role of concession In a semantic relationship of concession, it is commonly assumed that ‘by normal standards, there is an incompatibility or conflict between the facts described in [proposition] p and [proposition] q’ (König 1985: 4). But it is also fundamental that, in spite of their natural incompatibility, the two propositions are asserted and thus presented as simultaneously valid (see, for example, Haspelmath & König 1998: 566). In a more recent approach to concessive constructions in the spoken language, Couper-Kuhlen and Thompson propose a ‘Cardinal Concessive pattern’ (2000; see also Barth 2000 and Barth-Weingarten & Couper-Kuhlen 2002), which emphasizes the dyadic nature of this semantic relationship as requiring ‘(at least) two parties, one who concedes and one to whom (or for whom) the concession is made’ (Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson 2000: 382). When translated to written data, concession remains essentially dyadic, not in the sense of the number of speakers

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involved, but in the sense of the number of viewpoints presented (see Schwenter 2000: 260). In written texts, concession is most often the responsibility of one speaker, and therefore a monologue. However, in presenting the two incompatible propositions and asserting their validity at the same time, the speaker is expressing two viewpoints. This double viewpoint perspective is illustrated in (11). Initially, the writer links up with the previous context and expresses rejection of the present work, then immediately afterwards finds arguments for keeping it. (11) My job is dissolving under me – I have very little to do when I go in. While I’m sick of the work, I’m frightened of not making money. It gives me a certain amount of self-esteem, a sense of power and freedom. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1978, Margaret Ryan, Pregnancy Journal)

Table 1 shows that the earliest indications of the emergence of a concessive meaning for while in my corpus have been found in the Late Middle English period. The occurrence of the two isolated examples (see (12) and (13)) of the new reading in the same text suggests that the concessive interpretation for while was still at this stage highly idiosyncratic and context-dependent. Temporality remains a latent nexus between the propositions, but mainly insofar as it serves to assert their truth conditions at the same time as it reinforces the contradictions between them. (12) And whyle it is so that man lyveth here in two lyves, one lyvynge after the pleasur of the worlde, the tother lyvynge here in vertue by grace to come to blysse, tho that woll geve one partye of theyr lyfe to vyces and another to vertue, and specially in theyr age, thyse maner of men dyvyde theyr cote, and they, nother all the tayllers in the worlde, shall never make it hole ayen. (HC ME4 1420–1500, In Die Innocencium, 12) (13) Whyle it is so that man endowed with use of reason, havynge naturall knowlege and free, maye not suffycyently dyrect hymself to the ende that God hath ordeyned to without the helpe of fayth, as it is wryten, (\Jheremiae iiij=o=, Non est enim hominis vincere, neque viri est ut ambuleter et dirigat gressus ejus\). It is not in mannes power for to overcome vyce of hymself, nother for to walke parfyghtly and dyrecte his gooynge in the lawe of God, but by his grace assystente. (HC ME4 1420–1500, In Die Innocencium, 2)

Given the exceptionality of these early examples, they are better dealt with in terms of utterance-token meanings, in Traugott and Dasher’s terminology, rather than coded meanings. Their inclusion in Table 1 serves to highlight both the abrupt nature of change, since, once it is attested, change has already occurred, as well as the gradualness of the diffusion of such changes (see, for example, Traugott & Dasher 2002: 35).



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Further illustrations of the spread of concessive while are given in (14) and (15): (14) For there is nothing done for the sake of Evil, no not by the most flatigious Wretches; who, as I have fully before demonstrated, are in their researches after Good diverted by crooked Error, whilst the Order proceeding from the Centre of Sovereign Good doth not mislead any from its Principles. (HC EModE3 1640, Viscount Preston, Boethius) (15) By those high people therefore whom I have described, I mean a set of wretches, who while they are a disgrace to their ancestors, whose honors and fortunes they inherit (or perhaps a greater to their mother, for such degeneracy is scarce credible) have the insolence to treat those with disregard, who are at least equal to the founders of their own splendor. (COPC LModE1 1742, Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews)

.. While-clauses in the role of cause The reading of causality is absent from the present-day semantic configuration of while as described in most dictionaries. However, causality has been identified diachronically as part of the semantic spectrum covered by the English connective. In their description of while-clauses, Traugott and König state that ‘an inference to grounds of the situation is dominant over temporality in some examples dating from the later 14th century’ (1991: 201). The causal reading thus allowed for while by Traugott and König is not, however, meant to be more than a mere invited inference. Kortmann’s (1997) diachronic study of English subordinators indicates that ‘[i]n Middle English whyle [. . .] could have a causal overtone’, but also argues that these initial invited inferences become more generalized as ‘in Early Modern English whiles is even documented with a causal reading which is not parasitic on a temporal interpretation’. The data retrieved from the corpora employed in this study confirm Kortmann’s claim that the causal reading prevails over the temporal reading in some examples dating back to Early Modern English, as shown in (16) and (17). (16) The colony at Camalodunum thrust the owners and ancient inhabitants out of their houses and possessions, calling them vassals and slaves; the temple also erected to Claudius was a great burden to them, while the priests that attended there, under pretense of religious dues, seized each man’s goods. (COPC EModE3 1685, Robert Brady, History of England) (17) [. . . ] is that I perceive my good sonne your husband, and you my good doughter, and in great displeasure and daunger of great harme therby. The let wherof, while it lieth not in my hand, I can no further but commit all unto God. (HC EModE1 1500, Thomas More, Letter to Margaret Roper)

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In fact, the causal reading has apparently not died out completely, and still exists in some minor occurrences of the connective recorded in the twentieth century, such as (18). (18) While they are incapable of defence and without a right to call for the protection of the League, they expect the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks will each possess larger armies than they are allowed to retain. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1919, Daily Herald 5/7/1919, Number 1025, p. 1)

However true the claim that the temporal interpretation is backgrounded in examples (16), (17) and (18), it is also true that the causal interpretation apparently remains very context-dependent. Thus, I prefer to refer to it as a generalized invited inference rather than as a new coded meaning. Particularly significant is the use of the connective attested in examples like (19) below, recorded in a piece of drama from the second half of the twentieth century. (19) {=f EMER.} Where are you off to? {=m MACCARTHY} Just to get a few medical supplies. We need them, you know. {=m PALLISER} Bring me back a quart while you’re at it. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1958, Denis Johnston, The scythe and the sunset)

This specific use of the connective in (19) is illustrative of what Quirk et al. have identified as a blend of time and reason6 in cases like (20), where the clause introduced by while functions, in their terms, as a style disjunct (that is, a loosely integrated adverbial which does not modify the content of the clause, but rather introduces comments on the form). (20) While you are in the kitchen, bring me another drink. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1105)

Examples like (19) and (20) are particularly relevant in a study on semantic change and subjectification in adverbial subordination, not just because of the emergence and development of a new reading, but because of the type of construction that they represent. It can be noted from (19) and (20) that the two clauses linked by means of the connective have different illocutionary force and represent different clause types: in both examples, the matrix clause is imperative and the adverbial clause declarative. This form of interclausal connection qualifies as what Sweetser (1990), in her three-level approach to the pragmatics of conjunction, defines as conjunction at the speech-act level. In Lang’s reformulation of Sweetser’s three domains of interpretation, it is clarified that ‘[s]peech-act level interpretation is . reason is often used to designate a semantic relation of causality on the epistemic level. My practice in this study has been to refer to content-level and epistemic-level causality with the same label of cause.



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available for conjunctions of non-declaratives [. . . ] as well as for conjunctions of clauses differing as to type but with one clause being marked as rendering a SPEECH ACT [. . . ]’ (Lang 2000: 253). This is indeed the case with examples (19) and (20), since in both of them the matrix clause has its own illocutionary force. These while-clauses introduce a causal explanation, not for the event or state expressed in the matrix clause (that is to say, ‘being at it’ or ‘being in the kitchen’ do not provoke the effect of ‘bringing back a quart’ or ‘bringing another drink’), but for the speech-act involved in the formulation of the matrix proposition. In other words, (19) can easily be paraphrased as ‘I ask you to bring me back a quart, and the reason for my asking you is that you are at it’. A similar paraphrase can be offered for (20), where the while-clause provides a justification for the speaker’s decision to formulate a request in the matrix clause: ‘I ask you to bring me another drink, and the reason for my asking is that you are in the kitchen’. Examples of these causal constructions are very scarce in the corpora used for this research. However, they do not seem to be as unusual in modern English as the low figures drawn from the corpora might suggest. Causal uses of while-constructions have been attested in various modern sources. The following recommendation can be found on a health website: (21) Pay yourself a compliment each day. And while you are at it, pay someone else a heartfelt and genuine compliment. Their pleasure will make you feel great. ()

Complimenting oneself and complimenting other people are not expected to occur simultaneously. Rather, the fact that the addressees have engaged in complimenting themselves justifies the speaker’s request for the addressee to go on to compliment other people. Thus, a causal link is established between the assertion in the while-clause and the request in the matrix clause. In spite of the scarcity of examples of this kind attested in the data, the evidence available indicates a relationship between speech-act causal while and informal, spontaneous, spoken (or at least speech-like) discourse. It remains for future research and for a more detailed analysis using a corpus of Present-Day spoken English to ascertain whether this speech-act causal while has any impact in modern English as a possible new stage in the process of subjectification. .. While-clauses in the role of addition There is a brief note on the additive reading of while in the OED (s.v. while, conj. 2c) as a ‘modern colourless use’, paraphrasable as ‘at the same time that, besides that, in addition to the fact that; often = and at the same time, and besides’. In agreement with the chronology in the OED, my data in Table 1 above reveal that the additive uses of while become more noticeable in the eighteenth century, in examples like (22).

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(22) This composed them in a good measure; and a little affair took place soon after, which gave birth to new instructions, while it showed, how easily the passions will change their ground, and with what care they ought therefore to be watched, as we shall see in the next chapter. (ARCHER-2 LModE1 1793 Enos Hitchcock, X)

In cases like (22), the semantic content of the connective is considerably weakened. A demonstration of the volatility of passions cannot serve as a possible temporal background for the birth of new instructions. The stative aspect of the verb in the adverbial while-clause certainly reinforces the new interpretation. What is more, there is no conflict or opposition between the two propositions expressed, and therefore the interpretations of contrast and concession are equally out of the question. The development of additive readings from adversative ones under the appropriate contextual conditions has also been attested for English in fact (Schwenter & Traugott 1999), Spanish si (Schwenter 2000) and English indeed and actually (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 159–173). The temporal link between the two propositions, which provided suitable grounds for a contrastive inference, is exploited in (22) above for a different purpose. The major semantic contribution of the connective is precisely that of marking the mutual relevance of the two propositions by virtue of their simultaneous validity. The second proposition, thus, merely adds information to the first. The development of additive while seems to qualify as a case of bleaching (see, for example, Hopper 1991) or semantic attrition (see Lehmann 1985: 307). Bleaching does not imply the weakening of the original meaning as it is gradually replaced by a new one, since this is rather the semantic-pragmatic strengthening that I have focused on so far; instead, the original meaning gradually wanes, leaving only a textual marker of connection, based on mutual relevance and practically devoid of any further semantic content, as described by Traugott and König (1991: 190) for the later stages of grammaticalization (for example, dummy auxiliary do). As far as subjectification is concerned, the speaker takes an active role in emptying while of its temporal meaning. The signaling of mutual relevance is based on the speaker’s own perception and interpretation of the truth conditions formulated in the two propositions. . Factors determining the position of while-clauses Diessel’s synchronic studies on clause position in adverbial subordination have shown that in VO languages like English the adverbial clause may either precede or follow the matrix clause, even though the favoured position in terms of information processing is for the adverbial clause to occur after the matrix (Diessel



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1996, 2001, 2005). Drawing on Hawkins (1994), Diessel claims that an initial adverbial clause requires more processing effort because it needs to be kept in short-term memory until the matrix clause is processed. If the adverbial clause is postposed, the sentence is easier to process (2005: 457–458). Diessel argues that discourse-pragmatic factors may override this tendency for postposition dictated by processing factors (2001: 448). It has also been noted that the positional distribution of matrix and adverbial clauses is, to a large extent, related to the semantic type of the adverbial clause. Thus, Diessel (1996) observes that conditional and concessive adverbial clauses in English tend to favour initial position, whereas temporal and, much more clearly, causal adverbial clauses prefer final position. From a diachronic perspective, it is interesting to note that the positional tendencies observed synchronically for different semantic types of adverbial clauses can be similarly observed throughout the semantic development of while-clauses. In what follows, the positional distribution of matrix and adverbial clause will be analyzed for each of the different meanings of the connective, with the sole exception of causal while (because of its extremely low frequency in the corpora). Table 2 shows the positional patterns of the basic and most frequent occurrences of while as a temporal connective in the corpora. Table 2. Position of temporal while-clauses7 (absolute number of occurrences, with normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Initial Final Total

EModE2

EModE3

LModE1

LModE2

LModE3

25 (6.66) 38 (10.12) 63 (16.78)

60 (9.37) 93 (14.52) 153 (23.89)

131 (15.82) 167 (20.17) 298 (35.99)

94 (14.68) 137 (21.40) 231 (36.09)

57 (9.26) 138 (22.41) 195 (31.67)

Despite the relatively even distribution of temporal while-clauses between initial and final position, a certain preference for final position can be observed throughout, and this becomes more marked in LModE3. (23) You may call on an educated man, either to fleece him or be fleeced, and his wife, though she knows all about it, will talk to you charmingly of trifles, while you wait for him in her parlour. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1927, George Douglas Brown, The House With The Green Shutters) . For the sake of simplicity, those instances where the adverbial clause occurred in medial position in the sentence (always a small proportion of cases) have been grouped together either with cases of anteposition or of postposition, depending on the position of the main verbal predicate. Whenever the verbal predicate followed the adverbial clause (admittedly, the majority of medial clauses), the latter was classified as preposed; and when the main verbal predicate preceded the adverbial clause, it was analyzed as postposed.

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(24) For that reason I decided to move to Abomey. While I was there I fell a good deal into the company of old King Gaze-oh. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1925, David Garnett, The Sailor’s Return)

Since (23) shows the expected and most frequent ordering of temporal clauses, the position illustrated in (24) calls for an explanation. The initial clause in (24) fulfils a discourse function by presenting given information which links up with the preceding context, further reinforced by the presence of the deictic adverb there referring back to the place name (Abomey) introduced in the previous sentence. The positional patterns of while-clauses are certainly more lopsided when the new readings of the connective are considered. Table 3 shows the ordering distribution of while-clauses in the role of contrast in the corpora. Table 3. Position of contrastive while-clauses (absolute number of occurrences, with normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Initial Final Total

EModE2

EModE3

LModE1

LModE2

LModE3

2 (0.53) 1 (0.27) 3 (0.80)

1 (0.16) 19 (2.97) 20 (3.13)

13 (1.45) 66 (7.85) 79 (9.30)

7 (1.09) 88 (13.75) 95 (14.84)

4 (0.65) 55 (8.93) 59 (9.58)

The scarcity of examples in EModE2 does not allow us to draw firm conclusions about their distributional tendencies. However, a tendency towards the postposition of contrastive clauses is developed from EModE3 until LModE3, as witnessed in (25): (25) He observed that the breathlessness was mostly experienced on exertion, while the giddiness came on at any time, even early in the morning. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1905, G. A. Gibson, Bradycardia)

Processing factors may well explain why postposition is favoured in contrastive clauses introduced by while. The few occasions when the tendency for postposition of the contrastive clause is reversed may be motivated by the length and syntactic complexity of the matrix clause, as in (26) and (27): (26) In Isaiah’s exclamation we hear something of the ambiguity of God’s selfmanifestation in creation and history. While the person who already believes sees evidence of God’s handiwork everywhere, the person who does not believe sees sufficient evil in ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ and in the monstrous acts of individuals and nations to provide a fairly persuasive intellectual argument against any benevolent design for the universe. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1988, Marguerite Snow, Revelation) (27) Her mother was not more busily concerned to fit her for her nuptials than she herself was for a contrary design. While her parents thought to fix her, she, like

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mercury at the approach of fire, was resolved to fly and expose herself rather to a merciless world than the embraces of Stertorius. (ARCHER-2 LModE1 1723, Arthur Blackmore, Luck at Last; or the Happy)

However, a preposed contrastive clause is not necessarily structurally less complex than the matrix clause to which it is attached, as witnessed in (28): (28) Goodness and grace, therefore, immutably differ, as much as guilt and innocence, the objects upon which they finally terminate. And this distinction will forever remain, and be felt in heaven. While angels there will forever drink of the rivers of goodness, saints will forever drink of the rivers of grace. (ARCHER-2 LModE1 1789, Nathanael Emmons, The Gospel a Scheme of Grace)

Again, preposed contrastive while-clauses often fulfil a thematic function. The contrastive connective not only relates the adverbial clause to the matrix clause which follows, but also connects the whole sentence to the preceding stretch of discourse. Thus, in (28) the initial contrastive while establishes a logical connection with the idea of contrast presented earlier in the context of a ‘distinction [. . .] felt in heaven’. The fulfillment of similar discourse purposes can also be witnessed, for instance, in (26) above, where the contrastive while initiating the second sentence not only establishes the opposition between the two propositions referring to believers and non-believers, but also links up with the notion of ambiguity mentioned previously. Similarly, in (27), the placement of the contrastive connective in sentence initial position is strategically employed to capture the idea of conflict between different perspectives on marriage on the parents’ and the daughter’s side, as depicted in the preceding stretch of discourse. When comparing the positional distribution of while-clauses in the role of contrast and those in the role of concession, shown in Table 4, the difference is striking. As is the case with contrastive clauses introduced by while, the scarcity of examples in the initial stages of the development prevents us from drawing significant conclusions from the positional tendencies observed. However, by the eighteenth century, LModE1, the concessive clauses introduced by while are more frequently preposed to the matrix clause, as in (29), than postposed. In the course Table 4. Position of concessive while-clauses (absolute number of occurrences, with normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Initial Final Total

EModE3

LModE1

LModE2

LModE3

4 (0.62) 6 (0.78) 10 (1.40)

22 (2.66) 12 (1.57) 34 (4.23)

22 (3.44) 13 (2.03) 35 (5.47)

39 (6.33) 8 (1.30) 47 (7.63)

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of time, as the concessive uses of the connective become more frequent, the tendency for anteposition increases significantly. (29) Whilst not disputing this conclusion, we would suggest that merely to analyse the mortality of acute renal failure within a renal unit may well underestimate the actual community mortality. (ARCHER-2 LModE3 1985, D. A. Power et al., Acute Renal Failure: The Tip of the Iceberg?)

The preferred anteposition of adverbial clauses of concession is explained in terms of processing factors by Diessel (1996: 77). The placement of the concessive connective at the beginning of the sentence guides the interpretation by signaling that the expectations raised by the assertion to follow will not be fulfilled and an underlying causal chain with another proposition will be broken. If the introduction of the concessive connective is deferred until mid-sentence, a reinterpretation of the preceding assertion will be forced. Even though the factual conditions of the preceding assertion are not affected by this reinterpretation, there is a modification in the inferential relationship between the two clauses. Furthermore, an initial concessive clause is used to concede the validity of a prior assertion in the discourse, and serves as thematic grounding for the presentation of a new assertion which is potentially incompatible with it. However, there must also be an explanation for the exceptional occurrence of concessives in sentence final position. The usual explanation invoked to justify these cases of postposition is the structural weight of the adverbial clause, as witnessed in (30): (30) Meanwhile the trader, the farmer, and the shop-keeper, complain of the hardness and deadness of the times, and wonder whence it comes; while it is, in a great measure, owing to their own folly, for want of that love of their country, and public spirit and firm union among themselves, which are so necessary to the prosperity of every nation. (ARCHER-2 LModE1 1724, Jonathan Swift, Doing Good)

Together with structural factors, information structure can also be invoked to explain cases of postposition. In cases like (30) above or (31) below, the adverbial clauses introduce new information. (31) It was this reason, that moved me to take the matter out of those rough, as well as those dirty hands; to let the remote and uninstructed part of the nation see, that they have been misled on both sides, by mad, ridiculous extremes, at a wide distance on each side from the truth; while the right path is so broad and plain, as to be easily kept, if they were once put into it. (COPC EModE3 1710, Jonathan Swift, in The Examiner)



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Table 5. Position of additive while-clauses (absolute number of occurrences, with normalized frequencies per 100,000 words in brackets)

Initial Final Total

LModE1

LModE2

LModE3

– 6 (0.72) 6 (0.72)

1 (0.16) 15 (2.34) 16 (2.50)

– 11 (1.79) 11 (1.79)

As in the case of the contrastive and concessive uses of the connective, additive while-clauses likewise exhibit quite marked positional tendencies, as shown in Table 5. The widely generalized positional restrictions of additive while-clauses witnessed in Table 5 have a logical explanation: addition can only operate on previously existing information. (32) By antiseptics, chloroform, and forceps alone, the worries of the accoucheur have been materially lessened, while our suffering sisters are saved many of the agonies and dangers of bygone times. (ARCHER-2 PE 1905, F. W. Haultain, Has Obstetric Practice Improved within the Last 25 Years?)

The only exception to postposition of additive while-clauses is found in LModE2, (33) below, in which the while-clause is actually situated medially, in between the subject and the main VP. (33) With apparatus of this kind, using very varied materials for the index, enclosing them in tubes and bulbs of different sizes, and experimenting in air and gases of different densities up to Sprengel and chemical vacua, I have carried out a large series of experiments, and have obtained results which, whilst they entirely corroborate those already described, carry the investigation some steps further in other directions. (ARCHER-2 LModE2 1875, William Crookes, On Repulsion Resulting from Radiation)

As was the case with other examples of additive while, the two clauses joined by the connective add information to each other without any further implications, a temporal interpretation being basically uninformative and irrelevant. The unusual position of the additive while-clause in (33) can possibly be explained in terms of information structure. The preposed adverbial clause establishes a connection with the preceding context, and contains given information which creates the background for the second clause. By pre-posing the adverbial clause, the final and informatively most salient position is reserved for the matrix clause which contributes new information. The impossibility of moving an additive while-clause to initial position has further structural implications. The fixed position that additive while assumes between the two clauses suggests coordinator-like behaviour. Therefore, contrary to

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the expected increase in bondedness in grammaticalization (see Lehmann 1985), additive while-clauses have become less dependent, as they can no longer be interpreted as a constituent, however peripheral, of the matrix clause. In fact, whileconstructions seem to have gradually decreased in integration in the course of their semantic development from temporal to contrastive, concessive, causal and additive. The most integrated of all these clauses are temporal clauses. Some of the signs of the syntactic integration of constructions are: (A) they can undergo focalization by clefting; (B) they fall into the scope of focusing subjuncts; (C) they can be focalized by alternative interrogation and negation; (D) they fall into the scope of ellipsis and pro-form do so; and (E) they respond to wh-words (see Quirk et al. 1985: 504) for a characterization of adjuncts and Haegemann (1985: 7–8) on central and peripheral adverbials). Both contrastive and concessive while-clauses are considerably less integrated into the structure of the matrix clause than temporal ones. They do not participate in focalizing strategies affecting the main clause as a whole, but allow focalization within their own structure. At the speech-act level, causal while-clauses constitute a good illustration of the increased independence of matrix and adverbial clause, since each have their own illocutionary force. In additive while-clauses, there does not even seem to be a close relationship between the connective and the clause it introduces, since the order of the clauses can be reversed without moving the additive connective while from its fixed position in between the two clauses.

. Concluding remarks With this study on the semasiological development of while-constructions in the history of English, I have shown the operation of subjectification from contentbased temporal meanings to increasingly more abstract interpretations. The highest point of subjectification is reached in the case of speech-act causal constructions, where the connective is not used to establish real-world-based links between events, or even logical connections between propositions, but a justification for the illocutionary act chosen deliberately by the speaker. I have emphasized throughout that complete loss of the original meaning is not frequent. The reading of simultaneity provides the source for further inferences, so it is only to be expected that some component of simultaneity is retained as part of the semantic configuration of the new readings. I have also shown that the semasiological development analyzed herein is accompanied by the positional specialization of the adverbial clause, determined by semantic type. Such specialization is more evident in the case of concessive, contrastive and additive whileclauses, with concessive clauses showing a marked preference for anteposition and contrastive and additive clauses tending to postposition.

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Finally, the progressive decrease in bondedness attested in the development of this connective may call into question claims about unidirectionality in grammaticalization. Following Traugott and Dasher (2002), I would assume that claims about directionality are better applied to semantic unidirectionality, always in the direction of increased subjectification.

Sources ARCHER-2 = Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan, comps (1990–1993/2002). A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers 2. University of Northern Arizona, University of Southern California, University of Freiburg, University of Helsinki and Uppsala University. CEECS = Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. COPC = Louis T. Milic, comp. (1995). Century of Prose Corpus. Cleveland: Department of English, Cleveland State University. OED = Oxford English Dictionary (1888–1933), ed. J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, W. A. Craigie and C. T. Onions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

References Barth, Dagmar (2000). “that’s true, although not really, but still’: Expressing Concession in Spoken English’. In: Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann, eds, 411–437. Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (2002). ‘On the Development of Final though: A Case of Grammaticalization?’. In: New Reflections on Grammaticalization, ed. Ilse Wischer and Gabriele Diewald. (Typological Studies in Language, 49). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 345–361. Chen, Guohua (2000). ‘The Grammaticalization of Concessive Markers in Early Modern English’. In: Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English, ed. Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein. (Studies in Language Companion Series, 53). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 85–110. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Bernd Kortmann, eds (2000). Cause – Condition – Concession – Contrast. Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives. (Topics in English Linguistics, 33). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Sandra A. Thompson (2000). ‘Concessive Patterns in Conversation’. In: Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann, eds, 381–410.

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Diessel, Holger (1996). ‘Processing Factors of Pre- and Postposed Adverbial Clauses’. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Jan Johnson, Matthew L. Juge, and Jeri L. Moxley. Berkeley/CA.: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 71–82. Diessel, Holger (2001). ‘The Ordering Distribution of Main and Adverbial Clauses: A Typological Study’. Language 77: 433–455. Diessel, Holger (2005). ‘Competing Motivations for the Ordering of Main and Adverbial Clauses’. Linguistics 43: 449–470. Haegeman, Liliane (1985). ‘Subordinating Conjunctions and X’-Syntax’. Studia Germanica Gandensia 2: 1–42. Haspelmath, Martin and Ekkehard König (1998). ‘Concessive Conditionals in the Languages of Europe’. In: Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe, ed. Johan van der Auwera. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology. EUROTYP, 3). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 563–640. Hawkins, John A. (1994). A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hopper, Paul J. (1991). ‘On Some Principles of Grammaticalization’. In: Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume I, ed. Elizabeth C. Traugott and Bernd Heine. (Typological Studies in Language, 19:1). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 17–35. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. König, Ekkehard (1985). ‘On the History of Concessive Connectives in English. Diachronic and Synchronic Evidence’. Lingua 66: 1–19. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination. A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lakoff, Robin (1971). ‘If ’s, and’s and but’s about Conjunction’. In: Studies in Linguistic Semantics, ed. Charles J. Fillmore, and D. Terence Langendoen. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 115–149. Lang, Ewald (2000). ‘Adversative Connectors on Distinct Levels of Discourse: A Re-examination of Eve Sweetser’s Three-level Approach’. In: Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann, eds, 235–256. Lehmann, Christian (1985). ‘Grammaticalization: Synchronic Variation and Diachronic Change’. Lingua e Stile XX: 303–318. Meillet, Antoine (1926 [1912]). ‘L’Evolution des Formes Grammaticales’. In: Linguistique Historique et Linguistique Générale. Paris: Champion (Reproduction from Scientia (Rivista di Scienza), vol. XII, no XXVI, 6). Pasicki, Adam (1983). ‘While-clauses in Old and Early Middle English’. Folia Linguistica Historica 4: 287–303. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rissanen, Matti (1999). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. III: 1476–1776, ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 187–331. Rudolph, Elisabeth (1996). Contrast. Adversative and Concessive Expressions on Sentence and Text Level. (Research in Text Theory, 23). Berlin: de Gruyter. Schwenter, Scott A. and Elizabeth C. Traugott (1999). ‘Invoking Scalarity: The Development of in fact’. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1: 7–25. Schwenter, Scott A. (2000). ‘Viewpoints and Polysemy: Linking Adversative and Concessive Meanings of Discourse Markers’. In: Couper-Kuhlen and Kortmann, eds, 257–281.

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Sweetser, Eve E. (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth C. (1982). ‘From Propositional to Textual and Expressive Meanings: Some Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of Grammaticalization’. In: Perspectives on Historical Linguistics, ed. Winfred P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 4). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 245–271. Traugott, Elizabeth C. (1989). ‘On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: An Example of Subjectification in Semantic Change’. Language 65: 31–55. Traugott, Elizabeth C. (1995). ‘Subjectification in Grammaticalization’. In: Subjectivity and Subjectivisation, ed. Dieter Stein and Susan Wright. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 31–54. Traugott, Elizabeth C. (2003). ‘Constructions in Grammaticalization’. In: The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ed. Brian D. Joseph and Richard D. Janda. Oxford: Blackwell, 624– 647. Traugott, Elizabeth C. and Ekkehard König (1991). ‘The Semantics-Pragmatics of Grammaticalization Revisited’. In: Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume I, ed. Elizabeth C. Traugott and Bernd Heine. (Typological Studies in Language, 19). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 189–218. Traugott Elizabeth C. and Richard B. Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trotta, Joe and Aimo Seppänen (1998). ‘The Relative/Conjunction Interface: A Study of the Syntax of while/whilst in Present Day English’. English Studies 79: 349–366.

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A relevance-theoretic view on issues in the history of clausal connectives Carsten Breul* University of Wuppertal

The present study takes a perspective which Jacobs and Jucker (1995: 14) characterize as ‘pragmahistorical’, ‘concerned with pragmatic explanations of language change’. The kind of phenomena for which explanations are sought and discussed can be exemplified by the following question: How is it that the etymological ancestors of clausal connectives like since or while, which were purely temporal, have developed non-temporal senses (i.e. causal or contrastive respectively)? A wellknown general answer to questions like this – one whose basic idea is certainly on the right track – has been given in a number of works notably by König and Traugott. They argue that such semantic diachronies are the result of the conventionalization of conversational implicatures.1 The present study looks at some of the details involved in this answer. It examines the appropriateness of one of the pragmatic principles that has been claimed to be underlying the implicatures involved, namely the principle of informativeness. After discussing some problems of using this principle in an account of the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives, the study suggests an alternative approach in terms of relevance theory and applies it to the semantic diachrony of the connectives where and whereas. The first section, however, is concerned with providing some background for the discussion.

* I am grateful to the participants in the Vienna 2004 workshop on ‘Clausal connectives in the history of English’, to Patricia Sift, Cynthia Allen, Torsten Leuschner, an anonymous reviewer and the editors of this volume for very helpful discussions and suggestions as well as for corrections. . See for example König & Traugott (1988), where this idea appears also in the title of the article: ‘Pragmatic strengthening and semantic change: The conventionalizing of conversational implicature’.

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.

The diachrony of clausal connectives and pragmatic inferencing

Pragmatic inferential processes play an important role as a causal factor in language change (see, e.g., Cole 1975: 273ff.; Abraham 1976; Horn 1984: 31ff.; Carey 1990; Sweetser 1990; Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991: 164ff.; Traugott & König 1991; Hopper & Traugott 1993: Ch. 4; Levinson 1995: 95; Nicolle 1998; Diewald 2002; Heine 2002; Traugott & Dasher 2002; Traugott 2003: 631ff.). The history of clausal connectives is one area where this has been convincingly argued to be the case.2 One of the classic examples is Geis & Zwicky’s (1971) observation concerning the development of the connective since, which used to be purely temporal and has acquired a causal sense in the course of time. They argue that ‘[s]entences which express a temporal sequence of situations invite the inference that the first situation is a cause of or a reason for the second’ and that, consequently, ‘an invited inference can, historically, become part of semantic representation in the strict sense’ (Geis & Zwicky 1971: 564f.). As concerns the history of English clausal connectives, similar observations have been made by König (e.g. 1985a: 15f., 1985b: 274ff., 1988: 157ff.) in connection with the development of concessives. He points out, for example, that the development of a concessive meaning of such items as nevertheless, notwithstanding, still and yet ‘from expressions originally asserting remarkable co-occurrence is based on pragmatic principles of interpretative enrichment and the conventionalization of an originally pragmatic inference’ (König 1988: 159). König & Traugott (1988: 114ff.) make the same point with respect to the development of connectives of preference such as rather than or sooner than, whose etymological ancestors expressed temporal precedence, and with respect to the diachrony of connectives such as providing or seeing that, which originate in free adjuncts.3 It has been observed more than once that a purely Gricean account of such developments is hardly feasible. More specifically, it does not seem possible to invoke Grice’s (1967/1989) set of conversational maxims in explications of the pragmatic inferences that appear to play a role in most of the cases in question. Geis & Zwicky . The same can be said about the diachrony of discourse (or pragmatic) markers (see, e.g., Schwenter & Traugott 1995: 263ff., 2000; Brinton 1996: 275f., pass., 1998: 15f., 20; Jucker 1997). The difficulty of classifying items as discourse (pragmatic) marker or clausal connective, of distinguishing between these two categories and of the terminological confusion surrounding these notions is well known (see, e.g., Jucker & Ziv 1998). As far as I can see, these problems are not essential for the points to be made in the present paper. . See Traugott & König (1991) for a digest and update of these authors’ earlier works on pragmatic inferencing and the history of clausal connectives. König’s and Traugott’s insights are integrated into Kortmann’s (1997) comprehensive typology and history of adverbial subordinators.

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(1971: 565) consider the sentence in (1) in the light of the fact that it suggests a causal connection between the referent of he having a large meal and his sleeping soundly. (1) After a large meal, he sleeps soundly.

After is a preposition here, not a clausal connective, but Geis & Zwicky’s point is relevant anyway. We could modify the example so as to get After he devours a large meal, he sleeps soundly, for instance, where after is a clausal connective. They hypothesize that the Gricean maxim of relation (‘Be relevant’) might be adduced in this connection, but counter this idea by arguing that ‘the sentence asserts a connection between two events – a temporal connection – so why should people tend to assume a further relevance?’ (Geis & Zwicky 1971: 565). In connection with his discussion of the derivation by pragmatic inference of concessive meanings from those involving simultaneity (e.g. while), concomitance (e.g. and) or unhindered continuation (e.g. still), König too comes to the conclusion that ‘[n]one of the Gricean maxims [. . .] seems to play any role in the calculation of these inferences’ (König 1985b: 275; see also 1985a: 16, 1988: 159). Indeed, he adds in a footnote that [t]he only maxim that could be argued to play a role is the maxim of Quantity. There are many things going on simultaneously with a given state, process or event ‘p’ which are hardly worth mentioning. To point out these facts and their simultaneity can be totally uninformative and perhaps also irrelevant. (König 1985b: 280, n. 3)

But this situation seems to be only a special subcase of the more general situation where the information value of denoting a simultaneous eventuality as such may be anything between zero and high and is thus irrelevant for whether a certain inference is made or not. Rather than the classic Gricean conversational maxims, it is predominantly neo-Gricean4 pragmatic principles that are invoked in explanations of the diachronic effects of pragmatic inferencing in discussions of the history of clausal connectives. Notably the principle of informativeness, which says ‘read as much into an utterance as is consistent with what you know about the world’ in the (textbook) version of Levinson (1983: 146f.), and/or Horn’s R-principle, which says ‘MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION NECESSARY [. . .] SAY NO MORE THAN . I follow Carston (e.g. 1998) in distinguishing between ‘post-Gricean’ and ‘neo-Gricean’: ‘Post-Gricean refers to all those approaches to pragmatics that take the Gricean inferential approach to communication as their starting point and so includes relevance theory. By neoGricean I mean those approaches that function with some version or other of the original Gricean maxims and the Cooperative Principle; relevance theory, of course, stands outside this category’ (Carston 1998: 227, n. 1).

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YOU MUST (given Q)’5 in the version of Horn (1984: 13), have been mentioned in this context (see König 1985a: 15f., 1985b: 275f., 1988: 159ff.; König & Traugott 1988: 120f.). Relevance theory as a potential framework for explanations of how pragmatic inferencing affects the history of clausal connectives has not yet been explored to a substantial degree. More than the occasional reference to relevance theory can hardly be found in the works that deal with diachronic aspects of clausal connectives. König & Traugott (1988: 110) mention Sperber & Wilson (1995) as potentially being a framework which can be used in explanations of pragmatically induced diachronic changes concerning clausal connectives. However, they also express doubt about the manner in which relevance theory could actually be applied.6 In Traugott & König (1991) the neo-Gricean approach based on the principle of informativeness and the relevance-theoretic approach are mentioned side by side. While there is no discussion in the main text of potential differences that may ensue from taking either of these approaches (see Traugott & König 1991: 191f.), the authors hint in a note that the debate between neo-Griceans and relevance theoreticians over the nature of pragmatic principles may be important for discussions of language change, including that of clausal connectives (see Traugott & König 1991: 214, n. 4). It seems worthwhile to investigate in more detail if a relevance-theoretic perspective on historical developments of the kinds mentioned above has advantages over its pragmatic alternatives within the broader post-Gricean range. This is especially so in view of the fact that neo-Griceans and relevance theoreticians have been engaged in debate for some years now, not only over subtle details, but also over fundamental and distinctive aspects of the respective approach (see e.g. Levinson 1989 and the references given there, 2000: pass.; Carston 1995, 1998, 2002: pass.). The present study aims to make a contribution to this debate by investigating a topic from historical linguistics (see also Nicolle 1998).

. Horn’s (1984: 13) Q-principle says ‘MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION SUFFICIENT [. . .] SAY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN (given R)’. . In a footnote they write: ‘Whether the Principle of Relevance proposed by Sperber/Wilson (1986), to which all Gricean maxims are reduced, provides an adequate explanation of these augmentations is not so clear. Sperber/Wilson define ‘relevance’ as informativeness in relation to context, which can be measured by the number of contextual implications, but the phenomena they discuss are very different from the ones under consideration in this paper’ (König & Traugott 1988: 120, n. 4).

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. Semantic diachrony of clausal connectives and neo-Gricean principles . Three types of phenomena A pragmatic theory which is to account for the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives has to cope with at least the following types of phenomena that arguably involve pragmatic inferencing: Type 1 phenomena, subtype 1.1: There are pairs of connectives C1 and C2 which have two distinct denotations D1 and D2 ; C1 and C2 are diachronically related in that C2 is historically derived from C1 , this diachronic relation being due to pragmatic processes. For example, there is a temporal connective since (C1 ) and a causal connective since (C2 ) which are semantically independent. The historical development from temporal to causal since is the result of pragmatic processes.7 Type 1 phenomena, subtype 1.2: There are connectives C with denotation D where C is the only diachronic survivor of an earlier pair C1 and C2 as described under subtype 1.1. For example, there is contrastive whereas, which is derived from a contrastive predecessor that formed a subtype 1.1 pair with locative whereas in earlier stages of English. (2) a.

Whereas vtilitie is, there is pietie. (1567 J. Sandford Epictetus 23; OED, s.v. whereas, †1) a.’ Whereas the Ebrewe speache seemed hardly to agree with ours, we haue noted it in the margent. (1578 Bible (Geneva); ibid.) b. There are layed vp for vs dwellynges of health & fredome, where as we haue lyued euell. (1535 Coverdale 2 Esdras vii. 5; OED, s.v. whereas, 3) b.’ This knaue, wheras he is the greattest glutton..that maye bee, yet is he the moste idle lubber. (1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 7; ibid.)

Locative whereas, as in (2a, a’), does not exist any more in Present-Day English. Type 2 phenomena: There are connectives C with denotation D which have the synchronic-pragmatic potential to give rise to the development of a partner so as to diachronically result in a pair as described under type 1.1. For example, the German temporal clausal connective seit has the potential to trigger pragmatic inferences to the effect that a causal sense is often hypothesized by the addressee to have been conveyed by the communicator.

. I retain the common term ‘causal’ here although I have argued elsewhere (Breul 1997) that ‘causal’ since rather introduces a reason in a reason-consequence relation than a cause in a causeeffect relation (these two relations being conceptually different).

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(3) Seit Schmitt die Firma führt, sind die Umsätze since (temporal) Schmitt the company leads are the turnovers bedeutend gestiegen. significantly risen ‘Since Schmitt took over as director, the turnovers have risen significantly.’ Possibly implicated: ‘The turnovers have risen significantly as a result of Schmitt’s taking over as director.’

But German seit is different from English since in that there is no causal seit semantically independent of temporal seit. (4) a. You can rely on me since I am your brother. = b. ?Du kannst dich auf mich verlassen, seit ich dein you can yourself on me rely since (temporal) I your Bruder bin. brother am

A potential causal interpretation in connection with seit can only arise by pragmatic inference on the basis of its temporal (terminus a quo) denotation, which is the only denotation associated with this connective.8 The central explanatory concern of a pragmatic approach to the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives along the lines of König’s and Traugott’s work is an explanation of the development of a connective that shows type 2 behaviour into one which belongs to type 1. For this development to be possible the respective connective has to be used in bridging contexts, that is, in contexts that ‘trigger an inferential mechanism to the effect that, rather than the source meaning, there is another meaning, the target meaning, that offers a more plausible interpretation of the utterance’ (Heine 2002: 84). For an individual speaker this development has been completed if she uses the respective connective in switch contexts, that is, in contexts that ‘are incompatible, or in conflict, with some salient property of the source meaning’ such that ‘an interpretation of the source meaning is ruled out’ (ibid.: 85).9 Note, however, that the identification of bridging and switch contexts as such does not explain how it is possible that a speaker starts using a given connective in a switch context. Moreover, their identification alone does not explain why connectives generally show typical pathways of their semantic diachrony (see . Seit had a causal meaning in earlier German, but it got lost (see, e.g., Molencki in this volume). Thus, Present-Day German seit has again the potential to go through a development which it already went through in the past. . For concepts similar but not identical to bridging and switch contexts see Diewald (2002). I am grateful to the editors of the present volume for having made me aware of Heine (2002) and Diewald (2002).

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Kortmann 1997: pass.). In order to tackle these questions we have to make use of (theories of) principles of interpretation and of theories of how the operation of such principles affects the (mental) lexicon. König’s and Traugott’s answer to these questions in very general terms is that inferred senses often triggered by type 2 connectives become conventionalized. And, as we saw above, it is especially the principle of informativeness (Atlas, Levinson) or the R-principle (Horn) that König and Traugott consider to be the appropriate conceptual tools to be used in their account. Although I consider König’s and Traugott’s answer to be essentially correct, one point to be made in the present study is to cast doubt on the appropriateness of the principle of informativeness (henceforth I-principle) in this context and to suggest that a relevance-theoretic stance is more promising;10 the other point is to present a more explicit idea of what it means for a certain meaning of a connective to become conventionalized. . Discussion of the I-principle According to König (1985a: 16, 1985b: 276; similarly König 1988: 160), the Iprinciple ‘roughly states that the best interpretation of an utterance is the most informative proposition among competing interpretations that is consistent with the common ground’. This is a simplified but essentially accurate version of the original formulation (presented in Atlas & Levinson 1981: 40f.), whose most important first part reads as follows: Suppose a speaker S addresses a sentence A to hearer H in a context K. If H has n COMPETING interpretations Au1 , Au2 , . . . , Aun of A in the context K with information contents INF(Au1 ), INF(Au2 ), . . . , INF(Aun ), and GA is the set of propositions that are noncontroversial in K, then the ‘best’ interpretation Au* of A for H is the most informative proposition among the competing interpretations that is consistent with the common ground.

One problem that arises with this formulation of the I-principle is that it provides an account of which interpretation from a range of competing, somehow predetermined interpretations tends to be picked by the addressee as the result of the interpretation process. But it fails to provide an account of how the individual interpretations that are the elements of the set of interpretations picked from come into existence in the first place. More specifically with respect to clausal connectives: The I-principle tells us which of the competing interpretations associated with an utterance that contains a given clausal connective tends to be taken to be . The restriction to the I-principle in the following is due to considerations concerning the length of the present paper, to the fact that both Levinson and Horn acknowledge the similarity of their proposals (see, e.g., Horn 1984: 19; Levinson 1995: 111, n. 9, 2000: 41, 137) and that, to my mind, the I-principle has been formulated in more explicit terms than the R-principle.

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licensed under certain contextual conditions – the purely temporal one or the temporal +> contrastive11 one of while, for instance.12 But it does not tell us how the temporal +> contrastive interpretation is generated in the first place. This problem has been acknowledged by Levinson,13 and new versions of the I-principle have been put forward which aim to avoid it. In Levinson (2000: 114) the most important parts of it for our purposes read as follows: I-Principle Speaker’s maxim: the maxim of Minimization. ‘Say as little as necessary’; that is, produce the minimal linguistic information sufficient to achieve your communicational ends (bearing Q in mind). Recipient’s corollary: the Enrichment Rule. Amplify the informational content of the speaker’s utterance, by finding the most specific interpretation, up to what you judge to be the speaker’s m-intended point,14 unless the speaker has broken the maxim of Minimization by using a marked or prolix expression.

Specifically: a.

Assume the richest temporal, causal and referential connections between described situations or events consistent with what is taken for granted. b. Assume that stereotypical relations obtain between referents or events, unless this is inconsistent with (a).

The idea that the addressee has to search for an interpretation which is more specific than what is linguistically encoded (the ‘what-is-said’ in Gricean terms) is crucial in the present context. In Levinson (1998: 550) an explanation of this notion in simple terms is ‘what is communicated is a sub-case of what is said’. The more sophisticated version in Levinson (2000: 115) reads: ‘p is more specific than . The symbol ‘+>‘ in front of readings is used by Levinson (e.g. 2000) to signal that this reading is implicated. . König & Traugott (1988: 114) point out that ‘the fact that [. . .] while is still awkward in contexts expressing anteriority of one event to another shows that this conjunction has not lost its original meaning of temporal overlap’. They exemplify by the following sentence: While we were extremely successful last year, this year does not look too promising. For those speakers who consider such examples unacceptable while is a type 2 connective; for those who consider them acceptable it is a type 1 connective. . Levinson (2000: 115): ‘We sketched there [in Atlas & Levinson 1981] a two-level account: first, all the competing interpretations are generated; then the most informative is selected. The principles generating the set of competing interpretations were left open in that account’. . ‘M-intention is Grice’s (1989: 105) shorthand for the complex reflexive intention involved in speaker’s meaning – namely, the speaker’s intention to cause an effect in the recipient just by getting the recipient to recognize that that was his/her intention’ (Levinson 2000: 391, n. 43).

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q if (a) p is more informative than q (e.g. p entails q); and (b) p is isomorphic with q (i.e., each term or relation in p has a denotation that is a subset of the denotations of the corresponding expressions in q)’. With respect to alleged misunderstandings of earlier presentations of his I-principle Levinson emphasizes the following two points: a) that a more specific meaning inferred by applying the Iprinciple consists of the conjunction of the linguistically encoded meaning and of the meaning of one or more I-implicated proposition(s); b) that this conjunctive meaning (the I-*implicated meaning in his terminology) entails the meaning of the literally encoded proposition (see Levinson 2000: 115, 392, n. 51). Let us consider what this means with respect to the following attested example, which involves the connective while with the meaning ‘[a]t the same time that (implying opposition or contrast)’ according to the OED (s.v. while, adv., conj., B.2.b) (for the diachrony of while see also González-Cruz in this volume). (5) Whill others aime at greatnes boght with blood, Not to bee great thou stryves, bot to bee good. (1617 Sir W. Mure Misc. Poems xxi. 23)

The linguistically encoded meaning of the utterance of (5) can be rendered as in (6a) and the I-implicated contrastive sense as in (6b). (6) a.

The two eventualities, (a) that others aim at greatness bought with blood and (b) that you do not strive to be great but to be good, occur simultaneously. b. That you do not strive to be great but to be good contrasts with the fact that others aim at greatness bought with blood.

Now, it is of course descriptively (and trivially) correct that the conjunction of (6a) and (6b), that is, the I-*implicated meaning of (5), entails (6a). And it is equally descriptively correct that the conjunction of (6a) and (6b) is more specific than (6a). But still it remains mysterious how an addressee of (5) may pragmatically infer (6b) on the basis of the I-principle, this inference being a prerequisite of the interpretation of (5) as the conjunction of (6a) and (6b). Very similar to the problem pointed out in connection with the original formulation of the I-principle, there seems to be an interpretive gap here which cannot be closed by an application of the I-principle. We may try to close this gap by taking the ways into account by which Levinson attempts to make his notion of a ‘more specific interpretation’ more specific (‘Assume the richest temporal, causal and referential connections [. . .]’, ‘Assume that stereotypical relations obtain [. . .]’; see above). This does not conform to Levinson’s intention, for these specifications refer to the relation between the linguistically encoded meaning and I-*implicated meaning, not between linguistically encoded meaning and I-implicated meaning. Nevertheless, for the sake of the argument we may consider whether these specifications would help in inferring

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(6b) on the basis of (6a). However, they do not appear to do so: A causal enrichment (‘That you do not strive to be great but to be good is caused by the fact that others aim at greatness bought with blood’) obviously leads to a wrong result; and there is nothing at all stereotypical about thinking of two simultaneous events as standing in a contrastive relation to one another. In fact, there is also nothing at all stereotypical about thinking of two succeeding or simultaneous events as being causally related (cf. since, German weil), given that we are constantly confronted with perceptions of events which are succeeding or simultaneous but which we do not conceive of as causally related. Finally, there is no sense in which (6b) can be understood as a sub-case of (6a). What seems to be crucial is not (our conception of) the nature and relation of the eventualities involved as such, but the fact that the communicator mentions them at the respective point in the discourse. The preceding discussion casts doubt on the appropriateness of the I-principle in accounts of type 2 phenomena. Being rather synchronic than diachronic, these phenomena are the subject of the general debate over which pragmatic principles and which of the more general theoretical frameworks are best suited to explain them. Within the mosaic of this debate the preceding discussion is just an additional piece. I turn now to what I consider a shortcoming of the I-principle in accounting for type 1 phenomena. . The detachment problem What does the I-principle have to offer in explanations of those diachronic developments of clausal connectives where the formerly I-implicated meaning becomes an independent denotation? This question refers to what I would like to call the detachment problem. That is, how does a causal meaning get detached from a temporal one so that, for instance, since can be used without any implication of a temporal relation, or how does a contrastive meaning get detached from a locative one so that whereas is used without a locative implication?15 Detachment in this sense is a prerequisite for the formerly implicated meaning to become conventionalized and lexicalized. But the I-principle does not seem to have anything to offer in the way of explaining the leap from a connective’s triggering an implicature to this implicature becoming a semantically independent denotation. The I-principle is concerned with the relation between linguistically encoded (implicating) meaning and I-*implicated meaning. The diachronic detachment of a formerly implicated meaning does not fall into its purview. Of course, this principle being developed with a synchronic perspective on pragmatic issues it is not designed so as to pro. Recall that ‘becoming an independent denotation’ may be followed by the loss of the formerly implicating denotation (subtype 1.2 phenomena, e.g., whereas), or it may be retained (subtype 1.1 phenomena, e.g. causal since alongside temporal since).

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vide a solution for the detachment problem. However, it ought to provide an angle from which such a solution might be sought, if it is invoked in the context of discussing the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives and if certain examples from the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives are vice versa invoked as supporting its viability (see Levinson 2000: 263). As we will see, a relevance-theoretic approach, whose starting point is equally not designed with diachronic issues in focus, nevertheless does seem to be able to provide a solution for the detachment problem.

. A relevance-theoretic approach: The examples of where and whereas . Relevance theory in a nutshell A recapitulation of some essentials of relevance theory is in order. In relevance theory the linguistic meaning of a sentence or phrase used in an utterance, which is decoded on the basis of the hearer’s knowledge of the language, ‘is just one of the inputs to a non-demonstrative inference process which yields an interpretation of the speaker’s meaning’ (Wilson & Sperber 2004: 607). Being ‘non-demonstrative’ means that the inference process does not guarantee the recovery of the speaker’s meaning. The other inputs to such an inference process are drawn from the context, that is, the set of assumptions held by the hearer at the time when the utterance is to be interpreted. The set of assumptions drawn from comprises those which the hearer holds about the world in general, about the specific situation of the communicative exchange and about assumptions held by the speaker. One basic supposition of relevance theory is that the part of the human cognitive system which is concerned with utterance interpretation strives for the generation of so-called positive cognitive effects. The most important type of positive cognitive effect is the generation of a new assumption, that is, one which could not have been derived from the input alone, nor from the context alone, but only from both together. Other types of positive cognitive effect ‘include the strengthening, revision, or abandonment of available assumptions’ (Wilson & Sperber 2004: 608). Another basic supposition is that the generation of positive cognitive effects is constrained by the amount of cognitive effort invested in the interpretation process. The relevance of an utterance results from weighing processing effort and positive cognitive effects against one another along the following lines: a.

Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects achieved by processing an input, the greater the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.

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b.

Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended, the lower the relevance of the input to the individual at that time (Wilson & Sperber 2004: 609).

Now, the essential claim made by relevance theory is that the specific inferences that are made in the interpretation of an utterance in addition to the decoding of its linguistic meaning are guided by two principles. The ‘Cognitive Principle of Relevance’ states that ‘[h]uman cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance’ (Wilson & Sperber 2004: 610). The ‘Communicative Principle of Relevance’ states that ‘[e]very ostensive stimulus [i.e. an utterance in verbal communication] conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance’ (Wilson & Sperber 2004: 612). These two principles together imply a certain strategy for the process of utterance interpretation on the part of the addressee: It is most rational for the addressee to apply a least effort strategy and to take the first interpretation which satisfies his expectations of relevance as the most plausible hypothesis about the intended meaning on the part of the communicator. However, as pointed out by Wilson & Sperber (2004: 614), ‘[s]ince comprehension is a non-demonstrative inference process, this hypothesis may well be false; but it is the best a rational hearer can do’. . Relevance theory as the key to a solution of the detachment problem I would argue that it is precisely the possibility of false hypotheses generated during pragmatic inferencing by interlocutors who have not yet completed language acquisition which provides the key for a solution of the detachment problem. More specifically, it is language users who have not yet completely fixed the denotation(s) for the respective clausal connective in their mental lexicons, that is, typically children, who are responsible for the diachronic detachment of a formerly implicated meaning from the linguistically encoded meaning. The steps of my argumentation are these: 1. For a child who has not yet fixed the denotation(s) for a connective there does not yet exist a clear separation between denotational meaning and implicated meaning of the connective.16 That is, the distinction between denotational and implicated meanings presupposes fixed denotations. 2. What is an implicated meaning of the connective for an adult may be taken as a denotational meaning of the connective by the child.

. The expression ‘implicated meaning of the connective’ is an abbreviation for ‘those aspects of the meaning of the connective which contribute to certain implicatures associated with utterances in which it occurs’.

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3. If an implicated meaning M i is more relevant in a given communicative situation than what is a/the denotational meaning M d of the connective for the adult, then M i may be (falsely) hypothesized by the child to be a/the denotational meaning of the connective and may correspondingly become lexically fixed. Note especially that M i is not generated as a specification or enrichment of M d by the child, in contradistinction to the approach based on the recent version of the I-principle. Note also that by ‘false hypothesis’ I mean that the child assumes a denotational meaning for the connective where it is actually or potentially only an implicated meaning, the denotational meaning associated with the connective on the part of the speaker being different from the one assigned to it by the child. 4. That a diachronically later denotation of a clausal connective often contributes to an informationally more specific meaning of a sentence than an earlier denotation is one consequence among others of pragmatic inferencing guided by relevance. This is because a more specific interpretation (e.g. temporal + causal) is, other things being equal, generally more relevant than a less specific interpretation (e.g. temporal). However, other things are not always equal. A more specific interpretation may be less relevant in a given case because it costs too much processing effort. Or it may be less relevant because the maximal relevance of the utterance for the interpreting individual derives from positive cognitive effects on a higher level than the propositional content. Note that when I talk of children as being those who are typically involved in this process I do not implicate a specific age up to which the process may operate. The important point is that those speakers are the agents in this process whose lexical entry or entries for the respective connective has not yet been fixed, and I assume that this is typically the case for children. With respect to the specific processes to be discussed below, concerned with the connectives where and whereas and the notion of contrastiveness, I assume that children rather advanced in language acquisition are involved, i.e. roughly from age 7 onwards (see Kortmann 1997: 156f. and the literature mentioned there). Traugott & Dasher (2002: 41f.) argue that adults rather than children are the initiators of changes that involve pragmatic inferencing. This does not contradict the argument presented here. Adults are initiators and innovators of change in that their use of language invites pragmatic inferencing, but it is in the children’s minds that implicatures are transformed into lexical denotations. What I mean by a lexical entry for a connective being fixed or not can best be explained with the example of German seit: Although the temporal connective seit has been shown often to implicate a causal relation (see above), adult speakers of present-day standard German have, perhaps due to normative pressure, fixed its temporal denotation (terminus a quo) as the only denotation for it in their mental

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lexicons. Such speakers will not accept utterances in which seit would have to be interpreted as a connective with a causal denotation (cf. (3)–(4) above). To illustrate the line of argumentation drawn by steps 1–4 above consider (7) addressed to a child whose lexical entry for the connective where has converged on the locative denotation but who is still prepared for the possibility of other denotations for it. (7) They are rude where they should be reverent. (1850 Newman Diff. Anglicans ix 221; OED, s.v. where, 10.b.(a))

There are communicative situations in which a reading of (7) as (8a) (denotationally contrastive) is more relevant – in the relevance-theoretic sense – than the reading (8b) (denotationally locative, either with or without implicated contrastiveness). (8) a. They are rude whereas they should be reverent. b. They are rude in situations in which they should be reverent.

Some differences between (8a) and (8b) are these: In (8b) the propositional content ‘They should be reverent’ is an integral part of the representation of a larger propositional content, namely that of (8b) as a whole. The connective where in this reading serves a representational function, that is, it effects this integration of the subordinate proposition into the representation of the superordinate proposition, indicating that the conceptual anchor for the integration is a certain locative one. The larger propositional content is taken to be asserted in an utterance of (7) under interpretation (8b). In (8a) on the other hand ‘They should be reverent’ is the propositional content of an assertion which is separate from that of the assertion of They are rude. The function of the connective where in this reading is procedural. The representational function is associated with clause embedding and the procedural function with the structurally ‘tactic’ (para- or hypotactic) clause relations.17 Expressions with a ‘procedural meaning’ ‘encode procedural constraints on the inferential phase of comprehension’ (Wilson & Sperber 1993: 11); in other words, they are ‘expressions whose function is not so much to encode a concept as . On this structural distinction see Halliday (1994: 242), Breul (1997: 25ff., 1999); see the last two works also for investigations into the relation between the syntactic characteristics of clause embedding and clause combining on the one hand and what may be called the speech-act theoretical, Gricean, and/or text or discourse linguistic correlates of the relevance-theoretic concepts of procedural and representational functions on the other hand, mainly in the semantic domain cause-reason. As suggested by the anonymous reviewer and the editors of this volume, it would be interesting to supplement the pragmahistorical approach of the present paper by a diachronic study of the syntactic characteristics of where- and whereas-clauses.

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to indicate how to ‘take’ the sentence or phrase in which they occur’ (ibid.).18 Taking where in (7) to be procedural means to take it as signalling that the assertion of They should be reverent generates contextual implications (i.e. implicatures) that stand in a contrastive relation to contextual implications generated by the assertion of They are rude.19 For example, the utterance of the should-clause can be said to implicate a positive attitude of the speaker to its propositional content, with the connective guiding the hearer to an interpretation according to which the speaker has a negative attitude to the propositional content of the preceding clause. That is, even if the child does not yet have a lexical entry for contrastive where it would make sense for her to interpret (7) as if it were procedurally contrastive, since this interpretation generates positive cognitive effects on the level of attitudes towards propositions. Such positive cognitive effects related to what are called higher-level explicatures in relevance theory are absent on the level where representational denotations of connectives are involved.20 A communicative situation in which a reading of (7) as (8a) is more relevant than the reading (8b) will result in a lexical entry for contrastive where alongside locative where (perhaps only after having repeatedly occurred in analogical fashion). Locative where plays no role in the pragmatic inference process, except that it is rejected because it is considered to contribute to a less relevant interpretation than (8a). Note that this consideration is similar to the idea that underlies the original I-principle as suggested by Atlas and Levinson, according to which the ‘best’ interpretation is picked from a range of potential interpretations. However, as al. I prefer the terminological dichotomy ‘representational’ versus ‘procedural’ for the two functions just mentioned. While ‘representational’ is used in Blakemore (1992: 149ff.), for instance, the alternative term ‘conceptual’ (as opposed to ‘procedural’) is used in Blakemore (1987, 2002) among others. . This claim is supposed to match what Blakemore (2002: 103) says about whereas, ‘which would seem to have properties which suggest procedural encoding’; see also Rouchota (1998: 44ff.). More specifically, with respect to the utterance It was really wet before Christmas, whereas after Christmas it was quite dry Blakemore (2002: 103) explains: ‘The use of whereas [. . .] seems to indicate that the relevance of the utterance lies in the derivation of a set of parallel and contrasting contextual implications, for example the ones in [(i)]’: (i)

a. a’. b. b’.

We were unhappy with the weather before Christmas. We were happy with the weather after Christmas. We couldn’t go outside much before Christmas. We could go outside often after Christmas.

. On the explicature/implicature distinction see Carston (1988). On representational (or conceptual) versus procedural meanings and their relation to the explicature/implicature distinction see for example Blakemore (1992: Ch. 4, 6, 2002), Wilson & Sperber (1993), Rouchota (1998).

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ready pointed out, within that theory there was no account of how the non-literal interpretations might come about. In the present account these interpretations are the result of processes of pragmatic inferencing guided by relevance. In contrast to the recent version of the I-principle the contrastive reading of (7) is in no way an enrichment or specification of the locative reading in the present account. . An account of the semantic diachrony of where and whereas The relevance-driven reading of (7) as conveying (8a) may very well be a false interpretive hypothesis. In fact, the gloss given in the OED for the meaning to be exemplified by (7) is ‘[i]n a or the case in which [. . .]; in the circumstances, position, or condition in which; in that respect or particular in which. (Sometimes with implication of contrast or opposition [. . .])’. That is, if the producer of (7) actually intended to convey the meaning given in the OED in a communicative situation that involved our hypothetical child-addressee, then we are confronted with a case of false interpretive hypothesis driven by relevance. The effect for the mental lexicon of the addressee will be that she fixes a purely contrastive lexical denotation for where independent of its locative meaning, whereas the surrounding speech community may involve mental lexicons in which there is only locative where. In other words, the detachment of contrastive where is a kind of pragmatic reanalysis driven by relevance. In view of this consideration it is not surprising that denotationally contrastive where has been attested since the fourteenth century (see OED, s.v. where, 12.b). That is, there probably have been speakers of English at all times since where began to be used as a connective introducing clauses of (specific) place who have gone through the process just described.21 The first and the last examples given in the OED (s.v. where, 12.b) for contrastive where are (9a, b). (9) a.

It fordoiþ Cristis privylege, þat where Cristene men shulden be free, now þei ben nedid to hire a preest. (c1380 Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 358) ‘It spoils Christ’s special significance that, whereas Christians should be free, they are now compelled to hire a priest.’ b. Where the pagan architecture had been an exterior art . . . and where Roman and Byzantine art had striven to achieve space in its simplest form, the North worked for interior space. (1929 R.A. Cram Catholic Church & Art iv. 57)

I would suggest that scenarios analogical to the one just described with the example of where, in which the fixing of lexical entries for clausal connectives is pre. On the beginnings of this use, developing out of the interrogative and/or nonspecific (indefinite; i.e., ‘wherever’) use of OE hwær, see Yamakawa (1971), Mitchell (1985: 273ff.).

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ceded by relevance-driven reanalysis, can be extended to the explication of other phenomena of diachronic semantic change of clausal connectives for which a pragmatic approach has been proposed. The semantic/pragmatic history of whereas, for instance, seems to show a development exactly parallel to the potential history of where implied by the scenario. It is reasonable to assume, with the OED, that the earliest occurrences of whereas in the fourteenth century were denotationally only locative; see (10). (10) a.

þei . . . tok forþ here wey . . . to sum wildernesse where as þei bredde. (c1350 Will. Palerne 1782; OED, s.v. whereas, †1) ‘They [. . .] proceeded [. . .] to some wilderness where they dwelt.’ b. The colveres retournen aŠen where as thei ben norissht. (1366 Mandeville; OED, s.v. as, adv., conj., B.27) ‘The pigeons go back where they were nourished.’ c. Nat fer fro Pedmark ther his dwellyng was Where as he lyueth. (c1386 Chaucer Frankl. T. 74, OED, s.v. whereas, †1) ‘Not far from Penmarch, where his house was, where he lives.’

The origin of specifically the combinative form of locative whereas (where + as) seems to be due to the development OE swa hwær swa (‘wherever’) > ME whær(e) swa (cf. OED, s.v. also, s.v. as, adv., conj., s.v. so, s.v. whereso) in combination with the use of as as a complementizer analogous to that in combinations such as after that, when that, where that, which were lost after the Early Modern period of standard English (see OED, s.v. as, adv., conj., 27, Franz 1986: 430f.; Barber 1997: 206f.; Fischer 1992: 305; Kortmann 1997: 312, 321, 332). Locative whereas became obsolete by the end of the seventeenth century with occasional archaic occurrences later. The first attested examples in the OED of denotationally contrastive whereas are those given in (2b, b’) above, which are from the first half of the sixteenth century.22 However, the following examples (11a–f) from Chaucer and Gower, in which whereas does not have a locative meaning, show that denotationally contrastive whereas appeared much earlier: in the course of the fifteenth century, or even as early as the end of the fourteenth century (i.e. at the time of Chaucer’s and Gower’s own writing the respective lines).23 Note that the presence of where for . I ignore in the present paper what the OED calls the illative meaning of whereas, i.e., ‘In view or consideration of the fact that; seeing that, considering that, forasmuch as, inasmuch as. (Chiefly, now only, introducing a preamble or recital in a legal or other formal document)’ (OED, s.v. whereas, 2). It may be noted that where was also used with this meaning (see OED, s.v. where, 12.†a). . The manuscripts on which the editions are based from which the following quotations are taken came into existence before 1420 as far as Confessio Amantis and the Canterbury Tales are

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whereas in the Hengwrt manuscript versions of (11d, e) cannot be taken to indicate a locative relation. For where had a clearly established denotationally contrastive meaning alongside the locative one in the respective period (see above).24 (11) a.

Ensample that it falleth thus, // Thou miht wel take of Piramus, // Whan he in haste his swerd outdrowh // And on the point himselve slowh // For love of Tisbee pitously, // For he hire wympel fond blody // And wende a beste hire hadde slain; // Wher as him oghte have be riht fain, // For sche was there al sauf beside. (Gower, Confessio Amantis, Book 3, l. 1659) ‘As an example that things happen this way you may well take Pyramus, when he drew his sword in haste and, sadly, killed himself on the point because of his love for Thisbe. For he found her bloodstained wimple and thought that she had been killed by a wild animal; whereas he should have been very glad, since she was there, altogether safe nearby.’ b. For as muche as the almykanteras in thin Astrelabie ben compowned by two and two, where as somme almykanteras in sondry astrelabies be compowned by 1 and 1, or elles by 2 and 2, it is necessarie to thy lernyng to teche the first to knowe and worke with thin oune instrument. (Chaucer, A Treatise on the Astrolabe, 671, c. 2; part II. 5; l. 1ff.) ‘Since the almucantars in your astrolabe are constructed in distances of two degrees, whereas some almucantars in various astrolabes are constructed in distances of one or two degrees, it is necessary for your learning to teach you first to understand and work with your own instrument.’ c. Thy zodiak of thin Astrelabie is shapen as a compas which that contenith a large brede as after the quantite of thyn Astrelabie, in ensample that the zodiak in hevene is ymagyned to ben a superfice contenyng a latitude of 12 degrees, whereas alle the remenaunt of cercles in the hevene ben ymag-

concerned (see Owen 1991: 7ff. in connection with Macauly, ed., 1900f.: cxxviiff. for the former and in connection with Benson, ed., 1988: 1118ff. for the latter), and sometime within the fifteenth century in the case of the Treatise on the Astrolabe (see Benson, ed., 1988: 1193f.). Thus it is unclear to what extent the manuscripts reflect Chaucer’s and Gower’s own usage where details are concerned. . a. The examples in (11) and (12) below were retrieved by searching for whereas and its various orthographic variants in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse followed by ‘manual’ checking for relevant sentences. This procedure attests once more to the usefulness in historical linguistic research of having corpora at one’s disposal. b. A double slash (//) in some of the examples in (11) and (12) below indicates the end of a verse line. The quotations from Gower in (11a) and (12a, b) below are cited after Macauly, ed. (1900f.); the quotations from Chaucer in (11b–f) and (12c–i) are cited after Benson, ed. (1988) and have been checked as far as whereas is concerned against the respective volume of the Variorum editions of Chaucer’s works where available, that is, Ruggiers, ed. (1979), Pearsall, ed. (1984), Eisner, ed. (2002).

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yned verrey lynes withoute eny latitude. (ibid.: 668, c. 2; part I. 21; l. 32ff.) ‘The zodiac of your astrolabe has the shape of a circular band whose breadth matches the size of your astrolabe, in imitation of the fact that the celestial zodiac is conceived to have a surface of 12 degrees in width, whereas all the remaining celestial circles are conceived to be actual lines without any width.’ d. The sclaundre of Walter ofte and wyde spradde, // That of a crueel herte he wikkedly, // For he a povre womman wedded hadde, // Hath mordred bothe his children prively. // Swich murmur was among hem comunly. // No wonder is, for to the peples ere // Ther cam no word, but that they mordred were. // For which, where as [ms. Hengwrt wher] his peple therbifore // Hadde loved hym wel, the sclaundre of his diffame // Made hem that they hym hatede therefore. (Chaucer, The Clerk’s Tale, 146, c. 2; l. 722ff.) ‘The scandalous rumour about Walter was often and widely being circulated: that, having a cruel character, he had viciously and secretly murdered both his children because he had married a poor woman. Whispers of this kind were very common among them. And it is no wonder, for no word other than that they were murdered reached the people’s ears. And because of this, whereas his subjects had before loved him very much, the rumour of his disgrace caused it that they therefore hated him.’ e. And certeinly, as sooth as God is kyng, // To take a wyf it is a glorious thyng, // And namely whan a man is oold and hoor; // Thanne is a wyf the fruyt of his tresor. // Thanne sholde he take a yong wyf and a feir, // On which he myghte engendren hym an heir, // And lede his lyf in joye and in solas, // Where as [ms. Hengwrt wher] thise bacheleris synge ‘allas,’ // Whan that they fynden any adversitee // In love, which nys but childyssh vanytee. (Chaucer, The Merchant’s Tale, 154, c. 1–2; l. 1267ff.) ‘And certainly, as sure as God is king, taking a wife, that is a glorious thing, and especially when a man is old and grey. Then a wife is the best part of his wealth; then he should take a young and good-looking wife with whom he might have an heir and lead his life in joy and comfort. Whereas these bachelors whine ‘alas’ when they meet with any adversity in love, which is nothing but childish vanity.’ f. Ye han erred also, for it semeth that yow suffiseth to han been conseilled by thise conseillours oonly, and with litel avys,/ whereas in so greet and so heigh a nede it hadde been necessarie mo conseillours and moore deliberacion to parfourne youre emprise. (Chaucer, Tale of Melibee: 225, c. 2; 1252f.) ‘You have made a further mistake, for it seems that you were content to have been counselled by these counsellors only, and with little weighing of opinions, whereas in such a great and important matter more coun-

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sellors and more deliberation would have been necessary to accomplish your enterprise.’

That denotationally contrastive whereas is attested almost as early as denotationally locative whereas (and not much later in any case), in contrast to what the OED suggests, is fully in accordance with the explanatory approach taken in the present study. Right from the beginning of its existence in the middle of the fourteenth century (recall (10a) above), locative whereas can be expected to have occurred in many utterances which also allow for an implicated contrastive reading and in which the implicated contrastive reading is more relevant than the denotationally locative one; this resulted in an entry for contrastive whereas in the mental lexicons of speakers of the ‘next generation.’ If this scenario is correct, then we should find occurrences of whereas during this period which are ambiguous between locative and contrastive readings. Actually, we do find them, as shown in (12): (12) a.

What helpeth it a man have mete, // Wher drinke lacketh on the bord? // What helpeth eny mannes word // To seie hou I travaile faste, // Wher as me faileth ate laste // That thing which I travaile fore? (Gower, Confessio Amantis, Book 4, l. 1718ff.) ‘What is the use of food to a man where there is nothing to drink on the table? What is the use of anybody’s talk, saying how zealously I am working, {where (i.e.: in situations in which) / whereas} at last I find myself lacking that which I am working for?’ b. Riht as myn yhe with his lok // Is to myn herte a lusti coc // Of loves fode delicat, // Riht so myn Ere in his astat, // Wher as myn yhe mai noght serve, // Can wel myn hertes thonk deserve // And fieden him fro day to day // With suche deyntes as he may. (ibid.: Book 6, l. 827ff.) ‘Just as my watching eye is to my heart a cheerful cook of love’s delicate food, just so, {where (i.e.: in situations in which) my eye cannot render service / whereas my eye may not be able to render service}, my ear in its place can well deserve my heart’s gratitude and can daily feed it with such dainties as best it can.’ c. And soothly, as to youre fifthe resoun, where as ye seyn that In wikked conseil wommen venquisshe men, God woot, thilke resoun stant heere in no stede. (Chaucer, Tale of Melibee, 221, c. 1, 1089) ‘And for sure, as far as your fifth argument is concerned, {where (i.e.: where in the argumentation) / whereas} you say that women excel men in giving bad advice, God knows that same argument has no value here.’ d. Trusteth nat in hire, for she nys nat stidefast ne stable,/ for whan thow trowest to be moost seur or siker of hire help, she wol faille thee and deceyve thee./ And where as ye seyn that Fortune hath norissed yow fro youre childhede,/ I seye that in so muchel shul ye the lasse truste in hire and in hir wit. (ibid.: 230, c. 1f., 1450ff.)

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‘Do not trust her, for she is neither reliable nor firm. For when you believe to be most certain of her help, she will fail and deceive you. And {where (i.e.: where in the argumentation) / whereas} you say that Fortune has nourished you since your childhood, I say that precisely therefore you should trust her and her good judgement even less.’ e. For right as he that taketh a straunge hound by the eris is outherwhile biten with the hound,/ right in the same wise is it resoun that he have harm that by his inpacience medleth hym of the noyse of another man, wheras it aperteneth nat unto hym. (ibid.: 232, c. 2, 1542) ‘For just as someone who takes an unfamiliar dog by the ears is sometimes bitten by the dog, right in the same way it is natural that he gets hurt who, out of impatience, concerns himself with the noise of another person {where (i.e.: in situations in which) / whereas} it is not proper for him to do so.’ f. And, deere sire, al be it so that for youre richesses ye mowe have muchel folk,/ yet bihoveth it nat, ne it is nat good, to bigynne werre, whereas ye mowe in oother manere have pees unto youre worshipe and profit. (ibid.: 235, c. 1, 1653f.) ‘And, dear sir, although it may be the case that because of your wealth you may have many followers, yet it is not proper nor good to begin war {where (i.e.: in matters where) / whereas} you may have peace for your honour and well-being in a different manner.’ g. I seye for me, it is a greet disese, // Whereas men han been in greet welthe and ese, // To heeren of hire sodeyn fal, allas! (Chaucer, The Prologue of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, 252, c. 1; l. 2771ff.) ‘As far as I am concerned, it causes me great pain to hear of people’s sudden downfall in view of the fact that they have been living in great wealth and ease before, alas.’ (It seems impossible to give Present-Day English translations of whereas here that clearly reveal the ambiguity. The translation provided retains the ambiguity (note the locative basis of in view of !); actually it is one of the expressions given in the OED for the ‘illative’ meaning of whereas (see n. xxii). Thus, examples of this kind may be responsible for the development of ‘illative’ whereas.) h. And Seint Jerome, whan he longe tyme hadde woned in desert, where as he hadde no compaignye but of wilde beestes, where as he ne hadde no mete but herbes, and water to his drynke, ne no bed but the naked erthe, for which his flessh was blak as an Ethiopeen for heete, and ny destroyed for coold,/ yet seyde he that ‘the brennynge of lecherie boyled in al his body.’ (Chaucer, The Parson’s Tale, 297, c. 2; l. 344f.) ‘And St. Jerome, after he had lived in the desert for a long time, {where (i.e.: in the desert) / whereas} he had no company except for wild animals,

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i.

{where (i.e.: in the desert / whereas} he had nothing but herbs for food and water for drink, nor a bed except for the naked earth, his body being black like an Ethiopean because of the heat and almost destroyed by the cold, yet he said that ‘the fire of lechery was burning in his whole body’.’ (In the contrastive reading with whereas, the ‘contrasting proposition’ is that associated with the following yet-clause). Amonges othere Daniel was oon, // That was the wiseste child of everychon, // For he the dremes of the kyng expowned, // Whereas [ms. Hengwrt Ther as] in Chaldeye clerk ne was ther noon // That wiste to what fyn his dremes sowned. (Chaucer, The Monk’s Tale, 243, c. 2; l. 2154ff.) ‘One among others was Daniel, who was the wisest child of them all, for he interpreted the king’s dreams {where (i.e.: in the situation in which) / whereas} there was no scholar in Chaldea who knew what significance his dreams had.’25

A Late Middle English language user whose lexical entry for whereas has not yet converged on being only locative may hypothesize an independent contrastive denotation alongside the locative one for cases like these. Detachment takes place if such as speaker then fixes an independent contrastive lexical entry for whereas alongside the locative one.26 Blakemore (2002) assumes a procedural function for whereas (recall Note 19). If this is correct, which I believe it is, then there is an additional indication why the I-principle cannot be the appropriate conceptual tool in explanations of the diachrony of clausal connectives. For a procedural connective such as Present-Day English whereas does not contribute to the encoding of a representation of a conceptual relation at all, in contrast to the locative whereas of earlier stages. Consequently, the development from denotationally locative to contrastive whereas cannot have been the result of the conventionalization of a more specific (sub-case) interpretation. Rather, we would have to say that the representational connective locative whereas was reanalysed as a procedural connective by language users whose mental lexicon still allowed for independent denotations as lexical entries . I am grateful to the editors of this volume for a comment to the effect that whereas in this example may be locative. I had thought of the contrastive reading as the only possible one and had placed the example under (11). . The loss of the locative meaning in later generations of speakers is a development unrelated to the detachment problem and can be ignored in the present context. It seems that where and whereas developed interchangeably during the period from the fourteenth until the end of the seventeenth century, after which they have become complementary (locative where, contrastive whereas), with where still having the potential of developing an independent contrastive meaning, as we have seen above.

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for this form. The reanalysis was enabled by the fact that in a sufficient number of cases this interpretation was possible and more relevant to the addressee than an interpretation which involves the representational denotation.

. Conclusion All other things being equal, it would appear that a more specific, ergo more informative, propositional content is also more relevant. This is the reason why the semantic diachrony of clausal connectives has often been described in terms of increased specificity or informativeness along the lines suggested by the I-principle (e.g. the conceptualization of a typical causal relation where one eventuality is conceived to be the cause of another eventuality as effect contains more information than the conceptualization of a purely temporal succession of eventualities (cf. since)). However, there may be other aspects involved than informativeness which may make an interpretation more relevant, so that relevance in a sense comprises informativeness but does not reduce to it. Within the relevance-theoretic framework the procedural aspect of meaning encoded by certain clausal connectives constitutes an essential and important difference between what can be accounted for in terms of relevance as opposed to informativeness. The present study has made this point by considering the semantic diachrony of the connectives where and whereas. And it has provided sufficient reason to believe that it is worthwhile to extend relevance theoretic approaches also to topics within historical linguistics.

Sources Benson, Larry D., ed. (1933/1988). The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd edn. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press. CME = Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (1997). Ann Arbor (MI): Humanities Text Initiative. Eisner, Sigmund, ed. (2002). A variorum edition of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Vol. 6: The prose treatises. Part 1: A treatise on the astrolabe. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Macauly, G. C., ed. (1900f.). The English works of John Gower. 2 vols. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press. OED2 = Oxford English Dictionary on CD-Rom, Version 1.10 (1994). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [OED. 2nd edn. on CD-ROM.] Pearsall, Derek, ed. (1984). A variorum edition of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Vol. 2: The Canterbury tales. Part 9: The nun’s priest tale. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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Ruggiers, Paul G., ed. (1979). A variorum edition of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Vol. 1: The Canterbury tales. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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A relevance-theoretic view on issues in the history of clausal connectives

Diewald, Gabriele (2002). ‘A Model for Relevant Types of Contexts in Grammaticalization’. In: Wischer and Diewald, eds, 103–120. Fischer, Olga (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 2: 1066– 1476, ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 207–408. Franz, Wilhelm (1986 [1898f]). Die Sprache Shakespeares in Vers und Prosa. Fourth ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Geis, Michael L. and Arnold M. Zwicky (1971). ‘On Invited Inference’. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 561– 566. Grice, Paul (1989 [1967]). ‘Logic and Conversation’. In: Grice, 22–40. Grice, Paul (1989). Studies in the Ways of Words. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994 [1985]). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Second ed. London: Arnold. Heine, Bernd (2002). ‘On the Role of Context in Grammaticalization’. In: Wischer and Diewald, eds, 83–101. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi and Friederike Hünnemeyer (1991). ‘From Cognition to Grammar: Evidence from African Languages’. In: Traugott and Heine, eds, 149–187. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (1993). Grammaticalization. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horn, Laurence R. (1984). ‘Toward a New Taxonomy for Pragmatic Inference: Q-based and R-based Implicature’. In: Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications, ed. Deborah Schiffrin. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 11–42. Jacobs, Andreas and Andreas H. Jucker (1995). ‘The Historical Perspective in Pragmatics’. In: Jucker, ed., 3–33. Jucker, Andreas H (1997). ‘The Discourse Marker well in the History of English’. English Language and Linguistics 1: 91–110. Jucker, Andreas H., ed. (1995). Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English. (Pragmatics & Beyond. New Series, 35). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Jucker, Andreas H. and Yael Ziv (1998). ‘Discourse Markers: Introduction’. In: Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, ed. Andreas H. Jucker and Yael Ziv. (Pragmatics & Beyond. New Series, 57). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1–12. König, Ekkehard (1985a). ‘On the History of Concessive Connectives in English: Diachronic and Synchronic Evidence’. Lingua 66: 1–19. König, Ekkehard (1985b). ‘Where Do Concessives Come from? On the Development of Concessive Connectives’. In: Historical Semantics. Historical Word-formation. ed. Jacek Fisiak. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 29). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 263–282. König, Ekkehard (1988). ‘Concessive Connectives and Concessive Sentences: Cross-linguistic Regularities and Pragmatic Principles’. In: Explaining Language Universals, ed. John A. Hawkins. Oxford: Blackwell, 145–166. König, Ekkehard and Elizabeth C. Traugott (1988). ‘Pragmatic Strengthening and Semantic Change: The Conventionalizing of Conversational Implicature’. In: Understanding the Lexicon: Meaning, Sense and World Knowledge in Lexical Semantics, ed. Werner Hüllen and Rainer Schulze. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 110–124. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Levinson, Stephen C. (1983). Pragmatics. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Levinson, Stephen C. (1998 [1987]). ‘Minimization and Conversational Inference’. In: Pragmatics: Critical Concepts. Vol. 4: Presuppositions, Implicature and Indirect Speech Acts, ed. Asa Kasher. London: Routledge, 545–612. Levinson, Stephen C. (1989). Review of the First Edition of Sperber and Wilson 1986. Journal of Linguistics 25: 455–472. Levinson, Stephen C. (1995). ‘Three Levels of Meaning’. In: Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons, ed. F. R. Palmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 90–115. Levinson, Stephen C. (2000). Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press. Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nicolle, Steve (1998). ‘A Relevance Theory Perspective on Grammaticalization’. Cognitive Linguistics 9: 1–35. Owen, Charles A. (1991). The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Brewer. Rouchota, Villy (1998). ‘Connectives, Coherence and Relevance’. In: Current Issues in Relevance Theory, ed. Villy Rouchota and Andreas H. Jucker. (Pragmatics & Beyond. New Series, 58). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 11–57. Schwenter, Scott A. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (1995). ‘The Semantic and Pragmatic Development of Substitutive Complex Prepositions in English’. In: Jucker, ed., 243–273. Schwenter, Scott A. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2000). ‘Invoking Scalarity: The Development of in fact’. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1: 7–25. Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (1995 [1986]). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Second ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Sweetser, Eve (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (2003). ‘Constructions in Grammaticalization’. In: The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ed. Brian D. Joseph and Richard D. Janda. Malden/Mass.: Blackwell, 624–647. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Richard B. Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Ekkehard König (1991). ‘The Semantics-Pragmatics of Grammaticalization Revisited’. In: Traugott and Heine, eds, 189–218. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine, eds (1991). Approaches to Grammaticalization. Vol. 1: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues. (Typological Studies in Language, 19:1). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber (1993). ‘Linguistic Form and Relevance’. Lingua 90: 1–25. Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber (2004). ‘Relevance Theory’. In: The Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. Laurence R. Horn and Gregory L. Ward. Malden/Mass.: Blackwell, 607–632. Wischer, Ilse and Gabriele Diewald, eds (2002). New Reflections on Grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language, 49). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Yamakawa, Kikuo (1971). ‘OE þær and hwær: A Study of where Developing in the Subordinating Function (I)’. Hitotsubashi Journal of Arts and Sciences 12: 1–19.

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Forhwi ‘because’: Shifting deictics in the history of English causal connection Ursula Lenker* University of Munich

.

Aims of the study

In contrast to most other relations in clause linkage, expressions for causality have already been examined quantitatively in a number of corpus studies, both synchronic (see Altenberg 1984; Biber et al. 1999) and diachronic ones (see Liggins 1955 for Old English; Rissanen 1997 for the history of causal connectors in English; Markus 2000 for Middle English and Claridge & Walker 2002 for Early Modern English). The present study therefore chooses another focus and sets out to illustrate that a detailed investigation of the instabilities in the systems of Middle English and Early Modern English causal connectors allows for a better understanding of general tendencies in the restructuring in the system of causal connectors in the history of English. The focus will thus not be on individual connectors or on aspects of morphology (Liggins 1955; Kivimaa 1966; Rissanen 1997) or genre (Claridge & Walker 2002), but on systematic changes in the forms of causal connectors after the Old and Early Middle period. The study will describe the polyfunctionality of Old English all-purpose – causal and resultive – forþæm/forþy ‘because; therefore’, a so-called pronominal connector consisting of a preposition (OE for ‘for; because of ’) and an inflected form of the demonstrative (OE dative þæm or instrumental þy). In Raible’s contrastive classification of connectors in various Romance languages, pronominal connectors form a separate group (phase II; Raible 1992: insert), and it is there* I would like to thank the reviewers, Anneli Meurman-Solin, Andreas Mahler, Lilo Moessner, Nick Jacob-Flynn and in particular Cynthia Allen for their many helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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fore crucial to the restructuring of the system of connectors in general that English speakers do no longer coin new, lexicalized items of this formation pattern after the Early Middle English period. A closer inspection of why some of the forms emerging in Early Middle English (such as forwhi or for as much as) were rejected while others (such as hence or because) have survived, suggests that these developments are related to concerns of overtly expressing deictic relations in connectors by other means than pronominal connectors. This becomes particularly evident when we compare the various systems of causal connectors in the history of English with Present-Day German and consider the implications of Modern German and Old English, but not Old English and Modern English, being typologically close to one another. In the present study, issues of discourse deixis, textual information and information processing are thus seen to be essential for an understanding of the developments of causal connectors in English. Such an approach requires the close examination of causal connectors and their various textual functions in comparable texts. The study thus investigates causal relations in the single highly argumentative text extant for all periods of English, the adaptations and translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae by King Alfred (OE; ed. Sedgefield 1899), Chaucer (ME; ed. Benson 1987), Colville (EModE; ed. Bax 1897), Queen Elizabeth I (EModE; ed. Pemberton 1899), Preston (EModE) and modern English and German translations (Watts 1969 and Neitzke in Grasmück 1997), in the representative prose selections of the Helsinki Corpus (HC). These findings are cross-checked and supplemented by an analysis of causal connection in Byrhtferth’s Old English Enchiridion (ed. Baker & Lapidge 1995), a text relatively independent from Latin, as well as by information elicited from dictionaries (DOE, MED) and machine-readable corpora, in particular the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC) and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (CME).

. Causal connectors . The relation cause: cause – result vs. result – cause Conjunctions and other connective relations are an explicit means of marking the connection of states of affairs on the surface. With respect to their semantic functions, the central categories commonly distinguished are addition/transition and the so-called CCCC-relations, condition, concession/contrast and cause (for the cognitive basicness of these relations, see the summary in Kortmann 1997: 341–343). The category of cause can be further split into causal relation on the one hand (PDE because, since) and the relation of result (PDE therefore, so) on the other hand.

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It is important to note that all connectors form complex propositions. Thus a sequence of two propositions – (1) proposition A: John is ill and proposition B: John won’t come tonight – becomes a complex proposition ‘if a sequence of two propositions A and B expresses a new thought on a level other than that of the isolated propositions’ (Rudolph 1989: 176). In contrast to asyndetic sequences which need not, but only may express a causal relation, such as (1a) John won’t come tonight. He is ill or (1b) John is ill. He won’t come tonight, causal connectors hence commonly have a two-fold function: they a) connect two states of affairs, and at the same time, b) convey the speaker’s opinion on the configuration of these state of affairs, as in (2) John won’t come tonight because he is ill.

Cause

(3) John is ill so that he won’t come tonight.

Result

While the first complex sentence (2) marks a causal relation, (3) reverses the sequence of information and relates the same state of affairs by marking the relation as result. The same relation of result can also be expressed by the employment of an adverbial connector, as in (4) John is ill. Therefore he won’t come tonight.

Result

In Present-Day English (and also in Old English, see below, Tables 5 and 6), there is a (slight) preference for the non-linear sequence Cause – Result by both speakers (55 per cent) and writers (52 per cent; see Altenberg 1984: 52). . Present-Day English causal connectors: Corpus findings In Present-Day English, because (with its reduced forms cos/coz) is the most common causal connective, marking over a third of all relations of cause/result (see Altenberg 1984: 40–45 on the basis of the LOB and the LLC, and also Biber et al. 1999: 836, 887). Specifying 45 per cent of all causal relations in the LLC (Altenberg 1984: 45), because is by far the most frequent connective in the spoken medium. In contrast to this stereotyped coding in today’s spoken English, the relation cause is marked in a lexically and grammatically much more varied way in the written medium, ranging from asyndesis (Sue won’t come tonight. She is ill) to syndesis by a variety of explicit linkers. In addition to conjunctions (PDE because/for/since/as), we find adverbial links in the form of prepositional phrases (PDE for that reason) or adverbial connectors (PDE therefore, hence), and a number of clause-integrated expressions such as PDE the reason is or the result is. Of the altogether 98 lexical, grammatical and positional subtypes recorded in LOB and LLC (Altenberg 1984: 39), only subordination by conjunctions (53 per cent) and adverbial connectors (31 per cent) are highly frequent (in contrast to 8 per

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cent each for prepositional phrases and clause-integration; ibid.: 40–44; see also Biber et al. 1999: 842, 887). For this reason, the present study will concentrate on the two central connectives, i.e. conjunctions and adverbial connectors, and will not further consider lexical means or non-univerbated prepositional phrases. . Causal connectors: Word classes and topology The major means of expressing the relation cause → result (examples a.) and result → cause (examples b.) are illustrated in Table 1 not only by Present-Day English but also by Present-Day German examples for (A) Parataxis, (B) Hypotaxis and (C) Correlative Constructions. The German example sentences illustrate that German is typologically much more similar to Old English than Present-Day English and, more importantly, that German employs means which are no longer used or common in Present-Day English. German uses adverbial connectors coding the relation Result (R) – Cause (C) (PDG nämlich; see A.b) and correlative constructions (see C. a. and b.) which are not generally common on the sentential level in Present-Day English (*Because she is stronger, she will/is therefore going to win; *She will/is therefore going to win, because she is stronger). Since all of these patterns were possible in Old English (see below, Table 3), Table 1 also attests to changes and subsequent gaps in the system of causal connection in the history of English. The acknowledged traditional criteria for distinguishing these different types of connectors are topological: the position of the connector, the sequence and position of the respective connected elements, the possibility of collocates of connectors and, in German, word order. While (coordinating and subordinating) conjunctions (PDG weil; PDE because; category B) are only found clause-initially, Table 1. Causal connectors in Present-Day English and Present-Day German A Parataxis a. Sie ist stärker. Deswegen wird sie gewinnen. a. She is stronger. Therefore she is going to win. b. Sie wird gewinnen. Sie ist nämlich stärker.

[V2; postposed] [ postposed] [V2; postposed]

C→R C→R R→C

B Hypotaxis a. Weil sie stärker ist, wird sie gewinnen. a. Because she is stronger she is going to win. or b. Sie wird siegen, weil sie stärker ist. b. She is going to win because she is stronger.

[V-final; preposed] [preposed]

C→R C→R

[V-final; postposed] [postposed]

R→C R→C

C Correlatives a. Weil sie stärker ist, deswegen wird sie gewinnen. b. Sie wird deswegen gewinnen, weil sie stärker ist.

[V-final + V2] [V2 + V-final]

C→R R→C

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adverbial connectors (PDG nämlich, PDG deswegen; PDE therefore; category A) are more free in their position in the sentence. Subordinate clauses may – in contrast to paratactic structures which require a fixed order of the clauses (see category A) – be placed before or after their superordinate clause and may thus be used both in the sequence cause – result (type B.a) and result – cause (type B.b). Only coordinators, such as the additive and, may collocate with conjuncts (cf. PDG und deswegen . . . – PDE and therefore . . .) and subordinators (cf. PDG und weil . . . or PDE and because . . .). In contrast to Modern English, Present-Day German also differentiates main clauses from subordinate ones by employing verb-second for the former and verb-final word order for the latter. Further, the morphological make-up of German connectors also allows for the so-called ‘correlative constructions’ (C), which mark the relation of the clauses by an adverbial connector (PDE deswegen) in one of the clauses and a subordinating conjunction (PDG weil) in the other, thus reinforcing and clarifying their conjoining function. This focus on topological criteria such as word order, sequence and collocates is still persistent in most grammars and publications on the subject, as, for instance, in the Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren (Pasch et al. 2003), which considers topological criteria only (see the terms Postponierer ‘postponers’ or Verbzweitsatzeinbetter ‘V2-embedders’, etc.). For Present-Day English, Quirk et al. establish six, predominantly topological parameters similar to the ones illustrated above which yield a ‘coordination – subordination’ gradient (1985: § 13.18). In addition to three discrete poles – coordinators (such as and and or), conjuncts (adverbial connectors such as however and therefore) and subordinators (such as if or because) – there are also forms, among them the connectors for and so that, which are situated in the middle of this gradient, sharing three parameters with paratactic and three parameters with hypotactic connectives. This has led to much uncertainty or even confusion in particular as to the status of PDE for which is classified as a subordinator rather than a coordinator but is said to be ‘more coordinator-like than the more typical subordinators if and because’ (Quirk et al. 1985: § 13.19), mainly on the grounds that it is – unlike because and since – restricted to post-position in Present-Day standard English.1 These questions of coordination vs. subordination turn out to be rather elusive (see also Section 3.1) and do not really get to the heart of the matter. Accordingly, a number of recent publications on causal connection have shown that an ana. Thus Altenberg (1984: 41, Footnote 3) says he follows Quirk et al. in classifying for as a subordinator. Kortmann (1997: 331), on the other hand, says that for ‘qualifies as a coordinator in current English’. For such a highly frequent element as for, these differences in classification obviously cause major problems for the comparative value of quantitative data for coordination and subordination (see also Rissanen 1997; Claridge & Walker 2002; and Kohnen in this volume).

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lysis of connectors should choose a wider perspective and should, in addition to typological and syntactic criteria, also consider more detailed aspects of semantics, pragmatics and text linguistics (see, for example, Thompson 1985; Ford 1993; Diessel 2005 and in particular the studies collected in Lefèvre 2000). . Semantic and pragmatic parameters For the distinction of sub-groups of causal clauses, a number of semantic and pragmatic parameters are employed. One set of distinctions differentiates three major semantic-pragmatic sub-groups, separating external (cause based in the external reality) from internal (cause based in the speaker’s world of reasoning) and rhetorical (cause based in the speech-act) reason clauses (see, e.g., Quirk et al. 1985: §§ 15.20, 15.45–15.47; Sweetser 1990: 76–84; Traugott 1992: 252; Ford 1993: 85–101). Because, the central causal connector of Present-Day English, may be employed for all three subtypes: First, because may give an inherent objective connection in the real world, e.g., physical causes and their effects (‘external reason clauses’ marking real-world causality), as in (5) The flowers are growing so well because I sprayed them.

Secondly, because may also – like PDE since, for, as and now that – give the speakers’ inference of a connection and signal their way of presenting arguments (‘internal reason clauses’; epistemic because), as in (6) He must be here because his bicycle is outside (meaning ‘The reason I think he is here is that his bicycle is outside’).

Thirdly, the reason given need not be related to the situation in the matrix clause but is a motivation for the implicit speech act of the utterance (rhetorical/speechact because), as in (7) Percy is in Washington, because he phoned me from there.

While because may be employed in all three functions in today’s English, other conjunctions are more restricted in their use: PDE since and as are internal ‘explanation causals’, as can be seen from the fact that they do not allow Why-questions or cleft-sentence constructions (for this terminology and the criteria, see cf. Quirk et al. 1985: §§ 15.20–15.22, 15.45–15.47). Similarly, for also functions internally as explanation and ground rather than assertion of a true causal relation in the external reality (ibid.: 15.45). Many languages are more rigid in specifying these different functions obligatorily by distinctive connectors (see, e.g., Kroon 1995: 10–17). For the present study of causal connectors in translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, the

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data for Latin and French (one of Chaucer’s exemplars by Jean de Meun) are of particular interest. Table 2. Cross-linguistic taxonomy of causal relations external (sociophysical)

internal (epistemic, conversational) explanation justification

Latin

quia/quod

quoniam

nam/enim

Present-Day French Present-Day German Present-Day English

parce que weil because

puisque da because since; as; for

car denn; nämlich because

. Information processing With respect to the states of affairs, there is no difference whether the relation of causality is expressed by a causal relation (2) or a relation of result as in examples (3) and (4), which are repeated here for the sake of clarity. (2) John won’t come tonight because he is ill.

Cause

(3) John is ill so that he won’t come tonight.

Result

(4) John is ill. Therefore he won’t come tonight.

Result

While the causal constant A→B remains the same in all cases, the differences between the various means of marking causal connection are triggered by the speaker’s choice of information structure and therefore in the intended and/or highlighted aim of the message. In the sentence highlighting the causal relation (2), the speaker’s interest is focussed on the first clause John won’t come tonight, reflecting the main information and single focus of this sentence. This information is thus presented in the main clause. As for the relation of result (3), the speaker’s interest is focussed on John is ill. Therefore this information is presented in the main clause, from which the speaker looks forward to the result B (He won’t come tonight). These differences are highly important to the interpretation of complex sentences, but even more so for the general organization of the text. Since both these complex sentences only have one focus, subordinate clauses are not only syntactically but also semantically subordinate (see Quirk et al. 1985: § 13.3). They thus work on a local level of textual connection, though with different functions for preand postposed subordinate clauses. Initial clauses present ‘given information’ – an interpretation which is often strengthened by the lexical marking of cohesion; cf.

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in hillsides and hilly in (8) – and state a problem within the context of expectations raised by the preceding discourse: (8) The houses were perched precariously up the hillsides Because it was so hilly the area seemed constantly to be in a dark blue haze. (example from Biber et al. 1999: 835, FICT).

Final adverbial clauses (cf. example (3)), on the other hand, play an even more local role and state the cause for the action named in the immediately preceding clause. In a recent study, Diessel (2005) shows that with regard to parsing or utterance planning, complex sentences are easier to process and thus preferred if the adverbial clause follows the main clause. Only rarely do discourse pragmatic impulses override this processing preference for final position. In his corpus, only scientific articles exhibit a substantial number of preposed causal clauses, causal clauses in this genre being often used to provide a common ground for a subsequent conclusion (Diessel 2005: 465). Across all genres, however, most of the causal clauses follow the main clause: only 1 per cent of all causal clauses in conversation are initial, 10.2 per cent in fiction, and 27.1 per cent in scientific writing (Diessel 2005: 454). As we might have expected from this general cognitive explanation, the numbers are very similar for Old English: if we include correlative constructions, the Old English adaptation of Boethius’ Consolatio attests ca. 12 per cent preposed clauses (13 out of 109 instances; see Table 5 below). The text chosen as an example for scientific writing, Byrhtferth’s handbook on astronomy, has about 21 per cent preposed clauses (15 out of 71 instances; see Table 6 below). In contrast to the single focus of complex clauses comprising a subordinate causal clause, the result construction by means of an adverbial connector in (4) consists of two main clauses (John is ill. Therefore he won’t come tonight) and hence two foci, i.e., two separate information blocks. In this view, adverbial connectors are – in contrast to subordinators – strong indicators of a great illocutionary weight of the second clause, whose proposition may then be pursued in the following discourse. This independent focus may be signalled by syntactic means, such as V2 (main clause) word order in Present-Day German and, more generally, by prosodic means. The intonation pattern requires a pause indicating that the second clause, which also carries main stress, is not integrated in the first one. Subordinate clauses, on the other hand, are syntactically and prosodically integrated: the whole complex sentence only has one intonation contour for only one thematic structure (see Wegener 2000: 36 and Givón 2001: 327 for English). Because of its local character, the information of these postposed subordinate clauses is commonly not pursued in the following discourse (see, e.g., Wegener 2000 and Diessel 2005).

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To avoid ambiguities, the connection by means of an adverb marks the relation most prominently on the surface level, and is thus highlighted by transparent lexical adverbial connectors such as PDE consequently or PDG nämlich or, even more effectively, by means of transparent deictic pronominal adverbial connectors such as PDG deshalb ‘DEM (Gen.) – for; therefore’. Because of this strong independent illocutionary weight, adverbial connectors may not only be used to link clauses but also whole chunks of discourse. This summary shows that a change from subordinator to adverbial connector (or the other way round) is by no means a superficial transition of marking a causal relation in just another way, but has important consequences for the planning and processing of discourse. Changes in the system of English causal connectors will here be shown to have been induced by exactly these factors of information structure (see the emergence of for as moche as, since and because) and may, on the other hand, also lead to changes in the options of information processing (see the restricted use of for in Present-Day English).

. Old English forþæm, forþon, forþy . Forms and functions of forþæm, forþon, forþy When we compare this Present-Day English system of causal connectors with the system in Old English, it becomes evident that all Present-Day English connectors are new coinages or developments in the history of English. Old English has only one central, highly polysemous and polyfunctional connector marking the semantic relation cause or reason, namely the forms forþæm and forþy. The Dictionary of Old English lists these forms in one single entry and counts altogether about 15,500 occurrences in a wide variety of spellings which do, however, not carry distinguishing force (see DOE, s.v. for-þæm, for-þon, for-þy). The item for-þæm, for-þy (þe) etc.2 is in all these orthographic variants found in slots which in Present-Day English are filled by adverbs (‘therefore’; A) or conjunctions (B), but which could also be realized by so-called ‘correlative constructions’ (C). Table 3 (structured in A, B, C for comparison with Table 1) gives a first survey with prototypical examples taken from Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion (ed. Baker & Lapidge 1995; ByrM).

. Rissanen (1997: 393) speaks of ‘at least eight different forms’. Since he does not really find consistent chronological or dialectal criteria for their distinction, I here follow the DOE, Mitchell (1985: §§ 3010–3051) and Traugott (1992: 252–254) in regarding these forms as variants of one single connector.

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Table 3. Functions of OE forþæm A. CAUSE – RESULT (cf. PDE Adverbial Connector therefore) • (CAUSE) forþon VSA (= RESULT) (9) (Se soþlice . . . byð niwe . . . geendað xxix on v kalendas Septembris). Forþon byð niwe mona on IIII kalendas September . . . (ByrM 2.2.137) ‘Therefore is new moon on 29 August . . .’ • (CAUSE) forþan SVA (= RESULT) (10) þas þing we gemetton on Ramesige þurh Godes miltsigendan gife. Forþan ic ne swigie for ðæra bocre getingnyssum ne for þæra gelæredra manna þingum þe . . . (ByrM 1.1.158) ‘We found these things at Ramsey through God’s merciful grace. Therefore I shall not be silent either on account of the eloquence of the literate or for the sake of those learned men who . . .’ B. RESULT – CAUSE (cf. PDE Conjunction use because/for/since/as) • (RESULT) forðan SOV (= CAUSE) (11) as þing we swa hwonlice her hrepiað on foreweardum worce forðan we hig þenceað oftor to hrepian and to gemunanne. (ByrM 1.2.250) ‘We discuss these things so briefly at the beginning of this work because we intend to discuss and recall them more often.’ • (RESULT) forðon þe SVA (= CAUSE) (12) on þam feorðan geare he hæfð nigon and twentig, forðon þe an dæg awyxst binnan feower wintrum . . . (ByrM 2.1.17) ‘in the fourth year it has twenty-nine, because one day grows over four years . . .’ (13)

forþon þu us þus dydest, we hit þe forgyldað (DOEC LS 1.1 (Andrew Bright, 201)

C. Correlative Construction: RESULT – CAUSE, CAUSE – RESULT • forþon SOVA (=RESULT) forþam SVC (= CAUSE) (14) Forþon Romani hine gelogodon on þissum monðe (þæt ys on Februario) forþam he ys scyrtest ealra monða. (ByrM 2.1.36) ‘The Romans placed it [therefore] in this month (in February) because it is the shortest of all months’ • forþon SVC (= CAUSE) forþon SVO (= RESULT) (15) . . . and Februarius, forðon he ys se læsta and he hæfð twegra daga læs þonne þa oðre, forþon he forlæt <eahta> and feowertig tida. (ByrM 2.1.372) ‘. . . and February, since it is the shortest and has two days fewer than the others, loses forty-eight hours.’

These instances illustrate one of the most striking features of causal connection in Old English: the syntactic distinctions between coordination and subordination as well as the semantic distinctions between internal and external reason clauses are difficult, if not impossible, to establish on morphological or syntactic grounds (Mitchell 1985: §§ 3007–3051; Traugott 1992: 252). There are a number of studies which have tried to establish different criteria for coordination and subordination on a large textual basis (see, e.g., Liggins 1955, who analyses all Old English prose texts), but all of these finally had to conclude that, apart from a few

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tendencies observable in certain authors, Old English did not draw a distinction between coordinate and subordinate causal clauses (Liggins 1955: 205; Mitchell 1985: §§ 3013–3015; Stockwell & Minkova 1991; Donoghue & Mitchell 1992), neither by a consistent use of different connectors or different forms of only one connector, nor by differences in word order (V2 vs. V-final), nor by the appended particle þe (see, in particular, Kivimaa 1966: 157).3 Further, Anglo-Saxon grammarians themselves do not seem to have felt a strong need to differentiate between coordination and subordination. In his grammar, Ælfric makes no attempt to distinguish coordination from subordination and thus draws no distinction between coordinators, subordinators and adverbial connectors in his section ‘De Coniunctione’ (Zupitza 1880: 257-266). Traugott thus rightly summarizes this dilemma of anachronistic classification of causal connectors by pointing out that ‘it is usually assumed that the ‘because’-clause is subordinate in OE, largely because the equivalent clause-type in PDE is subordinate’ (1992: 253). Forþæm and its variants thus belong to those Old English items which are traditionally called ‘ambiguous adverbs/conjunctions’ (for causal connectors, see Mitchell 1985: § 3010). Except in a few cases (such as answers to questions), there is no way of distinguishing the various functions on formal grounds on the basis of our extant Anglo-Saxon material, because this does – in contrast to material from later periods – not provide orthographic clues such as capitalization or punctuation or indications of the prosodic differences mentioned above (though these were most certainly similar in spoken Old English; see Mitchell 1985: § 3015). In sum, no distinction can be made by criteria such as individual forms of the connector or word order: forþæm and its variants may be employed in all kinds of sequences for a number of different relations. In contrast to the wide variety of forms of Present-Day English, Old English thus virtually only employs one form to mark the various causal relations.4 Table 4. Forþæm in Old English Result – Cause R for þæm (þe) C for þæm R þe C (. . . for R þæm . . .) þe C for þæm R for þæm (þe) C

Cause – Result (C) forþæm R forþæm þe C R C (. . . for R þæm)

. The number of instances of forþæm þe (i.e., with addition of the particle þe) increases towards the end of the Old English period, also showing a higher correlation of forþæm þe with subordination (particularly in the writings of Ælfric). This could be seen as ‘a developing consciousness of subordination’ (Rissanen 1997: 394), but there is still such a wide functional variety that word order cannot be said to be a decisive Old English in general. . The following table is compiled from Mitchell (1985: §§ 3010–3051), Traugott (1992: 252– 255), Wiegand (1982) and my own material.

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. Expressions for causal relations in Early and Late West Saxon For a survey of quantitative relations showing the central status of the pronominal forþæm and its variant forms, I will shortly summarize the findings for all items marking causal relations in two Old English texts which are comparatively independent from Latin originals, the Early West Saxon adaptation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae (OEBo), thought to be written in the circle around King Alfred (end of ninth century; for serious doubts about King Alfred as the translator, see now the ‘Alfredian Boethius Project’5 ) and Byrhtferth’s Late West Saxon Enchiridion (ByrM), a handbook mainly on astronomy (around 1000, after 996; see Baker & Lapidge 1995: xxvi). In the passages of the Old English Consolatio selected by the Helsinki Corpus (ca. 10,000 words), we find altogether 109 forms of causal connectors. In addition, there are 5 instances of lexical expressions and 8 of ambiguous temporal-causal þonne ‘then’.6 These results are comparable to the findings for Present-Day English (see Section 2.2): the relation of cause is only very rarely expressed by full lexical phrases or prepositional phrases such as be þæm þinge ‘for this reason’ (Table 5). Table 5. Causal connection the Old English adaptation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae Cause → Result (21 variants) simple forms forþy forþæm (preposed) forþæm þe correlatives forþæmþe . . . forþæm Result → Cause (88 forms/variants) simple forms forþæm forþæm þe forþon þe forþy nu

Total 4 14 1 1

19 1

1

1

44 23 1 1 4

69 4

. For information on this project (director: Malcolm Godden) see . Although all of the manuscripts of the translation are twelfth-century, the text is – at least as far as connectors are concerned – clearly Early Old English. It does not record any of the changes which are typical of late Old/Early Middle English, i.e. reduced forms such as for or substitute forms such as for that/this. . Examples of these eight instances of þonne ‘then’ (one in a correlative construction) at the temporal-causal borderline are, e.g., Hu ne sculon we þonne nede bion geþafan þætte sio hehste gesælð & sio hea godcundnes an sie? (OEBo 34.85.18) ‘Must we, then, necessarily be convinced that the highest happiness and the supreme divinity are one?’ or Nim ðonne swa wuda swa wyrt, swa hwæðer swa þu wille, of þære stowe . . . (OEBo 34.91.19) ‘Take, therefore, tree or herb, whichever you want, from this place . . .’

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Table 5. (continued) correlatives

forþy . . . forþæm forþy . . . forþy forþy . . . þe forþy . . . þy forþy . . . for þy þe forþæm . . . þe forþæm . . . forþæm forþæmþe . . . forþæm forþæmþe . . . forþyþe nu . . . nu þy . . . þy þy . . . þe

2 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1

Other means (5 forms/variants) be þy ‘for this; hence’ for þæm þinge þonne

4 1 8

12 2 2

5 8

This survey shows that all of the various forms of forþæm (þe) may indeed be employed for the various subtypes of the sequences cause – result and result – cause.7 With altogether 100 of the 109 instances, variants of simple or correlative forþæm amount to ca. 92 per cent of all causal connectors (if we include the ambiguous cases of temporal-causal þonne and the lexical/prepositional means of clausal connection, we still get ca. 82 per cent). The only other construction which is used more than once (in ca. 5.5 per cent of all cases), is nu, also either in simple (16) or correlative constructions (17): (16) Se ilca God is, swa swa we ær sædon, þæt hehste good & þa selestan gesælða, nu hit is openlice cuð þæt ða selestan gesælða on nanum oðrum gesceaftum ne sint buton on Gode. (OEBo 34.84.3) ‘The same God is, as we before said, the highest good, and the best happiness since it is evidently known that the best felicities are in no other things but in God.’

In the correlative construction (17), the causal interpretation of nu is strengthened by the incongruity of temporal nu ‘now’ and þonne ‘then’. The givenness of the preposed causal clause is highlighted by the deictic reference to the preceding text by a verb of communication (witan ‘know’ in ðu . . . wast): (17) ða cwæð he: Nu ðu þonne wast hwæt ða leasan gesælða sint & hwæt þa soþan gesælða sint, nu ic wolde þæt þu leornodest hu þu mihtest becuman to þam soþum gesælðum. (OEBo 33.78.27) ‘Now (that) you know what the false goods are, and what the true goods are, I would like that you should learn how you could come to the true felicities.’

. Forþæm þæt (4 instances) is always used for purpose clauses and is thus not included here.

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Other causal connectors which are commonly also listed in surveys compiled by a ‘dictionary-cum-grammar method’ (see Kortmann 1997: 331) turn out to be extremely infrequent. For one out of three examples using the instrumental þy, see the correlative construction in (18): (18) þy hi secað anwald & eac eall oðru good þe we ær ymb spræcon, ðy hi wenaþ þæt hit sie þæt hehste good. (OEBo 34.88.4) ‘Therefore they seek power, and also the other goods, which we before mentioned, because they think that it is the highest good.’

These findings for Early West Saxon basically converge with the results for causal connectors in an – also rather independent – Old English text from the Late West Saxon period, Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion (altogether 71 causal connectors in the complete Old English text consisting of ca. 20,000 words). Table 6. Causal connectors in Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion (ed. Baker & Lapidge 1995) Cause → Result (30 forms/variants) simple forms forþon/forþan (preposed) forþon (preposed) nu correlatives forþon . . . forþan nu . . . nu

15 1 3 2 9

16 3 2 9

Result → Cause (41 forms/variants) simple forms forþon/forþan correlatives forþon/forþan

35 6

35 6

Total

The forms forþon/forþan, which are here the orthographical forms of forþæm, are as predominant in this text as they are in the Early West Saxon adaptation of the Consolatio (59 occurrences), amounting to ca. 83 per cent of all expressions of the causal relation. The rest (12 instances) are expressed by the time deictic nu, either in the simple form or in correlative expressions. In contrast to the translation of the Consolatio, however, Byrhtferth only employs nu for the relation cause – result, most often in preposed topic-forming causal clauses: (19) Nu ic ealles ymbe þas þing spræce hæbbe, me þingð behefe þing þæt ic swa mycel ymbe þissum getæle preostum gecyðe . . . (ByrM 3.3.275) ‘Now that I have spoken about these things in detail, it seems to me necessary to make known to priests enough about this numbering system . . .’ (20) Nu we habbað sceortlice amearcod þæra hiwa gefeg þe boceras gymað, nu þingð hyt us gedafenlic þæt we heom gecyðon þæt we ær geheton . . . (ByrM 3.3.234) ‘Now that we have briefly written the series of figures the writers use, [now] it seems fitting to us to tell them what we promised before . . .’

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In most of these cases, the temporal textual deixis and givenness of the preposed causal clause is, as in (17) above, further highlighted by a verb of communication, sprecan in (19) and amearcian in (20). Marking 80 to 90 per cent of all instances of causal connection, forþæm and its variant forms can certainly be called the central causal connector in Old English. In spite of the wide variety of its possible functions, however, there are only few instances of problematic ambiguity. In most of the instances, the semantics and pragmatics are clear. In fact, the instances which cause problems for the understanding of a text may be listed individually (Mitchell 1985: §§ 3011–3014). This astonishing fact – and also the later development of causal connectors in English – will now be shown to have its roots in the morphological make-up of the pronominal connectors central in Old English and in the deictic reference they inherently contain (for similar approaches, see Wiegand 1982; Traugott 1992; Markus 2000).

. Discourse deixis . Forþæm: Morphological make-up and discourse deixis The morphological make-up of all of the forms listed above is unproblematic. They are prepositional phrases consisting of the preposition for governing the distal demonstrative pronoun in the dative (þæm) or instrumental (þy). In all functions, they may, but need not, be followed by the particle þe (see Mitchell 1985: §§ 3011–3051): preposition for for

+ + +

distal demonstrative pronoun dative þæm – instrumental þy þæm/þy

[+ þe] [+ þe] [+ þe]

Traditional accounts of the history of the ‘for-causals’ state that the original prepositional phrase was re-analysed as a conjunction in (pre-)Old English. A prototypical use of one of the common forms of for þæm in an external reason clause is example (21a), where the form forþon – traditionally, but anachronistically classified as a subordinating conjunction – points anaphorically to the preceding clause. (21) a.

Do þærto fife forþon þunresdæg hæfð fif regulares (ByrM 1.2.236) ‘Add thereto five, because [conj.] Thursday has five regulares.’

This construction is commonly seen as a re-analysis of (21) b. *Do þærto fife for þon: þunresdæg hæfð fif regulares. ‘Add thereto five for that [reason] [pp as a]: Thursday has five regulares.’

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In construction (21b) assumed to be underlying (21a), the prepositional phrase for þon functions as an adverbial in the first clause, and cataphorically refers to the following clause. The demonstrative þon (< þæm) has a dual function: with respect to the first clause, it is the noun phrase in the prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial. At the same time, it indexes, i.e., points cataphorically, to the second causal clause identifying the adverbial relation cause which must necessarily follow here. Since demonstratives are by definition deictic (Brugmann 1904), the noun phrase þæm of the construction necessarily needs a point of reference which it points to. Theoretically, the point of reference required by for þæm could be found in the extra-linguistic reality and the speaker could identify the cause indexed by þæm (‘this one’) by the ‘pointing’ of his finger. Commonly, however, the point of reference is present in the co-text, i.e., the following discourse. This is most clearly seen in the so-called ‘correlative constructions’, which are rather frequent in the Old English texts examined (OEBo ca. 12 per cent, ByrM ca. 25 per cent). They are the most explicit surface markers of causal connection because they index one another and thus reinforce the conjoining force of the respective connectors. (22) Forþon Romani hine gelogodon on þissum monðe (þæt ys on Februario) forþam he ys scyrtest ealra monða . . . (ByrM 2.1.36) ‘The Romans placed it [therefore] in this month (in February) because it is the shortest of all months . . . ’

These constructions are therefore employed for stressing Result – Cause sequences as in (22), but can also be used for stressing the topic-forming quality of preposed causal clauses: (23) Aprelis, Iunius, September, and Nouember habbað feower and twentig læs, and Februarius, forðon he ys se læsta and he hæfð twegra daga læs þonne þa oðre, forþon he forlæt eahta and feowertig tida. (ByrM 2.1.372) ‘April, June, September, and November have twenty-four fewer, and February, since it is the shortest and has two days fewer than the others, [therefore] loses forty-eight hours.’

The forms forþæm, forþy, etc. are intrinsically deictic, because their demonstratives þæm or þy require an element in the near co-text to which they relate: this can either be the clause or also a much larger piece of discourse. They are thus inherently phoric, either cataphoric or anaphoric, and point to a pragmatically governed use of deixis.8 Wiegand even goes as far as to maintain that the phrases for þæm with . The term ‘deixis’ is here used in its wider sense. With respect to discourse deixis, a clear distinction between ‘deixis’ and ‘anaphora’ as required by a narrow definition cannot be easily drawn because in this case the co-text itself can be seen as an extra-linguistic point of reference. For definitions of deixis and anaphora, see Lenz (1997: 7–108) and Consten (2004: 4–58).

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variants are not yet conjunctions in Old English because the prepositional phrase is still so transparent in its deictic reference – in its respective context – that we do not have to assume a univerbated use of forþæm which functions as a conjunction (Wiegand 1982: 388). . Pronominal connectors In his comparative classification of connective items in language, which is based on synchronic data of the Present-Day Romance languages but also takes the diachronic perspective from Latin to today’s French-based creoles into account, Raible reserves a separate category for pronominal connectors such as OE forþæm. They are classified as phase II and are situated between asyndesis (I) and the explicit paratactic connection (III), which in turn is followed by explicit hypotactic connection by subordinators (IV). This phase II is described as ‘Junktion durch Wiederaufnahme (eines Teils) der vorhergehenden Sätze’ (‘connection by anaphoric resumption of (a part of) the preceding sentences’) and singles out anaphoric connectors which comprise an explicitly deictic, pronominal element (Raible 1992: insert). For a better understanding of the systemic losses in the diachrony of English causal connectors, it is beneficial to resort to this crosslinguistic hierarchy as a basic classification and to employ a contrastive approach by analysing the status of pronominal connectors in Present-Day German (Section 4.3) and, secondly, by following the developments of pronominal connectors in the Romance languages from Latin to French-based creoles (see Section 4.5). . Pronominal connectors in Present-Day German The formation pattern of pronominal connectors is frequent in Old English and in all Germanic languages. In Old English, for example, we find ær þæm (þe) ‘before’, æfter þæm (þe) ‘after’, mid þæm (þe) ‘during’, wið þæm þe ‘provided that’, etc. In Present-Day German (Pasch et al. 2003: 7), the pattern is not only extant but actually the predominant one for adverbial connectors marking result (cf. demin demnach or des- in deswegen): Table 7. Causal connectors in Present-Day German Conjunctions cause Conjunctions result Adverbial Connectors result

Adverbial Connectors cause

da, weil, weshalb, weswegen so dass also, daher, darum, demnach, demzufolge, deshalb, deswegen, folglich, infolgedessen, so, somit denn, nämlich

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Virtually all of the causal connectors in Present-Day German, but predominantly adverbial connectors marking result (apart from folglich which is purely lexical) contain a deictic element (see items in bold), most often a demonstrative pronoun in the dative (Dat. Sg. dem) or, in younger forms, the genitive (Gen. Sg. des), which allows its analysis as a prepositional phrase. Another group of important deictic connectors – marked by capital letters – are those relating to time and space deixis, such as weil and denn (time) or da, daher and darum (space). Here, the point of reference for deixis is the text itself in its temporal and spatial extension. Da ‘there’ in daher, for instance, relates the following to the preceding element of discourse which is the cause for the result mentioned in the daher-clause (cf. (-)her ‘from there’). In contrast to the pronominal connectors, which explicitly require a point of reference in the co-text, this signalling of deictic reference is more subtle and thus calls for a more sophisticated cognitive process on the part of the listener/reader (Consten 2004: 26–37). Present-Day German hence shows three different patterns for causal connectors: in addition to the pronominal connectors, such as deshalb or deswegen, it uses linguistic items which employ time and space deixis (see daher, somit); only rarely lexical elements, such as folglich, are found. Table 8. Deictic expression in Present-Day German causal connectors pronominal deixis time/space deixis other deixis9 lexical means no longer transparent ?

demnach, demzufolge, deshalb, deswegen, infolgedessen, weshalb, weswegen da, daher, darum, denn, ? weil so (dass), somit, ? also folglich ? also, ? weil

of uncertain status as to their transparency

. Deictic elements in English causal connectors An examination of the system of causal connectors in Present-Day English shows that there is not a single remnant of the principal pattern of Old English, i.e., pronominal connectors such as forþæm. With respect to the conjunctions, we find the lexical because (cf. cause) and the polyfunctional since, which is transparent in its time deixis because it still has its temporal meaning. As (< eall swa ‘all so’) is no longer transparent as a deictic; the . So is a very strong deictic indicator but is – in German as well as in English – notoriously difficult to analyse because of its polyfunctionality; see OED, s.v. so and – for a full account of the functions of so in Old English – Schleburg (2002).

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Table 9. Deictic expression in Present-Day English causal connectors pronominal deixis time/space deixis other deixis lexical means no longer transparent

– since; now (that), hence, then, ? therefore so, thus because, accordingly, consequently, for ? as, ? therefore

same is true for for which is no longer related to the prepositional phrase for þæm, but is only semantically transparent through the preposition for ‘because of that’. This is in stark contrast to Old English, where we only find – like in PresentDay German – expressions marked explicitly for deixis, either pronominal connectors such as forþæm with variants or originally instrumental þy/þe in the second elements of correlatives. Time deixis (which may originally also denote space) is attested in nu ‘now’, þa ‘then’ and þonne ‘then’ (and variant forms), either as simple forms or in correlatives. Like forþæm, these are ambiguous adverbs/conjunctions (marked by ◦ in Table 10). Table 10. Deictic expression in Old English causal connectors pronominal deixis time/space deixis other deixis

◦ forþæm,

forþy, forþon þy, þæs; in correlatives: þy / þe ◦ nu, ◦ þa, ◦ þonne ◦ swa

This summary shows that Old English only employs explicitly deictic elements to mark causal relations, mainly – when the high token number of the variants of forþæm is taken into account – pronominal connectors. . Pronominal connectors in the history of the Romance Languages: From Latin to French-based creoles The restructuring of the system of causal connectors in English has parallels in the Romance languages, in particular in the path from Latin to French-based creole languages. In Present-Day French, anaphoric connectors mostly comprise a form of the article or demonstrative in a full nominal phrase – so, for instance, à cause de cela ‘because of this’, c’est pourquoi ‘this is why’, pour cette raison ‘for this reason’, etc. Yet, Raible shows in his diachronic chapter (1992: 154–190) that many originally transparent, anaphoric forms have developed into opaque conjunctions. In Latin, pronominal connectors appear in manifold forms which may mark – just as OE forþæm – anaphoric as well as cataphoric relations: for the semantic relation cause – result, there are, for example, anaphoric adverbial connectors such as propterea, eapropter, propter id/hoc, quapropter, ob id/hoc, pro eo, ea gratia,



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hac gratia, etc. ‘therefore’ (for the full list, see Raible 1992: 163–164). These forms can also be used cataphorically in preposed clauses in collocates with quod, i.e., propterea quod, eapropter quod, etc. ‘because’. The forms comprising quod eventually yield the conjunctions with a second element que, which are widely used in the Romance languages (e.g., French puisque, parce que, avant que, Spanish pues que, porque, etc.); there, que functions as a general subordinator similar to PDG dass, OE þe or ME and PDE that (cf. now vs. now that). Two subtypes are distinguished: (a) correlative constructions such as French par ce que (with demonstrative ce originally in the first connect), and (b) pour que without a correlative. In view of the history of the English language, it is illuminating to follow the path of these transparent conjunctions, which are structurally identical to OE for þæm þe (cf. French pour ce que), in français cadien (Louisiana French), and in French-based creoles of the Caribbean. With respect to the subordinating particle, French has a tendency to the obligatory use of the subordinating particle que, whereas Louisiana French shows exactly the diverging tendency: the subordinating particle que is optionally deleted so that parce que appears as parce (Raible 1992: 167–169, 200–202). This tendency is taken even further in some Caribbean French-based creoles. In contrast to Louisiana French where the deletion is optional, puisque has there developed into non-transparent pis; similarly, parce que appears as non-transparent pas (Raible 1992: 201). This means that parce que has lost both of its deictic elements ce and que, a process which is parallel to the development of forþæm þe into for in the history of English. Yet, this does not mean that these creoles have only drastically simplified their inventory of connectors, since they at the same time coin new connectors from lexical material or from recurrent syntactic phrases (Raible 1992: 201–202).

. Causal connectors in the history of English . Causal connectors in English translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae Most of the causal connectors used in Present-Day English testify to a similar restructuring in the system of causal connectors after the Old English period. For a first survey of the development see Table 11, which summarizes various causal connectors as attested in translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae after the Old English period (for Old English, see Tables 5 and 6). It lists the dif-

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Forhwi ‘because’ 

ferent connectors for the relations cause – result and result – cause ordered by diminishing frequency in the respective texts. Table 11. Causal connectors in English translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae10 (absolute numbers in brackets) Cause → Result Chaucer, ME Boece Colville 1556 Elizabeth 1593

Preston 1695 Watts 1969 Result → Cause Chaucer, ME Boece

Colville 1556 Elizabeth 1593 Preston 1695 Watts 1969

for whiche (8), forwhy (3), therefore (3), forthy (2)11 preposed: for as moche as (7), for (2), syn (1), syn that (1) therefore (21), whereby (7), wherefore (5), so that (6), so (3) preposed: for by cause (3), synce that (1) therefore (17), wherefore (7), so (7) preposed: because (2), since (2) correlative: because . . . now (1), now that . . . now (1) therefore (17), hence (7), wherefore (4), so (1) preposed: since (3), because (2), now that (2) therefore (14), so (8), indeed (3), consequently (1) preposed: since (11), because (2) for (63) postposed: for (15), syn (2), syn that (1) correlative: wherefore . . . for as moche as (1) for (53) postposed: for (13), for by cause (2) for (60) postposed: for (8) for (53) postposed: because (6), since (7) for (22) postposed: because (7), for (3), since (4)

This table attests a wide variety of forms which have been coined as replacements of the pronominal connector OE forþæm (and its variants), which, of course, cannot be discussed in detail here.12 Essentially, it shows that the dramatic structural changes can best be illustrated by the changes affecting adverbial connectors in the (Early) Middle English period (see 5.2) and by the changes of connectors in preposed causal clauses (see 5.5).13 . For the classification of for, see Section 5.4. . In addition, there are 12 instances of temporal-causal thanne rendering OF donques. . For a full discussion, see my forthcoming monograph Argument and Rhetoric. Adverbial Connectors in the History of English (Ms. 2006). . There are some differences in the relative frequencies, but not in the forms of causal connectors between translations and comparatively independent texts. In Chaucer’s Astrolabe (ed.

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. Adverbial connectors in the history of English Adverbial connectors are – as has been shown above (see Section 2.5) – the kind of connectors which signal clausal linkage most clearly because they present the speaker’s opinion of the relation of the states of affairs explicitly in two information blocks with independent illocutionary weight. Table 12 below provides a list of linguistic elements which have served the function of a causal adverbial connector in any period of the history of English. To allow a comparison, the layout of the table is modelled on the tables in Kortmann (1997: 342 for causal subordinators). It only lists the central single word or univerbated items (i.e., no borderline cases such as PDE after all).14 Table 12. Causal/Resultive adverbial connectors in the history of English15 OE

ME

þy þæs nu swa þonne forþæm (forþon) forþy

þi nu so thenne forthen, (for) forthi for that for which forhwi therefore herefore wherefore thus

EModE

PDE

now so then for

now so then for

therefore herefore wherefore thus consequently hence thence whence accordingly

therefore

thus consequently hence

accordingly

Benson 1987), for example, we find for the sequence cause – result: therefore (10), wherefore (3) thanne (2), forwhy (1), preposed: for as much as (2), by cause that (2), for (1), sin that (1). For the sequence result – cause, we find: for (20), for (8) and prepositional by-cause that (7). . For a fuller discussion of adverbial connectors in the history of English, see Lenker (forthc.; Chapter 9/Table 9.2 on causal/resultive connectives). Since connectors for the semantic relation cause form a closed class, there are only very few other causal connectors which are not listed here because they are attested very infrequently (such as OE cuþlice ‘therefore’; ME ergo; see OED, s.v. ergo). Similarly, connectors which may also be used for the relation addition/transition, such as indeed, in fact, of course are not listed here (for these, see also Table 15 below). The meanings and functions of after all are still only listed in the entry for the preposition/adverb after in the OED (s.v. after).

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Forhwi ‘because’

This table illustrates that there are very few adverbial connectors which have survived in a stable function from Old English to Present-Day English. The ones which have survived – now, then, so – are extremely polyfunctional elements which have always played only a marginal role in the system of causal connection. The survey furthermore evinces an almost complete restructuring of the system of causal connectors in English. In contrast to German (see causal/resultive PDG demnach, deswegen, infolgedessen), speakers of English stopped forming connectors of the pronominal pattern after the Early Middle English period, although this had been a very productive pattern English for adverbial connectors of all kinds of semantic relations. Intriguingly, Present-Day English has not even kept a single lexicalized item of these pronominal connectors which had been so central in its earliest periods. The (Early) Middle English period in particular emerges as a ‘period of experiment’: only two of the many new connectors emerging in this period have survived, namely therefore16 and thus (a late-comer first attested in this function in 1380 (see OED, s.v. thus) and not attested in this function in the material collected in Table 11). The range of new forms in Middle English together with their short lives illustrates the problems speakers of Early Middle English had to face. In view of the general history of the English language, it is certainly no coincidence that Middle English is the last period which ventures to employ pronominal connectors, since Early Middle English is the time when the nominal categories case and grammatical gender were lost in the demonstratives. The loss of pronominal connectors in English thus appears to be connected to more general typological changes, which affected both of the Old English demonstratives (the proto-article se/þæt/seo and the ‘emphatic’ demonstrative þes/þis/þeos). These forms, which were pronominal as much as they were adjective- or determinerlike, are no longer inflected for case and gender after the Old English period (see Lass 1992: 112–116). Consequently, these forms first lose their deictic value and are eventually given up altogether; in this process, phonologically weakened forms such as forþan (ME forthen) are given up much earlier than forþi, which survives as a univerbated form until the end of the Middle English period (see MED, s.v.). Already in Old English, forþi had probably become opaque before the gen-

. Periodization was initially according to the OED but was modified when earlier attestations were found in dictionaries, grammars or texts of any kind. The date given refers to the first attested use of the element in question as an adverbial connector, i.e., the lexeme itself can be much older but did not have a linking function up to this date. . For the proliferation of there-compounds from the beginning of the Middle English period, see Österman 2001. The history of therefore is rather dark (cf. OED, s.v. therefore): I suggest a similar path as that which has led to Latin propter-ea (cf. OE for-þæm) vs. ea-propter (cf. ME therefore).



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eral collapse of case, since the instrumental was only marginally a case category in Old English. Studies examining the history of OE forþæm in detail find a very rapid simplification of the for-formulae, which is first attested as simple for around 1100 in manuscript F of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see the tables in Kivimaa 1966: 214 and 250). This rapid rate is particularly evident in the continuations in the Peterborough Chronicle, where the use of simple for increased from 27 per cent in Continuation I to 86 per cent in Continuation II (for the years 1132–1154). In the Early Middle English texts investigated by Kivimaa, for is almost universally the form used and in several texts the only one. Like its Old English precursor forþæm, this reduced form for was ambiguous as to its status as an adverb, a coordinating or subordinating conjunction (see also Jucker 1991). At the very beginning of Middle English (around 1200), we do, however, not only see a collapse of the old system of demonstratives, but at the same time also the emergence of two distinct categories: the invariable article the and the demonstratives this/that. While there is – among the 19 different forms of the demonstratives – nowhere a reasonable ancestor for the Middle and Present-Day English article the, it is clear that the neuter nominative singular forms of the ‘emphatic’ (OE þis) and simple (OE þæt) demonstratives yielded the proximal/distal deictics this and that. Accordingly, speakers of Early Middle English started to use these new demonstratives to form new pronominal connectors such as for that (cf. MED s.v. for-that) or forms such as for the which as discussed in Meurman-Solin (this volume); cf., e.g., also additive over this/that ‘furthermore, above all’. These innovations, however, have probably not survived because, at about almost the same time, that also developed into the general subordinator (instead of OE þe). That is used as a complementizer, a relativizer and – often pleonastically – as an indicator of a subordinate clause, as in now that, (g)if that, when that, etc. (see Kivimaa 1966; Fischer 1992: 295). When placed sentence-initially, the pronominal connector for that is thus not only (as OE forþæm had been) ambiguous as to whether it is an adverb (MED, sense 2) or a conjunction (MED, sense 1) but misleading because hearers/readers of Middle English might expect a preposed subordinate clause introduced by a conjunction in collocation with (pleonastic) that and not a paratactic construction introduced by an adverbial connector. Accordingly, for that is much more regularly used as a conjunction and is only infrequently used as an adverb (see MED, s.v.). After the Middle English period, we do no longer find univerbated and lexicalized pronominal connectors, though non-univerbated, fully transparent PDE for this, for that etc. may, of course, be used to mark a resultive relation. No such items are coined after the Middle English period and none of the ones coined in the Middle English period have survived as transparent adverbial connectors. Instead of a single central causal/resultive adverbial connector, we increasingly find

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Forhwi ‘because’ 

tendencies for a better mapping of form and function by specifically marking preposed subordinate clauses (by for as moche as; see below, Section 5.5) and adverbial connectors. . Deixis in new adverbial connectors With respect to the novel adverbial connectors in Early Middle English, it is obvious at first glance that there are not very many different patterns among the new coinages. Table 13. Adverbial connectors: New coinages in Middle and Early Modern English Deictics

– pronominal – relative (textual) – relative: spatial – spatial

Non-Deictics

– other deictics – no longer transparent – lexical

ME for that, for this ME forhwi ME wherefore EModE whence distal: ME therefore proximal: ME herefore EModE hence, thence ME thus ME for EModE consequently EModE accordingly

These early new coinages are rather similar to their Old English models (see Table 10 above), in that many of them are so-called ‘ambiguous adverbs/conjunctions’ which can be employed as adverbial connectors or conjunctions: see, e.g., forhwi ‘forwhy’, for that, and ◦ wherefore. More importantly, these forms indicate deixis by explicitly (see for-that) or inherently pronominal forms, as in the functional extension of forms such as the relative and originally interrogative forhwi. From the thirteenth century onwards, forhwi is not only used as a relative but also employed as an adverbial connector signalling a new information unit, thus carrying the meaning ‘therefore’ (see OED, s.v. forwhy). This use is only attested as a conversational implicature in Old English (see DOE, s.v. forhwæm, forhwon, forhwy B.).17 Pronominal patterns are attested until the end of the Middle English period – see the rather frequent for whiche which is found 8 times in Chaucer’s Boece (see Table 11). The other field of experiment are new connectors employing time or space deixis, similar to OE nu. From early Middle English onwards, deixis of space in particular is becoming more important. The co-text is taken as a point of reference in patterns using the relative where and the distal and proximal forms there and . For the importance of the difference between conversational implicature and coded meaning for a theory of regularities in semantic change, see Traugott and Dasher (2002).

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here (cf. therefore, herefore; cf. also wherefore), which relate the following to the preceding discourse. Though this means of establishing cohesion is not as explicit as the linkage by a demonstrative, it is still comparatively transparent in signalling deixis by reference to the text in its chronological and spatial extension (see Section 4). These forms become very frequent as adverbial connectors from the beginning of the thirteenth century onwards (cf. Markus 2000 and Österman 2001), i.e., at exactly the time when the paradigm of the demonstrative was given up, yielding the indeclinable article the and the new demonstrative that. For an example of this unstable situation at the beginning of the thirteenth century, see the following examples from the Vices and Virtues (ca. 1200; ed. Holthausen 1888, quoted from the CME): (24) Forðan [24a] hie bieð godes wiðerwinen, alle ðo ðe willen hem seluen heigin. Godd seið him self ðat hie sculen bien ineðerede. Hierfore [24b] ic am neðer and unmihti, forðan [24c] ic habbe geben prud and modi . . . (p. 2). ‘Therefore [24a] they are God’s enemies, even though they want to raise themselves. God says himself that they shall be lowered. Therefore [24b] am I low and powerless, because [24c] I was proud and conceited, . . .’ (25) Hie is anginn of alle cristendome, hie mai michele eadinesse of-earnin at ure lauerde gode, for ðan ðe [25a] hie iliefð ðat hie næure niseih. For ði [25b] sade Crist: ‘Eadi bieð ða menn ðe on me belieuen and næure me ne seigen!’(p. 25) ‘He is the beginning of all Christianity, he may earn much blessing from our Lord, because [25a] he believes what he has never seen. Therefore [25b] Christ said: ‘Blessed are those, who believe in me and have never seen me!”

The form forðan with phonological levelling of the original demonstrative þæm is still the most polyfunctional item: it is used as an adverbial connector marking result in (24a), as the second part of a correlative construction marking internal cause in (24c) and – with the particle þe – in an internal reason clause in (25a). In adverbial connector function, we however also find the spatial hierfore (24b) and the by then no longer transparent form for ði (25b). Another text from the Early Middle English period, Hali Meidenhad (ca. 1225; ed. Furnivall 1920, quoted from CME) only differentiates the forms for denoting cause (26a, c, d) as against forr-þi (26b) denoting result. (26) Meiðhad is þet an geoue igettet te of heouene: do þu hit eanes awei, ne schalt tu neauer nan oðer swuch acourin; for [26a] meiðhad is heouene cwen, & worldes alesendnesse, þurh hwam we beoð iborhen . . . forr-þi [26b] þu Ahest, meiden, se deorliche witen hit; for [26c] hit is se heh þing, & se swiðe leof godd, & se licwurðe. & þet an lure þet is wituten couerunge. gef hit is godd [leof], þet is, him seolf swa ilich, hit na wunder; for [26d] he is leoflukest þing, & buten eauer-euch bruche . . . (fol. 56r)

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Forhwi ‘because’ 

‘Virginity is the one gift granted to you from heaven; if you once dispose of it, you will never regain it quite like it. For [26a] virginity is the queen of heaven, and the world’s redempotion through which we are saved . . . Therefore [26b], maiden, you have to guard it carefully. For [26c] it is the high thing and so very dear to God and so acceptable, and one loss of it is without recovering. If what is so like God is dear to him, it is no wonder, because/for [26d] he is the loveliest thing and without any sin . . .’

. ‘Recursive’ for – Latin nam/enim Already this text Hali Meidenhad from the beginning of the thirteenth century shows a proliferation of for which has become non-deictic after it had lost its demonstrative. It is almost infinitely repeatable and may be used for postposed causal clauses working on the local level, providing an explanation for the first clause. In most cases, however, non-deictic for is ambiguous (26d) or employed on a more global level, sketching or justifying the line of argument of the author. For thus is a prototypical coordinator, because it signals that the second clause has an illocutionary weight of its own and, more importantly, explicitly marks the voice of the speaker who comments on his view of the relation of textual portions. It is thus comparable to the Latin adverbial connectors nam and enim (see Kroon 1995: 131–203), both of which mainly work on the global level of textual organization. Instead of being adverbial connectors in the strict sense, they are rather connective particles ‘concerned primarily with the presentation and organization of the information conveyed in the discourse’ (Kroon 1995: 203). They are thus situated at the interface between the clausal relations of addition/transition and cause/result and are very similar to what present-day linguistic research calls ‘discourse markers’. Accordingly, they are commonly not rendered by forðæm and its variants in Old English, but by discourse structuring particles such as soþlice or witodlice which have an etymological meaning ‘truly’ (see Lenker 2000). From the Middle English period, however, these particles are only rarely used and are replaced by for. This can be shown by a comparison of translations of Latin enim and nam in the various translations of the Consolatio in the history of English. This comparison shows that for has indeed become a discourse structuring particle which may work on the local as well as on the global level of the text. In this discourse function, it is also called ‘recursive for’ (Mueller 1984: 135). It has lost much of its causal meaning denoting internal reason clauses and mainly works on the textual level, indicating ‘This is my line of argument’. In Chaucer’s translation

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Table 14. Translations of Latin enim and nam in English translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae18 Translation

for

No translation

Particles truth

Diverse

Chaucer ME

50

4

certe

4

Colville 1556

53

–

certes surely truly

3 1 1

but forhwy and thus and so for why

1 2 1 1 1

Queen Elizabeth 1593 Preston 1695

49 45

11 9

–

Watts 1969

25

21

indeed

but now so then thus and because but

2 2 1 1 1 1 1

1

of the Consolatio, this is evident in the many collocates with other connectors, such as for so as (27a), for yif (27b) and for certes (27c). (27) Philosophie: ”. . . that God, . . ., is good. For [27a], so as nothyng mai ben thought betere than God, it mai nat ben douted thanne that he that no thinge nys betere, . . . For [27b] yif God nys swyche, he ne mai nat be prince of alle thinges; for [27c] certes somthing possessyng in itself parfyt good schulde be more worthy than God. . . . For [27d] we han schewyd apertely that alle thinges that ben parfyt ben first er thynges that ben inparfit; and forthy [27e] . . . we owe to graunte that the sovereyn God is ryght ful of sovereyn parfit good.” (Benson 1987: 432, 42–59) ‘[It is the universal understanding of the human mind] that God . . . is good. For [27a], since nothing can be conceived better than God, then it may not be doubted that nothing is better . . . For [27b], if God is not such, he cannot be the prince of all things; for [27c], certainly, there would have to be something elese possessing perfect goodness over and above God . . .. For [27d] we have shown overtly that all things that are perfect are superior to things that are imperfect; and therefore [27e], . . ., we must grant that the supreme God is very full of supreme and perfect goodness.’ . The Old English Consolatio does not allow such a detailed analysis, because it is not a genuine translation, but a rather free adaptation with many divergences from and additions to the Latin text (see the reference in Note 5). The numbers for Chaucer do not fully agree to those of the translations because Chaucer only additionally uses the Latin text. Chaucer’s main source is an Old French version by Jean de Meun (ed. Dedeck-Héry 1952), which renders Latin nam and enim by OF car.

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Forhwi ‘because’ 

This ‘rhetorical/conversational’ use of for highlighting the line of argument is the predominant one from the middle of the fourteenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century (see the high number of occurrences in Table 11). For Early Modern English, this interpretation is also supported by the by then more consistent punctuation: more than half (58 per cent) of the for-clauses analyzed by Claridge and Walker are preceded by heavy punctuation (2001: 42–44). It has to be stressed here again that for in these cases should be classified as a coordinator, though there is no way to confirm this by the syntactic or topological criteria summarized above in Table 1. Considering issues of pragmatics and text-linguistics, however, for has to be analyzed as a coordinator because it gives an independent illocutionary weight to the second clause, in many instances by explicitly indicating that the speaker thinks that the propositions of the two sentences are connected in some way or other. Much of the uncertainty about the status of for in Present-Day English (see Note 1) is probably due to the fact that for, and in particular these rhetorical uses of for, have decreased rapidly since the end of the eighteenth century. In PresentDay English translations of the Consolatio (Watts 1969), the number of instances of for translating Latin nam and enim is halved. In the other half of the cases, enim and nam are not translated at all. These asyndetic constructions, however, are not complex and do not present the speakers’ opinion on the state of affairs. This is entirely different in the Modern German translation (Neitzke 1959 in Grasmück 1997), which employs the regular connectors PDG nämlich (28 instances) and PDG denn (21 instances) in about equal numbers and only occasionally uses other forms such as nun (1), jedenfalls (1), in der Tat (1), freilich (2) and wirklich (1). In only three instances, nam/enim are not translated into German. These differences are not due to individual features or errors of the Modern English translation (the figures are almost identical for the translations by Green 1962 and Watts 1969) but to the fact that English has lost a regular adverbial connector for the sequence result – cause. . Subordinators: for as much as, since, because The transition of the all-purpose causal connector OE forþæm to a text-structuring particle connector indicating the line of argument has also yielded changes in the system of the subordinators, i.e., the emergence of for as much as, since (that) and because, first mainly in preposed subordinate clauses (see Table 11). Because of the proliferation of instances of for as a rhetorical marker of the line of argument, non-deictic for was less frequently used in these – usually thematic – preposed clauses, since it no longer marked these contexts unambiguously. The comparison of the translations of the Consolatio in the various periods of English shows that since, as and because are never used as renderings of Latin adverbial connectors

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such as igitur or quare (i.e., the sequence cause – result) or nam and enim (i.e. the sequence result – cause) before the Modern English period, but only for subordinators such as Latin quoniam and causal (not temporal) cum. While therefore and then (rendering igitur/quare) and for (rendering nam/enim) are rather stable from the middle/end of the Middle English period until Modern English (in the case of therefore even until today), we find more variation for quoniam and causal cum.19 The earliest expression coined to avoid ambiguities is ME for as moche as (see MED, s.v. for as moche as), which is attested throughout Middle and Early Modern English. It is most remarkable that for as much as is the only one of the subordinators coined in Middle English that has not survived into Present-Day English (see Kortmann 1997: 331–332). It is most likely that this form (probably modelled on OF causal pourtant) was given up because it was neither deictically nor lexically transparent and also because it starts in an identical way as the then proliferating sentence-initial rhetorical for. The temporally deictic since is occasionally found from Middle English onwards, often rendering Latin temporal (with indicative) and causal (with subjunctive) cum. Because is first (in five instances in Colville 1556) mainly attested in the collocate for because, i.e., in a combination of the causal connector for and an original prepositional phrase (see also OED, s.v. because and MED, s.v. because), but is then also, though for some time rather sparingly, used on its own. Only after 1750, because finally replaces for and becomes the all-purpose connector of Present-Day English (for quantitative data, see Claridge & Walker 2001). A rather typical instance of the various renderings of a preposed causal clause introduced by Latin quoniam is (28) Quoniam igitur agnovisti, quae vera illa sit, quae autem beatitudinem mentiantur, nunc superest, ut unde veram hanc petere possis agnoscas (Book III, Prose 9; Grasmück 1997: 154) a. Thanne, for as moche as thou hast knowen whiche . . . now byhoveth . . . (Chaucer, ME) b. Now for bycause thou hast knowen . . ., then now . . . (Colville 1556) c. Because thou knowest now, what . . . , now it followith . . . (Elizabeth 1593) d. Seeing then thou knowest already which . . . it remains . . . (Preston 1695) e. ‘Now then, since you know what true happiness is, and the things that falsely seem to offer it, what remains now is that you have to look for true happiness’. . Unfortunately, Latin quia is only once attested in the selected corpus. This, however, mirrors the relations in the full text fairly precisely. The numbers for the full text: igitur (157), nam/namque (162), enim (141), quoniam (49), quare (27), quia (9). This also shows the centrality of the adverbial connectors in Latin.

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Forhwi ‘because’ 

All in all, because is still very rare in the Early Modern English material investigated (18 instances including the collocate for because). While it turns up occasionally to render preposed Latin quoniam in Colville (1556), it is later increasingly used for marking postposed external causal connection (see the use in Preston 1695). It can become the central connector in Present-Day English because it is lexically transparent.

. Conclusions This analysis of causal/resultive connectors has revealed dramatic systematic changes in the forms of clausal connectors in the history of English: in the course of its history, English has lost one specific formation pattern of connectors, the so-called ‘pronominal connectors’ (Raible’s phase II) which comprise an explicitly deictic, i.e., pronominal element, such as a form of the demonstrative. While Old English virtually only had one all-purpose connector – the pronominal connector forþæm (þe), speakers of Present-Day English use a range of different linguistic items to mark the various semantic relations of cause and result. In a development also attested in other languages with a similar typological history (cf., e.g., the loss of deictic elements of French parce que in the form pas in French-based creoles of the Caribbean), also the central Old English forþæm (þe) lost its deictic value and was – throughout the Middle and Early Modern English period – mainly used in a rhetorical sense as the text structuring connective for. This, however, also meant that for was no longer specific enough to code the various other semantic and pragmatic functions of causals, which, in particular in specific contexts such as preposed thematic causal clauses, necessitated the coinage of new causal connectors to avoid ambiguities and facilitate information processing. These new connectors were, in a period of experiment in Early Middle English, first coined on the Old English model of pronominal connectors (cf. ME forthat), or by employing time or space deixis. Yet, of the connectors formed by this experimental pattern, only therefore has survived and in Present-Day English even therefore does not seem to be transparent in its space deixis for most speakers (see OED, s.v. therefore). This is different with younger connectors used since the end of the Middle English period. Adverbial connectors such as hence and after all, for instance, are still transparent in their deixis, because they may still be used as adjuncts with their original spatial (‘Go from hence’; OED, s.v. hence, I.) or temporal meanings (‘After all this had happened . . .’). Yet another group of connectors emerging from the end of the Middle English period onwards shows, however, that English has now almost completely abandoned its original structural pattern which explicitly – by pronominal connectors comprising demonstratives – or inherently – by time or space deixis – marked

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 Ursula Lenker

deixis in connectors. English now mainly signals causal connection by lexical means: this is true for adverbial connectors such as consequently or accordingly but in particular for the high-frequency item because (and its reduced forms cos/coz; cf. cause). With this concentration on lexical means, English has again moved far away from the Germanic system which is still alive and well in Present-Day German.

Sources Baker, Peter S. and Michael Lapidge, eds. (1995). Byrthferth’s Enchiridion. (Early English Text Society, S.S. 15). Oxford: Oxford University Press [= ByrM]. Benson, Larry D., general ed. (1987). The Riverside Chaucer. Third ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Colville, George (1556). Boethius. Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Translated from the Latin, ed. E. B. Bax (The Tudor Library, 5). London: David Nutt, 1897. Dedeck-Héry, V. L., ed. (1952). ‘Boethius’De Consolatione by Jean de Meun’. Medieval Studies 14: 165–275. DOEC = Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus (1997). Toronto: University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies. Furnivall, F. J., ed. (1920). Hali Meidenhad: An Alliterative Homily of the Thirteenth Century. (Early English Text Society, O. S. 18). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grasmück, Ernst Ludwig, ed. (1997). Boethius. Trost der Philosophie. Zweisprachige Ausgabe. Aus dem Lateinischen von Ernst Neitzke. Mit einem Vorwort von Ernst Ludwig Grasmück. Frankfurt: Insel. Green, Richard H. (1962). The Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius. Mineola/NY: Dover Publications (repr. 2002). Holthausen, F., ed. (1888). Vices and Virtues: A Soul’s Confession of its Sins with Reason’s Description of the Virtues: A Middle-English Dialogue of About 1200 A.D. : Part I. Text and Translation. (Early English Text Society, O. S. 89). London: Oxford University Press. MED = Middle English Dictionary. OED = Oxford English Dictionary. Pemberton, C., ed. (1899). Queen Elizabeth’s Englishings of Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae A. D. 1593, Plutarch, De Curiositate, A. D. 1598, Horace, De Arte Poetica (Part), A. D. 1598, ed. C. Pemberton. (Early English Text Society, O. S. 113). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Preston, Richard Lord Viscount (1695). Boethius. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, Of the Consolation of Philosophy. In Five Books. Made English and Illustrated with Notes. London: Awnsham and John Churchill. Sedgefield, W. J., ed. (1899). Alfred’s Boethius. King Alfred’s Old English Version of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Watts, V. E. (1969). Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Zupitza, Julius, ed. (1880) [2001]. Aelfrics Grammatik und Glossar. Text und Varianten. Third reprint, with a new introduction by Helmut Gneuss, Hildesheim: Olms.

References Altenberg, Bengt (1984). ‘Causal Linking in Spoken and Written English’. Studia Linguistica 38: 20–69. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman. Brugmann, Karl (1904). Die Demonstrativpronomina der indogermanischen Sprachen. Leipzig: Teubner. Claridge, Claudia and Terry Walker (2001). ‘Causal Clauses in Written and Speech-Related Genres in Early Modern English’. ICAME Journal 25: 31–63. Consten, Manfred (2004). Anaphorisch oder deiktisch? Zu einem integrativen Modell domänengebundener Referenz. (Linguistische Arbeiten, 484). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Dancygier, Barbara (1998). Conditionals and Prediction: Knowledge and Causation in Conditional Constructions. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Diessel, Holger (2005). ‘Competing Motivations for the Ordering of Main and Adverbial Clause’. Linguistics 43: 449–470. Donoghue, Daniel and Bruce Mitchell (1992). ‘Parataxis and Hypotaxis. A Review of some Terms Used for Old English Syntax’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93: 163–183. Fischer, Olga (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. II: 1066– 1476, ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ford, Cecilia (1993). Grammar in Interaction. Adverbial Clauses in American English Conversation. (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Givón, Talmy (2001). Syntax. An Introduction. Vol. 2: Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hogg, Richard M., ed. (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. I: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jucker, Andreas (1991). ‘Between Hypotaxis and Parataxis. Clauses of Reason in Ancrene Wisse’. In: Kastovsky, ed., 203–220. Kivimaa, Kirsti (1966). þe and þat as Clause Connectives in Early Middle English with Especial Consideration of the Emergence of Pleonastic þat. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Kastovsky, Dieter, ed. (1991), English Historical Syntax. (Topics in English Linguistics, 2). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kortmann, Bernd (1997). Adverbial Subordination. A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators. Based on European Languages. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 18). Berlin: de Gruyter. Kroon, Caroline (1995). Discourse Particles in Latin: A Study of nam, enim, autem, vero and at. (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology, 4). Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Lass, Roger (1992). ‘Phonology and Morphology’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. II: 1066–1476, ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23– 155. Lefèvre, Michel, ed. (2000). Subordination in Syntax, Semantik und Textlinguistik. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

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Lenker, Ursula (2000). ‘Soþlice and witodlice: Discourse Markers in Old English’. In: Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English, ed. Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach, and Dieter Stein. (Studies in Language Companion Series, 53). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 229–249. Lenker, Ursula (forthc.). Argument and Rhetoric – Adverbial Connectors in the History of English (Ms. Munich, 2006). Lenz, Friedrich (1997). Diskursdeixis im Englischen. (Linguistische Arbeiten, 369). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Liggins, Elizabeth M. (1955). ‘The Expression of Causal Relationship in Old English Prose’. Unpubl. Diss.: University of London. Markus, Manfred (2000). ‘Wherefore therefore: Causal Connectives in Middle English Prose as Opposed to Present-Day English’. In: Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Papers from the Twentieth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 20). Freiburg im Breisgau 1999, ed. Christian Mair and Marianne Hundt. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 215–232. Mitchell, Bruce (1985). Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mueller, Janel L. (1984). The Native Tongue and the Word. Developments in English Prose Style 1380–1580. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Österman, Aune (2001). ‘Where your Treasure is, there is your Heart’. A Corpus-based Study of THERE Compounds and THERE/WHERE Subordinators in the History of English. (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki, LIX). Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Pasch, Renate, Ursula Brauße, Eva Breindl and Ulrich Hermann Waßner (2003). Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren. Linguistische Grundlagen der Beschreibung und syntaktische Merkmale der deutschen Satzverknüpfer (Konjunktionen, Satzadverbien und Partikeln). Berlin: de Gruyter. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Raible, Wolfgang (1992). Junktion. Eine Dimension der Sprache und ihre Realisierungsformen zwischen Aggregation und Integration. Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 1992/2. Heidelberg: Winter. Rissanen, Matti (1997). ‘Towards an Integrated View of the Development of English: Notes on Causal Linking’. In: Advances in English Historical Linguistics (1996), ed. Jacek Fisiak and Marcin Krygier. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 112). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 389–406. Rudolph, Elisabeth (1989). ‘The Role of Conjunctions and Particles for Text Connexity’. In: Text and Discourse Connectedness. Proceedings of the Conference on Connexity and Coherence, Urbino, July 16–21, 1984, ed. Maria-Elisabeth Conte, János S. Petöfi, and Emel Sözer. (Studies in Language. Companion Series, 16). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 175–191. Rudolph, Elisabeth (1996). Contrast. Adversative and Concessive Expressions on Sentence and Text Level. (Research in Text Theory, 23). Berlin: de Gruyter. Schleburg, Florian (2002). Altenglisch swa. Syntax und Semantik einer polyfunktionalen Partikel. Heidelberg: Winter. Stockwell, Robert P. and Donka Minkova (1991), ‘Subordination and Word Order Change in the History of English’. In: Kastovsky, ed., 367–408. Sweetser, Eve (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Thompson, Sandra A. (1985). ‘Grammar and Written Discourse: Initial vs. Final Purpose Clauses in English’. Text 5: 55–84. Traugott, Elizabeth (1992). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. I: The Beginnings to 1066, ed. Richard M. Hogg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 168–289. Traugott, Elizabeth and Richard Dasher (2002). Regularity in Semantic Change. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wegener, Heide (2000). ‘Koordination and Subordination – semantische und pragmatische Unterschiede’. in Lefèvre, ed., 33–44. Wiegand, Nancy (1982). ‘From Discourse to Syntax: for in English Causal Clauses’. In: Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, ed. Anders Ahlqvist. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 385–393.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts Claudia Claridge* University of Kiel

.

Introduction

The purpose of this corpus-based study is to examine the use of conditional clauses in Early Modern English texts. In the course of Early Modern English, the frequency of complex sentences involving subordination increased and the usage of conjunctions became both more differentiated and more regulated (Görlach 1991: 122; Barber 1997: 205; Rissanen 1999: 189). The conjunction if, for example, is more frequent in the Early Modern English part of the Helsinki Corpus than in the Middle English section.1 This general trend is due both to the influence of Latin and of classical rhetoric and to the process of standardization, in particular functional elaboration (Rissanen 1999: 189, 280; cf. Haugen 1966 for standardization). While this development first led to great variation, the normative impulse led to the establishment of essentially modern syntactic patterns by about 1700 (Rissanen 1999: 187, 280). With the advent of neo-classical writing from circa 1660 onwards, there is also a noticeable stylistic change, with connective devices becoming a conscious and conspicuous means in the pursuit of both greater clarity and better style (Adamson 1999: 604f., 607f.). However, neither complex sentences as such nor the connection between syntactic features and text linguistics have been sufficiently studied with regard to Early Modern English so far (Rissanen 1999: 189, 280). The database this investigation draws on consists of texts from the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts representing the domains or registers of

* I wish to thank Cynthia Allen, Torsten Leuschner, two anonymous referees, and in particular the two editors of this volume for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this contribution. I am, of course, solely responsible for any remaining errors and shortcomings. . There are roughly 3.3 instances per 1,000 words in EModE vs. 2.6 instances in Middle English, which is a statistically significant difference.

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 Claudia Claridge

politics (208,228 words) and science (221,948 words).2 The corpus covers the century from 1640 to 1740, a period that encompasses some of the linguistic developments mentioned above and in general represents the transition to an increasingly more modern state of the language. Despite the presence of this diachronic dimension, the approach taken here is nevertheless essentially a synchronic textlinguistic one. Conditional clauses occur in various forms in Early Modern English: they can be introduced by the conjunctions if, though, so (that), unless, without, and and/an, or make use of inversion or imperative structures (Rissanen 1999: 308f.). This study concentrates only on conditionals formed with the conjunction if and with a clausal function.3 The analysis focuses in particular on two (partly interrelated) aspects, namely (i) the question of whether if -clauses can open up a yes-no framework or likelihood cline in the same way as polar questions do (Section 4) and (ii) the role of the position of the protasis (Section 5). The first of these aspects forms the overarching concern of the study and will thus play some role in all sections. In connection with these two questions, a number of other relevant aspects will also be touched on, such as topicality/information structure, and particular functions of if -clauses. Before proceeding to an overview of the data in Section 3, the following part will discuss previous research. . Previous research Conditionals have received considerable attention in (language) philosophy and linguistics, but have mostly been treated as a phenomenon in isolation. This section will give a brief survey of approaches which have pointed out various discourse-relevant aspects of conditionals. Biber’s (1988) research indicates that conditionals play a significant role in the textual dimensions ‘overt expression of persuasion’ (Factor 4) and in ‘informational versus involved production’ (Factor 1), that is in argumentative and interactive discourse. The comparatively greater frequency of if -clauses in spoken (i.e. interactive) English is also noted by Ford and Thompson (1986: 354). According to Biber (1988: 107), conditionals in interactive contexts can be seen as markers of affect or stance in relation to actions or beliefs talked about. In argumentative contexts, conditionals are used to present different perspectives of a problem . For information on the Lampeter Corpus, see the manual (Claridge 1999/2003). In this study texts are referred to by the usual corpus codes, for instance SciB1735 = the second science text in the decade 1730s, published in 1735. . If -clauses embedded within a phrase, such as my Daughter is at present well, if not better. . . than ever she was in her Life (SciB1722), are excluded.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts

(Biber 1988: 150). Fillmore (1990) also points to the epistemic stance of the speaker towards the proposition contained in the if -clause as a major aspect of conditional meaning. The content of the protasis can be presented as actual/assumed, as generic, as hypothetical, or as counterfactual/counter to expectation4 (1990: 142), i.e., as (generally) applicable/true, as perhaps true or as non-applicable/false. The degree of – assumed and/or presented – factuality or hypotheticality encoded in the conditional can naturally be exploited for argumentative purposes. Greenberg’s (1966: 111) Universal 14, which states that ‘the conditional clause precedes the conclusion as the normal order in all languages’, also has textual relevance. It points to the fact that the initial position of if -clauses represents the unmarked case, based on discourse and cross-linguistic frequency, as well as the iconic fit of experiential/logical and linguistic order (premise > conclusion) (ibid.: 103). Non-initial if -clauses will then represent a marked clause order, one contrary to expectations, which can be exploited for structuring information and argumentation in a text more effectually. In other words, non-initial if -clauses are interesting cases from a text-linguistic perspective. Therefore, final and parenthetical if -clauses will be given prominence in Section 5 below. Haiman’s (1978) proposal that conditionals are topics is connected with the previous point in so far as initial position is the most likely and most frequent place for topics. According to Haiman (1978: 583), a conditional clause is, like a topic, a given element, something that is agreed upon by the participants of the discourse and thus functions as a framework for what follows. As will be argued below (Section 4), this notion of givenness or shared knowledge is problematic in a text-linguistic perspective. Furthermore, it contrasts with the meaning of if, which encodes doubt and uncertainty. Finally, there are studies dealing with functions or types of conditionals, which point to a diversity of conditional uses. Ford and Thompson’s (1986) study of the textual functions of conditionals basically accepts Haiman’s notion of topicality and thus concentrates on initial conditionals. It identifies the following four functions of initial conditionals in written discourse: (i) repeating and assuming an earlier claim (X. Assuming X, then Y); (ii) presenting a contrast to what has gone before (X. (but) if not X, then Y); (iii) generalizing and presenting particular cases ((for example) if X, then Y); and (iv) opening up new possibilities/exploring of options (X. If option Y, then Z) (Ford & Thompson 1986: 356ff.). The last function is the most frequent in their data (50 per cent of all cases), whose clear new-information status can, in my opinion, be used to cast doubt on the topichood of conditionals. Final if-clauses occurring in Ford and Thompson’s data are . All actual/assumed instances are illustrated by Fillmore by conjunctions other than if, for example because, when, since. The if in generic cases is synonymous with whenever.



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 Claudia Claridge

not classified functionally, but are explained as quasi-deviations from the normal order, based on the presence of formal factors such as occurrence within a nominalization, an infinitive or a relative clause, the presence of interesting subjects (new, heavy or compared NPs) in the main clause, and length of the if -clause (ibid.: 359f.). A more general and theoretical approach to functions of conditionals is offered by Sweetser (1990: 114, 116, 118), who distinguishes three types of conditionals, namely content, epistemic and speech-act conditionals. In content conditionals, the realization of the event described in the protasis is a condition for the realization of the event described in the apodosis, i.e., conditionality or causality in the extralinguistic world is being referred to. Epistemic conditionals concentrate on the mental process of concluding: the truth of the hypothetical assumption in the if -clause is presented as a sufficient condition for also believing the truth of the proposition in the main clause (e.g., If John went to that party, (then) he was trying to infuriate Miriam). Linguistic or communicative aspects are focused on in speech-act conditionals, where the speech act performed by the apodosis is enabled by the fulfilment of the state described in the protasis (e.g., If you went to the party, was John there?). Dancygier adds to these a further type, namely the metalinguistic one, which refers to the form of the expression used (e.g., Chris wants you to meet her fiancé, if that’s the right word for him) (Dancygier & Sweetser 2000: 116). The frequency and distribution of these types in authentic discourse has not been studied so far. . The data: An exploratory look The choice of the data basis for the present study was influenced by Biber’s findings mentioned in Section 2. Tracts, or pamphlets, were generally a highly argumentative, even polemic text type, and in so far also a type where rhetoric concerns played a role. Pamphlets on political matters in particular dealt with very topical and controversial aspects of contemporary political life. Scientific texts written in pamphlet form were often also geared more towards controversy than book-length science publications would have been. As such they represent persuasive argumentation as defined by Biber and may accordingly exhibit argumentative uses of conditionals. Furthermore, these texts show characteristics reminiscent of Biber’s involved style, in so far as many of them were instances of highly personalized interaction. The publishing community at that time was fairly small, even more so the scientific community, so that published texts took on the character of conversations or debates between pamphleteers. References and reactions to other writers were generally common in these texts. Creating involvement with the readers, who were also not a large but in parts a very influential class, was another important

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

Table 1. Frequencies of if -clauses in texts representing politics and science in the Lampeter Corpus

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Text

Total

Per 1,000

Text

Total

Per 1,000

PolA1672 PolA1702 PolB1659 PolA1684 PolB1690 PolB1713 PolA1711 PolB1706 PolA1731 PolA1646 PolA1699 PolA1720 PolB1724 PolA1659 PolB1730 PolB1674 PolA1668 PolB1648 PolB1689 PolB1660

26 58 83 65 46 32 41 22 36 23 76 17 36 11 10 47 15 16 35 10

6.81 6.15 5.75 5.03 4.87 4.14 3.95 3.87 3.70 3.49 3.38 3.07 2.97 2.56 2.52 2.45 2.13 1.84 1.80 1.61

SciB1735 SciB1722 SciB1676 SciA1666 SciB1714 SciA1653 SciA1709 SciA1644 SciA1674 SciA1720 SciB1696 SciB1649 SciB1701 SciA1698 SciB1684 SciA1712 SciB1666 SciA1730 SciA1683 SciB1652

76 76 77 62 31 21 19 40 48 26 25 44 36 24 30 27 14 14 25 14

5.27 5.12 4.61 4.52 4.41 4.34 3.83 3.73 3.68 3.44 2.93 2.84 2.83 2.54 2.42 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.26 1.48

aspect of these pamphlets. Both writer and reader perspective will have to be taken into account in this study, since if -clauses can be seen as a negotiation strategy between the discourse participants with regard to the interpretation of the world. The distribution of if -clauses in the present corpus is as follows. There are 705 instances (3.4 instances per 1,000 words) in politics and 729 (3.3) in science, making the two registers fairly similar. This is less than the frequency of 4.6 conditionals per 1,000 words found by Ford and Thompson (1986: 354) for modern writing. Ford and Thompson, however, examined only three texts/writers, while the mean frequencies in the present study represent the average in texts written by 20 different writers. Furthermore, in this wider range of data, a great degree of variation exists between individual texts. This is shown in Table 1, which is ordered by descending frequency for each domain. In politics the mean frequencies vary from 1.61 to 6.81 per 1,000 words, and there is an equally large range, from 1.48 to 5.27, for science. The variation clearly does not reflect a recognizable chronological pattern, such as a grouping into earlier and later texts with respectively lower and higher frequencies. Diachronic change thus does not account for the differences. It is rather textual characteristics which play a role. With regard to the domain science, the text with the highest level (SciB1735) is clearly and by far the most (argumentative-)polemical of all

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the science texts; its purpose was to demolish Newton’s theory of fluxions, and in particular some other author’s understanding of it. It is followed by three other texts which are clearly concerned with a highly empirical and thorough approach to science (SciB1722, SciB1676, SciA166), based on hypotheses, experiments and conclusions. This shows that conditionals play a prominent role in scientific argumentation. In politics, the picture is similar, albeit not quite so clear. The texts ranked second to fourth in Table 1 (PolA1702, PolB1659, PolA1684) are clearly polemic and controversial, dealing with such matters as Jacobitism, the proposed assassination of Cromwell and treason. PolA1672, the one with the highest frequency, while it is in contradiction to some other publication, is in comparison to the others a fairly mild piece of argumentation. A closer look at two texts will reveal more details. The already mentioned PolA1672 with the title “A Letter To Sir Thomas Osborn, One of His Majesties Privy Council, Upon the reading of a Book, called, The present Interest of England Stated” contains 26 if -clauses (6.81 per 1,000 words). These fall into three groups corresponding to different textual functions. Examples such as (1) below refer to extralinguistic and extra-discoursal points which are part of the overall textual topic, i.e., they are clearly related to the content of the text. (1) if England should happen thus to be conquered, they would be likelier to close with the Dutch, than become subject to the French. (PolA1672)

Such examples are used to play out possible political options or alternatives, and to highlight their possible consequences. All these examples are clearly hypothetical referring to things that (so far) have not been realized and/or are not thought very likely to occur, as is the case in (1). Only one of these content-related instances uses the simple present tense, while all the others contain verb forms with possible irrealis readings, like would/should/could, subjunctive were, past, and past perfect – i.e., the events portrayed are presented as unlikely or even as counterfactual. This group makes up half of the instances found. Six instances deal with discourse procedures or adequacy, as in (2), or are directly addressed to the reader, as in (3).5 (2) if at any time my sending you these Papers can be pardonable, it is now, when we are engaged in a War against the Dutch, since the Argument upon which they are written, is the subject of common discourse. (PolA1672) (3) if you find any thing in them with which you cannot agree, I shall be so far from being angry at your differing from my opinion, that you will do me a favour in convincing me to be of yours. (PolA1672) . These examples clearly mark out Sir Thomas Osborn, the addressee of the letter, but other instances in the text (if you mark it, if you enquire. . .) can be equally understood to refer to all readers of the pamphlet.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

Such uses are employed to justify discourse-relevant actions of the writer, to make motivations and structures of the discourse more explicit and to highlight the readers’ involvement. The seven remaining examples refer directly to or address the author of the book the pamphlet is a reaction to, as in (4). (4) In a word, I differ from him in none of his Maxims relating to our interest at home, and therefore he ought to take it the less ill of me, if I cannot agree with him in all his notions concerning our Alliances abroad. (PolA1672)

These comment on the argumentation process as such, on individual arguments or on the person/integrity of the other writer. The two last groups of conditionals make use of the present tense or modals such as can or will. With respect to science, “Mr. Maitland’s Account Of Inoculating The Small Pox Vindicated, From Dr. Wagstaffe’s Misrepresentations of that Practice, with some Remarks on Mr. Massey’s Sermon” (SciB1722), which has the second-highest score in science but is a more typical scientific text than the first-placed one, contains 76 if -clauses (5.12 per 1,000 words). Here the classification is less easy than in the preceding text, as if -clauses are much more intricately involved in the argumentation. Slightly more than half of all cases refer to the extralinguistic aspects which belong to the topic of the text, such as (5) and (6). (5) If only the small Quantity of purulent Matter, that mixes with the Blood, break thro’ the Pores of the Skin, the Eruption, indeed, would be very small. (SciB1722) (6) If 1/4 of Mankind have the Small Pox once in their Life, then of them 2 out of 15 die. (SciB1722)

These instances are as a rule not counterfactual, in contrast to the ones in the political text. In most cases, the author assumes the conditional to comply with the facts (or at least presents matters as such), or to be fairly open as to its possible fulfilment. This is visible in the tense usage: half of the if -clauses here make use of the present indicative (the majority) or present subjunctive, while clear markers of counterfactuality (such as the past perfect or were) occur only twelve times. This underlines the greater reliance of empirical science on facts or on the presentation of factual relationships. Meta-discoursal uses referring to the author and/or the reader are very rare in this text with only two instances. Conditionals dealing with the opponents of the author of SciB1722 form the second-largest group, either in the form of explicit meta-discoursal statements mentioning or addressed to the other persons (15 instances, e.g. (7)), or as content-related examples (10 instances) representing the opponents’ views and thought processes as quasi-quotes, which is illustrated by example (8). (7) If the Doctor will deny these Truths, I have done. (SciB1722)

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F: CI28310.tex / p.8 (489-546)

 Claudia Claridge

(8) then they allow’d, if it prov’d mortal, that it was the Small Pox; if they escaped, to be sure they would have them again; If it was a favourable Sort, then there was some inveterate Distemper transplanted with it; If any Boils or Imposthumations appear’d at the going off of the Disease, those were the Effect of the Inoculation, not the Consequence of the Small Pox in General, or of the Constitution of the Patient. (SciB1722)

Needless to say, the practice used in (8) can also be a mis-representation for the sake of argumentation. This example also illustrates another peculiarity of the present text, namely the tendency to cluster conditional clauses. Apart from two metalinguistic instances, there is a remnant of about eight instances which are purely argumentative, being neither concerned with factual content nor with discourse matters but with conclusions drawn by the author. In (9), the properties of the argumentative use are the (counterfactual) tenses employed (past perfect – modal perfect), negation and the interrogative structure in the main clause serving as a rhetorical question. (9) But how many Lives might have been saved, if our unhappy Physicians, had not poison’d and bewitch’d our People with a blind Rage, that has appear’d very like a Satanick Possession, against the Method of Relief and Safety in the way of the Small Pox Inoculated. (SciB1722)

As the above examples show, argumentative style accounts for some use of conditionals, as they are used in the content realm to present options and alternatives or to highlight potential connections and outcomes. They are one of the linguistic devices employed in building and presenting different hypotheses. Thus they provide several perspectives on a topic, while the choice of tenses allows writers to convey their stance on the given perspective. Conditionals are a mixture of fact-presentation and argumentation, or in other words factually-based argumentation. However, some fairly prototypical science texts, which work with hypotheses and are highly argumentative, such as SciA1683 and SciB1684, exhibit rather low frequencies with 2.2 and 2.4 instances per 1,000 words respectively. This means that factors other than argumentation must play a role for the (non-)use of conditionals as well. Stance, as mentioned above, indicates that conditionals also play a role in an involved style. Meta-discoursal uses highlighting the actions and thoughts of author, reader and potential opponent are, while all useful for argumentative purposes, also clear signs of involvement. Thus, the use or non-use of an involved style by a particular writer will influence the frequency of conditionals. A closer look at the aspects enumerated in this section in conjunction with polar frameworks and positional variation will elucidate the argumentative and interactive use of conditionals further.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

. The textual function of conditionals: topics vs. polar frameworks . Given information Haiman’s (1978) theory of conditionals as topics has directed attention to the discourse function of conditionals, although he himself did not develop his idea on the basis of authentic discourse samples. His characterization of conditionals runs as follows (ibid.: 583): A conditional clause is (perhaps only hypothetically) a part of the knowledge shared by the speaker and his listener. As such, it constitutes the framework which has been selected for the following discourse.

This definition links conditionals with the concept of topic, which is ‘an entity whose existence is agreed upon’ (ibid.: 585), i.e., a topic (including a conditional topic) is established as given either by preceding context or by ad-hoc agreement between speaker and audience. This latter point stretches the sense of ‘given’ considerably, making it almost vacuous (cf. also Sweetser 1990: 126–132; Schiffrin 1992: 193). ‘Ad-hoc agreement’ can only mean that the topic has not occurred at all in the preceding text. In contrast, givenness is here understood to mean that the item in question has in fact been introduced in the preceding text. If the item is a whole clause, such as an if -clause, the whole proposition expressed by it needs to be established before in order for it to count as given. Schiffrin (1992) has shown that if -clauses can be givens in spoken discourse in this sense. However, some of her examples show rather that conditionals contain individual elements which are given, which is by no means the same as the conditional as a whole being given. I do not regard individual given items as sufficient for calling the whole if -clause given. The example given in (10) illustrates the above points. (10) The great Advantages of the Vienna Treaty were formerly supposed to lye on the Side of the Emperor; and if Spain had any Expectations of establishing the Succession of Don Carlos by an Union with the Emperor, They found Themselves disappointed; (. . .) We may believe the Considerer, Spain was so far from having any reasonable Expectations of this Nature (PolA1731)

In (10), individual items of the if -clause, such as Spain, the Emperor or Don Carlos, have indeed been mentioned before in the text (although the latter only once several pages previously) and as proper names they are likely candidates for givenness. However, the proposition in its entirety has not been stated elsewhere in the text, is thus completely new and also offers no easy link to the text topic, which is, according to the pamphlet title, the Hessian forces employed by Great Britain (with some remarks on the general political situation in Europe). The clause seems to echo statements of another pamphleteer, whose work text PolA1731 is a response to. In this way, the whole if -clause in (10) might have been given for the two pam-

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F: CI28310.tex / p.10 (612-649)

 Claudia Claridge

phleteers concerned, but not necessarily so for the readers of this particular text – for them, this clause does not represent given information. Givenness in the sense of old information is not present in this instance, and this also applies to the great majority of instances in the present corpus. What becomes quite clear for the audience in this example, however, is that there is discussion of and even disagreement on this point (cf. the last sentence in (10)), i.e., the uncertainty that is naturally attached to ‘knowing’ the expectations of other persons (or states) is highlighted. There is thus not even an entity that is agreed upon in Haiman’s sense, there is only uncertainty. The notion of (ad-hoc) agreement is generally problematic, partly because of the uncertainty aspect just mentioned (and elaborated on in Section 4.2) and partly because it is hard to instrumentalize, in particular in the case of old texts. Given these problems with known or shared information, it is interesting to note that Ford and Thompson (1986: 354f.) stressed rather the framework aspect of Haiman’s definition, while givenness in the strict sense plays a role only in two of their four types. . Polarity The second part of Haiman’s thesis quoted in 4.1 above deserves further investigation. The idea that conditionals serve as a framework is indeed an important one and I want to point out one way in which this framework functions. This links up to the modal aspect of uncertainty mentioned above. In this context, it is first the meaning of if that is important. Akatsuka (1986: 343) has pointed to the fact that the shared meaning in the case of conditionals is actually ‘uncertainty’. This sense of ‘uncertainty’ or ‘doubt’6 is attached first of all to if, not to anything else in the clause (though certain verb forms can strengthen this meaning). The use of if for whether in indirect questions (she asked if he would come) also marks it out as indicating as yet undecided alternatives. If thus casts doubt on or indicates noncommitment to the clause it marks (Dancygier & Sweetser 2000: 127). Even an otherwise completely given clause is thus provided with a question mark, which at the very least indicates that the status of its information has to be negotiated anew. Furthermore, the similarity of conditional protases to polar interrogatives, in particular but not exclusively in the Germanic languages, has been pointed out repeatedly as an important semantic/functional aspect and as an aspect in need of explanation (e.g. Jespersen 1940: 374; Podlesskaya 2001: 1004). Jespersen makes this point in reference to conjunction-less, inverted conditionals, but the similarity is not restricted to this subtype. Haiman (1978: 571), referring to and agreeing with Jespersen’s mini-conversation analysis of conditionals, where the protasis is . The OED mentions nouns with the meaning ‘doubt’ as possible etymological origins of if.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

followed by an (implicit) assent, uses this as one aspect in his interpretation of conditionals as topics. However, it is not possible to simply assume assent, as the following adaptation of Haiman’s example for If he’s coming, I will stay is intended to show: (11) A: B: A:

Is he coming?   (Yes.) (No.) ↓ ↓ – Well then, I’ll stay.

My adaptation concerns the addition of the ‘no’, since an unmarked, i.e. unbiased, polar question allows a yes or no answer with equal likelihood. I will argue that if -clauses open up a yes-no or polar framework or likelihood cline in the same way as polar questions do and that both participant parties, the writer and the addressee(s), have the right of interpretation. Only if a yes follows will the content of the apodosis unambiguously apply or be accepted (as in Haiman’s version). In the case of a no, however, the apodosis is not necessarily a valid conclusion, which is indicated in (11) by the crossed-out arrow. The writer has the means to bias the if -clause towards one reading through choice of tense/mood structure of the conditional, use of negation and explicit relation to biasing preceding or following discourse. In such biased cases, an impression of givenness of the content of the if -clause, in the sense of ‘given that X is the case’, is produced – a givenness which, however, does not necessarily relate to old information but to (implied/induced) belief in the content. The placement in a yes-no space necessarily affects the status of the information: it is uncertain information, available for negotiation. Thus, conditionals give writers the possibility to not commit themselves fully and remain tentative. The addressee has the choice to either accept (yes) or reject (no) the content of the if -clause – or to remain undecided, like the writer. If the reaction concurs with the one intended by the writer, the if -clause does indeed work like a topical framework for the following discourse (Haiman 1978: 583), but in the case of an unexpected no the following conclusion falls flat, and in the case of a perhaps it is at least weakened. That is, while it can be useful for an author to display the train of thought explicitly by means of conditional presentation, as the reasoning is easier to follow for the readers and as it sometimes has a useful hedging/facesaving force for the former (cf. Sweetser 1990: 130–132), using explicit conditional argumentation is also a somewhat risky strategy because it is simpler to contradict and demolish than presupposed or implied arguments. In contrast to the preceding, if a writer wanted to present or establish a particular point as clearly given, use could be made of a wide range of connectives in English which differ from if as regards the semantic notion of certainty, such as given that, while, as/since, when, etc. None of these other options imply uncertainty

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 Claudia Claridge

or leave matters open for the reader to decide on. It is thus important to look at if in its paradigmatic relation to other connectives and to see it as a conscious choice. . Illustrations of polar frameworks Some examples extracted from my corpus will illustrate the above claims. Example (12) is a case where the content of the if -clause is clearly old information, indicated by the pro-form so (cf. underlining), but nevertheless the protasis as a whole is not necessarily accepted. (12) . . . [Tacitus’ characterization of the Finns, CC]; very different from that which Jornandes gives them, who living within 400 yeares after Tacitus, before they had much (if any) entercourse with forein Nations, telleth us of them that they were Scanziae Cultoribus omnibus mitiores, more tractable and civill then any of the Inhabitants of Scandia, not excepting the Suethidi themselves. If so, they did deserve to live in so good a Countrey, more plentifull and plaine then Sweden, and neither so hilly nor so moorish. (SciB1652)

The author relates second-hand information from Jornandes, which contradicts statements by Tacitus quoted before and also modern ‘evidence’, and accordingly he questions this information in the conditional, i.e. ‘if it should truly be the case what Jornandes says, then. . .’. He is not taking a clear stand on the issue, although the past tense in the apodosis may add some epistemic distance, and thus also leave the decision open for the reader.7 In contrast, ‘therefore they did deserve . . .’ and dispensing with the if -clause would have yielded an unambiguous statement. Using the connective if nevertheless gives the author the chance to link more smoothly the topics of Scandinavian inhabitants and the description of the country. In example (13), the writer explicitly sets out the plan for the pamphlet by means of questions and through linking them with if -clauses. (13) I shall first make it a question, (which indeed is none) Whether my Lord Protectour be a Tyrant or not? Secondly, if he be, Whether it is lawful to do Justice upon him without Solemnity, that is, to Kill him? Thirdly, if it be lawful, Whether it is like to prove profitable or noxious to the Common-wealth? (PolB1659)

As in (12) above, these contain old information, repeating the preceding yes-no question and thus representing a completely open condition as long as the questions have not been answered. The use of the present subjunctive may emphasize . Note that the form did deserve in the apodosis cannot be seen as a clear emphatic in the seventeenth century, which would make it biasing.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

the reservation attached to the conditionals. On the one hand, the pamphleteer can in this way style himself as an impartial and careful writer who lays open the argumentative process and considers various options – and invites the reader to take part in the consideration. This works as a sober correlative to the radical content of the pamphlet which indeed argues for the assassination of Cromwell. On the other hand, there are sufficient indicators already in this passage for the assumption that the author leans towards a yes answer, such as the parenthetical statement in the first line, the biasing form of the first question and of course the fact that a fairly long pamphlet follows implying the treatment of all three questions. If the postulated yes-no space is viewed rather as a continuum of likelihoods it also accommodates more modalized or irrealis examples such as those in (14) and (15): (14) And if a Telescope of double or treble the goodness of one of fifteen should discover double or treble the said number of magnitudes, would it not be an Argument of doubling or trebling the former Diameter, and of increasing the bulk eight or twenty seven times. (SciA1674) (15) He particularly chargeth that Judge, and that Jury-man, who did, he saith signally contrary to common Justice, expose themselves to destroy him. (. . .) The Jury were to Act according to their Consciences; and if they did so, how could they expose themselves contrary to common Justice to destroy him? (PolB1690)

In both examples, readers are invited to consider how likely they find the described situation, in order to go along with or reject the following argument. Only if the readers come to a similar conclusion as the author will the following (leading) questions work in the intended way. The combination of conditionals and questions within one sentential structure, dependent on each other, is not uncommon with 99 instances in the data. Both clausal types involve the readers directly, in so far as they leave a space to be filled and thus draw them more intimately into the argumentation process. Thus, it is not surprising that this particular link accounts for almost 10 per cent of all conditional instances in the more polemic register of politics, whereas in science it makes up only 4 per cent. The necessity to make a yes-no decision in the case of if -clauses becomes especially clear in procedural or instructional contexts, where the conditional is usually followed by an imperative apodosis. Only if the reader gives a positive reading to the conditional does the following directive speech act apply; otherwise it can be ignored. This type, as found in (16a and b), is especially common in the scientific register of the LC data.

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 Claudia Claridge

(16) a.

If they are exceedingly griped and loose, apply also the following Plaister to their Bellies: (. . .) If the Looseness continues, give the following Glister: (SciA1730) b. and if it be dry Weather, so that the Water is evaporated and sunk lower than it stood when the Vessel was first set forth, then put in just as much more Water as will raise it to its original Height: (SciB1696)

Nevertheless, it is also found in political writing, but with a different purpose (17): (17) If any doubt this, let him send to Major General Brown, and he will Satisfie Him. (PolB1659)

As in example (17), it is integrated into the (often polemical) argumentative interaction with the addressees (whether these are other authors, political opponents or readers), amounting here to a challenge to the potentially unbelieving reader. The reader can also be directly addressed in an if -clause and asked to make a decision, as in (18). (18) For my part, in the rectangle AB considered simply in it self, without either increasing or diminishing, I can conceive no velocity at all. And if the Reader is of my mind, he will not take either your word, or even the word of a Ghost, how venerable soever, for velocity without motion. (SciB1735)

The openness of the condition is especially clear here: the author does not know the reader’s mind, but can only hope that the text has been convincing so far. However, as stated above, authors have the means to bias the interpretation of an if -clause. In examples (19a–c) the underlined clauses are clear indicators that the authors intend the protases to be taken as valid; without these, they would be fairly open conditionals. (19) a.

If what I affirm’d be on the one hand, matter of fact, as unquestionably it is; and that, on the other hand, such a power has never been question’d during so many reigns: it is certainly more than a presumtion in favor of the Irish Lords, nay, it is in my opinion a very strong argument; (PolA1720) b. For if, as is very evident in Practice, Diseases even of the same Denomination, arising from different Causes, do administer different Indications, or indicate different Methods of Cure; the AEtiology must consequently be a grand Source from whence Rational Indications can be drawn. (SciA1712) c. Thirdly, That if this proceeding fall out to be an invasion of property (as I think I shall anon prove it is) then I say every individual person will be interressed in the Fate of this Cause. (PolB1674)

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

While (19a) and (19b) are phrased in such a way as to leave no doubt (and the presence of if simply has a ‘polite’, toning-down effect), (19c) is more tentative and only points the reader in the somewhat more likely direction. Negated if -clauses, by contrast, strongly imply a no-reading (Podlesskaya 2001: 1000), in particular if they refer to a present or timeless state and in the case of a bare if not. Often this goes along with and is reinforced by some clear contrast in the immediate context, like all coloured maps in (20). (20) The Sea is frequently in all coloured Maps painted Green, if the Maps are not coloured, the space Denoting the Sea is left White. (SciA1698)

In combination with past perfect forms, as in (21), negation works in the opposite way, however, implying a clear positive. (21) Cromwell contrary to this wise Maxime, endeavoured to put the whole Baltick Sea into the Sweeds hands, and undoubtedly had (. . .) done it, if his death had not given them that succeeded him, the Long Parliament, an opportunity of prudently preventing it. (PolA1668)

Negative conditionals make up 11 per cent of the data and are more common in political than in scientific contexts, which may have to do with their biasing force and thus usefulness for polemic argumentation. In all the above instances, the presence of if highlights the aspect that a decision needs to be made about the applicability of the content of the protasis and as a consequence about the validity or acceptability of the apodosis content. The reader is asked to check the text against the world, and, by means of the conditional, the author presents himself as potentially open-minded as to various possibilities and as unimposing on the reader. Many of the examples used so far could have been expressed differently, less iffy, if the author had wanted to reduce the element of uncertainty. For example, other connectives, such as given that in (12), as/since in (12) and (15), whenever in (20), as long as (15) would have been options – in each case with clearly different rhetorical effect. Let me finish this section with a particularly forceful use of conditionals, namely a whole conglomeration of six if -clauses, all of which have the same final apodosis and five of which are actually incomplete before the sixth provides the author’s clear evaluation of them. Most of what the author enumerates here is actually new information in the context of the pamphlet, but in the bracket in the first line the writer tries to establish a link to the readers’ common knowledge. Whatever the knowledge of the reader, the points are presented in such a way as to demand a decision from the reader, which is expected by the pamphleteer to be positive and in agreement with the eventual conclusion of the text. If the reader has agreed to every single conditional, the force of the conclusion will be enhanced, because it will then be more immediate to the reader.

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 Claudia Claridge

(22) In a word, that I may not tire my reader, (who will not want proofs for what I say, if he wants not memory) If to change the government without the peoples consent: If to dissolve their Representatives by force, and disannul their Acts: If to give the name of the Peoples Representatives to confederates of his own, that he may establish iniquity by a law: If to take away mens lives out of all course of Law, by certain Murtherers of his own appointment, whom he names A High-Court of Justice. If to decimate mens estates, and by his own power to impose upon the people what Taxes he pleases: And to maintain all by force of Arms: If I say all this does make a Tyrant, his own impudence cannot deny, but he is as compleat a one as ever hath been since there have been Societies of Men. (PolB1659)

. Position of if -clauses There are three alternatives for positioning an if -clause vis-à-vis its apodosis: preceding it, following it or intervening in it. Which option is chosen depends on various factors such as whether the if -clause contains mostly given or new information, what it refers to or whether it is used for cohesive purposes, etc. The choice made will of course also influence the effect the if -clause contributes to the discourse. While the identification of if -clauses with topics and/or given information works well only with initial protases, the yes-no framework outlined in Section 4 applies in principle to if -clauses in all positions. The uncertainty expressed by the if -clause can be equally projected onto the preceding, following or surrounding clause, even if the strength of the resulting doubt may be influenced by the position. The discussion in this section is thus logically connected with the preceding one. Furthermore, this part will take up points mentioned in Section 3, and link positions to textual functions of if -clauses. The distribution of if -clauses in the corpus among initial, final and parenthetical position in relation to their apodosis is given in Table 2. Table 2. Positions of if -clauses in texts representing politics and science in the Lampeter Corpus8

politics science Total

Initial

Final

Parenthetical

Total

478 (67.7%) 487 (66.8%) 963 (67.1%)

172 (24.7%) 155 (21.3%) 329 (22.9%)

55 (7.6%) 87 (11.9%) 142 (9.9%)

705 729 1,434

. Sentences where the relationship between protasis and apodosis is somewhat obscured by a fronted subject (e.g., SciB1735: the Reader if he useth his eyes must see it) may look superficially like parenthetical structures, but have been classified as instances of initial if -clauses here.

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Conditionals in Early Modern English texts 

While the ‘normal’ order (Greenberg 1966, Universal 14; cf. Section 2) of initial clauses accounts for the majority of 67 per cent of all conditionals, as much as over 30 per cent of the data is found in marked positions. The dominance of initial clauses has also been found in other studies and seems to apply cross-linguistically (e.g., Ford & Thompson 1986; Comrie 1986), while Biber et al.’s (1999: 834) data alone stands out with a somewhat more balanced distribution of final and initial clauses. Parenthetical clauses have not been taken into consideration in the above-mentioned studies. They are represented in treatments of stance (e.g., Conrad & Biber 1999), but no comparative positional figures are provided in these contexts. Individual texts or authors, such as the two texts discussed above (Section 2), can show preferences which are different from the pattern in Table 2. Whereas SciB1722 uses mostly initial clauses (80 per cent), relegating final and parenthetical clauses to 10 per cent each, PolA1672 makes a more balanced use of the positional alternatives than the corpus averages with 46 per cent initial clauses, 35 per cent final ones, and 19 per cent parentheticals. Using the marked positional choice serves special purposes and has potentially greater force than the normal choice – which can be exploited by stylistically sensitive authors. As the functions of final and parenthetical if -clauses have not received much attention (or not within the discussion of conditionality), these types merit a closer look. . Parenthetical if -clauses Parenthetical if -clauses are those which occur on their own within brackets, thereby interrupting the sentence structure as in (23), or otherwise disrupt the usual order as in (24), where the interpolated conditional intervenes between a verb and its complement.9 (23) By which agreement (if it hold) the Swedes have not onely got a good footing in Germanie, a strong influence upon all the Counsels of the Empire, . . . (SciB1652)

. Parenthetical clauses can be realized (i) by putting them in brackets as in example (23), (ii) by separating them from the host clause by means of commas, or (iii) by no separation marker at all, at least not preceding if, as in (24). In the data, the three possibilities are distributed as follows: (i): 38.7 per cent, (ii): 53.6 per cent, (iii): 7.7 per cent. This may signal different degrees of integration into the flow of the argumentation and thus of semantic prominence.

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 Claudia Claridge

(24) These are the chief heads of the Rights, Freedoms, and Liberties of the People of this Nation firmly setled and established, (. . .) that all the Free-states, and Common-wealths, that are, or ever were, extant, in any place throughout the whole universe, may be justly challenged to shew if they can, the like Liberty and Freedom for their Citizens and Subjects (PolB1660)

With almost 10 per cent of the present data, they are certainly not a negligible quantity, in particular not in science where they are considerably more frequent than in politics. They come as a kind of afterthought, after the main point (e.g. agreement in (23)) has already been expressed unconditionally or unhedged. The reader is thus caught somewhat unawares by this expression of stance or sudden opening of a small yes-no frame and has to think again, i.e., more time and thought is spent than would otherwise be the case on a point expressed in such a way. Also, ‘afterthought’ does not mean it is unimportant – the intrusiveness and disruption of the syntactic structure can even highlight its special importance to the author. The delayed hedging together with the marked parenthetical structure thus detracts from the positive meaning expressed previously and biases towards a no-reading, thus leading to a stronger expression of doubt. In example (24), the function of the if -clause is also to cast doubt on the ability of the addressed persons to live up to the challenge made by the author. Nevertheless, the readers are still free to come to their own conclusions. As to the functions of parentheticals, one finds the majority of somewhat over 60 per cent used in a content-related function, while the remainder fulfil discourse-related, ‘hedging’ and metalinguistic functions (in order of frequency, in the range of roughly 12 to 19 per cent). It is not always possible to attribute only one clear function to an example, especially in the case of the latter three. Content-related cases supply some (usually) extralinguistically based restriction to a concept, event, etc. mentioned previously as in (25a) and (25b). (25) a.

This also is safe from bending and shaking with the wind, which I find the strongest Houses, Towers, and Walls, if of any considerable height, are apt to do, . . . (SciA1674) b. those that understood not Tyrants practises, and are unacquainted (if any be) with his cruelties and falshoods. (PolB1659)

Needless to say, some of these also have argumentative force, as (25b) indicating the author’s incredulity as to the possible existence of people unaware of tyrannous practices. Discourse-related examples like (26) refer to participant actions within the discourse, here the reader’s, or highlight discoursal necessities or

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progress (e.g., but before I press this business farther, if it needs be any farther prest, . . . (PolB1659)).10 (26) The Argument, if you mark it, is just thus, that because I agree with William to save Thomas, therefore I am bound to let William cut my Throat. (PolA1672)

Hedging instances are here understood to be those which explicitly comment on the degree of certainty by the author, as in (27), or somebody else (e.g., if the author is rightly inform’d (PolA1731)).11 (27) The Defeat of the Spanish Fleet in the Mediterranean, if I mistake not, was voted by Parliament a wise and just Action; (PolA1731)

Metalinguistic instances discuss the adequacy of some linguistic choice: in (28) there is a critical comment on the usage/meaning of another author, but selfreflexive uses like if I may so call it (SciB1684) have also been attested. (28) . . .those immature Salts of an Alkali nature, (which are also contained in the Sand, and Mud of the Bathe (If that be meant by Fimus in the Author, to express which, Limus or Lutum had been more proper.)) (. . .) may, perhaps, by its influence be converted into Nitre. (SciB1676)

The above types diverge from existing classifications such as that by Sweetser and Dancygier (2000: 114ff.): the discourse-related and hedging types do not exist in the scheme of the authors just mentioned and their speech-act and epistemic types are not found in the present data. The difference between my and Sweetser and Dancygier’s typology may be thought to be due to the focus on parenthetical if clauses here, but in fact speech-act and epistemic types in Sweetser’s (1990: 116– 121) exact sense are hard to identify in the data in any sentential position (cf. also Section 5.2 below). In contrast to initial if -clauses, parentheticals have no large-scale function in the text, i.e., they are not referentially linked to previous discourse, they generally contain only new information, they do not create intersentential links or bring the topic forward. Instead, they are of strictly local significance within the clause or sentence they occur in. Almost half of them (48.2 per cent) modify or modalize the content of a whole (main or other) clause (as in (27)), but often they only refer to a single word/item (27 per cent), as in examples (23) and (24) above, or to a single phrase (24.8 per cent) within their host clause, as in (25a). . In many cases, discourse-related instances can fit the description of content-related (i.e., exhibit the same type of relationship between the two clauses), but as they make different contributions to a text it is better to keep them apart. . These are different from Sweetser’s epistemic type (cf. Section 2), as this does not contain an explicit reference to epistemic processes in the surface form.

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. Final if -clauses As Table 2 shows, final if -clauses are more than twice as frequent as parentheticals with ca. 23 per cent. The majority of them share the characteristic of parentheticals of being more locally based than initial clauses (cf. also Ramsay 1987), as is clearly the case in the metalinguistic final clause in (29). (29) And here I must intreat the Reader to preserve his full freedom of mind intire, and not weakly suffer his judgment to be overborn by (. . .) that extreme satisfaction and complacency with which you utter your strange conceits; if words without a meaning may be called so. (SciB1735)

This is one of the minority of 22 final clauses that refer to a word or phrase only; these can also be seen as parenthetical clauses that just accidentally happen to come final. Example (29) has also a similar function to those identified for parentheticals, namely to cast doubt on the opposing party’s actions and approaches. Interestingly, this happens here following a direct address to the reader, who is thus asked to consider whether the writing of the person talked about makes sense. However, as (30) shows, final clauses can also be used to (re-)open (new) lines of thought and thus play a role in the unfolding of the argumentation. (30) and that we are not to be guided by bad Precedents abroad, but by the Principles and Doctrins of our own Church. This were to the purpose, if our Church had any where declared, Taking such an Oath to be Perjury. But where is that done? I confess, I can find no such thing (PolB1690)

In example (30), the if -clause, while containing some given elements, is used to introduce a new part of the argumentation, or rather highlight a flaw in another party’s argumentation, by essentially functioning as a question about the actual presence of a regulation proposed by the opponent. While the author promptly negates it himself, the reader is free to follow it up as well and perhaps come to a different conclusion. As the following example (31) shows, it is the if -clause that carries the message while the main clause is less important or vacuous and serves as an introductory. (31) To return to the point of what may probably be the Consequences if the English should proceed to any further degree of opposition; or if the Scots should miscarry in the Design. (PolA1699)

This type of use opens the yes-no space with at least the same if not greater urgency than an initial clause would. The main clause in (31) serves as a discourse link, which accounts for the sequence. The if -clause is also the dominant part in those conditionals including the presence of a predicate in the main clause that denotes

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epistemic or evaluative processes12 and/or a performative verb in the if -clause, as in (32a) and (32b). (32) a.

This will appear to be incontrovertibly true, if we consider that in the time of K. James I. we were under no Restrictions as to matters of Trade more than they, except as to the exportation of Wool, and a few other things of English Product; (PolA1699) b. You will not therefore be surpriz’d, if it be asserted, that in a Bill of ten Pounds nine are the reward of his Advice and Attendance, and in all the other sums proportionably. (SciB1701)

The conditional structure is thus used to make authorial stance explicit and to highlight the procedural nature of conditional thought processes of the writer and the reader. These conditionals, which are usually content- or discourse-related, make up almost a quarter among final if -clauses. The interesting point here is that the real message is found in a complement clause and is thus removed out of the uncertainty/yes-no space of the conditional proper. The primary function of conditionals is thus bypassed here and only a somewhat modalizing force remains. The instances above illustrate two aspects of importance for final if -clauses mentioned by Ford and Thompson (1986: 359ff.), namely length and embedding. However, in only about 20 per cent of the present data the length of the if -clause might have played a decisive role in the positioning; Early Modern English was in general more tolerant towards heavy, complex structures in various sentential position, so that this criterion was not as relevant as it is today (cf. for example Pérez-Guerra 1999: 227). Also, one finds initial if -clauses of considerable length in the data. Embedding of the if -clause in a nominal structure, like the noun clause in (31), an infinitive, or relative clause can induce final position, but this reason is of even less importance than length in the present data (although this point applies for some wh-, that- and relative clauses). Also, relative structures like the following continuative relative clause in (33) are themselves not embedded in the same way as their modern counterparts are (and hence they are not fully comparable with them as to the syntactic effect produced). (33) . . . Keplers amicable Fibres, which did according to the several positions of the Moon, accelerate or retard the Moon’s motion; which amicable Fibres he had no affection to at all (. . .) if he could any other waies give account of those little inequalities; (SciA1666)

. This can be the only predicate present or a “bridging” predicate (Fillmore 1990: 141). This feature is also found with initial if -clauses and the hedging type of parentheticals above represents a similar case.

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The ordering used in (33) with the explicitly linking wh-clause first and the if clause last makes for greater textual cohesion than a reversal of clauses would do. Thus, in example (33), as in (31), it is rather discourse structure, thematic progression13 and matters of cohesion that lead to the clause sequence found. Another structural aspect of importance is the fact that Early Modern English ‘sentences’ often accommodate quite a number of main and subordinate clauses (Barber 1997: 37), among them possibly several if -clauses. Sometimes they are coordinated, refer to the same point and are thus put in the same position with regard to the main clause they are attached to. But in other cases, like (34), they refer to different lines of thought while being connected to the same main clause and thus are for clarity’s sake better kept apart. In contrast to parenthetical examples, cases like (34) do not interrupt the flow of a clause, and are thus less prominent and potentially less forceful than the former. (34) Add to this, that the English if they please by joining with the Scots may have an equal Share of all those Immunities; and if there should be for some time a lessening of the King’s Customs, of which there is at present no manner of prospect, it will be sufficiently made up in time to come by a large addition, if that Colony prospers; so that the King’s Bounty in that respect is but like the bestowing of charge to improve barren or waste Ground, . . . (PolA1699)

It is clearly more important for the writer of (34) to transmit the message of ‘if there . . . addition’ than to stress the second if -clause (which might after all detract from the force of the argument). In other words, in the case of some final if -clauses the yes-no decision triggered by them is potentially downplayed by the author. More than 70 per cent of final if -clauses, i.e., the great majority again, are clearly content-related, like (34) above and (35). (35) it seems as evident that the Moon hath not [motion about its own Axis, CC]; because of the same side of the Moon alwaies turned towards us; which could not be, if the Moon carried the Earth about (SciA166)

The functions Ford and Thompson (1986) have identified for Present-Day English initial clauses are partly in evidence for final clauses as well in the present corpus, such as the ‘exploring options’ function in (31). The functions of assuming a claim and of presenting a contrast to preceding statements (cf. (35)) are in evidence as well, the latter especially in science, while instances that present particular cases or exemplify could not be found. If the if -clause assumes a claim, as in (34), this often means that the final clause has a hedging or clearly restrictive . Ford and Thompson (1986: 360) mention the category of “interesting subjects”, i.e., subjects which are heavy, and represent new and textually important referents, as one thematic factor for moving an if -clause out of initial position.

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(‘only if ’) force. Cases which either present a contrast or a new option lead more to a cause-consequence reading. As with parentheticals, there are also instances which are not related to content, i.e., to the facts dealt with. Some few instances (ca. 10-15) can be classified as Sweetser’s epistemic type, not evident with parentheticals above, although usually less prototypically and unambiguously than the examples quoted in modern literature, as the following examples illustrate: (36) a.

How true this is, a slight Experiment will soon evince, and if the Author had ever made trial, his Galls or Sight, must be worse than mine, if a purple colour did not appear. (SciB1676) b. if this be their Notion of a mixt Monarchy (as most plainly it is, if Actions may interpret Intentions) it is then not only false and absurd, but dangerous and destructive. (PolA1684)

As with parentheticals, there are metalinguistic instances, but with only three examples they are very infrequent in this position. In (37), however, the if -clause is an important part of the argumentation and is given further prominence by its separation by means of a semi-colon, clause-initial capitalization and length. (37) If the King thus entrusted to keep the Laws and preserve Religion, should be guilty of a wicked Design, to subvert our Laws, and destroy our Religion, by introducing an Arbitrary, Tyrannical Government; he must then understand, that he is but an Officer of Trust. All this is granted; If the word Trust do only refer to Almighty God, but not to the People. (PolA1684)

Metalinguistic and speech-act conditionals are said by Dancygier and Sweetser (2000: 134) to be found commonly in final position. In the present data, metalinguistic cases favour the parenthetical position (or are final by chance but essentially parenthetical in character), while speech-act conditionals do not occur at all. The only example which may qualify for speech-act use is (38), where the supposed likelihood of a reader reaction is the reason for the defensive statement in the main clause: (38) This I think is sufficient to take off the surmise of Singularity, if any such thing by chance should be thought upon. (SciB1676)

The lack of speech-act conditionals may of course be due to the fact that the corpus used here represents written language; their usefulness is more obvious in the spoken sphere. Discourse-related instances of the type explained above, on the other hand, are found in final position as well, where longer structures of that type are more easily accommodated (cf. (39)). While not very frequent with about 30 instances, they are a noticeable feature of the style of pamphlet writing. (39) a.

In a word, I differ from him in none of his Maxims relating to our interest at home, and therefore he ought to take it the less ill of me, if I can-



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not agree with him in all his notions concerning our Alliances abroad. (PolA1672) b. For which conduct of yours throughout your remarks, you will pardon me if I cannot otherwise account, than from a secret hope that the reader of your defence would never read the Analyst. (SciB1735)

In conclusion, one can say first of all that the (clear) dominance of content-related types in both parenthetical and final position is interesting. It could be argued that the conditional content is thereby relegated to a background position – in comparison with foregrounded initial content conditionals. However, this does not apply to all cases. Parentheticals through their marked position have an ‘intrusive’, surprise-effect quality that projects them into the foreground of the argumentative process and into the reader’s awareness. This goes together with the fact that they usually contain new information which needs further thought. It is certainly also not correct for those final clauses which carry a greater informational load than their main clauses (cf. (31) and (32) above). Some final clauses, on the other hand, especially shorter ones (e.g. (34)), are probably intended as backgrounded by the author, in the sense of being unobtrusive, and less striking for the reader. They partly represent content restrictions which for the sake of sincerity, precision etc. ought to be made, but which the author does not really want to emphasize as they detract from the main argument pursued. Final clauses thus can be used to make the yes-no decision space less prominent for the reader and thereby to downgrade potential objections.

. Conclusion What do the aspects treated above tell us about the functions of if -clauses in Early Modern English discourse? They show in what ways conditionals were used for both argumentative and interactive purposes, which sometimes interlink in one and the same instance. Argumentation is first of all represented by content-related conditionals (the majority), which are used to present options and alternatives or to highlight causal connections. This factual argumentation is complemented by explicit comments on the author’s or others’ conclusion-drawing process. Furthermore, conditionals allow the readers to become integrated into the argumentative process by being invited to come to their own conclusions about the ‘question’ posed by the protasis. The invitation to the reader stands even if authors make their own stances clear in the surrounding context – only the use of a conjunction other than if could change that. Initial and parenthetical protases (and some special final cases) and conditionals with potentially neutral tense/mood usage (which are in the majority in the present data) are the instances most fitted for giving the

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reader pause for thought. Final and partly parenthetical clauses, on the other hand, also give the author the opportunity to steer the interpretation into the direction chosen or to make the condition seem less prominent – thus to serve authorial argumentative needs more clearly than the readers’. Interactiveness, or the creation of involvement, has already been touched on with the mention of readers above. Moreover, all of the non-content uses of conditionals clearly increase the involvement/interaction level, be it the authors’ (by commenting on their own decisions, actions or doubts), the readers’ (by direct addresses) or, by implication, everybody’s (by attacking and quoting opposing authors). Features of some conditionals, such as evaluative or mental-process lexical items, embedding in questions, and imperatives in the main clause, are also geared towards increasing the direct involvement of the reader. Needless to say, there will also be other functions of conditionals. One important aspect is certainly textual coherence in the widest sense. As I have hinted above, the choice of positions can at least partly be due to the cohesive needs of a textual passage. The notion of conditionals as topics (givens), however, is problematic, as it not only does not work for parenthetical and final clauses but neither sufficiently for initial clauses.

Sources Lampeter Corpus = Claudia Claridge, Josef Schmied, Rainer Siemund, comp. (1999) Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

References Adamson, Sylvia (1999). ‘Literary Language’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. III: 1476–1776, ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 539–653. Akatsuka, Noriko (1986). ‘Conditionals are Discourse-bound’. In: Traugott et al., eds, 333–351. Barber, Charles (1997). Early Modern English. Second ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Biber, Douglas (1988). Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Claridge, Claudia (2003 [1999]). ’Life is ruled and governed by opinion’: The Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts. Manual of Information. (includes a list of the texts)

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Comrie, Bernhard (1986). ‘Conditionals: A Typology’. In: Traugott et al., eds, 77–99. Conrad, Susan and Douglas Biber (1999). ‘Adverbial Marking of Stance in Speech and Writing’. In: Evaluation in Text, ed. Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 56–73. Dancygier, Barbara and Eve Sweetser (2000). ‘Constructions with if, since, and because: Causality, Epistemic Stance, and Clause Order’. In: Cause – Condition – Concession – Contrast, ed. Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen and Bernd Kortmann. (Topics in English Linguistics, 33). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 111–142. Fillmore, Charles J. (1990). ‘Epistemic Stance and Grammatical Form in English Conditional Sentences’. In: Papers from the 26th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 137–162. Ford, Cecilia E. and Sandra A. Thompson (1986). ‘Conditionals in Discourse: A Text-based Study from English’. In: Traugott et al., eds, 353–372. Greenberg, Joseph (1966). ‘Some Universals of Grammar, with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements’. In: Universals of Language, ed. Joseph Greenberg. Second ed. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press, 73–113. Görlach, Manfred (1991). Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haiman, John (1978). ‘Conditionals are Topics’. Language 54: 564–589. Haugen, Einar (1966). ‘Dialect, Language, Nation’. American Anthropologist 68: 922–935. Jespersen, Otto (1940). A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Parts V, VII. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard. Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition: Version 3.1. (2002). On CD-ROM. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pérez-Guerra, Javier (1999). Historical English Syntax: A Statistical Corpus-based Study on the Organisation of Early Modern English Sentences. (Lincom Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 11). Munich/Newcastle: Lincom Europa. Podlesskaya, Vera (2001). ‘Conditional Constructions’. In: Language Typology and Language Universals: an International Handbook. (Handbücher für Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaften, Vol. 20,2), ed. Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher, and Wolfgang Raible. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 998–1010. Ramsay, Violeta (1987). ‘The Functional Distribution of Preposed and Postposed “If ” and “When” Clauses in Written Discourse’. In: Coherence and Grounding in Discourse, ed. Russel S. Tomlin. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 383–408. Rissanen, Matti (1999). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. III: 1476–1776, ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 187–331. Schiffrin, Deborah (1992). ‘Conditionals as Topics in Discourse’. Linguistics 30: 165–197. Sweetser, Eve (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sweetser, Eve (1996). ‘Mental Spaces and the Grammar of Conditional Constructions’. In: Spaces, Worlds and Grammar, ed. Eve Sweetser and Gilles Fauconnier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 318–333. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Snitzer Reilly and Charles A. Ferguson, eds (1986). On Conditionals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Relatives as sentence-level connectives Anneli Meurman-Solin* University of Helsinki

.

Introduction

This study examines relative elements as sentence-level connectives identifiable in manuscript-based data unaffected by editorial modernization of sentence structure. Beside the improved quality of data now available in a corpus of diplomatically transcribed and digitized manuscript originals representing Older Scots (Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC), 1540–1708), the study was motivated by observations in my earlier corpus-based studies on topics such as clausecombining devices (Meurman-Solin 2002, 2004a and b) and diachronic studies of the relative system in the history of English (Rydén 1966; Moessner 1992 and 1997; Bergs 2005). My interest in the topic was also aroused by recent research on sentence-level relatives as anaphoric reference signals, methodologically interesting research having been published on their role in discourse organization and anaphora in Latin (Bolkestein & Van de Grift 1994; Bolkestein 1996, 2000; Pennel Ross 1996). My findings concerning the relative WHO signalling anaphoric reference at the sentence level are particularly relevant in the present context (Meurman-Solin 2000). Interestingly, in her survey of Older Scots syntax, Moessner (1997: 149) also provides a brief commentary on ‘clauses which superficially resemble relative clauses in that they are introduced by the same elements as relative clauses’ but ‘have neither an antecedent nor are they embedded in other clauses’. She points out that these relative elements ‘have the same syntactic function and the same semantic role as determiners or demonstrative pronouns’ in sentence-initial po* This research was supported by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence funding for the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English at the Department of English, University of Helsinki. I would like to thank the referees for their many valuable comments and useful suggestions on a previous version of this study.

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sition. In commenting on the following example, she argues that ‘[t]he sentence introduced by quhilk is not a relative clause, but an independent sentence with the subject quhilk. This subject establishes a semantic link with the preceding text’: (1) The nobillis condiscendit wele to þe samyn, traisting all thingis gevin to þe kirk tynt na leß þan it war fallin in herschip to þair inymyis; quhilk wes cauß eftir þat þair realme wes brocht to vtter exterminioun (BELL 30.26f.; my emphasis)1

The relevance of the other examples in Moessner (1997: 149) is difficult to assess, since a sufficiently large context is not provided. In general, distinguishing between the sentence-initial use of relative elements and their use in relative clauses functioning as postmodifiers within NP structures is difficult without a comprehensive analysis of the whole system of reference signals in discourse organization at the level of idiolect and genre. Her concluding remark on the use of a relative element as a semantic link between the clause it introduces and the preceding text is of interest here: it is probably due to the overlap in the inventories of determiners/demonstrative pronouns on the one and relative pronouns on the other hand that the relative pronouns (the) quhilk(is), quhais/quhois and quhome started commuting with the former in clause-initial position.

However, the expression ‘started commuting’ may be misleading here, since there is no statistically significant evidence as yet of how the reference system developed over time in Older Scots and what factors conditioned the choice of the pronoun type in texts representing different genres and registers. The present approach reflects Moessner’s views by stressing the importance of examining relatives as members of the whole repertoire of reference signals which create links at the semantic as well as at the structural and syntactic level. Example (2), extracted from a seventeenth-century letter, illustrates the use of the relative element which as a semantic link: (2) Sir I wrote not long agoe, which I \ perceave by your silence yow have not receaved wherfore now I desire \ that by the first yow wold order Mr Iohn Lawder to buy me a new \ bible, this which I have being Lodovicks Old ane that he had at Elgin \ schoole, and hath been twice or thrice bound {ins} & cutt {ins} and now can suffer neither; (CSC 1675 George Gordon of Sutherland)

There is no syntactic constituent functioning as the antecedent of which, but ‘a letter’ can be inferred from the semantic content of I wrote (see also example (42): . The Chronicles of Scotland. Compiled by Hector Boece. Translated into Scots by John Bellenden 1531, 2 vols, ed. R. W. Chambers and Edith C. Batho. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood 1938 and 1941.

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I heaue uret [have written] to my cousing . . . the quch I \ expect ane ansuere of ). A use of this kind does not permit analysis of the clause introduced by which as a constituent embedded in a complex noun phrase. Rather, the first line could be paraphrased by a co-ordinate structure: ‘Sir, I wrote [to you] not long ago, but I perceive by your silence that you have not received my letter’. Rydén (1966: xlii–xliii) points out that ‘[t]here are, particularly in early Modern English, relative clauses which exhibit a high syntactic autonomy’, the German terms “relativische Anknüpfung” and “relativischer Anschluss” being used to describe this type of relative link. Rydén reports that these relatives are nonrestrictive in his data; their antecedent is ‘a word (word-group) or an entire clause’ and they are ‘often placed at a considerable distance from the antecedent’. The inspection of wh-relatives as varying with alternative anaphoric reference signals in discourse has been shown to be a relevant frame of reference by recent literature on variation between the Latin demonstratives is (ea/id), hic (haec/hoc), ille (illa/illud), and iste (ista/istud), the first lacking the property of expressing spatial deixis, which is the core component of the other three as well as of personal and relative pronouns (Bolkestein & Van de Grift 1994; Bolkestein 1996, 2000; Pennel Ross 1996). As in Latin discourse (Bolkestein & Van de Grift 1994: 285), the pattern of variation in English is also assumed to reflect tendencies and relative preferences rather than to permit the identification of grammatical rules. The conceptual framework and method adopted here have greatly benefited from Bolkestein’s studies on discourse organization and anaphora in Latin (1996 and 2000). Bolkestein (2000: 132) lists the following features as factors to be considered in analysing the choice of anaphoric reference signals: ‘relative frequency and markedness, special uses connected with the type of discourse concerned, preferred position in the sentence and the relevance of informational status of both antecedent entity and anaphor, and switches in syntactic and semantic function as sources of contrastive focus’. The following conclusion in Bolkestein (2000: 132) stresses that we are in fact dealing with the combined effect of a number of factors: It appears that while the notion of ‘accessibility’ of a referent is certainly relevant, a low or high degree of accessibility can be caused by heterogeneous factors: it can not only be influenced by switches in syntactic and semantic function of the referent in the events narrated and the presence of other participants in them, but also by the relation between the discourse segment containing the anaphor and that containing the antecedent, and the nature of intervening material, if any.

The question of whether variation in English would reflect Latin influence is certainly relevant, but a representative multi-genre database would be required to verify the extent of such influence, preferably including translations of Latin texts. The present study draws exclusively on epistolary prose available in digitized format in the above-mentioned Corpus of Scottish Correspondence. Moreover, this

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study is restricted to describing the inventory of candidates for sentence-level constituents among relative elements attested in the data and identifying the types of use such relative elements could be categorized into, leaving a comparison between these and other pronominal reference signals until a more extensive study can be based on the revised and expanded CSC. Comparisons between genres can be made drawing on the manuscript-based version of the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots, 1450–1700, being compiled at present. Drawing on original manuscripts is seen as particularly rewarding in the study of connectives, seeing that features of visual prosody in general, and punctuation, spacing, and capitalization in particular provide essential information for syntactic analysis (see Section 3.1). Key factors in the larger project the present study is a part of are the following: relative structures are examined in the framework of the overall system of anaphoric reference in discourse organization. In consequence, they are not described exclusively with reference to their sub-phrasal structural and syntactic properties and their semantic features are not polarized simply in terms of the dichotomy restrictive vs. non-restrictive, but their connective functions are related to features of information structure and particular speech act and discourse types.

. The concept of relative connective . Definition for analysis in epistolary prose Apart from their adnominal use (e.g., this was the only cause q[uhi]ch broght me from home) and nominal use (e.g., I have w[hi]ch I bought for my own vse), relative elements have been recorded in the CSC data as variant realisations of anaphoric reference in discourse organization, as sentence-level subjects, for instance, with no immediately preceding nominal constituent functioning as antecedent: (3) I schew ye kyng & his gracis \ consall, syndry tyms ye grit occatione∼ zour \ [gr]ace hes hed, & dayly hes, till mak grit expensss and beseikit him till haue e?e? {blurred} [eye] yarto, quha \ wass glaid till knaw zour wysdome & gud \ mynd vssit to ye weill of bayt ye realmes \ & ordinit . . . yat yar suld be send \ zow instantly viij thow sand frankis (CSC 1545 John Hay)2

. The following conventions occur in the examples extracted from the CSC: an expansion of an abbreviated form is in italics; comments on insertion, deletion or cancellation are in curly brackets; while a question-mark indicates that the preceding character is unclear or ambiguous in the original. The symbol ∼ is used for a flourish which permits more than one expanded form and the symbol ” or word-final tails.

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In suggesting that this instance of quha can be included in the inventory of candidates for sentence-level function, the decisive criterion is that both ye kyng 3 and him, the nominal and pronominal constituents quha refers to, are non-adjacent. The concept of “relative connective” is used as an umbrella category for potentially sentence-level reference signals such as quha in (3). In this reading, the relative quha does not introduce a clause functioning as a postnominal modifier, but can be claimed to vary with an NP (‘The king was glad to know . . .’) or a personal pronoun realisation (‘He was glad to know . . .’) of the subject of a separate sentence. Since word order in Renaissance letters by writers representing quite different degrees of linguistic and stylistic competence is far from regularized, it is not possible to solve the problem caused by the inherent ambiguity between relatives as elements in complex NPs and sentence-level reference signals conclusively. In addition to position, i.e., the adjacency of or distance between the relative element and its antecedent or anchor, it is necessary to identify other factors which could be interpreted as indicators of a relative being a sentence-level reference signal rather than an element within an NP. The approach here is to examine whether features of text and discourse structure in letters could be related to the preference of a relative reference signal as subject; instead of a variant realisation, i.e., a noun phrase or a personal or demonstrative pronoun, for instance. Firstly, potentially sentence-level relatives will be examined as cohesive elements, and in that sense connectives, at the textual level, examining the use of varying types of relative link in the overall structure of a letter. Secondly, smaller chunks of text identifiable as discourses by their communicative function will be chosen as a frame of reference for verifying the extent to which the use of relatives is conventionalized in narratives and particular types of speech acts in letter-closing formulae (cf. Meurman-Solin 2000). A narrative passage, a politeness strategy for presenting a request, or one allowing the explicit expression of the author’s comment or value judgement, belong among the most frequent discourse types in epistolary prose. The concept of ‘text’ here refers to a complete text, whereas ‘discourse’ refers to a chunk of text in a letter representing a communicative event, with or without illocutionary force. Variation in the choice of anaphoric reference signal may also be conditioned by information packaging in epistolary prose, the degree of topicality and referential accessibility having been suggested as conditioning preferences (for more information on these notions, see Givon 2001, for instance). A number of adverbial connectives have been shown to have a topic-forming function in let. Alternatively, the co-ordinate structure ye kyng & his gracis consall can be analysed as the non-adjacent antecedent, but for semantic reasons and because of the presence of him, this is clearly less probable.

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ters (Meurman-Solin 2004b; Meurman-Solin & Nurmi 2004; Meurman-Solin & Pahta 2006), a finding which suggests that the study of relatives in discourse and text structure may also benefit from being examined in the framework of information processing (cf. Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1041–1042). Earlier research (Meurman-Solin 2000 and Bergs 2005) has also shown that in the analysis of the diffusion of particular relative structures it is relevant to pay attention to formulaic language use as a context of early adoption. Letter-closing formulae, for instance, are here assumed to be speech acts inviting the marking of discourse boundaries by a text-structuring connective. The bulk of the analysis here illustrates the various types and functions of the relative connective which as a variant realisation of anaphoric reference in discourse organization. This can be justified by the findings in Bergs (2005: 179). In the Paston letters, which has a distant antecedent in 39 per cent of the occurrences, wh-relatives being generally preferred in distant position because of their ‘greater explicitness, i.e., the greater anaphoric force of the “inflected” wh-forms’ in particular. However, the general approach in Bergs (2005) is different from the present one in that what he describes as ‘wh-forms preferred in distant RCs’ (ibid.: 178) are here considered syntactically ambiguous, permitting a reading either as relatives introducing non-adjacently positioned modifier clauses or as relative connectives functioning as constituents at the sentential level. . Relative connectives in grammatical description Traditional grammars use the term sentential relative for relatives which refer back to a clause (Quirk et al. 1985: 1118–1120), but otherwise the description of relative clauses is found in chapters entitled ‘The Noun Phrase’ (e.g., Quirk et al. 1985: Chapter 17 and Biber et al. 1999: Chapter 8). Moreover, the standard practice is to describe relatives in terms of three categories: adnominal, nominal and sentential relative clauses, a single sentence providing the structural framework for the description (as in Quirk et al. 1985: 1244). However, recent developments in the terminology used to refer to relative clauses reflect a preference for concepts encompassing the large range of structural, syntactic and semantic properties relative elements can have at the various levels of analysis. Thus Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1033) use the more general term “relative constructions”, or simply “relatives”, avoiding the use of the structural categorizer ‘clause’. The terminology used in the present study reflects these recent developments quite closely. As illustrated by the examples above, items such as who and which, which have usually been described as introducing relative clauses functioning as modifiers within nominal structures, as well as a number of relative adverbs such as whereat and whereupon (see Section 4.3.3) can indeed be examined as realisations of anaphoric

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reference at sentential level in historical data, providing links between smaller or larger chunks of text. The four relational types in Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1034–1036), “integrated”, “supplementary”, “cleft” and “fused”, have been primarily analysed with reference to the sentence, the immediate syntactic context, but anaphoric reference can also be realised by relatives beyond the sentence. Huddleston & Pullum (ibid.: 1035) point out that [t]he supplementary relative is also distinguished from the integrated relative in that it permits a much wider range of antecedents . . . The antecedent can indeed be a piece of text syntactically unconnected to the relative, as when a lecturer finishes one topic and then moves on to the next with the supplementary relative Which brings me to my next point.

Illustrating the differences between the integrated and supplementary types further, they note that ‘a supplementary relative clause is related only loosely to the surrounding structure’ or ‘only loosely incorporated into the sentence’ (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1058). While ‘[t]he antecedents of integrated relatives are sub-phrasal, parts of a phrase’, the antecedent usually being a nominal and the relative clause combining with it ‘to form a larger nominal’, with supplementary relatives ‘the antecedents are full phrases, such as NPs, or larger constituents, such as clauses, and the relative clause does not function as a dependent of the antecedent’ (ibid.: 1061). This polarization is characterized further as follows (ibid.: 1353): A distinction in terms of integrated versus supplementary reflects the semantic difference more accurately and also matches the prosodic difference that distinguishes them in speech. It enables us, moreover, to capture the similarity between the unintegrated relatives and other elements that are semantically, prosodically, and syntactically unintegrated with the rest of the sentence: these can all be subsumed under the concept of supplement.

Biber et al. (1999: 223–224) point out that in Present-Day English both nominal and sentential relative clauses have been recorded as realisations of unembedded dependent clauses in data representing conversation in particular but also in ‘dialogue in fiction and very informal news texts’. Unembedded clauses introduced by which are particularly versatile, uses such as Which is what/why/where . . ., Which brings me to . . . and Which means/explains . . . permitting ‘the speaker to express a comment on something that has just been said’. In tracing factors conditioning the choice of link, the claim that ‘[t]he special advantage of the relative link is that it signals a close connection to the immediately preceding text’ (ibid.: 224) requires further study. Criteria for assessing the alleged degrees of strength variant realisations of pronominal reference signals possess have not been defined as yet. Another aspect of the description of relatives in Huddleston & Pullum (2002) is particularly useful for the analysis of anaphoric reference in historical texts. In

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data reflecting less regularized, often also less controlled, ways of expression such as letters, it is necessary to distinguish between the syntactic constituent functioning as an antecedent and the anchor of a reference which can be identified and defined by semantic criteria. Huddleston & Pullum (ibid.: 1353) summarize their view as follows: A supplement . . . requires a semantically appropriate anchor: it cannot occur, as a supplement, without the anchor . . . For this reason, we take the anchor and its supplement to form a construction – a supplementation construction. But the lack of integration of the supplement into the syntactic structure means that there is no good reason to treat the supplementation as a syntactic constituent.

Example (2) in Section 1 above is a case in point, seeing there is no syntactic constituent the relative element could be interpreted as a dependent of. Huddleston & Pullum also describe ‘the range of permitted complex relative phrases’ (2002: 1040), using the metaphor of ‘upward percolation’. Their claim is that ‘[s]upplementary relatives allow a wider range of complex relative phrases than integrated ones’ (ibid.: 1059). This discussion contains observations which are highly relevant to the analysis of historical data. Our attention is drawn to degree of complexity in relative phrases as a potential indicator of them introducing a separate unit of information (see examples (24), (25) and (33)–(35)). Analysis of the comprehensive inventories of all relative elements is required in clarifying whether there is correlation between degree of complexity of relative phrases and the integrated versus supplementary relative construction dichotomy, the relative which analysed in the present study differing from the others by its well-established function as a sentential reference signal, i.e., a linking device referring back to the preceding text. In the analysis of epistolary prose, the observation that ‘non-declarative clauses . . . provide evidence for the view that supplementary relatives are not dependents of a head’ (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1062) is also particularly useful because it suggests that the illocutionary force of directives and interrogatives may play a significant role in defining the textual and discoursal status of a relative. They provide examples such as the following (ibid.: 1061): He said he’d show a few slides towards the end of his talk, at which point please remember to dim the lights. [imperative] It may clear up, in which case would you mind hanging the washing out? [closed interrogative/indirect directive] She may have her parents with her, in which case where am I going to sleep? [open interrogative/question]

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The CSC includes examples which invite consideration of the illocutionary force of utterances combined with the preceding context by relative connectives: (4) vee \ intend to go ane month to Orlians \ not for faer [fear] of the siknes; bot ra\ther to pas the tym til vee heir from your lo [lordship], vntil quilk tym, and \ euer mor, I pray God for al happi\nes to your lo; as \ Your lo \ most obedient \ sonne \ Alexander Erskine (CSC 1619 Alexander Erskine)

The final formula after the relative connective vntil quilk tym functions here as a wish (see also example (31)), but this relative phrase type also occurs in letterclosing formulae with commissive illocutionary force (Mey 2001: 120–121) (see examples (30) and (32)–(35); in (36), both speech act types are combined in the final formula).

. Data . Manuscript sources in the analysis of sentence and clause structure Two observations prompted the use of manuscript sources for this study. Firstly, during the process of transcribing, digitizing and tagging the manuscript originals of Renaissance letters by writers originating from Scotland, it became obvious that the data was quite different from that available in editions. As in numerous editions of other – literary and non-literary – historical documents, editorial principles applied to letters permitted ‘normalization’, i.e., modernization, of various kinds, the typical areas subjected to tacit editorial interference being the expansion of contracted forms, and the application of modern rules in punctuation and the choice of lower and upper case. The study of a categorially fuzzy and polyfunctional feature such as connectives is however dependent on the authenticity of sentence structure in the data. Secondly, since manuscripts of letters reflected a much greater degree of heterogeneity than their edited versions, it seemed relevant for a study written from a variationist perspective to make sure that it would be based on complete inventories rather than a set of texts reflecting the history of varying editorial principles and practices.4 Earlier descriptive work drawing on non-modernized data has shown that there are significant differences in how thoughts are processed in terms of sentences and clauses in different periods (Meurman-Solin 2002, 2004b; cf. also related views on EModE pamphlets in Claridge in this volume). . In early printed works the policies different printers adopted also tended to favour at least some degree of standardization, but the various in-house preferences may sometimes be difficult to reconstruct, there being insufficient information about them.

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The Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC) this study draws on is an electronic corpus which contains diplomatically transcribed and lexico-grammatically tagged manuscripts of letters exclusively. The 2003 version used here has approximately 250,000 words of text extracted from letters dating from the period 1542–1708 (for further information, see Meurman-Solin 2007 and forthcoming). In this data source, a significant proportion of the letters are by non-professional writers, their inexperience and/or poor training being often reflected in their linguistic and stylistic competence in various ways (on the stylistic literacy of the CSC informants, see Meurman-Solin 2001 and Meurman-Solin & Nurmi 2004). In manuscript-based data, both linguistic and non-linguistic features trigger challenging research questions. In a corpus of letters we are dealing with a wide range of idiolectal and local as well as regional and national grammars of which no previous description is available. Consequently, a variationist typology of connectives can only be achieved by assuming that in general there are typologically relevant relations between numerous different types of link at the textual, discoursal, sentential and clausal levels (cf. Lehmann 1988). In this approach, the application of semantic criteria is proposed as the most appropriate tool for identifying features which create relations between clausal and sentential structures, or larger units of text. These features are then included in inventories to be analysed in great detail, such inventories also containing reduced and zero realisations of links. The various realisations of links are examined as potential members of typologies, the ultimate result of the analysis permitting the structuring of the information into variationist typologies, i.e., typological accounts of linguistic systems and subsystems applying variationist principles (for further information, see Meurman-Solin 2004b). For the data collected in the CSC, this process of analysis is facilitated by using an elaborate system of structural and semantic annotation (see Section 3.2; for further information, see Meurman-Solin forthcoming). As regards non-linguistic features such as properties of manuscript layout, paragraph structure, punctuation (including a wide range of varying shapes of virgules and commas), particular character shapes and spacing have been used as text-structuring devices indicating various types of connection in the data. These non-linguistic devices can suggest a particular reading as regards clause and sentence structure, permitting us to distinguish between sub-phrasal relative clauses and those which do not function as dependents of an antecedent (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1061–1062; see Section 2.2). Example (5) is an extract from a manuscript of a letter dating from 1642 written by William, Marquess of Angus:

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(5)

Sen I can haue no vyer delling in yat bissines but be ri?gour \ Lett ye mater go so on. {space} I am no to blame to seik yis deweteis \ restand yis fourtene zeiris. {space} In Iust Iugement the reteneris \ thairof ar not blameles {space} Quha bothe intrudit him selff in yois \ Landis & retenis my deweteis but my consent. (CSC 1642 William Douglas, Marquess of Angus; published by the kind permission of the Trustees of Sir David Ogilvy of Inverquharity, Bt.)

In this example, visual prosody, spacing and initial capitals in particular, prompt us to analyse variation between the Quha shown in bold in the transcript and other ways of referring to the human participants of the text. In other words, spacing can be interpreted as suggesting that the passage consists of four separate sentences. Quha in this non-restrictive relative clause (notice capitalization) is replaceable by a personal pronoun, these (above-mentioned) persons or men. The relative is separated from the non-adjacently positioned NP (the reteneris \ thairof ) by the predication. These retainers have been named and repeatedly referred to in the preceding context and discussed in great detail with reference both to wrong-doing they are personally responsible for and to what the law says about any person who infringes another person’s rights. Thus the non-restrictive relative clause contains given information. The passage suggests a reading: ‘Alas! In just judgement, the retainers thereof [of these lands] are not blameless. After all, they did intrude in those lands and retained my duties without my consent.’5 Time relators containing relative elements also call for special attention, as can be illustrated by the following extract from a letter of the 10th Earl of Angus, dated 1601: (6) ffor samekle as ye tent day off f[ebru]\ar {torn} nixttocum is assignit to me & all vyeris To produce befoir \ his matie and counsall our clames & titillis quhair we acclame \ honouris and places in parliamentis and generall counsallis. Or \ neuir to be hard yareftir: {space} Qlk day godwilling I purpois \ to keip (CSC 1601 William Douglas, 10th Earl of Angus; published by the kind permission of the Trustees of Sir David Ogilvy of Inverquharity, Bt.)

The space and a colon in the manuscript before Qlk day as well as the initial capital of Qlk ‘which’ suggest that the relative structure may function as a sentence-level . In the preceding context, the reference signals alternate between who with generic reference ‘whoever’ and ‘whatever persons’, which may explain the use of himself here – as a reflection of the pattern of co-reference in whoever, any person who and he.

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signal of anaphoric reference. The non-adjacent positioning of the relative element and its anchor is quite frequent in historical data, as will be illustrated below. The antecedent realised by ye tent day off f [ebru]ar nixttocum in this example is at quite a distance from Qlk day. Examples (5) and (6) illustrate how, beside traditional syntactic description, the analysis of data extracted from early letters profits from being read from a text-linguistic and discourse-analytic point of view. Information may be processed as sequences of clausal units without indicating clearly which sentence structure they should be interpreted as part of. Such sequences do not cause problems of interpretation because of their high degree of explicitness as regards indicating semantic relations and distinguishing between given and new information.6 Given that punctuation in historical documents is not sufficiently regularized to allow the reconstruction of clause and sentence structure, these illustrations permit us to draw the conclusion that a thorough understanding of both implicit and explicit connectivity and visual prosody is necessary to learn to identify these structures.7 In text languages, a careful examination of the visual features of the original texts may provide useful, even indispensable, information for a reliable reading. However, the assessment of their relevance is by no means easy, and converging evidence of various kinds will have to be provided to create valid criteria for such an analysis. This procedure resembles the analysis of spoken language (from sound rather than transcript), in which prosodic features play a significant role. As regards relative structures, as Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1058) point out, ‘[a] supplementary relative is marked off prosodically from the rest of the sentence by having a separate intonation contour; there is typically a slight pause separating it from what precedes and, if it is non-final in the sentence, from what follows’. The analysis of manuscript letters by relatively inexperienced as well as more competent and stylistically highly professional writers requires similar tools to that of recorded spoken data. Developing such methods is one of the tasks of the larger project the present study is part of.

. A preliminary survey of links between sentences and clauses (see example (2), for instance, in Meurman-Solin 2004b) suggests that in general the degree of explicitness is greater in early letters than in texts representing the same genre in Present-Day English. To be able to study this topic in more detail, zero links are indicated in the tagging of the revised and expanded version of the CSC to be made internationally available in 2007. . Rydén (1966: xliii) points out that in his data relatives representing the “relativische Anknüpfung” type are ‘often preceded by a full stop or other marks of heavy punctuation’. Nevertheless he concludes that the attested inconsistencies in punctuation prevent us from considering these relative links as a discrete category of their own.

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. Technical tools for creating a typology of relatives In the CSC data, all connectives have been subjected to elaborated tagging (Meurman-Solin 2007 and forthcoming),8 the general approach aiming at relating properties of grammatical categories to their function in discourse (cf. Hopper & Thompson 2004). This section will provide a brief description of how the relatives with connective potential have been tagged. The following features are described as properties of the antecedent or anchor in the tags: number (singular, plural, other), definiteness (generic, otherd ), animacy (animate human, animate other, inanimate), position (adjacentd vs. non-adjacent), realisation (nominald vs. pronominal), premodification (an attributive demonstrative or indefinite pronoun; an adjective in the superlative or a semantic equivalent such as first or last vs. otherd ), correlative patterns (e.g., premodifying such . . . that), sequences (more than one relative structure attached to the same antecedent or anchor), sentential reference (the relative referring to a clause, a nominalization, or a shorter or longer chunk of text which is semantically identifiable as an anchor), fixedness (formulaic vs. non-formulaicd ) and nominal relative (i.e., the relative element including the antecedent). For reasons of annotation economy, the features marked by a superscript d in the list above are not given explicit information in the tag string, having been considered default properties. For example, the adjacent position of the antecedent has been treated as a default property on the basis of quantitative analysis, so that only the less frequent non-adjacent position is explicitly expressed in the elaborated tag. Similarly, a nominal realisation of the antecedent has been considered a default property, pronouns being elaborated on. The structural features of relatives provide information about prepositional structures (e.g., stranded vs. non-stranded; prepositioned vs. postpositioned as in in which vs. wherein) and the attributive use. Textual features are annotated by adding a particular comment to relative pronouns used as sentence-level constituents. The clause type of relative structures is also indicated (finite, non-finite or verbless9), and zero realisations are both commented on ({zero rel}) and tagged . As stated in the CSC Manual (Meurman-Solin forthcoming), the chief motivating factor for elaboration is to create a sophisticated tool for the identification of all the potential instances of patterns of variation, describe their structural and contextual features as accurately as possible, discover the shape of a particular linguistic system or subsystem drawing on such data and, finally, interpret this shape with reference to linguistic and extralinguistic factors. The rationale is that information in the elaborated tags should permit tracing variation and change, so that varying realisations of a particular linguistic feature attested in data covering a long time-span and representing geographically extensive and socially complex areas can be grouped together using software tailored for searches by a single component or set of components in the tags. . For example, here present in maister magnus zoure hienes ambassiatour here present has been tagged as a verbless relative clause.

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by introducing an initial zero in the tag string (e.g., 0RO{y1}>pr>>v in ‘the visit I longed for’, the properties indicating the zero realisation of an object pronoun with an antecedent of inanimate reference in the singular in a structure where the preposition of the prepositional verb long for is stranded). Candidates for the status of relative connective can be searched for by the comment {ts} attached to the grammel of a tag in order to indicate that the item can be interpreted as having the function of structuring a letter as a complete text or signalling the immediately following chunk of discourse as performing a particular communicative task. In (7) wherwpon has both of these functions: (7) this is all to [‘until’] I can \ heir zou[r] aduys wherwpon to conclud a \ thousant tyms ferueill [farewell] My sarues [service] being pre\senttet: to zour nobell Lord: I remen [remain] for euer \ zour Inalterabell cousenge & saruant \ ye ixth of march \ Elizabeth ker (CSC 1648 Elizabeth Ker)

The tag of the item is given the lexel whereupon, and the grammel provides the following information RO {sent}{ts}{f}>pr>vi-av. The item is not tagged as an adverbial (RO-av), since, unlike a number of occurrences interpreted as independent adverbial constituents (cf. Quhairfoir ‘wherefore’ in example (26)), this use of whereupon could be alternatively analysed as the prepositional object of the verb conclude (indicated by the arrows >pr>vi-av, the preposition attached to an infinitive having a relative element as object). The interpretation that interests us in the present context is the reading of wherwpon as a relative connective which refers back to what has been summarized by the conventionalized phrase this is all. The function of indicating a particular point in the overall organization of epistolary discourse has been indicated by {ts}, there also being a close semantic link between the summarizer and the verb conclude, which realises a particular speech act. The comment {f} for ‘formulaic’ indicates the position of wherwpon immediately before the letter-closing formula (for further evidence on aspects related to this position, see Section 4.3). Signalling formulaic use as part of the information provided by the tags is based on the finding that the earliest uses of WHO in Older Scots texts occur in fixed final formulae in letters (Meurman-Solin 2000; for converging evidence, see Bergs 2005). The following formula is repeatedly attested in the data: (8) as knawiss god quha mot haue zour grace In keping eternalye (HCOS 1543 Elizabeth Keith, Countess of Huntly) $who/RN{+h1}{f}_QUHA

However, a reading as a sentence-level constituent is possible in variant realisations of the formula in which the antecedent is non-adjacent and even embedded in a prepositional phrase, as in (9):

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(9) . . . and, with the grace off God, your artalzery puldir and gunnaris salbe wele warit, qua [preserve] your grace evirmare (HCOS 1545 Robert Maxwell) $who/RN{+h1}{non-ad}{f}_QUA

Before looking at relative connectives in the single-genre CSC more closely, a note about similar use in other genres may be of interest. In earlier research based on the multi-genre Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (Meurman-Solin 2000), the relative WHO as a realisation of anaphoric reference at sentence level was recorded in narrative texts in particular. The distance between the NP of definite reference and the relative varies, as illustrated by (10) and (11): (10) The Lord of Spynie past to Angus for taking of the maister of Glamis, bot come back without him. Quho therefter wes committed to waird in Blacknes, . . . (HCOS 1591 Moysie, 86–7) (11) than ald herenius send ane vthir ansuer and bad them slaye al the romans and nocht to lat ane of them return vitht ther lyif, quhen the samnetes herd the tua discordabil consellis of herenius, thai culd nocht meruel aneucht of his onconstant ansuer, quhar for pontius his sone suspekit that his father dottit in folie throcht his grit aige, zit noththeles he vald nocht conclude na exsecutione contrar the romans quhil he hed spokyn vitht his father, therfor vitht the consent of the samneties he send for his father to cum to their camp. quha cam at his command, in ane charriot be cause he mytht nothir ryde nor gang be cause he vas decrepit for aige. He beand aryuit his sone pontius sperit quhou he suld vse hym contrar the romans that var inclosit betuix the tua strait montans. the ald herynyus changit nocht his tua fyrst consellis that he hed send to them bot zit he declarit to them the cause of thyr tua defferent consellis sayand . . . (HCOS 1549–50 Complaynt of Scotland, 78–79)

The comment on non-adjacency {non-ad} attached to the tag permits the search for occurrences in which WHO potentially functions as a constituent at the sentential level referring back to either the subject of the preceding sentence (10) or in which it relates to a number of nominal or pronominal reference signals in the preceding text, particularly to an NP (ald herenius) as the subject of a main clause at quite a long distance (11). There are also numerous examples of this kind in legalese (for examples, see Meurman-Solin 2000). Further study is required to identify factors conditioning variation of this kind between personal pronouns and relatives in narratives (see Bolkestein 2000 for an interesting discussion of this research question, with illustrations from Latin).

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. Relative connectives in the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence . General statistics The elaborated tags described above provide statistical information of the following kind. Only 2 per cent of the CSC variants of relative WHICH (1,167 occurrences) have an antecedent with animate reference. Figure 1 summarizes the distributions of other reference types (a total of 1,138 occurrences), the semantic comment {y1} referring to an antecedent in the singular, {y2} the plural, {y0} an indefinite number or a collective, and {sent} to a nominalization or a longer chunk of text as anchor. The syntactic distributions are as illustrated by Figure 2. The position of the antecedent plays a significant role in the identification of relatives which have connective potential at sentential level. These general statistics permit us to decide what the relative proportion of items with connective potential at sentential level is in the data and what we should primarily focus on in our analysis of relative connectives. As Figure 1 illustrates, in 38 per cent of the occurrences the antecedent is not a particular word or phrase in the preceding context which can be defined by purely syntactic criteria. Another significant feature is the relatively high percentage of those antecedents that func-

sent 38 %

y1 41 %

y2 19 %

y0 2%

Figure 1. Percentages of the relative WHICH with inanimate and sentential reference in the CSC

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Raj 7%

RO 51 %

RN 42 %

Figure 2. Percentages of the nominative, oblique and attributive uses of the relative WHICH in the CSC

non-adjacent 27%

adjacent 73 %

Figure 3. Position of the antecedent with inanimate reference in constructions with the relative WHICH in the CSC

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tion as particular syntactic constituents but which do not immediately precede the relative element (27 per cent in non-adjacent position). These two tagged properties, i.e. {sent} and {non-ad}, will be considered the main criteria in the creation of the sub-corpus for dealing with the present research question, antecedents with animate reference being excluded because which rarely occurs as a relative in this context (2 per cent). The following extract, representing a narrative passage in a letter, will illustrate the occurrences which have been counted as items to be considered for membership of the category of relative connective (in bold): (12) vpone wensday last Majour Barclay \ Capt Inglis and Master Elliott went abroade \ with ellevin or twelve score of men as the report \ comeis to me wherof [12a] ther weis seaven score – \ Musquetieris and the rest pykemen, some – \ fyve or sex myleis from Killileagh They mett \ with a party of the Rebellis, whose custome is \ to fall one with a great shoutt or Cry wher \ vpone [12b] the most parte of the soldioris that wer \ {f2} with Barclay and Inglis fled before ever the rebellis \ Charged them soe as those two or three gentlemen \ with the most parte of all the men together with \ ther Armeis wer losed, Capt Alexander Hamiltone \ weis come to the Newtone the day before vpone some \ occasioneis soe as now I beleeue my Lord Claneboyis \ heis not aboue one hundred men with him That \ night I sent out my Lewtenant Collonell and \ Majour Crawfurd with a party of 300 foote \ and 80 horseis whoe [12c] marched all night And in \ the dawning came to the Leigure wher the Rebellis \ ly that ar on this syde of the Countrey whoe [12d] we \ did not thinke to haue bene soe stronge as indeed \ they wer (CSC 1641 Hugh, 2nd Viscount of Montgomery of the Great Airdes)

The relative + preposition compound wherof in (12a) is separated from the anchor ellevin or twelve score of men by an adverbial clause as disjunct, and, in the reference system of the narrative, it can be positioned in the same variational space as of these and of them. Whervpone in (12b) functions as a linking device conveying the immediacy of flight after the described event, the hearing of a great shoutt or Cry and adding to the dramatic effect of the narrative. The relative whoe is here analysed as permitting variation with alternative reference signals such as they and these troops. The first of these examples of whoe in (12c) illustrates a case in which the sequence of events the action verbs sent, marched and came describe invite reading the relative as a sentence-level element, the participants of the narrative (I and whoe in the passage starting with That night) then being at the main-clause level of the story-line. The second instance of whoe in (12d) also draws our attention to clauses as representations of processes (Halliday 2004: 168–305). There are two relative structures related to the nominal head the Rebellis. The first introduced by that is non-adjacent, with a verb representing an intransitive material

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process as an intervening element. The second relative clause represents a mental process (did not think) and may have potential for functioning as an independent constituent, especially because whoe is a push-down element.10 In the present data, there is some evidence that relative push-down elements realizing the function of a lower level constituent in an object clause governed by a cognitive verb are typologically significant in the overall system of relatives (see examples (17), (18) and (21)), but relating the type to criteria applicable to the identification of relative connectives will require further research. . Degree of explicitness in the system of anaphoric reference In the discussion above, features such as the distance of the antecedent or anchor from the relative element, the semantic properties of the link and process types of verbs as core elements in discourse structure have been referred to as diagnostic tools applicable to analysing syntactically fuzzy, or polyfunctional, relative elements. A further aspect of interest here is the tendency recorded generally in the CSC data to resort to a generally higher degree of explicitness in creating links, which is reflected in the use of anaphoric reference signals as well as co-ordinators and subordinators (Kohnen in this volume; Meurman-Solin 2004b). There are differences between idiolects, but, even though professional writers seem to favour explicit links in official letters in particular, such explicitness, admittedly realised in a somewhat clumsier way, has also been attested in letters by less experienced writers. Example (13) is an extract from a letter by the young Henry Erskine to his father, the 7th Earl of Mar: (13) Richt honorable / lo / [lord] {space} and most \ affectionit feather, I haue recevit thrie of zour \ / Lo / letters, within thir thrie monthis bypassit, and in every \ letter zour / lo / wreatis that ze haue not recevit none \ of our letters this Long tyme pasit, of the quhilke I \ theinke Verie straingis, for we wreat letters at zeull \ to zour / lo / the quhilk paket seing zour [lordship] hes not recevit \ it, I theink it be miskaried, in those letters, we wreat \ to zour / lo / quhat cours we desyrit to keip in our \ travells, and in respeke that zour lo / hes not recevit those \ letters, ther fore I will wreat quhat Cours we desyre \ to keip in treaveling in this letter, bicause zour / lo / direkis \ me to dow it in ane of zour / lo / letters, wretin from \ Holyrudhuse the . xxiiij . of November (CSC 1618 Henry Erskine)

. Moessner (1992: 340) uses the “push-down element” label for a relative construction in which ‘the pronoun realizes the function of a lower-level constituent’. Cf. Quirk et al. (1985: §§ 17.63–17.64).

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Beside links realised by and and for, we find successive logical connectors (in respeke that, ther fore, bicause). Similar explicitness is reflected in the system of reference signals, there being interesting variation between personal, demonstrative and relative pronouns in the extract. This creates a reference system of the following kind: for we wreat letters at zeull \ to zour / lo / the quhilk paket seing zour [lordship] hes not recevit \ it, I theink it be miskaried, in which the two instances of it are redundant. Moessner (1992) describes relative constructions of this kind as members of the category in which the relative element does not reflect functional amalgamation. The antecedent letters is taken up three times, once by the relative expression the quhilk paket and twice by the personal pronoun it. Moessner (1992) defines the second personal pronoun it as a push-down element (see footnote 10), since it forms the subject of the object clause it be miskaried, which depends on the verb theink. The following example also illustrates structures of this kind: . . . vntill ther \ be ane setled peace which the lord grant \ it speedilie (CSC 1645 William Forbes). Where Moessner (1992) uses the syntactically defined term “push-down element”, from the perspective of textual cohesion I find it informative to refer to a great degree of explicitness, even redundancy, in the use of reference signals. The inexperienced or poorly trained writers, many of them women, may have written down their thoughts spontaneously, i.e., without carefully controlling the syntactic appropriateness of the system of references. Redundancy of this kind is recorded from a letter by a female writer: (14) zour wark to hem is lyk zour self fer [‘fair’] & gust [‘just’] \ In all zour ways as it preses it self: it syllenses me sef [‘save’] \ only In weching [‘wishing’] I mecht conuers woth many so Inclynit \ : thes ar nou to Inquyr hou my Lord zour sone beters: \ som says sloly: wech I beseik zou tak well what coms \ from the hands off the almechte (CSC ca. 1630 Elizabeth Ker)

The anchor of wech ‘which’ is that the addressee’s son is recovering (beters) sloly ‘slowly’, its syntactic function being that of the object of beseik, which the nominal that-clause (with that-deletion) zou tak well what coms from the hands off the almechte also expresses.11 Relative connectives of this kind tend to occur in sequences of formulae just before the signature: (15) and my deare cousin \ submite to the lord who doth all \ thinges for the best to them that \ loue him / and in so doien you shall \ finde comfort in your greatest troble \ which that you may finde and be filled with \ the consolations of . An alternative, in my view less probable, reading is to analyse tak as an infinitive and interpret tak well what coms from the hands off the almechte as an object. In Moessner’s terms, this is again an instance of a relative construction without functional amalgation.

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our lord Iesus christ / is \ the hartie desier and wishies of \ your most affecetnat \ cousen A Hammilton (CSC 1651 Anna Cunningham, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton)

Which relativizes the anchor comfort, being used instead of a separate sentence with a personal pronoun referring back to comfort (that you may finde it and be filled with \ the consolations of our lord Iesus christ / is \ the hartie desire . . .). That explicitness is sometimes an idiolectal feature can be illustrated by a similar passage, also immediately preceding the signature, recorded in another letter by the same writer: (16) tho we ar all so farr distant on \ from another yet I doe not dispare \ of all our metting heire againe which \ that itt may be sone I doubt not \ but you will Ioyne In the wishing with \ deare Cousen \ your most affect \ Cousen & saruant \ Hammilton (CSC 1665 Anna Cunningham, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton)

In this example all our metting heire againe is the anchor relativized by which. The verb doubt has two objects, the first being that itt may be sone, itt taking up the anchor, and the second but you will Ioyne In the wishing with . . . , which functioning as the object of wishing. As Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1063) state, ‘[s]upplementary relatives can be replaced by other kinds of supplements containing non-relative anaphoric expression, notably personal pronouns or demonstratives’, their example being ‘The necklace – her mother gave it to her – is in the safe’. In the CSC, fuzziness in the syntactic status of a relative is reflected in mergers in which a relative and a personal pronoun co-refer to the antecedent or the anchor (cf. again the type without functional amalgamation in Moessner 1992). The following examples illustrate redundancy in the reference system in cases where which has a non-adjacent antecedent (see also example (13)). This may be just apparent redundancy as the personal pronoun usually occurs in a dependent nominal clause, as in (17), (18) and (21), or a co-ordinate clause, as in (19): (17) I haue writene this inclosed to twllich which I disyer \ ye will send it to hime with all the conwenience ye \ cane (CSC 1666 Isobell Douglas of Kelhead) (18) I heaue vretene ane lettere in generall to those who is in the Commissio∼ \ for my afferes, the which I dou desyre that you may see it (CSC 1649 Robert, 8th Earl of Morton) (19) Liwtennent \ Coll: Hill, who did me the favour as to send \ me his letters wch Receawe heirinclosit & keipe \ them as ane? ewident (CSC 1660 John, 13th Earl of Sutherland)

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(20) The Prince, my \ lord Bukinghame, and Secreteare Calware and Connowey; hes mead [made] \ in Presence of the hole Parliament a full relation of all particulars \ that past in the traittie [treaty] both of the match with Spaine, and \ for the restitution of the Palatinat; qlk relation my lo: Melros can \ lat [let] zour lo: see the Particulairs of it (CSC 1624 Henry Erskine) (21) and nou it is \ my greatest trubill the fear of \ yr wronging yr oun helth, which \ I hop you will considir hou much \ it will ofend god (CSC 1688 Margaret Duffus)

These examples illustrate what Moessner (1992) calls “relatives without functional amalgamation”, the syntactic function of the object being realised by a personal pronoun and the function of which being restricted to creating a link with the antecedent in the preceding main clause. From the text-linguistic perspective, these examples reflect redundancy in the system of anaphoric reference, the use of relative links in particular. In (17), the pronoun it referring to the noun phrase this inclosed is embedded in the nominal that-clause functioning as the object of a verb of volition. It is particularly noteworthy that structures of this kind often have a verb of cognition with a first-person subject immediately following the relative (which I disyer, the which I dou desyre, which I hop) and a nominal that-clause as object. Thus, in (17), the relative which combines two propositions, one narrating an activity, the other expressing a request. Findings of this kind suggest that particular sequences of communicative acts may be a useful diagnostic tool in identifying relative connectives. However, some ambiguity results from some of these optative expressions developing into comment clauses: (22) so not \ trubilling you anie forder till miting which \ I houp schall be nou schortlie, I Rest:, \ Your most affectionat \ Neice to serue you \ Ieane Drummond (CSC 1636 Jean Drummond, Countess of Sutherland) (23) it \ will be necessar for zour Lo : to follow this \ advyce enclosed which I hope will prevent \ ther farder proceiding at this time (CSC [1st half of the 17th century] Charles, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline)

While information processing such as that in (22) illustrates the usefulness of the anchor concept, analysing communicative functions of propositions related to one another by a relative connective reveals other relevant properties. What may seem a sentential relative at the syntactic level presents itself as a connective at the level of discourse, the relative combining propositions which have different communicative functions. In (23), a request expressed by means of deontic modality is linked with a wish (see also Section 4.3).

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. Relative connectives incorporating an adverbial role The relative which and its variants have been attested in a phrase functioning as an adverbial in 3 per cent of the occurrences, while their use in connective phrases represents 4 per cent.12 The following subsections will examine these two types in more detail. .. Causal connection Adverbs, adverbial phrases, prepositional phrases or conjunctions realise a connective link in the adverbial role of cause in the CSC, but there is also ample evidence of relative connectives doing so. For example, in addition to therefore, wherefor and for the which, each with numerous variants, have been attested in letters in a function that could be paraphrased by either a sentence- or clause-initial ‘F/for this reason’: (24) I wryt to zow befoir, that the earllis chalmerland \ behoweit to borrow acht chalderis of wittual from me to \ fill wp this bargan wt the merchant, & now I think man [mon ‘must’] \ borrow mair (iff he can gett it[)]; for the qlk I wryt \ to zow to giwe acht hundreth merkis to Issobell buchan\nan, & to receawe my band from hir; (CSC 1627 Alexander Gordon of Navidale) (25) Loveing freynd \\ Sen your parteing frome this I have gottine certaine \ Informatioune that my lord ogilvie is this night \ In zour howse ffor ye whilk causs I could doe \ no less Then direct a companie To ly about zour \ howse Till it be searched (CSC 1640 Colin, 6th Earl of Argyll) (26) this present Is to put zour \ ll [lordship] / in rememberance of ye trubill quhilk Is laitle happint betuix ye lard of plane & me \ ye qlk trubill is not or [‘before’] now altogidder vnknawin wnto zour / ll / Quhairfoir I most \ ernystle request zour / ll / as ane dependar of zour / ll / to mentene and assist me In \ yis present trubill quhilk I am fallin Into not of my craving (as god knawis and \ fauconss witnes) bot of my parteis vilfull desyir (CSC ca. 1550 John Bruce of Auchinbowie)

In (24) and (25) the prepositional relative connectives function as cohesive devices for sequencing actions in what are essentially narrative passages. In (26) Quhairfoir introduces a sentence with the illocutionary force of a request functioning as an independent proposition. This use does not differ from the way Thairfor introduces a similar communicative expression of the writer’s wish in (27): . The tagging of which in adverbials can be illustrated by the example ‘There is another affair of milord and Roscommons concern In which I believe his Lop∼ will be put to some trouble’ (CSC 1716 Alexander Ross), in which the relative is tagged RO-av<pr. In contrast, as in example (24), the relative connective has been tagged RO{sent}{ts}v.

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(27) Bot I am informit that he \ hes liftit vther menes wictuall, and lattes myn” \ lye in the tennentis handis wch is prejudiciall \ to thame, Thairfor I will desyre yow to caus \ him bring his crair with all diligence and \ tak away the same (CSC 1638 Henriette Stewart, Marchioness of Huntly)

The various realisations in these examples are virtually interchangeable, but further study may shed light on such matters as the conditioning of the writer’s stylistic competence. The degree of explicitness in clausal links may also reflect stylistic preferences in epistolary prose in general, explicitness perhaps being one of the ingredients of negative politeness strategies in formal letters in particular (on explicitness, see also Section 4.2). .. Temporal link Some discoursal properties of texts representing different genres were identified in an earlier study of realisations of temporal linkage (Meurman-Solin 2002), also written from a variationist perspective. Example (28) illustrates a chain of various temporal links as part of narrative strategies in a late sixteenth-century history: (28) and thairefter that he should reteir him selfe from court, to the tyme that the parliament sould hald, at quhilk tyme he and his sould be restoired; and then that he sould goe of the countrie, and remaine during his Majesties pleaseour. (HCOS 1590–1598 Moysie Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, 104)

The relative structure at quhilk tyme realises the reference to the conjunctival phrase to the tyme that in the preceding context, the adverbs thairefter and then complementing the chain of time relators. The use of relative structures as linking elements in the creation of temporal cohesion seems to be particularly frequent in certain types of text, diaries, biographies, histories and recordings of trial proceedings in particular, all of these being primarily narrative.13 Meurman-Solin (2002: 191) also illustrates developments in information processing styles by paraphrasing a passage extracted from a trial: (29) The first tyme þat evir the Erle of Bothwile spake þis matter of the Kyngis Murther to the deponar, was ane day or twa aftir the bringing of the powder furth of Dunbar; at quhilk tyme he said to the deponar in this manner. . . (HCOS 1567 Criminal Trials, 498) . According to Meurman-Solin (2002: 191), 47 per cent of the examples representing the attributive relative + time type in the HCOS occur in narrative texts such as histories and diaries, 25 per cent in letters and 12 per cent in trial proceedings, which often contain narrative passages, the proportion of instances in other genres being as low as 16 per cent. Relative connectives in brief entries in diaries can be illustrated by the following example: ‘The 8 of Junii, the Parliament haldin; at qlk tyme, the Earles of Angus, Huntlie, Errole, M’Leane, Mackoneill, and Achindoune, wer all forfaulted’ (HCOS 1605 Birrel, 33).

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‘When the Earl of Bothwell spoke [of] this matter of the King’s murder to the deponent for the first time a couple of days after the bringing of the powder out of Dunbar, he said to the deponent in this manner . . .’

Example (29) also reminds us of the relative connectives consisting of an NP head indicating the adverbial role (time, place, manner, reason, realised by a restricted set of nouns such as time, place, way and reason).14 In the semantic role of posteriority, the type (un)to the time (that) varies with connective phrases containing a relative quhill þe tyme (at), quhil on to the tyme that, until the/such tyme (that/as) and till such(e) tyme as in the HCOS data. It is a matter of definition how variant realisations such as unto (that), unto the time (that) and unto which time, for instance, are described structurally and syntactically and then categorized, and creating of relevant variationist typologies will necessitate further corpus-based work. Quirk et al. (1985: 1259) point out that ‘explicitness often extends to completion of the prepositional phrase by a general noun, locative or temporal’. Using the example ‘He came in 1960, at which time/year there was . . .’, they suggest that when could replace the complex relative phrase, concluding that ‘This is a point at which there is little distinction between adnominal relative clauses and adverbial clauses of place and time in complex sentence structure’ (ibid.: 1259–1260). The temporal relative link representing the type until which (time) in letters has been recorded as part of letter-closing strategies, as illustrated by (30) and (31): (30) I Intreat yow let me \ heir with the first occasione both of the certantie of my mo\neyes and what hopes yow haue of your owene comming \ this nixt summer to scotland till which and ever I rest \ Your most affectionat \ nephew to serwe yow \ J Southerland. (CSC 1635 John, 13th Earl of Sutherland) (31) And hawe \ wretin to my sone sowthward / wha will hawe cair / to my \ awin cuming / qlk godwilling salbe shortlie / And wilbe \ glaid to sie your lo / in health / qlk I excedinglie lang for / \ To the qlk remitting all farther / wishing your lo / all happines \ My affectioun rememberit / to your lo / My lady / and rest of the \ ladi?es and your lo / wther bairnes / I remain \ Zour lo maist loving frend \ Erroll (CSC 1627 Francis, 8th Earl of Erroll)

In these two examples, till which and to the qlk (‘until which time’ or ‘until then’) both refer to the time the writer and the addressee are envisaged as meeting again, although it is left unspecified in (31). While syntactically or only semantically related to the previous context, they can be viewed as prosodically independent in . The general nouns preceding relativized adjuncts represent different degrees of lexicalization, which in my view makes them categorially fuzzy (cf. Brinton in this volume). As regards manner adjuncts, a more restricted set of variants is available with the noun manner than with way, the former only allowing a wh-construction: ‘the manner in which she handled the situation’; *the manner (that) she handled the situation’ (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1053).

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 Anneli Meurman-Solin

introducing the letter-closing strategy. Their role in structuring sequences of conventionalized formulae is sometimes reflected in the use of capitals, as in (31) (see also (40)). Another feature suggesting this analysis is the fact that we often find intensifying adverbs such as ever/euer and allwayis immediately following the relative structure (see also example (30)): (32) I will \ Intreat zow abowt the tent of the nixt monethe \ to send me ane letter wt anie bearar ze pleass \ certifeing me yt these horsss ar zour cuntreymens . . . quharwpon” ze sall be \ assurit to hawe all reassone in me lyis, to qlk \ and allwayis I rest, Zouris most loweing freind \ in all dewtie to be \ commandit \ Sir A Gordoune (CSC 1624 Alexander Gordon of Navidale) (33) louk that your la [ladyship] will \ be caerfull to send all \ uther neseseris that is \ neidfull and within ane \ day or tuo efter my doun \ coming your la self to \ com and tak a part of \ such portion as god send?s \ us to which tym and euer I rest \ your la most louing \ dochter and serwand \ Marie Ogiluy (CSC ca.1640 Marie Ogilvy) (34) I \ sall vreit mair prateculerlie [particularly] heirin”. to qlk tyme or farthir \ occatitioun” I rest \\ Zr loving mothir \ Iane C suthirland (CSC 1617 Jane, Countess of Sutherland)

The semantically defined anchor in (34) is expressed by the modalized verb phrase conveying the writer’s promise as regards her future activity, and the prepositional relative connective can be viewed as introducing a new proposition. In contrast, the reference in (35) is to the non-adjacent time adverbial functioning as an anchor: (35) farder I pray \ zow speik my advocatis to tak heid to ye callin?g \ of my lord zesteris Improbations / that no sertifi\cations be gevin” aganes me for not production \ seing ze knaw I have als mekill redy as \ will serue my turne / and qlk salbe at \ zow anes on” fryday or settirday nixt godwiling \ to ye qlk tyme I rest expecting zour anser \ commitis zow to god . . . \ zour gude frend \ Wigtoun (CSC 1620 7th Lord Fleming) (36) as conserning my \ bissines I kan say nothing, til \ I meit vith my freinds at the \ ligger [leaguer], and from thence, your \ lo sal ken? vhat thay think to be doune / as also vhat sal pas \ til vich by vissing your lo al \ contentment I rest \ your lo most obedient and \ affectionet soone \ Alexander Erskine (CSC 1623 Alexander Erskine)

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Relatives as sentence-level connectives 

In both (35) and (36) an adverbial relative connective introduces the final formula.15 .. Bridging discourses Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1046) note that some ‘adjunct categories can be relativized by means of the somewhat formal or archaic relative words whence, whither, whereby, wherein, etc.’, a somewhat longer list (ibid.: 1051–1052) of compounds of where and a preposition consisting of whereat, whereby, wherefrom, wherein, whereof, whereon, whereto, and whereupon. These are illustrated by examples such as: ‘She told him his essay was incoherent, whereupon he tore it up and stormed out of the room’. This use is interpreted as ‘immediately after which’. According to Huddleston & Pullum (1059), ‘it is found only in supplementary relatives whose antecedent is a clause (or larger)’. In the CSC data, compounds such as whereupon and whereat are used in two different ways: (37) so \ I expek zour aduys wherwpon I moch de\pend: & if ye man & I can agre wpon sarte [surety]\ I Intend to geue anny goud cationar thay \ well tak: the Ieuell to [‘until’] I heue mor lying \ Monnes [money] to releue it: this is all to [‘until’] I can \ heir zou aduys wherwpon to conclud a \ thousant tyms ferueill My sarues being pre\senttet: to zour nobell Lord: I remen for euer \ zour Inalterabell cousenge & saruant \ ye ixth of march \ Elizabeth ker (CSC ca.1648 Elizabeth Ker)

The first of the two occurrences is sub-phrasal, with zour aduys as antecedent, functioning as prepositional object (of the verb depend). The second has a textstructuring function referring back to a longer chunk of preceding text as well as introducing the act of ending the letter using conventional polite formulae (see (7)). Example (38) can be described as a link typical of narrative discourse (see also example (41)): (38) and \ then his Matie did saye that he remembred well my Claime \ and that the order was that there must be an Election, and that \ he would writte backe to the said byshop Concerning my Tittle \ and willed me to writte to my friendes to speake them jn my matter \ whereupon I thanked his Matie and said, that I layed all my rights \ at his feete and that I would be beholden to nobodye but to himselfe \ this being spoken jn his drawing Chamber he retired himselfe to his \ bed Chamber (CSC 1612 J. Gordon)

. Non-relative connectives introducing the letter-closing strategy have also been attested in the data, for example, And tyme to remain followed by a fixed phrase such as Zour maist loving friend to my Power and the signature.

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 Anneli Meurman-Solin

In (39) both quharat ‘whereat’ and quha ‘who’ provide links for a narrative, both being sentential reference variants: (39) This serwand settis scotland to nocht And lichtliest [‘slights’] it werie \ far. quharat master alexander wes offendit desyrit him to licht [‘slight’] and abyd be ye said \ quha lichtit And enterit in combat, and swa it happnit master alexander slew \ the engliss man & escaipit him. self (CSC 1619 Alexander Linton)

Beside the sentential reference in the former and the non-adjacent him as antecedent in the latter, the overall organization of the narrative passage by relative links corroborates the reading as relative connectives, frequency being one of the factors permitting the identification of a particular idiolectal reference in the choice of reference signals (cf. Bolkestein 2000: 132, referred to in Section 1). As discussed in Section 3.2, elaborated tags in the CSC signal examples such as the compounds in (40) and (41) as text-structuring devices. In (40) wherein has been tagged $where/RO {sent}{ts}{f}-av>pr and $in/pr And falling before temptation it’s easy to let yourself slide down into things that can be very hurtful. . . . And Jesus says: Come out from among these things, come out from among them. And some honest Christian people do and some find it very hard to do. <pause> And those who find it hard to reject a sinful situation could often argue that they’re above it and no way is it hurting them. And maybe that’s the case, . . . (BNC 1993 G5H Sermon)

Biber et al. (1999: 81) note that and used as a clause-level connector is typical of conversation (whereas and used as a phrase-level connector is common in academic prose). Thus, if a high frequency of clause-level and can be taken as an indicator of orality in all sub-corpora, its decrease in the sixteenth-century ser-

. The results presented here are basically supported by the findings obtained by Culpeper and Kytö (2000: 307) for and in four text types (science, history, drama, trials) in the seventeenth century. In Culpeper and Kytö the highest proportion of clausal and was found in speech-related text types. But Culpeper and Kytö also point to other, specific functions (e.g. narrative) which may trigger the use of clausal and in these text types. . On this ‘oral patterning’ see also Ong (1982: 37–38).

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 Thomas Kohnen

mons suggests a decrease in orality and increase in literacy, whereas its increase in the late twentieth-century sermons suggests the reverse tendency. It does not seem easy to give a straightforward explanation for the decline of for in the data and to determine whether it reflects a general trend or whether it is typical of sermons or religious language. Rissanen (1999) notes a decrease in the proportion of for at the expense of because in the Helsinki Corpus from 1500 to 1640 (1999: 307),16 a tendency which is corroborated by Claridge and Walker (2001) for the period between 1640 and 1740. Rissanen suggests that this change is either the cause or the result of the development of for towards a coordinating conjunction. But Rissanen does not explicitly comment on a decrease in the frequency of coordinative for. Similarly, Claridge and Walker’s data do not show a consistent decrease in the frequency of for over the decades (2001: 50). A possible explanation for the decline of for in the present data could be based on its high frequency as the preferred choice in Early Modern English (Rissanen 1989 and 1999; Claridge & Walker 2001: 38) and its restriction to written language in present-day English (Altenberg 1984).17 Whereas the relatively high frequency of for in the earlier data might reflect its commonness as a general marker of causal linkage in Late Middle English and Early Modern English, its scarcity in the twentieth-century sermons might be due to their oral character. But this hypothesis ought to be supported by further research. Table 3. Frequency and distribution of subordinators arranged according to (semantic) clause types they mark (number of tokens and frequency per 1,000 words)18

subordinators in nominal clauses manner/comp. cl. temporal clauses cond./conc. cl. purpose/result cl. reason clauses other clauses subordinators (total)

15th c.

16th c.

17th c.

late 20th c.

26,716 w

25,145 w

26,002 w

26,016 w

[316] 11.8 [186] 7 [149] 5.6 [105] 3.9 [71] 2.7 [60] 2.2 [17] 0.6 [904] 33.8

[280] 11.1 [103] 4.1 [92] 3.7 [186] 7.4 [77] 3.1 [61] 2.4 [21] 0.8 [820] 32.6

[214] 8.2 [69] 2.7 [128] 4.9 [197] 7.6 [58] 2.2 [49] 1.9 [31] 1.2 [746] 28.7

[402] 15.5 [48] 1.8 [121] 4.7 [110] 4.2 [20] 0.8 [83] 3.2 [9] 0.3 [793] 30.5

. See also Rissanen (1989) and (1998). . Jucker (1991: 219) suggests that for ‘is slowly becoming obsolete . . ., being largely restricted to formal and written contexts’. . The figures in Table 3 are statistically significant: chi-square = 272.03, 18 d.f.; p < 0.001.

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

What is the distribution of subordinators in the sermons? Table 3 gives an overview of the subordinators arranged according to the (semantic) clause types they mark.19 It shows that the apparently uniform decrease (and increase) in subordinators reveals in fact a rather complex shift in the proportions of the different types of subordinators. Those used in nominal clauses, in clauses of manner and comparison, in clauses of condition and concession and in clauses of purpose and result seem to undergo the most noticeable changes, whereas the other frequencies may be called relatively stable.20 In my short analysis I will follow a chronological order. The transition from the fifteenth century to the sixteenth century is marked mainly by a decrease in subordinators used in clauses of manner and comparison and by an increase in subordinators used in clauses of condition and concession. The first type of clause is usually introduced by as.21 Many of these clauses are somewhat ambiguous. Some of them may be clearly analysed as clauses of comparison, whereas others may also be called ‘circumstantial’ or ‘modal’. In the Late Middle English and Early Modern English data they are often used to make statements or claims plausible by inviting a comparison or by pointing out a relevant link to a Christian tenet. In the Middle English data they are especially used for introducing important citations from the Bible or eminent theological authors. This pattern may even be called a set phrase because it usually employs the same typical collocations (as + name of author + seith, writeth etc.): (4) The þride askynge perteneþ to be þrid persone of þe Trynyte, þe Holygoste, to whom is apropred loue and charite, as Seynt Iohn seþ: ‘Deus caritas est.’ (HC c1410 Royal, 10) ‘The third request concerns the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to whom belongs love and charity, as Saint John says: “God is love”.’ (5) For as Seynt Austen seyth, beforn or Criste was borne, the worlde was full of derknes of dedely synne. (c1450 Advent, 85) ‘For as Saint Augustine says, before Christ was born, the world was full of darkness and deadly sin.’

In the Early Modern sermons the frequency of this pattern decreases, as does the general use of as in this function. The relatively high frequency of as-clauses in the . On the different semantic functions of the subordinate clauses see Quirk et al. (1985: Chapter 15). . The frequency of temporal clauses decreases to a certain extent in the sixteenth century (from 5.6 to 3.7) but soon reaches its former level. . Cf. Quirk et al. (1985: 1110), who say that as-clauses may combine manner with similarity/comparison.

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 Thomas Kohnen

fifteenth-century sub-corpus suggests that subordinators may in part have been kinds of formulaic phrases used for specified stereotypical functions. This stereotypical function may not be text-type specific (since it also occurs in religious treatises or in handbooks), but its continual decrease may be interpreted as an indicator of growing literacy.22 The sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century sub-corpora show a noticeable increase in the use of subordinators marking clauses of condition and concession (from 3.9 to 7.4 and 7.6). Usually, clauses of condition and concession can be seen as typical features of written discourse. This is not only corroborated by corpus-based studies of Present-Day English (see, for example, Biber et al. 1999: 821), but also by their typical functions, which are generally affiliated more closely to the written medium. These clauses are often important contributors to the development of arguments (Biber et al. 1999: 825), a function which is typically associated with these clauses in the sixteenth-century and seventeenthcentury sub-corpora. In examples (6)–(9) the author is concerned with proving the truth of his arguments (see, for example, proveth thesame, whereby you see). (6) And Saincte Paule, in his Epistle to the Galathians, proveth thesame, saiyng thus: If there had been any lawe geven whiche coulde have justified, verely, righteousnesse should have been by the lawe. And again he saieth, if righteousnesse bee by the lawe, then Christe died in vain. . . . And to bee shorte, the summe of all Paules disputacion is this: that if justice come of woorkes, then it commeth not of grace; and if it come of grace, then it commeth not of woorkes. (1547 Certain Sermons and Homilies, 81–82) (7) . . . whereby you see that all our sinnes are against our selues: for if there were no deceit, then we should not bee deceiued: if there were no slander, then wee should not bee slandered: if there were no enuie, then wee should not bee enuied: if there were no extortion, then we should not bee iniuried: if there were no Vsurie then we should not bee oppressed. Therfore Gods law had been better for vs than our owne lawe: for if his law did stand, the∼ we should not be deceiued, nor slandered, nor enuied, nor iniured, nor oppressed. (HC 1591 Henry Smith, B4V-B5R) (8) If a man with gorgeous apparell come amongst vs, although he bee a theefe or a murtherer (..) be his heart whatsoever, if his coat be of purple, or velvet, or tissue, every one riseth up, and all the reverent solemnities wee can vse, are too little. But the man that serveth God, is contemned and despised. (HC 1614 Richard Hooker, 8–9)

Thus it seems fair to assume that the increase in these subordinators reflects a trend towards a more literate character of the Early Modern English sermons, a gen. Orality is usually linked to ‘formulaic expressions’ (see, for example, Ong 1982).

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

eral tendency which appears plausible against the background of the assumptions made before. Another development which must be mentioned is the decrease in subordinators introducing nominal clauses in the seventeenth century (8.2) and their subsequent increase in the twentieth-century sub-corpus (15.5). Excerpts (9) and (10) give some typical examples. (9) So what are the challenges of Jesus Christ? <pause> Well one of them is to show that there is something different about us. To show that we do live distinctive lives, and that we try sincerely, however imperfectly, but try sincerely to refrain from the seamier side of life. (BNC G5H) (10) . . . well we look to see how God, what God’s plan and his purpose for us is, how God made us, it tells us there in the book of Genesis in the first chapter in verse twenty seven, that God created us to be like himself <pause>. (BNC KN6 Albert Gunter, Sermon)

Do these subordinators show particular generic associations? Biber et al. (1999: 754) say that these constructions are quite common in conversation and fairly rare in academic prose (and the above examples seem to corroborate this link to spoken discourse). If we assume that this association holds true for the entire period of this investigation, we may count this as additional evidence for a more oral character of the Late Middle English data and a decrease in orality in the sermons of the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the late twentieth-century sermons contain more than 50 per cent of nominal clauses, which would again be evidence for their oral character. The same would be indicated by the reduction of subordinators marking condition and concession (4.2).23

. A minor point one might mention in the late twentieth-century sub-corpus is the decrease in subordinators marking purpose and result. It seems plausible to explain this development against a text-type specific background. Since such clauses are often used in the data (as elsewhere) to give recommendations for improving some situation or showing the aim of some action, their decrease in sermons may reflect a less direct and straightforward way of religious instruction. But, be that as it may, this development certainly reflects a minor factor in the development of the data, which does not seem to be directly relevant to questions of orality and literacy.

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 Thomas Kohnen

. Orality/literacy and the ‘connective profiles’ of English text types This initial account of the distribution of major coordinators and subordinators recorded in sermons certainly cannot claim to be representative and exhaustive.24 But some consistent patterns were identified which seem to fit basic assumptions about the orality and literacy of the respective constructions and corpus-based findings in contemporary English. The general pattern appears to be a decrease in oral features and an increase in literate features in Early Modern English sermons and the reverse development in the late twentieth century.25 The Late Middle English sermons showed some typically oral features: a high incidence of (clause-level) coordinators, in particular and, a possibly formulaic use of subordination, a high frequency of nominal subordination; the Early Modern sermons showed a sharp decrease in coordinators, in particular (clause-level) and, a high frequency of subordinators marking condition and concession and (in the seventeenth century) significantly less nominal subordination. In the late twentieth-century sermons the relevant features were an increase in coordinative and as well as in nominal subordination and a decrease in subordinators marking condition and concession. These elements would also comprise the constituent parts of an outline of the respective connective profiles of sermons in the history of English (with the profiles corresponding to the periods of Middle English, Early Modern English and the late twentieth century). Other elements are either negligible (like the coordinator or) or rather stable elements with a reduced frequency (like reason clauses). Do connective profiles show distinctive patterns not only across periods but also across text types? In order to find a first provisional answer to this question, I analysed the seventeenth-century statutes contained in the Helsinki Corpus and compared the respective numbers of the coordinators and subordinators with those of the seventeenth-century sermons. Statutes, that is, collections of laws . In particular, given the limited number of sermons, we must reckon with the possible influence of individual style. . There is, of course, the fundamental question whether the late twentieth-century sermons are really more oral in comparison to the Early Modern ones or whether the results merely reflect the difference between tape-recorded data and written data. To me it seems more likely that the data are really comparable and that sermons have become more oral. For example, repetitions and false starts (which would necessarily lead to an increase in coordinators/subordinators) were not counted in the tape-recorded data; in addition, the Early Modern sermons show many traces of actual performance (exclamations, discourse markers, etc.). Gordon (1966: 86) says that the sixteenth-century sermon ‘survives as a close transcript of what was originally spoken’. But still the possibility cannot be ruled out that the Early Modern sermons are simply more ‘bookish’ because for us they only exist in books.

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

Table 4. Coordinators and subordinators in seventeenth-century sermons and statutes (number of tokens and frequency per 1,000 words)26

Coordinators Subordinators

Sermons

Statutes

[717] 27.6 [746] 28.7

[149] 11.3 [198] 15

Table 5. Frequency and distribution of coordinators in seventeenth-century sermons and statutes (number of tokens and frequency per 1,000 words)27

And But Or For

Sermons

Statutes

[472] 18.2 [149] 5.7 [18] 0.7 [78] 3

[130] 9.9 [4] 0.3 [15] 1.1 –

published in an official document, can be seen as a rather formal variety of administrative prose, a text type which by the seventeenth century has become a highly inflexible and specialized type of written communication (see Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg 1994; Kohnen 2004). The results of the comparison between sermons and statutes are given in Tables 4–6. They demonstrate that the two connective profiles are quite distinct. Table 4 gives the frequency of coordinators and subordinators in both text types. It shows that the frequency of both coordinators and subordinators is significantly lower in the seventeenth-century statutes than in the seventeenth-century sermons (11.3 vs. 27.6 and 15 vs. 28.7). The figures suggest that this may be a text-type specific difference involving the ‘general level’ of connectives linking finite clauses. How can it be explained? The difference cannot be due to the fact that seventeenthcentury statutes are typically ‘oral’ texts as opposed to the more ‘literate’ sermons because the reverse seems to be the case. One likely reason for the different distribution may be that statutes of the Early Modern period show an extremely high frequency of non-finite, especially participle constructions (see Kohnen 2004: 139, 240); these are subordinate clauses which are in most cases not introduced by subordinators. Thus statutes are likely to contain more non-finite subordination than sermons, which in turn may lead to a lower frequency of clause-level subordinators linking finite clauses. The distribution of the individual coordinators (Table 5) points to another noticeable contrast. Whereas the seventeenth-century sermons show – apart from . The figures in Table 4 are statistically significant: chi-square = 4.14, 1 d.f.; p < 0.05. . The figures in Table 5 are statistically significant: chi-square = 65.7, 3 d.f.; p < 0.001.

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 Thomas Kohnen

Table 6. Frequency and distribution of subordinators in seventeenth-century sermons and statutes arranged according to (semantic) clause types they mark (number of tokens and frequency per 1,000 words)28

nominal clauses manner/comp. clauses temporal clauses cond./conc. clauses purpose/result clauses reason clauses other clauses

Sermons

Statutes

[214] 8.2 [69] 2.7 [128] 4.9 [197] 7.6 [58] 2.2 [49] 1.9 [31] 1.2

[98] 7.4 [49] 3.7 [4] 0.3 [37] 2.8 [8] 0.6 [2] 0.2 –

the high incidence of and – a moderate frequency of but and for, the seventeenthcentury statutes contain only four instances of but and no example of for. So the high frequency of and as the only major coordinator seems to be a characteristic feature of statutes. One reason which might be given for this is that statutes tend to contain enumerations of enactments, cases, specifications and conditions, but do not leave much space for contrastive viewpoints (where but would be used) and detailed justifications (where for would be used). See examples (11) and (12): (11) And bee it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid That upon any Actions of Escape or other Suit . . . And if the Plaintiff in any such Action shall bee nonsuited or Verdict passe against him the Defendant shall have Double Cost∼ . . . And further Bee it enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if any Prisoner . . . And bee it alsoe enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if any Prisoner . . . (HC CELAW3 1695–99, 76–77) (12) And if any such Sheriff Goaler or Keeper of Prison shall forswear and perjure himselfe and shall bee thereof lawfully convicted such Sheriff Goaler or Keeper of Prison shall incurr and suffer29 such Penalties as are now in Force and may by Law bee inflicted upon Persons convicted of Perjury. (HC CELAW3 1695–99, 76)

The distribution of the individual subordinators in the seventeenth-century statutes (Table 6) reveals again a profile quite different from the sermons. Basically, the connective profile of the statutes seems to be less complex in that the statutes contain fewer types of subordinators that occur with a noticeable frequency (higher than 1). These are nominal, manner/comparative and condi. The figures in Table 6 are statistically significant: chi-square = 100.27, 6 d.f.; p < 0.001. . The and in forswear and perjure and in incurr and suffer was not counted as clausal linking because the two conjoined verbs basically express the same action. On the criterion of unity of action see also Culpeper and Kytö (2000: 304–306).

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

tional/concessive clauses. The incidence of these three types of subordinate clauses can be linked to the specific function that statutes serve. Manner/comparative clauses (that is, clauses with as or whereas) are mainly used in the formulaic patterns introducing laws, which are still typical of statutes in the seventeenth century. The high incidence of nominal clauses may be attributed to the frequent exposition (by means of that-clauses) of ‘facts’ and ‘cases’, and the conditional clauses are used for stating the various conditions under which the laws may (or may not) apply. Examples of these typical uses are found in (13) and (14). (13) And whereas many Distillers on pretence of rectifying of Spiritts doe mix Spiritts with Wash and other Liquors and afterwards distill the same whereby His Majesties Duties on Low Wines are avoided and not duely answered and paid as by the former Acts is directed and appointed for Prevention whereof be it enacted and declared by the Authority aforesaid That all Spiritts made or drawne by any Distiller from any Mixture of Spiritts with any kind of Wash or other Liquor (except common Water) shall be deemed and taken to be Low Wines . . . (HC CELAW3 1695–99, 458) (14) And further Bee it enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if any Prisoner who hath been discharged by virtue of any of the Act∼ of Parliament herein before mentioned . . . shall happen to bee arrested again . . . if such Prisoner shall shew a Duplicate of his or her Discharge under the Hand∼ and Seales of the Justices of the Peace . . .then and in such Case ..- the said Lord∼ Chief Justices . . . shall and may su∼mon before him or them such Parties . . . (HC CELAW3 1695–99, 76–77)

Other subordinators are extremely rare (0.2–0.6), in contrast to the sermons, which show a much more heterogeneous picture. This initial contrastive analysis suggests that text types may show significantly different patterns of connective profiles. This difference may be due to the different communicative functions of the text types or their relative ‘orality’ and ‘literacy’. The analysis also shows that the (high) frequency of coordinators/subordinators alone cannot be an indicator of the orality or literacy of a text or text type.

. Conclusion In this study I have suggested a new tool for the analysis of clause-level coordinators and subordinators in the history of the English language, the ‘connective profile’. Connective profiles can be said to be the patterns of distribution, frequency and proportion found in the major coordinators and subordinators of texts or text types. These patterns may contrast with the respective patterns found in other texts or text types, and in the same text type in earlier or later periods.

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 Thomas Kohnen

In a first pilot study distinctive connective profiles could be identified both in the diachronic development of one text type as well as in the contrastive analysis of two text types. Late Middle English and Early Modern English sermons, for example, showed quite a distinctive pattern with regard to the frequency of clause-level coordinators (in particular and), of nominal subordination and of subordinators marking condition and concession. In general, the patterning of connective profiles in sermons could be shown to reflect a decrease in orality and an increase in literacy in Early Modern English and the reverse development in the late twentieth-century sermons. A contrastive analysis of the connective profiles of (seventeenth-century) sermons and statutes showed remarkable differences with regard to the general frequency of coordinators/subordinators and with regard to the heterogeneity of the items or types of items employed. The results of the present pilot study are provisional and need confirmation by further studies. But it seems to me that the concept of the connective profile of texts and text types has proved to be a useful instrument in the diachronic analysis of English coordinators and subordinators. Whereas most diachronic studies on clause-level connectors tend to focus on the genesis of individual items, the inventory of items available in certain periods and their position in the language system, this approach may register the actual use of connectors and their distribution across text types. It may thus trace the evolution, spread or decline of connectors across text types and may detect (possibly text-type specific) functional motivations for their increase, decline or change (e.g., the formulaic use of as-clauses in Late Middle English sermons or the rise of clauses of reason and concession in Early Modern English sermons). In addition, the concept of the connective profile may be a useful instrument for tracing changes in text types across the centuries as well as comparing text types. In particular, this pilot study has shown that connective profiles may be reliable indicators of the respective distance of texts and text types from spoken or written language. On the other hand, the comparison between sermons and statutes has revealed the need for an extension of the items included in a profile (non-finite clauses should be added and, maybe, relative clauses as well). Further studies based on a larger database and a broader range of text types should be used to explore the ‘stylistic space’ covered by different connective profiles. Thus connective profiles could become an important part of the description of clausal connectives in the history of English.

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

Sources BNC = British National Corpus. LLC = London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM). Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway. HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: Department of English. In: ICAME Collection of English Language Corpora (CD-ROM), Second ed. (1999), comp. Knut Hofland, Anne Lindebjerg, Jørn Thunestvedt. The HIT Centre, University of Bergen, Norway.

References Altenberg, Bengt (1984). ‘Clausal Linking in Spoken and Written English’. Studia Linguistica 38: 20–69. Biber, Douglas (1988). Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Blake, Norman F. (1992). ‘The Literary Language’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. II: 1066–1476, ed. Norman Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 500–541. Blench, John W. (1964). Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Study of English Sermons 1450 – c.1600. Oxford: Blackwell. Claridge, Claudia and Terry Walker (2001). ‘Causal Clauses in Written and Speech-related Genres in Early Modern English’. ICAME Journal 25: 31–63. Culpeper, Jonathan and Merja Kytö (2000). ‘The Conjunction and in Early Modern English: Frequencies and Uses in Speech-related Writing and Other Texts’. In: Generative Theory and Corpus Studies. A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL, ed. Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, David Denison, Richard M. Hogg, and C. B. McCully. (Topics in English Linguistics, 31). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 299–326. Görlach, Manfred (1991). Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, Ian A. (1966). The Movement of English Prose. London: Longman. Jahandarie, Khosrow (1999). Spoken and Written Discourse: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Stamford: Ablex. Jespersen, Otto (1940). A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part V: Syntax. Fourth Volume. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard. Jucker, Andreas H. (1991). ‘Between Hypotaxis and Parataxis: Clauses of Reason in Ancrene Wisse’. In: Historical English Syntax, ed. Dieter Kastovsky. (Topics in English Linguistics, 2). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 203–220. Kohnen, Thomas (2001). ‘Text Types as Catalysts for Language Change: The Example of the Adverbial First Participle Construction’. In: Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, ed. Hans-Jürgen Diller and Manfred Görlach. Heidelberg: Winter, 111–124. Kohnen, Thomas (2004). Text – Textsorte – Sprachgeschichte: Englische Partizipial- und Gerundialkonstruktionen 1100 bis 1700. (Buchreihe der Anglia, 37). Tübingen: Niemeyer.

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 Thomas Kohnen

Kortmann, Bernd (1997). ‘Typology and Language Change’. In: Anglistentag 1996. Dresden, ed. Uwe Böker and Hans Sauer. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 109–124. Kytö, Merja, comp. (1996 [1991]). Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. Third ed. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. Meurman-Solin, Anneli (2004). ‘Towards a Variationist Typology of Clausal Connectives. Methodological Considerations Based on the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence’. In: Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology, ed. Marina Dossena and Roger Lass (Linguistic Insights. Studies in Language and Communication, 16). Bern: Lang, 171–197. Mitchell, W. Fraser (1932). English Pulpit Oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson: A Study of its Literary Aspects. London: Macmillan. Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (1989). ‘A Corpus of Early Modern Standard English in a Socio-Historical Perspective’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 90: 67– 110. Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (1993). ‘Early Modern British English’. In: Early English in the Computer Age: Explorations through the Helsinki Corpus, ed. Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö and Minna Palander-Collin. (Topics in English Linguistics, 11). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 53–73. Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (1994). ‘Its strength and the beauty of it: The Standardization of the Third Person Neuter Possessive in Early Modern English’. In: Towards a Standard English 1600–1800, ed. Dieter Stein and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. (Topics in English Linguistics, 12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 171–216. Ong, Walter J. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rissanen, Matti (1989). ‘The Conjunction for in Early Modern English’. Nowele 14: 3–18. Rissanen, Matti (1998). ‘Towards an Integrated View of the Development of English: Notes on Causal Linking’. In: Advances in English Historical Linguistics, ed. Jacek Fisiak and Marcin Krygier. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 112). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 389–406. Rissanen, Matti (1999). ‘Syntax’. In: The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. III: 1476–1776, ed. Roger Lass. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 187–331. Schiffrin, Deborah (1987). Discourse Markers. (Studies in International Sociolinguistics, 5). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer, H. L. (2000). ‘Middle English Sermons’. In: The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle. Turnhout: Brepols, 597–660.

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‘Connective profiles’ in the history of English texts 

Appendix: The corpus The following references only contain detailed bibliographical information on those excerpts which are not part of the Helsinki Corpus (for the texts of the Helsinki Corpus see Kytö 1996). They indicate page and line numbers of the excerpts (7.2–34.6 = excerpt from page 7, line 2 to page 34, line 6). 15th century Wycliffite Sermons Mirk Royal

Wycliffite Sermons Mirk’s Festial Middle English Sermons (MS Royal)

13,460 words 3,190 words 5,820 words

Advent

Advent and Nativity Sermons

4,246 words

Helsinki Corpus Helsinki Corpus Helsinki Corpus

(Susan Powell, ed. (1981). The Advent and Nativity Sermons from a Fifteenth-Century Revision of John Mirk’s Festial. (Middle English Texts, 13). Heidelberg: Winter. 71.1–91.260) 16th century Fisher Erasmus

Certain Sermons and Homilies

The English Works of John Fisher Desiderius Erasmus, A Sermon of the Exceeding Great Mercy of God

4,460 words 3,307 words

Helsinki Corpus

(Elizabeth M. Nugent, ed. (1956). The Thought & Culture of the English Renaissance. An Anthology of Tudor Prose 1481–1555. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 350.36–357.29) 7,178 words An Homelie of Christian Love and Charitie (2,764 words) An Homelie of the Salvacion of Mankynd, by Onely Christ Our Savior, from Synne and Death Everlastyng (4,414 words) (Ronald B. Bond. ed. (1987). Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547) and A Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570). A Critical Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 79.1–87.40; 120.1–125.27)

Latimer

Smith

17th century Hooker Sermons

Hugh Latimer, Sermon on the Ploughers; Seven Sermons Before Edward VI Henry Smith, A Preparative to Mariage; Of the Lords Supper; Of Usurie Richard Hooker, Two Sermons upon Part of S. Judes Epistle

5,010 words

Helsinki Corpus

5,190 words

Helsinki Corpus

5,110 words

Helsinki Corpus

8,422 words Thomas Grantham, A Wife Mistaken, or a Wife and No Wife Thomas Fuller, Blessed are the Peacemakers Ralph Cudworth, Quintessence of the Gospel (John Chandos. ed. (1971). In God’s Name. Examples of Preaching in England from the Act of Supremacy to the Act of Uniformity 1534–1662. London: Hutchinson, 377.1–383.12; 400.1–406.35; 437.1–440.32)

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 Thomas Kohnen

Tillotson Taylor

John Tillotson, The Folly of Scoffing at Religion; Of the Tryall of the Spirits Jeremy Taylor, The Marriage Ring

6,600 words

Helsinki Corpus

5,870 words

Helsinki Corpus

late 20th century British National Corpus, World Edition (BNC) Text G5H Sermons PS2B1 Text KN6 Albert Gunter. PS6SU Text KN7 Albert Gunter, PS 1 RG

7,564 words 6,359 words 6,868 words

London-Lund Corpus (LLC) Text S12.1a Text S12.1b Text S12.1c Text S12.1d

1,050 words 2,100 words 1,212 words 863 words

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Word index

English A accordingly , , ,  actually  afraid  after (OE æfter (þæm þe)) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n. after all , ,  against  albeit / al be it (that) , , , n., –; see also all + inversion pattern all –; see also all + inversion pattern although n., –, ; see also though always  amongst  and , , , , , – passim {any/each/every} time , , – any(-) ,  anyhow  anymore  anyplace ,  anytime , , –, – anyway(s) ,  anywhen  anywhere ,  anywise  as , , , , , , , , ,  as long as  B because , , – passim,  before –

besides  but , , , , , , – passim C in case  certe(s)  on condition that n. consequently , , , , ,  cuþlice n.

D day  directly  do ,  dread (OE ondrædan) , ,  during  E each , n.; see also {any/each/every} time each place  each time , , –, –, – each way  enaunter  to the end that – ere (OE ær (þæm þe)) , , , , ,  ever ,  every ; see also {any/each/every} time everyplace  every time , , –, – everyway(s)  everywhen  everywhere ,  except 

F fear, for fear that , , n. for , , , , , , , – passim, , – passim for as much as , , , , , – for which , , ,  forþæm þe , , , , – passim for-thy – passim for-why – passim forth , ,  G ge-  given that ,  gotta 

H hafta  have ,  hence , , , , , , ,  herefore , ,  how (that) ,  however  I if , , n., , , , , –; see also if-clause immediately  indeed , , , n., ,  in fact , , n. -ing ,  instantly  instead ,  intend , ,  to the intent that –

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 Word index

L lest , , –; see also þy læs þe like ,  M man  mid (þæm (þe)) , , , ,  the moment that –,  N -ness n. never so  nevertheless ,  notwithstanding  now (that) , , , –, , , , , ,  nowhere  O of course n. once ,  only – or , – passim order; in order that ... not , n., , , , n. oþ , , – oþþe , n., –,  oughta  P place ,  please  providing (that)  R rather  reason ,  S seeing (that)  since (OE siþþan) , n., , –, , , –, , , – passim, n., ,  so (OE swa) n., , , , , , , , , , , , , 

so that , , , , , ,  sooner  soþlice  still ,  surely  T that (OE þæt), demonstrative , , , , , ; see also demonstrative that (OE þæt), particle / subordinator / complementizer/ relativizer , , –, , , – passim, , –, , –, –, , , , , –, , ; see also particle, subordinating; subordinator; that-clause the , ; see also þe then (OE þonne) , , , , , , ,  thence ,  there – thereafter  therefore – passim,  though (OE þeah) , , n., , , , , , ; see also although thus , , , ,  till , , –,  time, -time , , , , ,  to , –, –, , , ,  to þon (þe) , ,  to þy , ,  truly  try , ,  twice  þ þa , ,  -þan ,  þæm, þon, þy (þe) n., , , , –, , , ; see also demonstrative þæs (þe) ,  þe; OE subordinating particle , , n., – passim, , –, –, ,

–, , ; see also particle, subordinating þy læs þe , –, –, ; see also lest

U -ung  unless n., , ,  until 

W wanna – want , , ,  way , ,  were ,  when (that) n., , , , , , , n., ,  whence , ,  whenever n., , n.,  where , , , –, , , – whereas , , , , , , –,  whereat , ,  whereby ,  wherefore , , , ,  wherefrom  wherein , ,  whereof ,  whereon  whereto  whereupon , , , ,  which –, – while , , , , , , , –, , , , ,  whither  who , , , , , – whoever  with (OE wiþ þæm (þe)) , ,  without ,  witodlice 

Y yet 

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Word index

French car , n. donques n. par ce que , ,  pourtant  puisque –, ,  tout , – tout soit il/ce que , , –, – German all  also ,  da , ,  daher ,  darum ,  dass  demnach , ,  demzufolge ,  denn , , ,  deshalb , , 

deswegen –, , ,  folglich ,  freilich  infolgedessen , ,  jedenfalls  nämlich –, , , ,  nun  seit , , –, – seitdem ,  so ,  so dass ,  somit ,  in der Tat  weil , –, , ,  weshalb ,  weswegen ,  wirklich 

Latin cum  eapropter , , n. enim , –,  ergo  his (haec, hoc)  igitur  ille (illa, illud)  is (ea, id)  iste (ista, istud)  nam –,  ne – propterea , , n. quapropter  quare  quia , , n. quod ,  quoniam –, , ,  sero  umquam temporae  ut (ne) n.



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Subject index

A academic prose; see genres accusative , , n., , , ,  AcI n. addition; see relations, semantic adjective , n., , , , , , , ,  adverb , , , , , , , , , –, , , – passim, , , , –, , , , , , , , , n., , , , , ,  Ælfric , , , , , , , , , , n. affix , , , , ,  agent argument  all + inversion pattern – passim, , , n., , – passim allative  American English , , ,  analogy , , , ,  anaphoric (reference, signal) , , , – passim, , –, , , –, ,  anteriority; see relations, semantic ARCHER Corpus , , – passim, – passim argumentative , , , –, , , –; see text type, argumentative asyndesis , , ,  attrition phonetic , , –; see also reduction, phonetic; weakening, phonetic

semantic  Australian Corpus of English (ACE) ,  Australian English , 

B bleaching, semantic ,  bondedness ,  bridging contexts , ,  British National Corpus (BNC) , , n., n., – passim, – passim Brooklyn-Geneva-AmsterdamHelsinki Corpus (BGAH) – passim

C Canadian English ,  cataphoric (reference, signal) , , ,  category change , , ,  cause; see relations, semantic ccc-relations; see relations, semantic Century of Prose Corpus (COPC) , –, – passim Chadwyck-Healey English Drama Corpus (CH-D) – passim Chaucer n., , , , , , , – passim, , , , ,  CLAN-construction – passim clause complement clause – passim,  main , , , , , , , –, , , , ,

, , , , , , , – passim, , ,  nominal , , , , , , , ,  order; see position of adverbial clause relative; see relative clause subordinate , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n. clause linkage parameters of –, , – zero-realization of , – passim, , , n., –, n. clitic ,  cohesion , , , , , , , , , , ,  collocate , n., , –, , , ,  competence, stylistic , ,  complementizer , , , – passim, , , , , , , , , , , ,  concession; see relations, semantic condition; see relations, semantic conjunction , , , , – passim, , , , – passim, , , – passim, , , n., , – passim, , , , , , , , , , ,  connective profile , , – passim

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 Subject index

connector position of connector , , , –, , , , , ,  pronominal connector , –, , –, , ,  contact clause , n. context (contextual) , , , , , , , ; see also bridging context contraction , ,  conventionalization , , , , , , , , ; see also implicatures conversation; see genres coordination , , , , , , , ,  coordination vs. subordination , , , n., , –,  Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS) , , – passim, – passim Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse , – passim, – passim, n., ; see Middle English Compendium Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC) – passim, – passim correlative constructions , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  cross-linguistic , , n., , , , , , , 

D dative , , , , n., , n., , , , ,  decategorization , ,  degrammaticalization  deixis (deictic) , , – passim, ,  demonstrative / demonstrative pronoun , , , , , , , , , , , , –

passim, – passim, , – passim,  derivation , , , ; see also affix, prefix, suffix desententialization , , –, – detachment – passim Dictionary of Old English Corpus – passim, – passim, – passim, – passim, – passim dimension informational ,  interactive , , , ,  involved , , ,  discourse function , , , , , , n.,  discourse marker , n., –, , n. discourse, spoken (language, medium) , n., , , , , , , , , , , , , , n., , , n., ; see also orality discourse, written (language, medium) , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n., , ; see also literacy disjunct, style  divergence  downgrading , , ,  Dutch , , 

E Early English Prose Fiction Corpus (CH-P) – passim elaboration vs. compression , , ,  embedding , , , , , ,  epistolary prose; see genres explicitness (of linking) , , , –, , , – passim, , , –, , , –,  extraposition , 

F focus , , , –,  focusing adverbs/subjuncts ,  formulaic phrases/expressions epistolary formulae , , , , , , – passim formulaic phrases/ expressions , , , ,  Freiburg BROWN Corpus (FROWN) – passim, – passim, – passim Freiburg LOB Corpus (FLOB) – passim, – passim French (Old French) –, –, , , , , –, n.,  French influence , n., , , –, , – fuzziness , , , , , , 

G genitive , n., , , –,  genres , , , , , , n., , , , , , , , , n., , , , ; see also registers Bible  biographies  conversation , , , , , , ,  diaries , ,  handbooks , ,  histories  homilies , –, , , ; see also genres, sermons instruction, religious , , n. law  letters, epistolary prose , , , , , , n., –, , , , – passim; see also formulae, epistolary

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Subject index

pamphlets , , , n., , , , , , ,  prose, academic ,  sermons , , – passim; see also genres, homilies statutes , , –, –,  treatises , , n. trials , , n. German , , , , , , , , n., n., , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , ,  Germanic –, , , , , ,  gerund , , ,  givenness , , , , , ; see also information, given goal argument , –, , , , ,  Gothic , , , ,  grammaticalization , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , ,  Grice, (neo)-Gricean , –, n.; see also maxims, conversational

H handbooks; see genres hedging , , , n.,  Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) , – passim, –, – passim, – passim, – passim, – passim, n., – passim, , , , – passim Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (HCOS) , – passim, –, ,  homilies; see genres homophony ,  hypercorrection 

hypotaxis –, ; see also subordination

I if-clauses , – position of , – illocutionary force (weight) , , , , , , , , , , ,  implicatures, conversational , , , n., , ,  conventionalization of ,  Indian English  indicative , , , , , ,  inference / pragmatic inferencing , , , – passim inference, invited , , , , , , ,  infinitive , , , –, , , , , n.,  bare infinitive n., , n., , , , , , ,  infinitival inflection , , –, , ,  to-infinitive , , –, – information, given , , , –, ,  information, new , , , , , , ,  information processing , –, , –, , , ,  information structure , , , , , ,  instruction, religious; see genres instrumental , n., , , , , , , ,  integration, syntactic , , , , ,  intensification , , ,  interactive; see dimension, interactive Internet sources as data , , , – intonation , 

inversion – passim, ; see also all + inversion pattern Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change , , ; see also inferences, invited involved; see dimension, involved I-principle (Principle of Informativeness) , –, , , , ,  irrealis , 

K Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English (KCIE) 

L Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts , – passim, –, – passim language acquisition ,  Latin , , –, , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , –, n., , , , , ,  Latin influence , , ,  layering , ,  Lehmann –, , , –,  letter-closing strategies –, ; see also formulae, epistolary levels of analysis –, –, , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , ,  lexicalization , , , , , , , , , , n. lexicon, mental , –, , ,  Literature Online Corpus (LION) – passim literacy , , , , –; see also discourse, written locative; see relations, semantic place



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 Subject index

London-Lund Corpus (LLC) , –, – passim

M manuscripts , n., , , n.,  manuscripts as data , , , –,  maxims, conversational , , n., ; see also Grice meaning coded , , , , , , , n. utterance-token , ,  utterance-type , ,  Middle English Compendium (MEC) , – passim, – passim, n.,  modality , , , , , , ,  modals / modal verbs , , – modernization , , 

N negation , , , , ,  negative purpose; see relations, semantic Newdigate Newsletters Corpus ,  New Zealand English  nominalization –, –, , , , , , ,  noun clause; see clause, nominal

O Old French , , –, , , n.; see also French Old High German , ; see also German Old Norse –, , , , , ,  Older Scots , –, – passim

orality , , –; see also discourse, spoken

P parataxis , –, ; see also coordination participle n., , ,  particle, subordinating , , –,  Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English – passim polarity – polemic – passim Polish n. polyfunctionality , , , , , , , , , , , –, n. polysemy , , , ,  position; see also connector, position of position of adverbial clause –, –, , – initial (preposed) , , –, –, , – passim final (postposed) , , –, , , – passim,  medial n.,  parenthetical , –, – passim pragmatics , , , , , , , , , –, –, – predicates of fearing – prefix ,  preposition , , , , , – passim, , , –, , , , , , , , , , , ,  stranded preposition , , ,  prepositional phrase , –, – passim, – passim, , , , , , –, , , ,  principle of informativeness; see I-Principle procedural , , , , , 

pronominal connector; see connector, pronominal pronoun demonstrative; see demonstrative personal , , , , , , ,  prosody , , , , , , ,  visual , –,  punctuation , , , , , , , ,  purpose; see relations, semantic purpose adjunct –, , , , 

Q quantification, universal  Q-Principle n.

R reanalysis , , , , , , , , , , , ,  reason; see relations, semantic reduction, phonetic , , , , ; see also attrition, phonetic; weakening, phonetic reference; see anaphoric; cataphoric accessibility of referent , ,  redundancy , , , , ,  registers; see also genres politics , , –, , – science , , –, , –, , , n. relations, semantic addition , , , , –, , , , n., ,  adversativity , n., , n., ; see also relations, semantic contrast

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Subject index  anteriority , , –, , , , n. cause , , , , , , , –, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , –, – passim concession , , , , , , , , –, –, , , , – passim condition , , , , , , , , , , , –, – passim contrast , , , , –, –, –, ; see also relations, semantic adversativity ccc / cccc-relations (four-C relations) , –, , , ,  manner and comparison , , , , – passim negative purpose – place / space (locative) , , , , , , , –, ,  purpose , , n., n., , – passim, , n., –, – passim reason , n., –, , – passim result , , , – passim, – passim simultaneity , , , , , , – passim, , ,  space; see relations, semantic place time , , , , , –, –, – passim, – passim, – passim, , , , , , –, n., , –, , , – passim

relative clause , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , n., , , n., , ,  relatives , , – passim adverbial – passim,  functional amalgamation of , , ,  nominal , n. non-adjacency of antecedent/anchor , , , , , , , , , , ,  push-down element ,  sentential , , , n. supplementary , , ,  Relevance Theory , , – result; see relations, semantic R-principle , 

subjunctive , , n., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  subordination , , , , , , , , n., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n., , , , , ; see also coordination vs. subordination; clause, subordinate; particle, subordinating; subordinator subordinator – passim, – passim, , , , , , , , , n., , n., – passim, , , , , –, – passim universal , ,  suffix , , , ,  switch context  syndesis , ,  synergies, methodological –

S scope , , –,  scrambling  semantic change , , , , , , , –, n., , n. sermons; see genres speech acts , , , , n., , , , , , , , , ,  stance , , , , ,  standardization , , n. statutes; see genres Strathy Corpus of Canadian English ,  strengthening , , , n.,  style , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n.,  subjectification , , , , , , , , , , , , , 

T tagging, grammatical , , , , n., –, , n.,  tense-copying  text linguistics , , , , , , , , , ,  text type , , , – argumentative , , , –, , , – narrative , , , , –, , , , , , n. theme argument , –, , ,  time; see relations, semantic that-clause , , , , , , , , , ,  T-M-A  topic , , , , , , –, , , , , ,  topicality , , , ,  treatises; see genres

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 Subject index typology , , , , , , , , n., n., , , , , , , – U unidirectionality , , , , ,  univerbation , , , , , , , , , – passim, , , , ,  Universal Grammar  University of Virginia Modern English Collection (UofV) – passim

V variation/variationist , , , , , , , n., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , n., , , , , , ,  verbs of cognition  of commanding and permitting , , , , ,  of persuading and urging , , , , , , , , 

W weakening, phonetic , , ; see also attrition, phonetic; reduction, phonetic Wellman Corpus of Written New Zealand English  West Saxon , , , , – word order , , , , –, , ,  Z zero-realisation; see clause-linkage

CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

E. F. K. Koerner, Editor

Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin [email protected] Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT) is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning and development. CILT has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. It offers an outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, and furnishes the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 286 Weijer, Jeroen van de and Erik Jan van der Torre (eds.): Voicing in Dutch. Expected October 2007 285 Sackmann, Robin (ed.): Explorations in Integrational Linguistics. Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní.. ix, 217 pp. Expected October 2007 284 Salmons, Joseph C. and Shannon Dubenion-Smith (eds.): Historical Linguistics 2005. Selected papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Madison, Wisconsin, 31 July - 5 August 2005. viii, 400 pp. + index. Expected August 2007 283 Lenker, Ursula and Anneli Meurman-Solin (eds.): Connectives in the History of English. 2007. viii, 318 pp. 282 Prieto, Pilar, Joan Mascaró and Maria-Josep Solé (eds.): Segmental and prosodic issues in Romance phonology. 2007. xvi, 262 pp. 281 Vermeerbergen, Myriam, Lorraine Leeson and Onno Crasborn (eds.): Simultaneity in Signed Languages. Form and function. 2007. viii, 360 pp. (incl. CD-Rom). 280 Hewson, John and Vit Bubenik: From Case to Adposition. The development of configurational syntax in Indo-European languages. 2006. xxx, 420 pp. 279 Nedergaard Thomsen, Ole (ed.): Competing Models of Linguistic Change. Evolution and beyond. 2006. vi, 344 pp. 278 Doetjes, Jenny and Paz González (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2004. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Leiden, 9–11 December 2004. 2006. viii, 320 pp. 277 Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Lyle Campbell (eds.): Grammar from the Human Perspective. Case, space and person in Finnish. 2006. x, 280 pp. 276 Montreuil, Jean-Pierre Y. (ed.): New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Vol. II: Phonetics, Phonology and Dialectology. Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005. 2006. x, 213 pp. 275 Nishida, Chiyo and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil (eds.): New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Vol. I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005. 2006. xiv, 288 pp. 274 Gess, Randall S. and Deborah Arteaga (eds.): Historical Romance Linguistics. Retrospective and perspectives. 2006. viii, 393 pp. 273 Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola, Marjatta Palander and Esa Penttilä (eds.): Dialects Across Borders. Selected papers from the 11th International Conference on Methods in Dialectology (Methods XI), Joensuu, August 2002. 2005. xii, 291 pp. 272 Gess, Randall S. and Edward J. Rubin (eds.): Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Salt Lake City, March 2004. 2005. viii, 367 pp. 271 Branner, David Prager (ed.): The Chinese Rime Tables. Linguistic philosophy and historicalcomparative phonology. 2006. viii, 358 pp. 270 Geerts, Twan, Ivo van Ginneken and Haike Jacobs (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2003, Nijmegen, 20–22 November. 2005. viii, 369 pp. 269 Hargus, Sharon and Keren Rice (eds.): Athabaskan Prosody. 2005. xii, 432 pp. 268 Cravens, Thomas D. (ed.): Variation and Reconstruction. 2006. viii, 223 pp. 267 Alhawary, Mohammad T. and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII–XVIII. Papers from the seventeenth and eighteenth annual symposia on Arabic linguistics. Volume XVII–XVIII: Alexandria, 2003 and Norman, Oklahoma 2004. 2005. xvi, 315 pp. 266 Boudelaa, Sami (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVI. Papers from the sixteenth annual symposium on Arabic linguistics, Cambridge, March 2002. 2006. xii, 181 pp.

265 Cornips, Leonie and Karen P. Corrigan (eds.): Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social. 2005. vi, 312 pp. 264 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Dieter Kastovsky, Oskar E. Pfeiffer and Franz Rainer (eds.): Morphology and its demarcations. Selected papers from the 11th Morphology meeting, Vienna, February 2004. With the assistance of Francesco Gardani and Markus A. Pöchtrager. 2005. xiv, 320 pp. 263 Branco, António, Tony McEnery and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Anaphora Processing. Linguistic, cognitive and computational modelling. 2005. x, 449 pp. 262 Vajda, Edward J. (ed.): Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia. 2004. x, 275 pp. 261 Kay, Christian J. and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.): Categorization in the History of English. 2004. viii, 268 pp. 260 Nicolov, Nicolas, Kalina Bontcheva, Galia Angelova and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing III. Selected papers from RANLP 2003. 2004. xii, 402 pp. 259 Carr, Philip, Jacques Durand and Colin J. Ewen (eds.): Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrastivity. Phonological papers in honour of John Anderson. 2005. xxviii, 405 pp. 258 Auger, Julie, J. Clancy Clements and Barbara Vance (eds.): Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected Papers from the 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003. With the assistance of Rachel T. Anderson. 2004. viii, 404 pp. 257 Fortescue, Michael, Eva Skafte Jensen, Jens Erik Mogensen and Lene Schøsler (eds.): Historical Linguistics 2003. Selected papers from the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Copenhagen, 11–15 August 2003. 2005. x, 312 pp. 256 Bok-Bennema, Reineke, Bart Hollebrandse, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe and Petra Sleeman (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2002. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Groningen, 28–30 November 2002. 2004. viii, 273 pp. 255 Meulen, Alice ter and Werner Abraham (eds.): The Composition of Meaning. From lexeme to discourse. 2004. vi, 232 pp. 254 Baldi, Philip and Pietro U. Dini (eds.): Studies in Baltic and Indo-European Linguistics. In honor of William R. Schmalstieg. 2004. xlvi, 302 pp. 253 Caffarel, Alice, J.R. Martin and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen (eds.): Language Typology. A functional perspective. 2004. xiv, 702 pp. 252 Kay, Christian J., Carole Hough and Irené Wotherspoon (eds.): New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Volume II: Lexis and Transmission. 2004. xii, 273 pp. 251 Kay, Christian J., Simon Horobin and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.): New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Volume I: Syntax and Morphology. 2004. x, 264 pp. 250 Jensen, John T.: Principles of Generative Phonology. An introduction. 2004. xii, 324 pp. 249 Bowern, Claire and Harold Koch (eds.): Australian Languages. Classification and the comparative method. 2004. xii, 377 pp. (incl. CD-Rom). 248 Weigand, Edda (ed.): Emotion in Dialogic Interaction. Advances in the complex. 2004. xii, 284 pp. 247 Parkinson, Dilworth B. and Samira Farwaneh (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XV. Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Salt Lake City 2001. 2003. x, 214 pp. 246 Holisky, Dee Ann and Kevin Tuite (eds.): Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics. Papers in honor of Howard I. Aronson. 2003. xxviii, 426 pp. 245 Quer, Josep, Jan Schroten, Mauro Scorretti, Petra Sleeman and Els Verheugd (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2001. Selected papers from 'Going Romance', Amsterdam, 6–8 December 2001. 2003. viii, 355 pp. 244 Pérez-Leroux, Ana Teresa and Yves Roberge (eds.): Romance Linguistics. Theory and Acquisition. Selected papers from the 32nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Toronto, April 2002. 2003. viii, 388 pp. 243 Cuyckens, Hubert, Thomas Berg, René Dirven and Klaus-Uwe Panther (eds.): Motivation in Language. Studies in honor of Günter Radden. 2003. xxvi, 403 pp. 242 Seuren, Pieter A.M. and Gerard Kempen (eds.): Verb Constructions in German and Dutch. 2003. vi, 316 pp. 241 Lecarme, Jacqueline (ed.): Research in Afroasiatic Grammar II. Selected papers from the Fifth Conference on Afroasiatic Languages, Paris, 2000. 2003. viii, 550 pp. 240 Janse, Mark and Sijmen Tol (eds.): Language Death and Language Maintenance. Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches. With the assistance of Vincent Hendriks. 2003. xviii, 244 pp. 239 Andersen, Henning (ed.): Language Contacts in Prehistory. Studies in Stratigraphy. Papers from the Workshop on Linguistic Stratigraphy and Prehistory at the Fifteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Melbourne, 17 August 2001. 2003. viii, 292 pp.