Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9783110907582, 9783110148725

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Pragmatic Markers in English

W DE G

Topics in English Linguistics 19

Editor

Herman Wekker

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Pragmatic Markers in English Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions

Laurel J. Brinton

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1996

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brinton, Laurel J. Pragmatic markers in English ; Grammaticalization and discourse functions / Laurel J. Brinton. p. cm. - (Topics in English linguistics ; 19) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-014872-2 (alk. paper) 1. English language - Particles. 2. English language Discourse analysis. 3. English language — Old English, ca. 450-1100 - Discourse analysis. 4. English language — Middle English. 1100—1500 - Discourse analysis. 5. Pragmatics. I. Title. II. Series. PF1321.B75 1996 420'.141-dc20 96-5401 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brinton, Laurel J.:

Pragmatic markers in English : grammaticalization and discourse functions / Laurel J. Brinton. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1996 (Topics in English linguistics ; 19) ISBN 3-11-014872-2 NE: GT

© Copyright 1996 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Preface

This topic of this work originated, quite unexpectedly, in a small study of translations of Beowulf I undertook some years ago, which I joking entitled "Wlia( ho, Ιο, γα, indccdl Finding a translation of Beowulf for the Freshman". While I was generally concerned with other matters in that paper, I also noticed the difficulty that the first word of the poem (hwcet) caused for translators. The work of Deborah Schiffrin (Discourse Markers, 1987) and other scholars within the field of discourse analysis suggested a possible approach to such "mystery particles", as Robert Longacre has termed them, and a couple of years later I returned to the topic. I first began by examining Old English hwcet and Middle English gan from the perspective of discourse analysis. Both of these forms had traditionally been seen as empty forms, pleonasms, or metrical fillers. I took the position that it would be more revealing to examine not whether these forms occurred in verse or in prose—which had been the usual approach—but how the forms were distributed in respect to the structure of a text and the discourse contexts in which they occurred. Such a perspective convinced me to see hwcet as an attention-getter and marker of common knowledge, functions remarkably similar to Modern English you know. In determining the function of gan, I was led to consider questions of narrative structure and foregrounding. After hwcet and^'i/H, I went on to study a variety of seemingly empty forms in Old English and Middle English which might better be understood as serving pragmatic roles. I should point out that my study is intended only as a sampling of such- forms, many more of which could undoubtedly be identified in both stages of the language. As my work continued, my approach was refined and expanded, as more questions of textual structure and interpersonal interaction seemed to arise. It might have proved useful to review hwcet and gan in light of these additional questions, but time permitted only a partial reexamination. From my studies of individual forms in Old and Middle English and from a study of the scholarship on discourse markers in Modern English, I came to the conclusion that discourse markers—what I call in this study pragmatic markers—can be defined, despite the variety of forms included and the multitude of functions proposed, by two main functions, which fall into the categories that Michael Halliday has termed "textual" and "interpersonal". In looking at pragmatic markers in earlier stages of the language, I was also

vi

Preface

concerned with their diachronic development, which seemed to be accounted for by a broadly defined process of grammaticalization. I wanted to account for how textual and interpersonal meanings arise from prepositional meanings and how all the types of meanings are interrelated. Additionally, I wished to determine whether pragmatic markers exhibit any of the morphosyntactic changes characteristic of grammaticalization. The following study is thus an examination not only of the functions of various pragmatic markers in earlier stages of the language but also of the evolution of these functions over time; it also, I hopes, contributes to the ongoing discussion about the nature and function of pragmatic markers. I wish to thank John Benjamins Publishing Company for permission to use material from my article "The stylistic function of ME gan re-examined" (in: Sylvia M. Adamson—Vivien Law—Nigel Vincent—Susan Wright (eds.), Papers from the Fifth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, 31-53 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 65), Amsterdam— Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1990) in Chapter 3 of the following work and material from my article "Episode boundary markers in Old English discourse" (in: Henk Aertsen—Robert J. Jeffers (eds.), Historical Linguistics 1989, 73-89 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 106), Amsterdam— Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1993) in Chapter 5. I would also like to thank the Berkeley Linguistics Society for permission to use material from my forthcoming article "Pragmatic markers in a diachronic perspective" (in: Proceedings of the twenty-first annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, in press) in the Concluding Remarks of this book. A preliminary version of Chapter 3 appears as "The development of discourse markers in English" (in: Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical linguistics and philology, 45-71 (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 46), Berlin—New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1990). Finally, I am grateful to the University of Alabama Press for permission to adapt Figure 2.1 (p. 62) from Romaine—Lange (1991: 261). This work has been supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant 410-91-0489. I am also grateful to the University of British Columbia Humanities and Social Sciences Grants Committee for Small Research Grants for the years 19871990. My thanks are extended as well to my graduate research assistants, M. Patte Rockett and Franca Pernatozzi, whose careful attention to detail saved me many hours of work, and to Carol McConnell, whose meticulous copyediting and proofreading spared me numerous errors and inconsistencies.

Preface

vii

I owe a debt of gratitude to Herman Wekker, who has shown great support for this work, and to an anonymous reviewer, who read the draft with care and discrimination. Their comments were of great use in revising the manuscript. I am indebted to my colleague Gernot Wieland, who read the complete manuscript most diligently, caught a number of typographical errors, but, more importantly, checked my Old English translations; I have also benefited from a number of stimulating talks with him about the work. For rewarding scholarly discussions over a number of years about Old and Middle English discourse, I would like to thank Brita Wärvik, and for equally rewarding discussions of grammaticalization, I would like to thank Elizabeth Traugott. I am grateful to Susan Herring for comments on a version of Chapter 4. This work has been enriched by many discussions that I have had with scholars here and elsewhere, including Leslie Arnovick, David Denison, Anne Finell, Suzanne Fleischman, Peter Richardson, Lilita Rodman, and Dieter Stein. Finally, Merja Kytö has given me valuable assistance in the use of the Helsinki Corpus as well. I would like to thank my parents and my sisters for years of encouragement. Finally, to my daughter Monica and to my husband Ralph, whose humor, computer expertise as well as hours of child tending made completion of this book possible, my gratitude.

Contents

Preface

v

List of abbreviations

xv

Chapter 1.

1

1.0. 1.1.

1.2.

1.3.

Introduction Approaches to mystery features 1.1.1. Traditional approaches 1.1.2. Discourse analytic approaches 1.1.3. Approach taken in this study The diachronic study of pragmatic markers 1.2.1. Single lexical items 1.2.2. Phrases 1.2.3. Morphosyntactic forms 1.2.4. Forms of discourse Overview of the current study

Chapter 2. 2.0. 2.1.

2.2.

2.3.

"Mystery features" of Old and Middle English

Conceptual background

Introduction Pragmatic markers 2.1.1. Definition of pragmatic markers 2.1.2. Diversity of pragmatic markers 2.1.3. Characteristics of pragmatic markers 2.1.4. Functions of pragmatic markers Structure of narrative discourse 2.2.1. Events 2.2.2. Episodes Grounding 2.3.1. Foregrounding and backgrounding 2.3.2. Content criteria 2.3.3. Formal criteria

1 2 2 5 7 9 9 16 18 24 25 29 29 29 30 31 32 35 40 40 41 44 45 47 48

χ

2.4.

2.5.

Contents

Grammaticalization 2.4.1. Description of the grammaticalization process 2.4.2. Development of pragmatic markers Conclusion

Chapter 3. 3.0. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3.

3.4. 3.5.

3.6. 3.7.

Introduction History of gan Distribution of gan in Middle English texts Metrical function of gan 3.3.1. Restricted distribution 3.3.2. Equivalent constructions 3.3.3. Viability of metrical arguments Stylistic function of gan Textual function of gan 3.5.1. Internal evidence for the textual function of gan 3.5.2. Comparative evidence for the textual function of gan 3.5.3. Textual function of gan outside Chaucer Development of gan Conclusion

Chapter 4. 4.0. 4.1.

4.2. 4.3.

4.4. 4.5.

Middle English gan

Middle and Early Modern English anon

Introduction Anon in Middle English 4.1.1. Anon in Troilus and Criseyde 4.1.2. Anon in Le morte d'Arthur 4.1.3. Comparison with now in Modern English 4.1.4. Evaluative function of anon Anon in Early Modern English Semantic development of anon 4.3.1. Change within the prepositional component 4.3.2. Acquisition of textual functions 4.3.3. Acquisition of interpersonal function Grammaticalization οι anon Conclusion

50 50 59 64 67 67 67 69 69 69 70 71 72 74 75 78 79 79 82 85 85 85 88 97 101 103 104 105 106 108 109 110 112

Contents

Chapter 5. 5.0. 5.1.

5.2.

5.3. 5.4. 5.5.

Old English episode boundary markers

115

Introduction The ^e/iim^-construction 5.1.1. Textual distribution 5.1.2. Contexts of occurrence 5.1.3. Accompanying adverbials Grounding functions of the ^e/ijwip-construction 5.2.1. Grounding of the complement clause 5.2.2. Grounding of the adverbial clause 5.2.3. Function of the matrix clause Syntactic status of constituents of the ^c/am/J-construction Grammaticalization of the ^e/cimp-construction Conclusion

115 116 116 117 126 128 128 135 140 141 142 143

Chapter 6. 6.0. 6.1.

6.2.

6.3. 6.4.

Middle English episode boundary markers

145

Introduction The fci/e/-construction 6.1.1. Bz/e/-constructions in Chaucer and Malory 6.1.2. Decline of the ^/-construction Preposed tc/wn-clauses 6.2.1. Wzan-clauses in Chaucer and Malory 6.2.2. Grounding of tWjim-clauses 6.2.3. Function of tWziW-clauses Shift from the &i/e/-construction to w/zcm-clauses Conclusion

145 145 150 163 165 165 174 175 177 179

Chapter 7. 7.0. 7.1. 7.2.

xi

Old English hwcet

Introduction Uses of hwcet in verse Meaning of hwcet in verse 7.2.1. Comparison with you know in Modern English 7.2.2. Functions of hwcet 7.2.3. Evidential implications of hwcet 7.3. Meaning of hwcet in prose 7.3.1. Uses of hwcet pa 7.3.2. Functions of hwcet ba 7.3.3. Comparison with so in Modern English

181 181 181 185 185 187 189 192 193 194 197

xii

Contents

7.4. 7.5. 7.6.

Development of hwcet Rise of you know Conclusion

ChapterS. 8.0. 8.1. 8.2.

8.3.

8.4.

8.5.

Introduction First-person epistemic parentheticals in Middle English First-person epistemic parentheticals in Chaucer 8.2.1. Contexts of occurrence 8.2.2. Functions in discourse 8.2.3. Functions in narrative Development of first-person epistemic parentheticals 8.3.1. Semantic development: from evidential to epistemic 8.3.2. Syntactic development: from main clause to parenthetical 8.3.3. Grammaticalization Non-first-person epistemic parentheticals in Chaucer 8.4.1. Godwoot 8.4.2. Trustefh me wcl Conclusion

Chapter 9. 9.0. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4.

9.5.

Middle English Igcssc

Concluding remarks

"Mystery features" as pragmatic markers Properties of pragmatic markers in earlier English Textual functions of pragmatic markers in earlier English Interpersonal functions of pragmatic markers in earlier English Grammaticalization of pragmatic markers 9.4.1. Morphosyntactic aspects 9.4.2. Semantic/ pragmatic aspects 9.4.3. Textual parameters Continuity of pragmatic markers

Appendices Appendix A. Substantive studies of individual pragmatic markers in Modern English Appendix B. Typologies of pragmatic markers in Modern English Appendix C. Occurrences of j>an in Troilus and Criscydc Appendix D. Cooccurrence of adverbials with gan in Troilus and Criscydc

199 206 210 211 211 212 215 217 227 236 239 243 244 253 254 255 261 263 265 265 265 268 270 272 273 275 277 278 279 279 282 285 295

Contents

xiii

Appendix E. Episodic structure and occurrences of anon and gan in Book II of Troilus and Criseyde Appendix F. Occurrences of anon in Books 6, 11, and 16 of Le mortc d'Arthur Appendix G. Bz/e/-constructions in The Canterbury tales Appendix H. ßi/ci-constructions in Le mortc d'Arthur Appendix I. Preposed w// Clover notes that these forms are not "ossified" but quite productive (1974: 82). She terms these "introductory saga formulas" (1974: 72) or "narrator's formulas" (1982: 87), while L nnroth (1976: 45) terms them "transition formulas", a name which reveals their function. For Clover (1974: 62, 82), these formulas "shift scene", "signal temporal backtracking" and "overlapping", and "subordinate action". For L nnroth, they shift a scene within a chapter (1975: 73), mark a new episode beginning a chapter (1975: 75, 1976: 53), or generally call the reader's attention to scene shifts or other

18

"Mystery features" of Old anil Middle English

changes in structure (1976: 45). These formulas are not obligatory, and their presence is in large part determined by the length of time elapsed between scenes. The longer this is, the more likely and the more elaborate the formula is (Clover 1982: 88). There are also formulas, though fewer, which occur in the conclusion of a scene, such as Fcrr svajratn Icngi or ok cr X or sogunni 'and X departs from the saga' (Clover 1974: 62; Lönnroth 1976: 45); they note the passing of time, leave one strand in the narrative, break off a conversation, sum up a scene, or, most often, announce the departure of an individual (Clover 1974: 63). Thus, "[formulas] serve a clear function in scenic composition by introducing the action and closing it off' (Clover 1974: 82). Like Wittig (see above), however, Clover also seems to recognize an interactive function to these formulas representing "narrator's time". She sees them as "a set of narrative directions—formulas in which the narrator addresses the audience on the mechanics of composition" (1982: 89). They are really "authorial intrusions", but because of their brevity and impersonality, the saga writer appears to remain in the background. Clover contrasts this usage with Chaucer's use of the same formula, in which he puts himself in the foreground and thus seems to indulge the convention (pp. 89-90).

1.2.3. Morphosyntactic forms Discourse functions have also been attributed to various tense and aspect markers, as well as to word order, in older stages of the language. The most salient tense phenomenon of medieval literature is undoubtedly the use of the so-called "historical present" tense within past tense narrative, and especially the rapid and seemingly inexplicable shifts between past and present tense. Despite an authoritative model for the use of the historical present in its occurrence in the Greek Gospels and the Vulgate and its widespread occurrence in other Germanic traditions, for example, in the Old Icelandic sagas, the historical present is generally thought not to occur in Old English, either in original poetry and prose or in works translated from Latin (Steadman 1917: 3-14); the historical present does not occur in the Anglo-Saxon gospels, for example. However, the historical present is quite common by the end of the thirteenth century (pp. 14-21; also Mustanoja 1960: 485-486). It is used extensively in later Middle English texts, appears sporadically in Wyclif s fourteenth century translation of the Bible, and occurs more consistently in the King James version where the Greek and

The ditichronie study of prismatic markers

19

Latin originals have present tense forms. Explaining the absence of the historical present in Old English and accounting for its appearance in Middle English have vexed scholars. Its origin has been attributed, for example, to colloquial style, to French influence, to a natural development from the present in its other functions, to the development of the periphrastic future, and to the Germanic system of aspect (Steadman 1917: 21-44; Mustanoja 1960: 486; Visser 1964: 135, 1966: 709-710; Fischer 1992: 242-243).17 The traditional explanation for the function of the present tense is that it makes past events present, serving to heighten the vividness, unexpectedness, emotionality, suddenness, or suspense of the narrated events. This has been called the "past-more-vivid" hypothesis. However, as many critics observe, the traditional account is weakened by the numerous exceptions that can be found in texts using the historical present, instances of particularly exciting or important events narrated in the preterite. Explanations of the function of the historical present from a discourse perspective would seem to offer more promising results. Early discussions in this vein are that of Trnka (1930: 17-18), who suggests that the historical present can mark "important turning points" or a "decisive change", and of Mustanoja (1960: 487-488), who, in addition to the heightening or vivifying effect, sees the following functions of the present tense: (a) to denote "the main actions as against subordinate and less important actions and other attending circumstances"; (b) to "introduce a series of events ... and to describe the situation at the beginning of a new phase in the narrative"; 18 (c) to move "from one person to another"; (d) to end a series of events, or to summarize and round up a foregoing passage; and (e) to introduce direct and indirect speech. Zimmermann (1973: 536-539) sees the historical present, which is found only in independent clauses of direct discourse in Gawain and the Green Knight, as "structurally important" in the foreground-background dichotomy: it is used for main characters as opposed to groups; it distinguishes main actions from minor actions or from setting and other descriptions; it denotes continuing action after speech; and it occurs "where new dramatic elements appear or where the scene is changed".19 A similar foregrounding function is described by Richardson (1991a: 127-135, 153, 156160, 163-165, 174, 195-196, 205, 1991b: 345-348), who argues that the historical present in both Chaucer and the Gawain poet introduces main characters, highlights key details of description, and denotes main events; it

20

"Mystery features" of Old and Middle English

occurs in descriptions which the narrator considers as "integral parts of the story". Interestingly, Benson (1961: 75, 75n.) attributes a kind of "backgrounding" function to the historical present in Chaucer: historical presents denote temporally unspecified events which continue through a period of time until brought to an end by a preterite verb denoting an event which is specified and complete (pp. 67, 68). Historical presents have a "durative implication" and a "connotation of continuing action" (p. 67); they express subordinate actions in which temporal sequence is unimportant (p. 72). In Old Icelandic, the historical present "delineates narrative structure", being used to introduce sections as well as direct quotations (Kosuth 1980: 137138). Finally, considering the historical present in a different medieval tradition, that of Old French, Fleischman argues that the historical present occurs in the main clauses of complicating action (i.e., in the foreground) to mark events of "highest saliency" (1985: 870); she also sees the historical present as a device for internal evaluation: "it allows the narrator to present events as if they were occurring at the moment of enunciation, so that the audience can hear for itself what happened and interpret for itself the significance of those events for the experience" (1986: 224). Accounts of the historical present in Modern English20 attribute three major discourse functions to the form: those of segmentation, foregrounding, and internal evaluation. First, the switch from past to present tense (and back), rather than the historical present itself, is seen as significant: tenseswitching is thought to partition a discourse into segments, signal breaks or change of scene or character, and give focus to textual divisions (Wolfson 1979; also Schriffrm 1981: 56; Fleischman 199()a: 199-205). Second, the historical present is seen as marking the narrative foreground, that is, sequentially ordered past, perfective events which are plot-advancing, humanly important, and unpredicted or unexpected in context (Fleischman 1990a: 168-183); Chvany (1985b: 258, 261, 1990: 216, 223) calls the historical present an "icon of foregrounding". Fludernik (1991: 374) combines these two functions, arguing that the historical present signals a "narrative turn", that is, an experientially important or significant incident; historical presents are also common at the beginnings of episodes (p. 376). Third, the historical present is considered one device of internal evaluation, by means of which the narrator can convey the point of the story without stepping out of the narrative world: either the historical present allows the audience to see for itself what happened and thus interpret the significance of events for itself (Schiffrin 1981: 51, 59; Fleischman 1986: 224, 1990a: 145) or the narrator is able to insert his or her subjective viewpoint inobtrusively into the text

The diachronic study of pragmatic markers

21

(Fleischman 1986: 223). For Fludernik (1991: 374) the historical present signals the speaker's subjective involvement in the story, foregrounding the "tellability" of narrative turns (p. 377); furthermore, the historical present serves as a "guideline for listeners, enabling them to keep track of the progression of the story" (p. 389). Aristar—Dry (1982) discuss the discourse functions of perfect and progressive forms in Old and Middle English in terms of grounding. They argue that while the perfect and progressive are solely backgrounding tenses in Modern English, they are ambiguous in Old English. Likewise, the simple past, generally restricted to the foreground in Modern English, may be used for both foreground and background in Old English (p. 5). They attribute this ambiguity to the lack of a distinction between reference time (RT) and event time (ET) in Old English (pp. 3, 8). Specifically, the perfect form may be either "perfect" (where ET textual meaning. The textual 'so' and interpersonal 'you know' functions likely develop implicationally from the general interrogative sense of the word. In Chapter 8, the occurrences of Igcssc Ί guess' and other first-person suppositional parentheticals in Middle English are examined. These parentheticals have both an evidential and a subjective epistemic character, as they express the speaker's mode of knowing and degree of certainty. Though they are primarily speaker-oriented, they also have an interpersonal function, serving the purposes of intimacy and politeness. These parentheticals are found to function quite differently in dialogue and in

28

"Mystery features" of Old and Middle English

narrative. The development of these forms is also examined. Semantically, verbs of cognition give rise to evidentials, with the conversational implicature of uncertainty later conventionalized as epistemic meaning. The syntactic evolution of these expressions, reputedly from subject + main verb + complement (with or without that) to parenthetical, is examined in the framework of grammaticalization. Chapter 9 provides a summary of the study and makes certain conclusions concerning the status, development, and continuity of pragmatic markers in the history of English.

Chapter 2

Conceptual background

2.0.

Introduction

This chapter examines the scholarly literature on a number of concepts important for the study of pragmatic markers. The first section looks at qualities of pragmatic markers and their discourse functions. While recognizing that a single marker will not have all of the characteristic features nor pragmatic meanings identified, the discussion concludes that the pragmatic functions fall broadly into two categories, textual and interpersonal, and that these functions thus define membership in the category of pragmatic marker. The second section reviews the literature on episodic structure and the marking of episode boundaries, the particular type of pragmatic marking most important in narrative discourse. The third section examines the relative grounding of elements in discourse, exploring the notion of narrative foregrounding and backgrounding and its linguistic expression. The final section presents an overview of current work on grammaticalization, a process which will account for the development of pragmatic markers. The focus here is on the semantic and pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. Studies of the grammaticalization of pragmatic markers in the history of English are reviewed.

2.1. Pragmatic markers Discourse marker is perhaps the most common name suggested for the seemingly empty expressions found in oral discourse, such as actually, oh, right, well, I mean, and you know. The plethora of other terms used include comment clause, connective, continucr, discourse connective, discourse-deictic item, discourse operator, discourse particle, discourse-shift marker, discourse word, filler, fumble, gambit, hedge, initiator, interjection, marker, marker of pragmatic structure, parenthetic phrase, (void) pragmatic connective, pragmatic expression, pragmatic particle, and reaction signal.] While it would seem that a suitable term could be found among the ones already in use, I will propose and use in this work the term pragmatic, marker. The term marker is preferable to either word or particle

30

Conceptual background

since it can encompass single-word items such as so as well as phrases such as you see; furthermore particle is sometimes reserved for the so-called "modal particles" of German and other languages, which may represent a distinct syntactic class (see Watts 1988: 236-240). While both the terms discourse and pragmatic are suitably broad, suggesting that the items denoted function on a level above the syntax of the individual clause, and not ascribing to the items denoted a particular function, which may be inaccurate, such as connective or initiator, nor a lack of function, such as filler, pragmatic better captures the range of functions filled by these items, as will be discussed below. Finally, the term proposed does not have the pejorative connotation of words such as fumble or gambit.

2.1.1. Definition of pragmatic markers The definitions of pragmatic particles found in the literature seem to bear little resemblance to one another. These differences, as will become clear in section 2.1.4, result from which of the several pragmatic functions of the markers is seen as primary. For many scholars, the central function of pragmatic markers is to express the relation or relevance of an utterance to the preceding utterance or to the context: • those expressions used to indicate how the relevance of one discourse segment is dependent on another (Blakemore 1987a: 125); • [a] linguistic expression that is used to signal the relation of an utterance to the immediate context (Redeker 1990: 372) with the primary function of bringing to the listener's attention a particular kind of linkage of the upcoming utteran[ce] with the immediate discourse context (Redeker 1991: 1168); • marking devices which display the speaker's understanding of the contribution's sequential relationship or relevance to the information set as established by the immediately preceding contribution (Goldberg 1980: 141); • a type of commentary pragmatic marker signaling a sequential discourse relationship ... [or] how the speaker intends the basic message that follows to relate to the prior discourse (Fräser 1988: 21, 1990: 387, 392); • sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk (Schiffrin 1987a: 31).

Pragmafic markers

31

Others see the central function of pragmatic markers as primarily structural: • [a] certain set of signals in the conversationalist's speech, used to introduce level shifts within the conversation, or to prepare listeners for the next turn in the logical argument (Keller 1979: 220); • [expressions which] help the speaker divide his message into chunks of information and hence they also help the listener in the process of decoding these information units (Erman 1986: 146); • [vehicles for] demarcation and concatenation ... [which] specifically express organisational relations both locally and formally (Even-Zohar 1982: 179, 180). Or pragmatic markers are seen as response signals: • they constitute the range of conventionalized responses in English [mediating between the covert thinking of participants and displayed verbal behavior] (Schourup 1985: 3); • [they] indicate, often in very complex ways, just how the utterance that contains them is a response to, or a continuation of, some portion of the prior discourse (Levinson 1983: 88). Pragmatic markers may also be a means to achieve conversational continuity: • [they] are conventionalised ways of plugging ... potential gaps, such that in fact no gap is perceived by the interlocutor (Edmondon 1981: 154); • [they are used to] maintain the continuity of discourse (Crystal—Davy 1975: 88, 91); • [they] fill the silence and maintain the speaker's right to speak while he organizes what he wants to say (Brown 1977: 109). Finally, pragmatic markers are considered "essentially interactive" (Stubbs 1983: 70): • [markers which] implicitly anchor the act of communication to the speaker's attitudes towards aspects of the on-going interaction (Östman 1981: 5, 1982: 152);2 • vehicles for the establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relations between interlocutors (James 1983: 193).

2.1.2. Diversity of pragmatic markers There is also little agreement among scholars about the inventory of forms to be included in the category of pragmatic marker in Modern English. Most simply list representative examples. Keller—Warner (1976, 1979a, 1979b)

32

Conceptual background

provide a list of over 500 items, and Keller (1979: 222-223) points out that a complete listing is impossible since novel or relatively novel formations can serve as pragmatic markers. Depending on one's definition of pragmatic marker, of course, the items included can differ quite widely. For example, Fräser (1988: 26-27, 1990: 388, 392) restricts membership severely, excluding oh because it is an interjection, because because it is a subordinating conjunction expressing content, and two of the most frequently cited expressions, y'know and / mean, because they are separate utterances signaling "a speaker attitude of solidarity". Ostman (1982: 153) excludes aspectual particles (just, now, too), hedges (kinda), conjunctive particles (but], and modal particles (I suppose, maybe}. In fact, Ostman's core list, I mean, you know, like, well, oh, ah, uh, say, blood, man, and I guess (1982: 155), has only well and say in common with Fraser's. A partial consensus about the members of the category of pragmatic marker can perhaps be achieved by determining which markers have received detailed scholarly attention. Appendix A lists substantive studies of pragmatic markers in Modern English, including only those studies which approach the meaning and function of the markers from a discourse perspective.3 The list of pragmatic markers arising from such a compilation is set out in Table 2.1. Table 2.1. Inventory of pragmatic markers in Modern English ah

if

right/ all right/ that's right

actually

I mean/ think

after all

just

so say

almost

like

sort of/ kind of

and

mind you

then

moreover

therefore

uh huh

basically

now oh

well

because

o.k.

yes/ no

but

or

you know (y'know)

go 'say'

really

you sec

and {stuff, anyway

things} like that

2.1.3. Characteristics of pragmatic markers While the inventory of items included in the category of pragmatic marker

Pragmatic markers

33

in English is highly diverse, a number of broad characteristics emerge from general studies of pragmatic markers as well as from studies of individual forms:4 (a) Pragmatic markers are predominantly a feature of oral rather than of written discourse.5 The appearance of pragmatic markers is a result of the informality of oral discourse and the grammatical "fragmentation" caused by the lack of planning time, which makes the use of pragmatic markers expedient (Östman 1982: 169). In fact, Watts (1989: 208) considers pragmatic markers "one of the most perceptually salient features of oral style", and Östman (1982: 170) sees their occurrence in a discourse as a sufficient condition for regarding that discourse as "impromptu", i.e., oral. However, it has been pointed out that pragmatic markers are not restricted to oral discourse, though the forms used in writing (e.g., notwithstanding) may differ from those in speech (e.g., okay), and the reasons for using them may differ (Östman 1982: 170; Fräser 1990: 389; Redeker 1990: 379). (b) Pragmatic markers appear with high frequency in oral discourse,6 sometimes with more than one occurring in a single sentence. For example, Fräser (1990: 395) concocts the following amusing but not unconvincing example: Well, anyway, I mean, what was the reason ... y'know, why did she do it, anyway? (c) Because of their frequency and oral nature, pragmatic markers are stylistically stigmatized and negatively evaluated, especially in written' or formal discourse.7 They are deplored as a sign of dysfluency and carelessness. (d) Pragmatic markers are "short" items (Östman 1982: 149, 1995), often phonologically reduced (Schiffrin 1987a: 328) or unstressed. (e) Pragmatic markers form a separate tone group (Quirk et al. 1985: 1112) with falling-rising or rising intonation (Crystal—Davy 1975: 90; cf. Schiffrin 1987a: 328).8 (f) It is often said that pragmatic markers are restricted to sentence-initial position, or may always occur sentence initially.9 For Keller (1979: 222), this is one of the three defining characteristics of pragmatic markers. However, as is pointed out in general studies and shown in studies of individual markers, they frequently appear sentence medially and finally as well.10 (g) In what Schiffrin (1986: 42, 47, 62) calls the "meaning-minimalist view", pragmatic markers are considered to have little or no prepositional meaning, or at least to be difficult to specify lexically. 11 For

34

Conceptual background

Östman (1982: 153), half of the "uniqueness criterion" for a pragmatic marker is that it "does not directly partake in the prepositional content of an utterance". As a consequence of their semantic shallowness, they are difficult to translate into other languages (Svartvik 1979: 169; Stubbs 1983: 69). However, Erman (1987: 15; see also Watts 1988: 248, 250) argues that pragmatic markers are not completely void of meaning, or desemanticized, "although, admittedly, their original or literal meaning is only present to a certain degree". Wierzbicka (1986a, 1986b) attempts to refute the position that pragmatic markers are meaningless, have no discrete meaning, are semantically fuzzy, or can be elucidated only by pragmatic principles (what she calls the "radical pragmatic" approach; see also Redeker 1991: 1139, 1159, 1164-1165).12 She believes that such a position simply reflects "analytic failure". She proposes a "semantic primitive" approach in which pragmatic markers are considered to have an invariant semantic content which can be captured in a precise formula. (h) Pragmatic markers occur either outside the syntactic structure or loosely attached to it and hence have no clear grammatical function. 13 They have been described as "agrammatical" (Goldberg 1980: 7). However, items with clear grammatical functions, such as aspectual or modal particles and conjunctions, are often included in the category of pragmatic marker if they also serve pragmatic functions. (i) Pragmatic markers seem to be optional rather than obligatory features. 14 As Brown—Yule (1983: 106) note, such structural markers "represent optional cues which writers and speakers may use in organising what they want to communicate". Their absence "does not render a sentence ungrammatical and/ or unintelligible" but does "remove a powerful clue" (Fräser 1988: 22). A pragmatic marker, Fräser argues, "does not create meaning ... but only orients the reader" to a particular discourse relationship (1990: 390; also Quirk et al. 1985: 1470). Schiffrin comes to a similar conclusion (1987a: 318, 320): pragmatic markers select a cohesive or structural relation from whatever potential meanings are provided through the content and then display that relation, but they do not create the relation. Furthermore, "the structure and meaning of arguments can be preserved even without markers" (p. 55). (j) Pragmatic markers are marginal forms. They are "what happens to be left over" by the grammar of a language (Stein 1985: 299), and they do not derive from a single grammatical source but from a variety of traditional categories (Fräser 1988: 24, 1990: 388). Hence, they constitute a

35

heterogeneous set of forms which are difficult to place within a traditional word class: 15 they have been variously considered interjections (e.g., James 1972; cf. Fräser 1988: 25, 1990: 391), adverbs, particles (e.g., Stubbs 1983: 67-68), and function words (e.g., Fries 1952: 101; Francis 1958: 427-428). Also included among the class of pragmatic markers are verbs, coordinate and subordinate conjunctions, phrases, idioms, sentence fragments, and clauses (Fräser 1988: 24, 1990: 388; Watts 1988: 242). Perhaps the best that can be said is that pragmatic markers have functional similarities and partially overlapping distributions (Schiffrin 1987a: 65). (k) Pragmatic markers may be multifunctional, operating on the local (i.e., morphophonemic, syntactic, and semantic) and global (i.e., pragmatic) levels simultaneously, 16 as well as on different planes (textual and interpersonal) within the pragmatic component. No one function is necessarily predominant in a particular context (Schiffrin 1987a: 61), and it may prove difficult in individual cases to differentiate a pragmatically motivated from a nonpragmatically motivated occurrence of the form. 17 (1) Finally, a controversial suggestion is that pragmatic markers are more characteristic of women's speech than of men's speech because, like tag questions and hedges, they express tentativeness or powerlessness (see Erman 1987: 26-29). For example, Östman (1981: 72, 75, 76) finds yon know to be more frequent in women's than in men's speech; while men use it to qualify individual words and phrases, women use it to qualify entire speech acts, thus giving the impression of insecurity or irrationality. However, Holmes (1986: 4) finds an equal number of tokens of you know in men's and women's speech, with women using it to express certainty and for the purposes of positive politeness, and men using it for uncertainty, especially linguistic imprecision, and for the purposes of negative politeness. She concludes, therefore, that it is not a mark of low self-confidence in women's speech.

2.1.4. Functions of pragmatic markers While pragmatic markers are grammatically optional and semantically empty, they are not pragmatically optional or superfluous: they serve a variety of pragmatic functions (Brown 1977: 107; Svartvik 1979; Erman 1987: 2). If such markers are omitted, the discourse is grammatically acceptable, but would be judged "unnatural", "awkward", "disjointed", "impolite",

36

Conceptual background

"unfriendly", or "dogmatic" within the communicative context.18 Creating such a discourse could be "incomprehensible" for the listener, and "mission impossible" for the speaker (Svartvik—Stenstrom 1985: 352), and there would be a greater chance of communicative breakdown (Fräser 1990: 390). Hence, pragmatic markers "help both encoder and decoder navigate along a specific discourse" (Even-Zohar 1982: 180). Ostman argues (1982: 153), by his second "uniqueness criterion", that a pragmatic marker must be exclusively pragmatic in function: "it has as its SOLE FUNCTION to implicitly anchor" the propositional content. But the insistance upon exclusively pragmatic function contradicts the recognized multifunctionality of pragmatic markers (see above); one need only require that a pragmatic marker have one or more pragmatic functions, not that they be without grammatical function. 19 It is important to keep in mind as well that the functions performed by pragmatic markers can also be performed by other forms, such as intonation, lexical repetition, syntactic parallelism, or metalinguistic phrases (Schiffrin 1987a: 57-60).

2.1.4.1. Inventory of functions Determining the inventory of functions of pragmatic markers is a difficult task. First, taxonomies of pragmatic markers, which are generally functionally based, differ significantly; see Appendix B, which presents the taxonomic Schemas of a number of scholars. Second, studies of individual pragmatic markers often attribute a wide variety of meanings to a single marker, some of which may overlap with the meanings attributed to other markers. For example, well, the most frequent of the discourse particles, is said to serve as a "channelholding" device (Brown 1977: 121) or "dispreferred response" signal (Levinson 1983: 366); to function as a general introductory or disjunctive marker (Stubbs 1983: 69—70); to be either a qualifier (expressing agreement or positive reaction, reinforcement, exclamatory surprise, and answer prefix) or a frame (denoting new topic, clarification of topic, or partial shift in topic, marking direct speech, or self-editing) (Svartvik 1979);20 to express reservation or doubt, abruptness or impatience, or hesitation or indecision (Crystal—Davy 1975: 101—102); to indicate the incompleteness of one's own response or the inadequacy or insufficiency of another's response (Lakoff 1973); to signal that what follows is not exactly what the speaker assumes the asker wants to be told (Murray 1979); to preface responses which are "face—threatening" (Owen 1981); to

Pragmatic markers

37

indicate that the speaker accepts the situation but that acceptance is problematic in some way (Carlson 1984); to show that the content of the response "is not fully consonant with prior coherence options" (SchirTrin 1987a: 103; also 1985); to give explicit acknowledgment while indicating that the content does not meet expectations (Hines 1978); to give the speaker a device to minimize a possible face-threatening situation resulting from a failure to abide by the axiom of relevance (Watts 1986: 58); to indicate that the most immediately accessible context may not be the most relevant one for interpretations of the following utterance (Jucker 1993: 435); and to make clear that the speaker is now examining the contents of private thought but to leave the particulars of the thought to the hearer's deduction (Schourup 1985). Although there is apparently no consistency among the taxonomies, and studies of individual pragmatic markers yield conflicting and confusing results, it is nonetheless possible to glean a fundamental set of functions from general studies of pragmatic markers (omitting, for the most part, studies of single markers): (a) to initiate discourse, including claiming the attention of the hearer, and to close discourse;21 (b) to aid the speaker in acquiring or relinquishing the floor;22 (c) to serve as a filler or delaying tactic used to sustain discourse or hold the floor;23 (d) to mark a boundary in discourse, that is, to indicate a new topic, a partial shift in topic (correction, elaboration, specification, expansion), or the resumption of an earlier topic (after an interruption); 24 (e) to denote either new information (Erman 1987: 201; Schiffrin 1987a) or old information (Quirk et al. 1985: 1482; Schiffrin 1987a); (f) to mark "sequential dependence", to constrain the relevance of one clause to the preceding clause by making explicit the conversational implicatures relating the two clauses, 25 or to indicate by means of conventional implicatures how an utterance matches cooperative principles of conversation (Levinson 1983: 128-129, 162-163, what he calls a "maxim hedge"); (g) to repair one's own or others' discourse;26 (h) subjectively, to express a response or a reaction to the preceding discourse or attitude towards the following discourse, 27 including also "back-channel" signals of understanding and continued attention spoken while another speaker is having his or her turn and perhaps "hedges" expressing speaker tentativeness;28 and

38

Conceptual background

(i) interpersonally, to effect cooperation, sharing, or intimacy between speaker and hearer, including confirming shared assumptions, checking or expressing understanding, requesting confirmation, expressing deference, or saving face (politeness). 29

2.1.4.2. Textual and interpersonal functions While the functions listed above seem quite heterogeneous, I believe that they fall into two categories, the first set (a-g) belonging to the "textual" mode of language and the second set (h-i) belonging to the "interpersonal" mode, two of the three modes or functions of language identified by HaUiday (1970, 1979). Halliday's third mode, the "ideational" mode, which, following Traugott (1982), I will call the "propositional" mode,30 is the expression of content, of the speaker's experience of both the outside and the inside world, including happenings, participants, and circumstances. It is realized in elemental structures in the constituent structure of language. Given the relative lack of semantic or propositional content in pragmatic markers, they generally fall outside the propositional component, though, as will be argued in the course of this study, they derive diachronically from it. The "interpersonal" mode is the expression of the speaker's attitudes, evaluations, judgments, expectations, and demands, as well as of the nature of the social exchange, the role of the speaker and the role assigned to the hearer. The interactive mode consists in the speaker's intrusion into the speech event. Halliday considers the interpersonal mode to be expressed "prosodically", distributed throughout the discourse, rather than discretely, in features such as mood, modality, tone, key, and intensity. It is clear that both the "subjective" (h) and the "interpersonal" (i) functions of pragmatic markers belong within Halliday's interpersonal component. In the "textual" mode, the speaker structures meaning as text, creating cohesive passages of discourse; it is "language as relevance", using language in a way that is relevant to context. Halliday considers the textual mode to be manifest cumulatively and "periodically" in the theme-focus structure of discourse, in the distribution of given and new information, and in cohesive relations. To understand functions (a-g) above as "textual" one needs a more global conception of the textual component than Halliday uses, one which moves beyond the level of the sentence to the structure of the entire discourse; one requires as well a recognition of the different text-structuring requirements of oral conversation and written discourse, particularly

Pragmatic markers

39

narrative. The need to initiate and close discourse (a), to mark topic shifts (d), to indicate new and old information (e), and to constrain the relevance of adjoining utterances (f) are all part of the structuring of utterances as a text on a global level; they are equally important in oral and written discourse. The turn-taking system of conversation (b, c), which organizes it as a cohesive discourse, has as its analogue in written or monologic discourse the organization of chunks of information in paragraphs and episodes (see section 2.2.2); as Redeker (1991: 1163-1164) notes, turn-taking is simply "a special case of discourse segment transitions". Repair-marking (g), which is also important for coherence in oral discourse, is not generally an issue in written discourse, in which planning time eliminates mistakes and hence the need for repair. Thus, we can understand functions (a-g) as part of the textual component of language. The two-fold function of pragmatic markers in the textual and interpersonal domains is recognized by Östman and Schiffrin, albeit somewhat differently. Ostman points out that pragmatic markers may operate simultaneously on two levels. On the structural level, they may serve a clausal function (for example, expressing an attitude towards a statement) or a textual function (for example, in marking episodes or turns); on the pragmatic level, they may serve an interactive (sociological or discourse-functional) purpose or an attitudinal (evaluative) purpose (1982: 150-152; also 1981: 39-40). While pragmatic markers incorporate all of these aspects, Ostman believes that they generally have one or more in focus, and he sees the interactive purpose as central. According to Schiffrin (1987a: 322-326, 1987b: 25-27), pragmatic markers provide coordinates within their context by indexing utterances either to the participants (focus on the speaker is proximal and on the hearer is distal) or to the text (relating to the preceding discourse is proximal and to the following is distal).31 Thus, Ostman, in recognizing a "textual" and a "pragmatic" function, and Schiffrin, in recognizing a participant-indexing and a text-indexing function, both attribute a two-fold function to pragmatic markers. Leech (1983: 57, 59-62) argues that Halliday is wrong in integrating the propositional, interpersonal, and textual modes all within the "grammar" of language. He argues that the interpersonal component is an "input constraint" and the textual component an "output constraint" on the grammar, or propositional component. Both components have the characteristics of pragmatic components; for example, they are principle-controlled rather than rule-governed (p. 21), they are nonconventional (i.e., motivated by the goals of communication) rather than arbitrary (p. 24), they are expressed

40

Conceptual background

continuously and indeterminately rather than discretely (p. 70), they depend on problem solving rather than mapping (p. 36), and they require functional rather than formal explanations (p. 47). For these reasons, he terms them "pragmatic", and it is for this reason that I prefer to call discourse markers "pragmatic", since they have both textual and interpersonal functions.

2.2. Structure of narrative discourse As seen above, one of the two classes of functions for pragmatic markers can be broadly designated as "textual", with the markers denoting the structure of discourse among other aspects of textual relations. In the narrative context, to which the following study will be confined, structure is determined in large part by the story, or plot, of the narrative. Thus, it is important that we have a clear notion of the central elements of plot, specifically, events and episodes.

2.2.1. Events While Fleischman (1985: 854) surmises that an event is "but a convenient LINGUISTIC construct for converting an undifferentiated continuum of raw data of experience, or the imagination, into the narrative (linguistic) units we use to tell stories", there seems to be evidence that subjects reliably perceive "breakpoints" in the continuous flow of activity (Tomlin 1985: 92). These breaks correspond to the discrete units we intuitively identify as "events". An event consists in a change of state brought about by an action (voluntary) or happening (nonvoluntary); it may be durative or punctual, but it is always dynamic (see Brinton 1988: 24-27). In narrative terms, it is said that an event must also have "some importance ... attached to its occurrence" (Dorfman 1969: 5). That is, it must be "plot significant" (Chatman 1978: 44, 48), involving a character as agent or patient and interconnecting to form a plot: it must be "a definitive [component] in the development of scene and episode" (Wittig 1978: 47, what she calls a "motifeme") or fill "a slot in the sequence of functional incidents constituting the narrative" (Dorfman 1969: 72, what he calls a "narreme"). 32

Structure of narrative discourse

41

2.2.2. Episodes The level of discourse structure intermediate between the event and the story (or the sentence and the text) is most commonly designated an episode, though it has also been termed a scene, especially in medieval narratives, a segment, a discourse unit, a thematic paragraph, a conceptual paragraph, or simply a paragraph.^ It can be said that "episode" identifies the semantic unit, and "paragraph" its surface manifestation (Chafe 1979: 161; van Dijk 1982: 177; Longacre 1983: 22; Tomlin 1987: 458), but for longer texts or stretches of discourse, an episode may be realized by a number of linked paragraphs (see Grimes 1975: 109).

2.2.2.1. Definition of the episode An episode, in van Dijk's definition (1982: 177), consists of "coherent sequences of sentences of a discourse, linguistically marked for beginning and/ or end, and further defined in terms of some kind of'thematic unity'— for instance, in terms of identical participants, time, location or global event or action". Here, we can identify the central characteristics of an episode. First, it has a thematic or "dramatic unity", 34 which depends upon the continuity of setting, participant, and action; that is, there is a particular temporal and locative setting, there is one actor most crucially involved in the episode (Hopper 1979a: 50), and there is a single core event structure to the episode (van Dijk 1982: 179). "The elements within an episode ... either all have the same agent, or form one complete action or action sequence which does not directly continue and flow into the next episode" (Enkvist—Wärvik 1987: 234). Second, an episode has internal coherence. A temporal principle of organization generally governs the narrative episode, which consists of an unbroken "chain" (Enkvist—Wärvik 1987: 224) of actions linked sequentially to one another. Third, an episode has a beginning and an end, what Longacre terms "closure" (1979b: 116; also Wittig 1978: 136; Evans 1986: 130). An additional characteristic of episodes not captured in van Dijk's definition is that they are recursive or repeatable (Mandler— Johnson 1977: 126; Thorndyke 1977: 80; Wittig 1978: 136; Evans 1986: 130). Episodes are often seen to have an internal structure (see Evans 1986: 136). Mandler—-Johnson (1977: 119) identify a four-part structure of setting—beginning—development—ending: "The essential structure of a

42

Conceptual background

single episode story is that a protagonist is introduced in the setting; there follows an episode in which something happens, causing the protagonist to respond to it, which in turn brings about some event or state of affairs that ends the episode."35 In Old Icelandic sagas, Clover (1974: 59, 62-63; also Allen 1971: 65) recognizes a tripartite structure of preface, which sets the scene, dramatic encounter, and optional conclusion, which closes off the scene. The preface and conclusion are "told", while the dramatic encounter is "shown".36 For long or complex texts, it may be necessary to recognize a number of levels of organization, but here the terminology of scholars is highly inconsistent. For example, Dooley (1986: 48), Gralow (1986), and Schatz (1986: 123) all recognize a level of "paragraph" intermediate between sentence and episode; the paragraph involves a change in at least one of the variables of temporal setting, location, or participants. Hopper (1979a: 50, 1979b: 221) suggests the existence of "minor" or "internal" episodes within "main episodes"; these sometimes involve thematic shifts (subject changes) but are also sometimes merely stylistic devices. Wittig (1978: 81, 135) notes the existence of a (type-)scene below the episode but admits that the distinction between scene and episode is relative, not absolute. Flashner (1987: 134) argues that the episode consists of a number of "scenes", the scene of a number of paragraphs, and the paragraph of a number of clauses. Enkvist— Warvik (1987: 226) also suggest that some narratives may contain a depth of four levels, "substory", "episode", "subepisode", and "move"; here one may compare Bloomfield's (1970: 99, 127, 1979: 218) levels of "macro-episode", "episode", and "micro- or sub-episode". In Old Icelandic narrative, Allen (1971: 64-68, 71-74) identifies five levels above the episode, or what he calls the "scene": the chapter, the episode (frattr), the episode cluster, the plot, and the archetypal level (see also Lönnroth 1976: 43-44). As Grimes notes (1975: 110), "there is probably no means of establishing a limit on how many intermediate levels of organization there can be between the paragraph and discourse" (see also Givon 1983: 7).

2.2.2.2. Episode boundaries While Tomlin (1987: 457) considers the linguistic notions of the paragraph and the episode as "weakly defined and generally resistant to empirical analysis" and Wittig (1978: 80) suggests that narrative units are not always discrete and clearly marked off but require some degree of artificial segmen-

Structure of narrative discourse

43

tation, there appear to be both semantic and formal features which characterize the boundaries of episodes. There may also be a psychological validity to episode boundaries since hearers interject only at these points (Wald 1979; Linde 1981; Chafe 1987; Marchese 1987). Hence, boundary marking may constitute an important means of identifying the episode. In general .terms, the boundaries between episodes have been seen as "moments of difficult transitions" (Chafe 1979: 176, 1987: 42), as "troughs" (Chafe 1979: 178), as "significant breaks" (Sell 1985b: 508), as "major breaks, or attention shifts, in the flow of information in discourse" (Tomlin 1987: 460), and as "discontinuities" (Givon 1983: 7; Flashner 1987: 143; Wärvik 1987a: 78, 81, 85). What is crucial is what is left out between episodes (Bloomfield 1979: 216). Scholars generally agree that episode boundaries correspond to one or more of the following points of change: 37 (a) a change in time; (b) a change in location; (c) a change in participants; (d) a change in the action sequence, with an orientation toward a new central event, or the activation of a new schema; (e) a change in "possible world", for example, from the real world to the fictional world, from the real world to the dream world, or from the physical world to the world of thought; (f) a change from general to specific, or the reverse; and (g) a change in perspective or point of view. Within an episode, there is a "temporal trajectory" (Grimes 1975: 103); time is always changing, with events following one another continuously in sequential order. However, an episode break is characterized by a "gap" in the temporal sequence (Bloomfield 1979: 212, 216, 219), by "temporal elasticity" (Chafe 1979: 178), or by the lack of temporal "adjacency" (Givon 1983: 8). Dooley (1986: 66) believes that temporal gaps are "one, and possibly the main, defining feature of paragraph boundaries". Episode boundaries are often formally marked on the surface, with the initiation and/ or the termination of an episode marked (Longacre 1979b; Wald 1979; Linde 1981; Polanyi—Scha 1983). These formal indicators have been called topic boundary markers (Brown—Yule 1983: 94) and discourse structure signalling devices or frame shifters (Polanyi—Scha 1983: 264, 266); I will use the term episode boundary markers. In oral discourse, the movement from one episode to another is marked by a major hesitation or pause (Chafe 1979: 176, 1987: 42; Flashner 1987: 139), while in written discourse, an episode boundary may be indicated by a paragraph indentation (van Dijk

44

Conceptual background

1982: 181), though this is sometimes an uncertain indicator since paragraph indentations may be added for stylistic rather than structural reasons (cf. Wärvik 1987a: 85n.). In addition, a variety of syntactic markers may denote episode boundaries:38 (a) "frame-shifting" spatial and temporal adverbials; (b) conjunctions and pragmatic markers such as you know, well, and o.k.; (c) full noun phrases, used where anaphoric pronouns are expected; (d) "possible world" introducing or changing predicates such as dream, believe, and tell; (e) change of perspective markers such as direct discourse or free indirect style; (f) vocatives; and (g) explicit metacomments. Dooley (1986: 66) suggests that it is the semantic features which denote episode boundaries and that the formal signals merely clarify these boundaries. He reasons so because, like pragmatic markers in general, episode boundary markers are always optional; as Brown—Yule (1983: 107) point out, "although we can regularly identify such structural markers [dividing discourse up], their appearance in discourse should not be treated in any way as 'rule-governed'. They represent optional cues which writers and speakers may use in organising what they want to communicate." Dooley also notes that other less systematic markers, such as verbs of motion or expressions of distance, can also mark episode boundaries.

2.3.

Grounding

Another aspect of textual organization and structure in narratives which may be denoted by pragmatic markers is "grounding". This concept refers to the relative importance, salience, or prominence of clauses within a narrative, with a distinction made between foregrounded and backgrounded material. While the term foregrounding derives ultimately from Prague School structuralism, it is a concept that has entered discourse analysis as well as literary criticism and psycholinguistics and is used in diverse ways (see Dry 1992). The intent of the following sections is to define the concept as it is currently understood among discourse analysts.

Grounding

45

2.3.1. Foregrounding and backgrounding A few definitions of grounding will introduce its most characteristic features: • The part of a discourse which does not immediately and crucially contribute to the speaker's goal, but which merely assists, amplifies, or comments on it, is referred to as BACKGROUND. By contrast, the material which supplies the main points of the discourse is known as FOREGROUND (Hopper—Thompson 1980: 280). • [T]he background contains nontemporal material which is needed either for the full construction of the represented world or for the overall interpretation of the story's "message" ... [T]he foreground is defined as the sequence of temporally ordered event clauses, or the clauses which move the reference time forward (Reinhart 1984: 784, 794). • [T] he foreground is composed of sentences which refer to sequenced points on a timeline. The background is composed of those sentences that either do not refer to a single point ... or refer to a point that is not presented infabula order (Dry 1983: 48). The foreground is generally considered to be the actual storyline of the narrative, the events "indispensible to the narrative" (Hopper 1979a: 61, 1979b: 216). These events are asserted or represented rather than reported or summarized. They are presented in a chronological sequence, with the completion of one foregrounded event necessary for the initiation of the subsequent event. The order is iconic in that it is presumed to mirror the order of events in the represented world (the "fabula") (Hopper 1979b: 214; Hopper—Thompson 1980: 286). The foregrounded events constitute the main eventline of the narrative, its "skeleton" or "backbone", and from them "a precis of the story of the novel could be constructed" (Hopper 1979a: 38). The background is often defined negatively, as everything else in a narrative apart from the foreground, as whatever supports, amplifies, describes, or explains the main events. It is the flesh on the skeleton. It contains nontemporal material, such as descriptions of setting, character, or motivation ("informative background") or comments upon or evaluations of the narrative content ("evaluative background") (Reinhart 1984: 783); it may also contain alternatives or negatives ("collateral") (Grimes 1975). This material need not be presented in any particular sequence and is hence movable. The background also contains temporal material, such as secondary events, overlapping or concurrent events, events which obtain before or after the

46

Conceptual background

represented time of the narrative, events occurring "off-stage", events not presented in iconic order, and events summarized rather than narrated (Aristar—Dry 1982: 2-3). Reinhart terms the temporal aspects of the background "subsidiary foreground" (1984: 785). While backgrounded events are incidental to the storyline, the background itself may be very important to the narrative, since, as Hopper (1979a: 61, 1979b: 216) notes, it contains crucial material "necessary for understanding motive, attitudes, etc."39 Questioning received opinion about grounding, Givon (1987: 179) points out that "it is not yet clear that we arc justified in assuming that a discrete binary distinction of foreground/ background will remain useful for characterizing discourse coherence." It is, in fact, now quite widely accepted that grounding must be scalar rather than binary (Enkvist—Wärvik 1987: 224; Wärvik 1987b: 380, 385-386, 1990a: 532, 199()b: 560). Fleischman believes that grounding is a matter of degree, resulting from the interplay of semantic and grammatical distinctions (1985: 854, 862, 1990a: 169, 184-185). More specifically, Jones—Jones (1979: 6-7, 8, 9, 12; Tomlin 1986: 487-488) distinguish four levels of foreground (a-d) and two levels of background (e-f): (a) the peak, which is the single most important event and is frequently specially marked (see Longacre 1981: 349-351, 1983: 25-38); (b) pivotal events, which are very crucial events forming part of a "highlevel summary"; (c) backbone events, which move the plot forward and would form part of a detailed summary; (d) ordinary events, which are routine or predictable actions performed by lesser participants; (e) significant background, which consists of promoted background or demoted ordinary events; and (f) ordinary background. Chvany (1985a: 13-15, 1985b: 254-255, 1990: 219-220) proposes a carefully worked-out "Saliency Hierarchy" ranking the grammatical features of grounding from 0 to 4 (discussed in more detail in section 5.2.1), while Longacre (1981: 341) suggests that there exist language-specific "clines" or "spectra" of grounding correlating with grammatical features; for English the cline ranges from statives (most backgrounded) through past progressives and past tenses in subordinate clauses to past tenses in independent clauses (most foregrounded). Givon (1987: 178-179) too points to a correspondence between grammatical features and presupposition, or grounding: whquestions, clefts, restrictive relatives, and some verb complements are "most presupposed" (i.e., most backgrounded), negatives, «^clauses, and yes/ no

47

questions are intermediate, and main - declarative - affirmative (asserted) clauses are "least presupposed" (i.e., most foregrounded). Foregrounded and backgrounded clauses can be identified by either content or formal criteria, what Chvany calls "narrative norms" or "linguistic norms" (1985b: 254; also Reinhart 1984: 797). Whether one begins with the more implicit and intuitive semantic features or the more explicit and objective grammatical features' (Enkvist— Warvik 1987: 224) depends, in large part, on one's discipline, though Tomlin (1986: 467) notes problems with both: the former is a "useful tool" but an "inadequate methodology", while the latter is circular.

2.3.2. Content criteria Foregrounded clauses have been analyzed as containing a number of different semantic properties. Dry (1992) and Fleischman (1985: 853-862, 1990a: 170-185) contain excellent discussions of these features, which Dry divides into two classes, those concerned with the "importance" of foregrounded material and those concerned with the "saliency" of foregrounded material. Foregrounded clauses may be important in at least four different ways. The most frequently recognized feature of foregrounded clauses is their temporal sequentiality, 40 by virtue of which they constitute the main storyline, the backbone or skeleton of the narrative. Foregrounded clauses are also causally important; they are important for plot development because they move the narrative time forward (Chvany 1985a: 2, 1985b: 252, 264; Fleischman 1985: 858, 1990a: 175-180; Dry 1992: 439-440). Another feature of foregrounded clauses is their human importance; as Fleischman (1985: 857-858, 1990a: 172-175) explains it, "human beings tend to design stories around situations that are of human interest and importance" (also Reinhart 1984: 802; Chvany 1985b: 263; Dry 1992: 439). Finally, it can also be argued that foregrounded clauses are of thematic importance to a work, "important for and relevant to the proper comprehension of the story" (Enkvist—Warvik 1987: 224; Dry 1992: 439). Foregrounded clauses may be salient in at least four different ways.41 They are unexpected or unpredictable in context; that is, they are framebreaking.42 In this sense, foregrounded clauses are associated with devices of "estrangement" or "defamiliarization" (Enkvist 1994: 56-57). Foregrounded clauses may be made more salient by being marked by various evaluative devices (Fleischman 1985: 860-861; also Weber 1983: 6). They are also the

48

Conceptual background

most cognitively accessible clauses, either by being most recently mentioned or by being thematized (Dry 1992: 441). Finally, foregrounded clauses may be salient because of their figural properties. The analogy between the perceptual distinction figure/ ground and the textual distinction foreground/ background has been most fully formulated by Wallace (1982: 212-215) and Reinhart (1984: 788-90, 803-805), with a useful compilation of the different correlations provided by Dry (1992: 447; see also Chvany 1985a: 9-11, 1985b: 251; Enkvist—Wärvik 1987: 223; Wärvik 1990b: 56l).43 Reinhart argues specifically that three Gestalt principles of figures—smallness, closure, and good continuity—are analogous to three linguistic features of the foreground—punctuality, perfectivity, and temporal succession. Wallace suggests that the linguistic categories perfective, present-immediate, eventive, transitive, actional, deliberative, main clause, and foreground are more salient and hence more figure-like. The overlapping and sometimes conflicting nature of grounding properties, their "cumbersome polysemy", has been noted (Enkvist 1994: 57; Fleischman 1985: 857, 858, 1990a: 172-173). For example, temporal sequentiality need not coincide with human importance (Fleischman 1990a: 172-175), thematic importance need not match temporal sequentiality (Dry 1992), and ground need not coincide with importance (Chvany 1985b: 252). It thus seems best to consider the features to be independent.

2.3.3. Formal criteria A number of specific correlations have been observed between grammatical features and clauses identified on semantic criteria as foregrounded and backgrounded. To a large extent, these features correspond to the features of high transitivity identified by Hopper—Thompson (1980: 252; see Table 2.2).44 A prototypical foregrounded clause is a main clause containing a human agent who is the central participant in the episode and a predicate denoting a punctual or bounded action purposefully performed by that subject upon an individuated object (see Wärvik 1987b: 379, 385, 1990b: 560). It must be remembered that what is presented as foreground or as background is the result of choice by the author: "a text-producer can choose to foreground anything s/he wishes by placing it against an appropriate background" (Dry 1992: 445; also Reinhart 1984: 798-799; Weber 1983: 9).45 It is always contextually determined, not inherent, and can be connected with point of view in literary texts (Fleischman 1985: 860; Dry 1992).

Grounding

49

Table 2.2. Formal correlates of the foreground/ background distinction Foreground

Background

perfective aspect dynamic or kinetic verb telic verb (achievement, accomplishment) punctual or unique verb volitional, purposeful verb realis mood (actually occurring) affirmative main clause (asserted) finite verb same subject (topical or given) human topic (agentive) individuated subject/object (definite, referential) focus on event (predicate) measured time frame two or three participants object radically affected effect 48 dialogue,4'J narrative

imperfective or perfect aspect Stative verb atelic verb (activity, state) durative, iterative, or habitual verb nonvolitional, noncontrollable verb irrealis mood (hypothesized, expected) negative subordinate clause47 (presupposed) nonfmite verb change in subject (stressed or new) variety of topics (nonagentive) nonindividuated subject/object (indefinite, nonreferential) focus on subject, instrument, adverb, etc. disrupted time frame, gaps or spans of time zero or one participant object slightly or not affected cause summary, commentary

The grammatical and semantic features of grounding frequently coincide. For example, perfective events are interpreted as temporally ordered and causally related, while kinetic, agentive, voluntary events are of higher human interest. Wärvik (1987b: 381, 1990b: 561) argues that salience factors of the foreground (see n. 41) are related to grammatical features as follows: topicality relates to the unity of subject, speaker motivation to the preference for human participants, and vividness to the dynamic, punctual, and transitive qualities of the verb. However, Weber (1983: 5) notes that it is "foolish" to expect a one-to-one correspondence between the two sets of features. For Fleischman (1985: 861-862; also Chvany 1990: 224), the

50

Conceptual background

grammatical and semantic properties of grounding, though related, are in fact independent of one another, and since grounding is a complex notion involving multiple defining properties, the absence of relevant features or even the incompatibility of certain features does not invalidate the correlations established. As Fleischman points out, these correlations are "relative and potentially reversible"; the reversals of expectations "produce many of the most striking effects in artistic narrative" (1985: 860, 1990a: 170, 171, 182-183; also Hopper—Thompson 1980: 284; Weber 1983: 8-9). Chvany (1985b: 260-268, 1990: 222-224), for example, finding that in Tolstoy's version of "The Three Bears" both causal and human importance are independent of perfectivity and that imperfectives occur in the foreground while, less often, perfectives occur in the background, argues that these subversions occur for "literary effect".

2.4.

Grammaticalization

In recent years, grammaticalization—as a process which explains much morphosyntactic change—has received scholarly attention in a number of monographs and collections of essays (e.g., Axmaker—Jaisser—-Singmaster 1988; Heine—Claudi—Hünnemeyer 1991b; Hopper—Traugott 1993; Traugott—Heine (eds.) 1991). Grammaticalization can be considered both a synchronic and a diachronic process (see Lehmann 1985), though it is more commonly studied as the latter. While grammaticalization is normally seen as underlying the development of grammatical markers, it can also explain the development of pragmatic markers, as some initial studies show (see section 2.4.2) and as will become clearer in the course of this work.

2.4.1. Description of the grammaticalization process Grammaticalization was first named by Meillet ([1948]: 131),50 who defines it as Vattribution du caractcre grammatical a un motjadis autonome 'the acquisition of grammatical character in a formerly autonomous word'. However, the classic definition used in recent studies (see Lehmann 1985: 303; Heine— Claudi—Hünnemeyer 1991a: 149, 1991b: 2; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 2) is that of Kuryiowicz (1965: 69): "Grammaticalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status, e.g., from a derivative

Grammaticalization

51

forma n t to an inflectional one." In this view, then, grammaticalization is the development of fully grammatical forms (function words, clitics, and inflections), as well as of "more grammatical" forms such as derivational affixes, from independent lexical items (see Hopper—Traugott 1993: 4-6). Another view of grammaticalization, however, argues that grammatical markers develop from the fixing of discourse functions. 51 Traugott—Heine (1991: 5) suggest that the two views—lexical item > morpheme and discourse strategy > morphosyntax—can be reconciled by considering grammaticalization to be the development of morphosyntax out of lexical items used in discourse. That is, in the process of grammaticalization, a lexical element occurring in specific, highly constrained linguistic contexts becomes syntactically fixed and then may amalgamate morphologically (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 9495).52

2.4.1.1. Morphosyntactic changes Emphasis has traditionally been placed on the formal, or morphosyntactic, changes involved in the process of grammaticalization. The following are the changes most frequently identified as participating in the process of grammaticalization: (a) "Paradigmaticization" (Lehmann 1985: 307, 309) occurs when a syntactic construction is integrated as a periphrastic and then a morphological paradigm. (b) "Obligatorification" (Lehmann 1985: 307, 309), the loss of paradigmatic variability, or "specialization" (Hopper 1991: 25-28; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 113-116), involves the "thinning out" of the field of candidates for grammaticalization. The choice of forms in a particular construction narrows, with one or more forms becoming obligatory as the selectional restrictions on the use of these forms loosen. As a result, a particular form becomes more frequent (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991b: 213; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 103). (c) "Condensation" (Lehmann 1985: 308, 309), or loss of scope, occurs as an item relates to constituents of increasingly less complexity, coming finally to modify a word or stem. (d) "Fixation" (Lehmann 1985: 308, 309) is the loss of syntagmatic variability, with the item occupying a fixed syntactic slot. (e) "Decategorialization" (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991b: 213; Hopper 1991: 30-31; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 103-113) involves loss

52

Conceptual background

of a word's autonomy, of the morphological and syntactic attributes which characterize it as belonging to a particular word class, and its appearance in secondary roles. When grammaticalization brings about a change in word class, movement is in the direction of major word class (noun, verb) to adjective/adverb to minor word class (preposition, conjunction, etc.), changes which should be seen as functional shifts rather than as decay (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 104). Within the nominal and verbal domains, decategorialization appears to work on two analogous "clines": from (a) relational noun > secondary adposition > primary adposition > agglutinative case > fusional case (Lehmann 1985; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 107), and from (b) full verb > vector verb (e.g., quasi-auxiliary) > auxiliary > clitic > affix (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 108).53 (f) "Coalescence" (Lehmann 1985: 308, 309), "loss in autonomy" (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991b: 214) or increase in bondedness, is related to decategorialization; it is the movement from morphologically heavier to lighter elements, from, for example, free form > clitic, clitic > bound form, compound > derivational affix, or derivational > inflectional affix (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991b: 213). Coalescence includes cliticization, agglutination, and morphological fusion. According to Bybee—Pagliuca (1985: 62), the degree of fusion of an item equals its degree of grammaticalization. (g) Phonological "attrition" or "erosion" (Bybee—Pagliuca 1985: 60; Lehmann 1985: 307; Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991b: 214-215) is the loss of phonological substance, from full to reduced form and eventually to zero. These changes, especially (e), (f), and (g), are all characterized by unidirectionality (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991a: 150; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 94-129), for example, from less to more bound rather than the reverse. Semantic changes which occur in the process of grammaticalization also seem to be characterized by unidirectionality (see below). Grammaticalization is typically brought about by reanalysis, "the change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation" (Langacker 1977: 58). Reanalysis is the result of abductive reasoning (Traugott—König 1991: 193; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 41). It is the "development of new out of old structures" (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 56). Fusion across morphological boundaries, syntactic reanalysis, and reassigment of morphemes to different semantic-syntactic categories are all examples of

Grammaticalization

53

reanalysis (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 40-41). However, Heine—Claudi— Hiinnemeyer (1991a: 169, 1991b: 219) argue that grammaticalization need not involve reanalysis, as in the case of the grammaticalization of the distal demonstrative as a definite article in English. 54 It is now believed that semantic as well as syntactic reanalysis occurs during the process of grammaticalization (see below). Whether syntactic reanalysis is the cause or result of semantic change, or whether the two types of changes are independent, is a matter of debate; for example, Lightfoot (1979: 100) believes that the reanalysis of the pre-modals in English—a "pure syntactic change"— proceeded "quite independently" from the semantic changes affecting these forms, while Heine—Claudi—Hiinnemeyer (1991a: 167-168, 174, 1991b: 215-220) consider reanalysis "one of the most spectacular effects" that "conceptual manipulation" (i.e., semantic change) has upon language structure. Analogy has also been assumed to play a role in grammaticalization, though, as Hopper—Traugott point out (1993: 56-60), it serves primarily as evidence that grammaticalization has occurred, as items begin to increase in frequency of usage or to appear in contexts in which they were formerly incompatible. Three phenomena that reveal the relation between grammaticalized and ungrammaticalized forms have been identified. One is "divergence" or "split" (Hopper 1991: 24-25; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 116-120; cf. Traugott 1989: 33) or "form-meaning asymmetry" (Heine—Claudi— Hiinnemeyer 1991b: 212-213); it is common for a form to maintain its lexical characteristics in certain contexts while undergoing grammaticalization in other contexts. Thus, two forms of common etymology may coexist, one grammaticalized and the other not, as m the case of the numeral one and the article a /an. The two may coexist for long periods and may even cooccur in the same construction, e.g., dummy and main verb do. A second characteristic is "renewal" (Hopper—Traugott 1993: 121-123); here, a new form takes over semantically from a form which has undergone grammaticalization, expressing its original lexical meaning: "the grammaticalization of an element A, which ceases to fulfill its former function, is accompanied by a renewal by which a lexical element B is recruited to fill the place cleared by A" (Lehmann 1985: 311). This "renewal by a noncognate item to effect semantic expressiveness" establishes a competition between the older and newer forms and allows or encourages the loss of the older form (Hopper— Traugott 1993: 122-123). A final characteristic of grammaticalization is "layering" (Hopper 1991: 22-24; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 123-126). This is

54

Conceptual background

the continuation of older (highly grammaticalized) forms alongside newer (less grammaticalized) forms, whether the two sets of forms derive from divergence or from renewal, as in the case of English tense marking, where ablaut gradation represents an older stratum than the dental suffix, both of which are older than periphrastic markers.

2.4.1.2. Semantic/ pragmatic changes Traditionally, the semantic changes involved in the process of grammaticalization have been described in terms of "bleaching", "fading", "weakening", or "desemanticization". For example, Meillet ([1948]: 139) speaks of the "progressive decay" of meaning and loss of "concrete signification" in words undergoing grammaticalization; Samuels (1972: 58) considers grammaticalization to be like other "semantic extensions", involving "loss in information content"; Lehmann (1985: 307) sees "attrition", or the loss of semantic features, to be a feature of grammaticalization; and Bybee—Pagliuca (1985: 74) consider that the "emptying of lexical content is a prerequisite to grammaticization because grammatical functions in themselves are necessarily abstract". More recently, it has been argued that grammaticalization and bleaching must be uncoupled (Traugott 1988: 407-408). The view of grammaticalization as semantic weakening has been attenuated, or simply rejected. Heine—Claudi—Hiinnemeyer (1991b: 40-41, 109) believe that bleaching is "inadequate as a descriptive or explanatory parameter of grammaticalization", though it is one important aspect of the process. Sweetser (1988) argues that although the abstraction involved in grammaticalization does involve a loss of meaning, there is also an addition of meaning (a metaphorical meaning; see below) in the grammaticalized word. While admitting that narrowing does not occur during grammaticalization, Hopper—Traugott (1993: 98, 100) observe that there is an increase in a word's polysemy, which "collectively ... may seem like weakening of meaning", but also an increase in the range of grammatical functions that a word serves. They argue (pp. 87-93) that bleaching occurs only in the very late stages of grammaticalization: "As grammaticalized forms become increasingly syntacticized or morphologized they unquestionably cease over time to carry significant semantic or pragmatic meaning" (p. 88). Sudden loss of meaning does not occur, however (p. 89; also Traugott—König 1991: 190).

Grammaticalization

55

Metaphorical transfer, specifically the shift from concrete to abstract, 55 is also thought to be involved in grammaticalization. For example, Bybee— Pagliuca (1985) argue that metaphor is the primary motivating force in grammaticalization. Sweetser (1988) argues that grammaticalization is characterized by metaphorical transfers, in which image-schematic structures (abstracted from the lexical sense of a word) are mapped from one domain onto another, more abstract domain. For Heine—Claudi—Hünnemeyer (1991a: 151, 157, 1991b: 43, 45), too, metaphor underlies grammaticalization. They argue that a limited number of basic cognitive concepts and propositions form the input, or "source" of grammaticalization (Heine— Claudi—Hünnemeyer 1991a: 151-154, 1991b: 32-38), concepts such as body parts, natural phenomena, dynamic verbs, and so on, expressed in "basic words", which provide concrete reference points for more abstract concepts. These undergo metaphorical abstraction, or what they call "conceptual manipulation", to yield the grammaticalized output, or "target"; a typical scale of metaphorical abstraction is PERSON > OBJECT > ACTIVITY > SPACE > TIME > QUANTITY (Heine—Claudi—Hünnemeyer 1991b: 48). Traugott (1982: 248-251) considers many of the examples of grammaticalization from the history of English that she cites to involve a metaphorical shift from concrete to abstract. For example, the shift of the OE prepositon after from spatial to temporal meaning involves a metaphorical conception of time as space, while its later evolution into a subordinating conjunction likewise involves a metaphor in which clauses are treated as objects with spatio-temporal correlates (Traugott 1988: 408; Traugott—König 1991: 208). However, only certain types of grammaticalizations, such as the development of case, tense, and aspect markers, can be explained by metaphorical processes (Traugott—König 1991: 190). It has also been suggested that metonymic rather that metaphoric changes underlie grammaticalization. For example, in Brinton (1988: 114, 197-199), I argue that the shift from spatial to aspectual (aspect/ aktionsart) meanings in verbs and particles in the history of English involves a "shift in focus", which can best be understood as metonymic. This shift is permitted by the structural resemblance, or "diagrammatic iconity", between the spatial and aspectual domains. In a sense, the shift can be seen as "semantic reanalysis" analogous to the "syntactic reanalysis" discussed above. Acknowledging that grammaticalization appears to be at the same time a discrete process and a continuous one, Heine—Claudi—Hünnemeyer (1991b: 70-78) have suggested that both metaphor and metonymy must be involved. They present

56

Conceptual background

the following convincing scenario, which sets out three stages in the process of grammaticalization: (a) Stage I: in addition to its core sense A, a form acquires an additional sense B in a specific context, resulting in ambiguity. (b) Stage II: because of the existence of sense B, the form can be used in contexts incompatible with sense A. (c) Stage III: the sense B is conventionalized, and A and B may eventually develop into homophones. The shift from one conceptual domain, which contains A, to another conceptual domain, which contains B, is metaphorical; the progression from stages (a) to (c) is metonymically motivated. The semantic changes in grammaticalization have also been seen as involving the change from conversational to conventional implicatures (Traugott 1988: 409-411, 1989: 50-51; Traugott—König 1991: 191-192; Hopper— Traugott 1993: 75-77). A conversational implicature, that is, an implicature arising in context and hence cancelable and nondetachable (Levinson 1983: 114, 116), becomes "semanticized" (Traugott 1995b) or "lexicalized" (Cole 1975: 273), that is, assimilated as part of the conventional meaning of the word. This type of change has been called "pragmatic strengthening" or "strengthening of informativeness" (Traugott 1988, 1989) and "contextinduced reinterpretation" (Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer 1991a, 1991b). Cole (1975: 276) sees pragmatic strengthening as occurring in steps: at first speakers retain awareness of the literal meaning of the word but associate with it a new "idiomatic" meaning (arising through implicature), and then speakers lose consciousness of the original meaning, retaining only the conversational meaning. Pragmatic strengthening is the force behind those grammaticalizations that are not metaphorically driven, such as the development of causal and concessive connectives (Traugott—König 1991: 190). An example of such a semantic shift is the change from temporal to causal meaning in OE sipfran 'since', from 'from the time that' to 'because', which results from the conventionalizing of a conversational implicature of cause which arises in certain contexts (Traugott 1988: 409, 411, 412; Traugott— König 1991: 195-196; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 75-77). Traugott points out (1988: 411-413; also Traugott—König 1991: 209-212; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 81-82) that pragmatic strengthening has no place in the conventional taxonomy of semantic changes but argues that it most closely approximates metonymy, if the associations involved in metonymy are "extended from traditional concrete and overt contexts to cognitive and covert contexts": "Metonymie change involves specifying one meaning in terms of another

Grammatical! zation

57

that is present, even if only covertly, in the context ... the metonymic change is from less to more informative, that is, in the direction of explicit coding of relevance and informativeness that earlier was only covertly implied; in other words, it is a case of pragmatic strengthening" (1988: 412, 413). Note that the conventionalizing of conversational implicatures can be considered a type of "pragmatic reanalysis" (Traugott 1995B). Just as grammaticalization seems to be syntactically unidirectional in respect to decategorialization, bondedness, and phonetic weight, it has also been suggested that it is semantically unidirectional. Traugott (1982: 256) proposes a unilinear development in the course of grammaticalization, from propositional > textual > interpersonal meaning (see above, section 2.1.4.2). Textual meanings develop from propositional meanings and interpersonal meanings develop from textual or directly from propositional meanings, but the opposite direction of change does not occur. She also argues that change within any component is from more personal > less personal (p. 253). In a revision of this model, Traugott (1988: 409-410, 1989: 34-35; also Traugott—König 1991: 208-209) proposes that the following three semantic/ pragmatic tendencies operate in the process of grammaticalization:56 (a) Tendency I: from meanings situated in the external described situation to meanings situated in the internal (evaluative/ perceptual/ cognitive) situation; (b) Tendency II: from meanings situated in the described external or internal situation to meanings situated in the textual/ metalinguistic situation; and (c) Tendency III: to meanings increasingly situated in the speaker's subjective belief-state/ attitude toward the situation. She sees Tendencies I and II as metaphorically motivated and Tendency III as metonymically motivated (1988: 408-409, 414; Traugott—König 1991: 208-209, 213). Heine—Claudi—Hiinnemeyer (1991b: 179-186) provide corroborating evidence for the metaphorical nature of Tendency II, suggesting the existence of a space-discourse metaphor, which allows the conceptual manipulation spatial deixis (> temporal deixis) > textual deixis (p. 182); motion verbs may acquire grammaticalized discourse functions as well (p. 186). Most recently, Traugott (1995b) has argued that Tendency III, what she now calls "subjectification" (see Langacker 1990), "the development of a grammatically identifiable expression of speaker belief or speaker attitude to what is said", is a "major factor" in the unidirectionality of semantic change during grammaticalization. However, because of problems in establishing the

58

Conceptual background

internal ordering of changes, she now questions the unilinear prepositional > textual > interpersonal model;57 she believes that grammaticalization operates along several dimensions, such as objective > subjective meaning and nonepistemic > epistemic modality.58 Important for the purposes of this study is the fact that she continues to believe that the propositional functions precede discourse functions (also Traugott—König 1991: 192). Heine— Claudi—Hunnemeyer (1991b: 187) suggest more tentatively that "there is some evidence to the effect that, wherever it is possible to trace the etymology of discourse markers, they are likely to originate from lexical material within the 'real world.'" Setting out what could be seen as the research goal for the study which follows, Traugott (1995b) remarks, "Ultimately specific paths of change for particular items or particular domains of grammaticalization in particular languages will need to be plotted against larger sets of correlated continua before a full understanding of the phenomena of change can be achieved." The specific paths of change are termed "grammaticalization chains" by Heine—Claudi—Hunnemeyer (1991a: 171-174, 1991b: 224-229), which they see as characterized by overlapping meanings and asymmetries between cognitive and linguistic structures. Two other semantic questions arise in the study of grammaticalization as a diachronic process. The first concerns the choice of particular items to be grammaticalized, or as Traugott (1982: 267) phrases it, "the extent to which the semantics of the lexical items before grammaticalization determines the kind of grammaticalization process that can be undergone". This has been termed the "channelization of grammaticalization" (Heine—Claudi— Hunnemeyer 1991a: 171, 1991b: 221-222), or "the requirements of semantic aptitude" (Lehmann 1985: 315). The consensus of opinion is that "there is only a restrictive set of lexical fields, and within them only a restricted set of lexical items, that are likely to be sources for grammaticalization" (Traugott—Heine 1991: 7-8). Hopper—Traugott (1993: 154-155) point out that source words for grammaticalization tend to have quite general lexical meaning, which are generic rather than specific, and to be superordinate terms or "basic words". Verbs undergoing "auxiliation", Benveniste suggests (1968: 87-88) are "semantically very broad, often defective and irregular, frequently suppletive".59 The second question concerns the extent to which a word's original lexical meaning is preserved in, or adheres to, the grammaticalized word. It is generally agreed that the meaning and function of a grammaticalized form, as well as constraints on its use, are related to its origin as a lexical item, though at advanced stages of grammaticalization the

Gnunmaticitlizcition

59

earlier lexical meaning may be entirely opaque (Hopper 1991: 28-30; Hopper—Traugott 1993: 90). Hopper (1991: 28) terms this characteristic "persistence". Bybee—Pagliuca (1985: 74) suggest, for example, that the persistence of some degree of original lexical meaning accounts for the different nuances of meaning in the grammaticalized future forms in English, such as the will/ shall or be going to periphrases.

2.4.2. Development of pragmatic markers Not much attention has been paid to the development of pragmatic markers, apart from asking how pragmatic functions relate to referential meaning. However, some scholars have considered the development of pragmatic markers as examples of grammaticahzation, generally from a synchronic perspective, while a few studies have examined the grammaticalization of pragmatic markers over time.

2.4.2.1. Relation of pragmatic to semantic meaning While considering the relation between the inherent semantic meaning of particular forms and their discourse functions, Schiffrin (1987a: 54, 63) takes a primarily synchronic perspective, asking whether there is some semantic property of particular pragmatic markers which contributes to their function. She distinguishes between pragmatic markers such as oh and well, which cannot be used on the discourse level in a way which reflects their meaning since they lack referential meaning (pp. 73, 127), and other markers such as and, but, or, so, because, now, then, y'know, and / mean, whose function "is somewhat delimited by their semantic and grammatical status" (p. 127). For example, the proximal quality of now contributes to its use to denote the speaker's progression through a discourse, towards what is coming next, while the distal quality of then contributes to its use in creating a bridge to a prior discourse time (p. 266; also Aijmer 1988). In the case of y'know and / mean, the "literal meanings directly influence their discourse use" (p. 267). In a later article, Schiffrin (1992) argues that the temporal uses of then, both deictic (prior or posterior to speech time) and anaphoric (continue or shift reference time), which she calls "propositional", are the source, by extension, of the analogous "textual" uses (continue or shift global reference time) and "expressive" uses ('given that' or 'follows that'). The textual uses serve

60

Conceptual background

to organize texts nontemporally, as in lists and narratives. The expressive, or "epistemic", uses occur in conditional if/ then structures and in initiation/ response/ warrant sequences. She finds that the "proximal/ distal deictic opposition between now and then is the basis for their different meanings and functions in the prepositional, textual, and expressive domains" (1992: 785). Brown—Levinson (1978: 276-278) suggest that there is a continuum from forms such as I guess or / suppose, whose use as hedges derives transparently from their literal meaning, to particles without any specifiable literal meaning, such as o.k. or interjections, for which one must resort to a direct pragmatic analysis. In between are words and phrases such as you know or / mean, whose hedge use, though removed from the literal meaning, can be derived by "the extended significances provided by implicature"; that is, the meaning of the form determines a usage of the form, which implies a second (hedge) use.60 A relation between lexical and pragmatic meaning has also been discovered in the case of the German modal particles. Abraham (1991a) argues for what he calls a "minimalistic position", namely, that the illocutive/ metalinguistic meaning of German modal particles, such as denn, eigentlich, auch, eben, halt, nur, bloß, doch, ja, and aber, is a function of the lexical meaning of the respective nonmodal homonyms, conditioned by different contexts.

2.4.2.2. Grammaticalization of pragmatic markers A number of studies relate the development of pragmatic markers to the process of grammaticalization, either as a synchronic or diachronic phenomenon. Traugott cites the "conversational routines" well and right as examples of the semantic shift in the process of grammaticalization from propositional to interpersonal meaning, and why as an example of the shift from propositional to textual to interpersonal, in that it changes from a mark of interrogation to a complementizer to a "hearer-engaging" form (1982: 251, 252, 255). Romaine—Lange (1991: 272) point to a parallel development in northern varieties of British English with but, from preposition to conjunction to pragmatic marker (as in / really don't want it but).M Finell (1989) proposes a similar historical development for the pragmatic marker well from a predicate adjective (in structures such as if is well with me, that is very well occurring in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) to a more independent element. If the discourse use of well is understood as 'the speaker accepts a situation', then the change from 'find good' to 'accept' is transpar-

Grammaticalization

61

ent (Carlson 1984: 27). Consonant with Traugott's Tendencies (see above), well moves from the propositional to the interpersonal component, and it changes in meaning from less to more personal: "expressive weil shows the attitude of the speaker towards the topic spoken of, or towards the interlocutor" (Finell 1989: 655). In a more detailed study, Finell (1986) shows that however begins in Old English as an adverbial in the propositional component, occupying a set position and modifying a single word or phrase, moves into the textual component as a conjunctive adverb in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, and ends in the interpersonal component in the nineteenth century as an interrogative or exclamatory form. While however always serves as a means of conveying speaker attitude, Finell believes that it is closest to a pragmatic marker in its second stage. Finell (1992) argues that pragmatic markers such as well, however, anyhow, and besides, which function as "topic changers", start out in the propositional component as expressions of time, space, manner, or concession, and in the process of grammaticalization acquire more subjective meanings; in fact, she sees this process as being motivated by the speakers' desire to express their attitudes toward the ongoing discourse, wishes for interaction, and politeness. Finally, Traugott (1995b) briefly discusses the grammaticalization of let's and let alone as pragmatic markers. Let's has developed from a second-person imperative in Old English to a first-person hortative in Middle English to a pragmatic marker in Modern English indicating "that the speaker is cognizant of the presence of the hearer and will take a turn, respond, etc." (as in Let's sec now, what was I going to say?); it has "the textual and metalinguistic function of bracketing a unit of discourse". Let alone has developed from an imperative in Middle English to a pragmatic marker in the nineteenth century which expresses "speaker's attitude regarding possible alternatives on a scale of inclusion". Both developments, she believes, show an increase in subjectification. Romaine—Lange's (1991) study of the quotative function of (be] like (as in And I'm like, "Great") is most interesting in this respect. They argue that be like, as opposed to forms such as say or^'c), is used in cases of reduced speaker commitment; the speaker is not committed to the exact words of the quotation since the material quoted need not have been explicitly lexicalized (pp. 232, 243, 263); it is "what might have been said/ thought" (p. 247) (also Blyth—Recktenwald—Wang 1990: 222-223). Be like is a form which allows the speaker to retain the vividness and emotiveness of direct speech while preserving the pragmatic force of indirect speech (Romaine—Lange 1991: 228, 263, 264, 268). Furthermore, it possesses a quality of speaker subjectivity since it is often used for self-presentation (pp. 237, 238, 242, 243). Like

62

Conceptual background

has not acquired the status of a verb of saying, but functions rather as a "quotative complementizer" (p. 248). It has many, but not all, of the characteristics of a pragmatic marker (pp. 246-251), though Romaine—Lange reserve the term "discourse marker" for the focusing function of like (as. in And there were like people blocking, you know?; see Underhill 1988). While they treat the development of this pragmatic marker in detail, they point out that their discussion lacks historical depth because of the recency of the form. Nonetheless, they propose the development shown in Figure 2.1, which, while not strictly sequential, recognizes an increase in grammaticality and a change in category membership (p. 262) from preposition (as in nectarines are like peaches) to conjunction (as in // looks like we'll finish on time) to quotative and focuser. They believe that both the original semantic and syntactic properties lead to the discourse functions which develop (pp. 246, 265-266): In our view, both semantic and grammatical properties of markers can affect the kind of grammaticalization process that takes place and contribute to the communicative force of the marker. Semantically, it is because like has the referential meanings of'comparison', 'for example', 'as if, and so on, that it is suitable for use in a construction reporting hypothetical discourse or thought. Syntactically, it is because it can occupy a slot immediately preceeding the comparison ... that it can function as an anaphor whose scope is forward or backward (p. 259).

PROPOSITIONAL

like ( p r e p o s i t i o n )

TEXTUAL

> like ( c o n j u n c t i o n )

INTERPERSONAL

> like ( f o c u s e r )

be like (quotative)

Figure 2. 1. The d e v e l o p m e n t of like ( F r o m " T h e use of like as a m a r k e r of r e p o r t e d s p e e c h and t h o u g h t : A c a s e of g r a m m a t i c a l i z a t i o n in p r o g r e s s " , American Speech 66 ( 1 9 9 1 ) : 2 6 1 . C o p y r i g h t © The U n i v e r s i t y of A l a b a m a Press. A d a p t e d by p e r m i s s i o n of the p u b l i s h e r . )

Grammaticalization

63

The quotative complementizer results from specialization within the textual component (p. 261) from conjunction to complementizer: "This happens when the speaker presents the clause created for comparison or exemplification so that it can be construed as a report of speech or thought" (p. 262). This change involves a shift from less to more personal (p. 260), conies about through metonymic association (p. 262), and results in an increase in pragmatic significance (p. 266), all expected by Traugott's Tendencies. Thompson—Mulac (1991) discuss the grammaticalization o f / think and / guess from grammatical phrases consisting of subject + main verb (+ complement) to syntactically free "epistemic parentheticals", comparable to adverbs (as in It's just your point of view you know what you like to do in your spare time I think). They argue that epistemic parentheticals, though not prototypical examples of grammaticalization, show the expected shift in categorial status (pp. 318, 325) and follow recognized principles of grammaticalization (pp. 323-325; see above). However, for some unspecified reason, they distinguish epistemic parentheticals from "pragmatic expressions" such as you know or / know (p. 316) and suggest that the forms are attested only synchronically (p. 324), but, as will be argued in Chaper 8, I guess goes back to Middle English, where it serves as a common pragmatic marker. Abraham's (1991b) study of the grammaticalization of modal particles in German provides corroborating comparative evidence concerning the evolution of pragmatic markers. Looking at the historical development of Modern German doch (cf. Gothic thau), eben, halt, ma ja (cf. Gothic ja(i)), he finds that "the original (lexical or functional) meaning determined the development under syntactic reanalysis and semantic change of the modal meaning" (p. 370); that is, the modal particles developed from homonymic lexical elements (p. 371), including adjectives, adverbs, scalar particles, conjunctions, and interjections. The development shows many, though not all, of the features of grammaticalization. Formally, it involves a shift from lexical to grammatical, though perhaps never to fully grammaticalized (p. 372). In their evolution as modal particles, lexemes lose their syntactic freedom, being constrained to the "middle field" (pp. 337-338, 370-371, 372). While modal particles are not as restricted as clitics, for example, their alignment with a single syntactic position allows them to "constitute a unique and easily identifiable formal paradigm" (p. 373). The modal particles may also be seen as more constrained by grammatical rules than their lexical counterparts, being restricted to occur in certain sentence types (pp. 338, 372). The original lexemes, retaining full meaning and syntactic functions, are also maintained (p. 373) ("divergence", see above). Semantically, there is a loss of

64

Conceptual background

semantic complexity, or bleaching, to a "quasi-logical (epistemic/ deontic) meaning"; however, this is accompanied by an increase in pragmatic significance, either illocutive/ metacommunicative or rheme-focusing (pp. 350, 372). The semantic change is gradual, often involving a metaphorical sequence such as SPATIAL > TEMPORAL > LOGICAL > ILLOCUTIVE, DISCOURSE FUNCTIONAL, as in the case of the shift of eben from topological evenness > temporal similarity > causal relation (pp. 370, 373). Abraham sees the semantic development occurring in two stages (similar to Heine—Claudi— Hunnemeyer's stages, see above), the first in which the lexeme occurs in contexts which do not represent the logical relation of the connective, and the second in which, as the conditions of semantic cooccurrence are loosened, the lexeme is expanded to sentential types in which the logical connective is restricted. In addition to seeing a unidirectionality from prepositional to pragmatic (nonpropositional), Abraham believes that a textanaphoric, text-deictic function is instrumental in the development of "modal" or metacommunicative uses of the particles (p. 370). Finally, there is only one respect in which the development of modal particles differs from other instances of grammaticalization; namely, there is no loss of phonetic substance (p. 338).62

2.5.

Conclusion

In the chapters which follow, I will argue that the "mystery features" of Old and Middle English have many of the characteristics of pragmatic markers, including phonological "shortness", high frequency, little or no propositional meaning, no identifiable grammatical function, initial or fixed syntactic position, marginal word class membership, multifunctionality, an oral quality, and stylistic stigmatization. Like the pragmatic markers of Modern English, their functions are pragmatic, falling into two general categories which, following Halliday, are termed "textual" and "interpersonal". They can serve a structural role in narrative discourse, denoting salient events and marking episode boundaries, and they have a place among the formal markers of grounding, understood as a scalar rather than a dichotomous concept. They may also serve a variety of interpersonal functions, both speaker- and hearer-oriented. The semantic and syntactic changes observed in the diachronic development of pragmatic markers can be understood in terms of a somewhat broader conception of grammaticalization; while lexical items which evolve as pragmatic markers do not exhibit the phonological

Conclusion

65

attrition, morphological fusion, or paradigmaticization prototypical of grammaticalization, they do increase in frequency and undergo decategorialization from more to less grammatical and reanalysis to a different semanticsyntactic category. The choice of lexical items for grammaticalization as particular types of pragmatic markers is apt, both semantically and syntactically. The pragmatic meanings that these items acquire are derivable from their original lexical meanings by semantic processes known to underlie grammaticalization: metaphorical and metonymic transfers and, most importantly, the conventionalizing of conversational implicatures. The semantic development conforms to the expected unidirectionality from propositional to pragmatic (nonpropositional); however, the development of pragmatic markers calls into question any simple unilinear view of grammaticalization from propositional > textual > interpersonal and points instead to the complexity of "grammaticalization chains".

Chapter 3 Middle English gan

3.0. Introduction A characteristic feature of Middle English verse style is the occurrence 'began' with an accompanying infinitive; in the words of one scholar, it is das beliebteste pcriphrasticutn des Me. 'the most beloved periphrasis of M[iddle] E[nglish]' (Einenkel 1891: 89). This collocation appears in the earliest Middle English and is common throughout the period. Despite the morphological relation of ME ginnen to ModE begin, an ingressive interpretation of gan is frequently not possible. The impossibility of aspectual meaning has led scholars to suggest that gan serves an "intensive-descriptive" function in Middle English, a function in emphasizing the action expressed by the infinitive and in isolating it from the surrounding actions of the narrative. But such suggestions are now generally dismissed as subjective and indemonstrable. Gan is usually considered to be a meaningless filler, serving as a metrical expedient, as a dummy tense carrier (see, e.g., Traugott 1972: 138, 141; Ness—Duncan-Rose 1982: 303, 305), and generally as a precursor of do. However, the contemporary view of gan leaves unanswered diachronically interesting questions concerning the choice of this particular verb and semantic changes undergone by it in its evolution as a metrical filler. Since both the arguments given in favor of the stylistic function of gan and the linguistic evidence adduced against it seem misguided, this chapter will, in light of our current understanding of pragmatic markers and the kinds of linguistic evidence significant in establishing textual and interpersonal functions, approach the problem of ME gan quite differently. It will argue that ME gan serves as a discourse structure marker rather than as a stylistic indicator of emphasis or importance. Additionally, given semantic and pragmatic principles of grammaticalization, it will suggest a plausible semantic development for gan from aspectual to textual meaning.

3.1. History of gan ME ginnen is an aphetic form of OE onginnan > aginnan 'to begin'. Although

68

Middle English gan

there is one possible example of the aphetic form in Old English, it is generally dated to the Middle English period, occurring first in the Orrnulum. It is common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, reaching its peak of use in the period 1300-1350 (Terasawa 1974: 104). Its use declines in the fifteenth century, so that by the sixteenth century it has become a Symbol der Vergangenheit 'symbol of the past' (Funke 1922: 26), used by Spenser and his imitators and later by the Romantics. Only fifteen instances of the verb with accompanying infinitive occur in the Shakespearian corpus, for example (Spevack 1969: s.w. gan, gins). The periphrasis lives on in petrified form in folk ballads until the nineteenth century, and has dialectal currency in Dorset and Somerset (see Visser 1969: 1575; OED: s.w. gin and can v.2 for recent examples). 1 In Middle English, ginnen collocates with the simple infinitive, the toinfinitive, and the Jor-fo-infinitive. It is much more frequent in the past than in the present tense form (Beschorner 1920: 15; Koziol 1932: 133; Mustanoja 1960: 612) and in the third-person than in the first- or secondperson (Terasawa 1974: 102). Although it may sometimes have the meaning 'begin', especially in the present tense,2 it more often cannot be interpreted as an ingressive aspectualizer. Either the presence of a punctual verb (la-b) or a durative/ iterative adverbial (lc-e) prevents an ingressive interpretation:3 (1)

a.

And gan awake, and wentc hire out to pisse,/ And cam agayn, and gan hir cradel mysse ... 'And she awoke and went out to piss and came inside again and noticed her cradle missing ...' (Chaucer, CT A.Rv. 4215-4216)

b.

And ryght anon the wympel gan she fynde ... 'and suddenly she found the wimple ..." (Chaucer, Legend of good women 819)

c.

And day by day he gan enquere and seche ... 'and day by day he inquired and searched

(Chaucer, TCV1538) d.

And gönne a while of this and that devise, 'and conversed a while of this and that' (Chaucer, TC II 1599)

Distribution o/~gan in Middle English texts

e.

69

But to Pandarc alwey was his recourse/ And pitously gan ay tyl hym to pleyne ... 'but to Pandarus always was his recourse and piteously always complained to him ...' (Chaucer, TC II 1352-1353)

Note that these cannot be translated with 'began', *'began to awake', *'began to find', *'day by day began to inquire and search', *'began a while to converse', or *'began always to complain', but only with the simple preterite, 'awoke', 'found', 'day by day inquired and searched', 'conversed a while', or 'always complained'. 4

3.2. Distribution of gan in Middle English texts Gan has a skewed distribution in Middle English texts. It is very rare in prose and not at all frequent in unrhymed alliterative verse (see Funke 1922: 22; Koziol 1932: 131-134; Terasawa 1974: 99-100). For example, of the instances ofgan5 in the HCET, only 8% occur in prose, and there is only one example in an alliterative poem. While Chaucer uses gan 669 times in his rhymed verse, he uses it only three times in the "The tale of Melibee" and not at all in his other prose works (Oizumi 1991-1992: s.w. gan, g nne, g nnen). Con (the Northern form of χάη) is common in the rhymed alliterative poem Pearl, considerably less common in the partially rhymed Gawain ana the Green Knight, and rare in the unrhymed Patience and Purity (Terasawa 1974: 95-96); of the 23 instances of con in Sir Gawain, all but two occur in the rhymed bob and wheel (Aertsen 1991: 9). Gan occurs only four times in the works of Malory (Kato 1974: s.v. gan). In contrast, ^OH is quite frequent in rhymed romances, as the survey of a large number of texts by Terasawa (1974: 94-96, 100) shows, reaching as high as 4.5% of the total words in King Horn.

3.3. Metrical function of gan 3.3.1. Restricted distribution From the scarcity of gan in prose and unrhymed verse texts, it is concluded that gan must serve as a meaningless expedient in metrical verse, providing

70

Middle English gan

an extra syllable in a line or, because the infinitive is easier to rhyme than the preterite, especially of weak verbs (Smyser 1967: 74), allowing the infinitive to be placed in line-final position. Positive evidence is the appearance of the infinitive in rhyme position in a majority of cases where gan is used—95% of the time for the Gawain poet (Tajima 1975: 433), 73% of the time for Chaucer ( Smyser 1967: 74), and 94%) of the time in the examples in the HCET)6—and its rarity with verbs whose preterite and infinitival forms are identical (Smyser 1967: 74). Those scholars believing gan to serve exclusively or primarily a metrical function include Taylor (1917: 574, 590), Beschorner (1920: 15-16, 17-19), Koziol (1932: 132, 133), Smyser (1967: 69, 74, 81), Visser (1969: 1372), Terasawa (1974: 103), Tajima (1975: 434, 437-438), Mustanoja (1983),7 and Fischer (1992: 266). However, although the statistical evidence for the metrical function of gan, based on its virtual restriction to rhymed verse, appears quite convincing, metrical arguments for the existence of linguistic forms are in general suspect (see below, section 3.3.3). One must also consider that prose narratives are much less common in the Middle English period than verse narratives, so the rarity of this characteristically "narrative idiom" (Taylor 1917: 575) in Middle English prose is not particularly surprising.

3.3.2. Equivalent constructions Further linguistic evidence adduced for the metrical function of gan is the apparent synonymy of the ^«-periphrasis with two other constructions in Middle English. The first is periphrastic do, which may alternate with gan in different manuscripts of the same text (2a), 8 and the second is the historical present, which sometimes cooccurs with^wi in the same contexts (2b): y (2)

a.

marchandcs ...to pis land me gan [Frf: aide] bring, 'merchants to this land began [did] bring me' (Cursor Mundi [Got] 2, 5278-5279; cited in MED: s.v. ginnen, def. 3a)

b.

And wcp [preterite] Jul tenderly upon his face, / And in hyrc armes gan hym to embrace,/ And hym she roggcth [present] and awaketh [present] softe. 'and wept very tenderly upon his face and embraced him in her arms and she shakes him and awakes him softly' (Chaucer, Legend of good women 2707-2709)

Metrical function of gan

71

From the interchangeability and assumed equivalency of gan with both do and the historical present, it is concluded that gan is meaningless and that it necessarily functions as a metrical filler. However, while it is sometimes argued that the historical present is used as a meaningless metrical filler in Middle English (Visser 1964, 1966: 705-726) and that do serves a similar metrical function in addition to its usual function as dummy tense carrier (see Ellegärd 1953: 208; Smyscr 1967: 81-82; Visser 1969: 1498), there is still considerable uncertainty concerning the meaning and function of both forms during this period. For example, Chaucer parodies many of the contemporary metrical expedients in "The tale of Sir Thopas", but neither gan nor the historical present is included (Funke 1922: 26; Smyser 1967: 83; Ness—Duncan-Rose 1982: 312). Since it has been argued that both do (see section 1.2.1) and the historical present (see section 1.2.3) have textual functions in earlier English, it is conceivable that gan also has such a function. Furthermore, the overlapping of these constructions is far from complete; their distribution is more or less complementary over time, genre (or author), and perhaps dialect. Gan is common during the entire Middle English period10 and antedates both the historical present and do. The rise in frequency of do in the fifteenth century coincides with the decline of gan (Mustanoja 1960: 614). Whereas Chaucer uses gan and the historical present equally,11 alliterative versifiers use the historical present but seldom gan; neither uses do frequently (see Funke 1922: 17-26; Mustanoja 1960: 603, 614; Smyser 1967: 69, 79; Tajima 1975: 435). Given the lack of parallel distribution and uncertainty about the meaning of all three constructions, therefore, evidence for their similar function and lack of meaning is inconclusive.

3.3.3. Viability of metrical arguments The metrical usefulness of gan may be quite important to the spread of the periphrasis and possibly to its ultimate loss, but it says nothing about the origin, semantic development, and primary function of gan. In general, metrical exigency is a convenient, but not very convincing, explanation of the function of linguistic forms. The requirements of verse alone cannot motivate the use of basic grammatical forms such as those of tense and aspect (Ness—Duncan-Rose 1982: 305). As Denison observes (1985: 45) of similar arguments about do, "The implication is that but for the advent of rhyming

72

Middle English gan

verse there would have been no motivation" for the periphrasis. Nor does the use of a form as a metrical expedient necessitate its being meaningless (Garrett n.d.). It seems more likely that the metrical function of gati was secondary, that a preexisting (and meaningful) ^»-construction provided the poet with a ready expedient in composing his verse, and that the metrical utility of the periphrasis contributed to its popularity and wide-spread use, not that the periphrasis developed originally to serve this function. Thus, not only can the linguistic evidence adduced for a metrical function for the ^cm-periphrasis—both that of equivalent constructions and of restricted distribution—be called into question, but the very nature of metrical expediency arguments is suspect. For this reason, we turn to the other argument for the function of the^cjn-periphrasis.

3.4. Stylistic function of gan Despite the prevailing view of the function of gan as a metrical filler, some scholars have suggested that gan in Middle English has an "intensive-descriptive" function (Funke 1922; Häusermann 1930; Homann 1954; Mustanoja 1960: 610-615; Terasawa 1974: 103-104). These claims warrant reexamination to determine ways in which they were both misguided yet insightful. The stylistic function was first described by Otto Funke: Tatsache ist, dass es \gan] in vielen Fallen nicht perfektiv fungiert, sondern den Ansatzpunkt einer neuen Handlung und damit diese selbst als Glied einer Reihe heller beleuchtet und hervorhebt. Hierbei handelt es sich nicht um eine perfektiv-aktionelle Betonung der im Infinitiv gelegenen Aktion an und für sich, sondern um die Art der An- und Einreihung dieser Aktion in den Gesamtverlauf der Vorstellungen. Dass mit dieser Verschärfung eines Handlungsansatzes in lebhafter Schilderung dieses Handlungsglied selbst gehoben wird oder gehoben werden kann, dürfte wohl nicht bezweifelt werden. Hier gehen also Wege zu einem Intensivum weiter. Im allgemeinen aber ist hier ein Mittel gegeben zur Erhöhung der Situation, zu kräftigem Handlungseinsatz und zur Belebung des Aktionsverlaufes. [The fact is that in many cases (gari) does not function as a perfective; rather, it accentuates the beginning point of a new action and thereby illuminates and emphasizes it as a member of a succession (of actions). Here it is not a question of the perfective-actional emphasis on the action expressed by the infinitive, but of the kind of sequencing and placement of this action in the entire succession of events.

Stylistic function o/gan

73

It certainly cannot be doubted that with this heightening of the beginning of the action in lively description, the succession of actions is emphasized. Here one approaches an intensive. In general, however, there is here a means for the heightening of the situation, for the strengthening of the beginning of the action, and for the vivification of the development of the action.] (1922: 8) Funke proposes the term "descriptive" to account for this function of gan. Mustanoja (1960: 610-615) substitutes the term "intensive-descriptive" and suggests that as a "mere intensifier of the main verb \gan may] enable the speaker or writer to describe the dynamic qualities of an action in a more vivid and forceful way than would be possible by using a simple verb form". The only detailed study which sets out to demonstrate this function is Homann (1954); she claims that Chaucer uses gem to make distinctions of tempo, intensity, and manner, and to indicate dramatic moments, nuances of character, or vivid and exciting contexts. However, her study has been seen as a case of hineininterpretieren, or reading into a text grammatical or semantic distinctions which are not present or were not intended, and deemed unconvincing by a number of scholars (Kerkhof 1966: 31; Smyser 1967: 7274; Visser 1969: 1572; Fischer 1992: 226; cf. Mustanoja 1983). Funke's proposal seems misleading in three ways. First, m suggesting that the function of gan is to "intensify", "emphasize", "heighten", or "strengthen" the situation expressed by the infinitive, Funke attributes to the form a subjective quality (Funke 1922: 2, 8, 13) and thus departs quite far from Alfred Wuth's original claim (which Funke is trying to clarify) that^w; has the neutral meaning da geschah dass ... da setzte das linn ein 'then it happened that ... then it began' (1915: 56). It has been easy for critics of Funke's theory to show that gan is frequently not used in semantically important contexts (see, e.g., Koziol 1932: 131-132), and to argue that intensive or emphatic meanings, where they exist, derive from the context, not from the semantics, of gan (see, e.g., Smyser 1967: 72). Proponents of the theory would have done well to heed the warning of Funke's student, Hans Häusermann, that the Hervorheben 'highlighting or foregrounding' of the action by^a« does not in fact constitute an "intensive Aktionsart": Die deskriptive Ausdrucksform lässt das Wesen der Handlung selbst unverändert, sie appelliert nur an die Aufmerksamkeit des Lesers oder Hörers durch die Ankündigung von etwas Neuem, Unerwartetem. [The descriptive form of expression leaves the essence of the action unchanged;

74

Middle English gan

it appeals only to the attention of the reader or hearer through the announcement of something new, unexpected.] (1930: 19) Second, Funke establishes three separate functions of gan: perfective, descriptive, and pleonastic (1922: 2, 15; also Häusermann 1930: 18-22). However, his attempts to determine which of these functions gan has in any particular instance are often arguable. Scholars have found these functions difficult to distinguish (see, e.g. Koziol 1932: 131-132; Kerkhof 1966: 32; Fischer 1992: 267), with Visser (1969: 1379) finding the classification "largely arbitrary". Rather than discrete functions, ^tm seems to serve multiple functions: "We have good reason to believe", Mustanoja observes (1960: 612), "that in addition to metre and rhyme other stylistic considerations play a certain role in a good poet's choice between the simple preterite and ^«-periphrasis." Third, Funke gives no explicit criteria, either for the impossibility of aspectual meaning (see above) or for the presence of descriptive meaning in gan. Lack of linguistic evidence, other than individual assessments of where emphasis falls in a text, causes arguments for the stylistic function of gan to appear kaum beweisbar 'scarcely demonstrable' (Koziol 1932: 131-132). Fischer concludes that "we are quite in the dark as to the meaning of gan at that stage. This is clearly shown by the many different interpretations that have been offered for this descriptive function" (1992: 266).

3.5. Textual function of gan While the stylistic analysis of gan is misguided in a number of ways, I believe that when combined with recent work in discourse analysis, it provides an avenue for approaching the function of this periphrasis. Several scholars anticipate such an approach. First, Terasawa (1974: 101) describes a "narrative" function for gan. "it sometimes occurs as a signal of the introduction of a new factor for the development of the plot or a surprising, remarkable change of situation or background of events". Second, Burnley (1983: 54) suggests that "the ^'arc-periphrasis ... frequently signifies that the action of the verb which it governs is thought of as commencing, that the actor is turning from some other occupation to commence it, or that, according to the meaning of the verb, the action will be continued or repetitive." Even Homann, despite the rather impressionistic nature of her study, sees gan as serving "the primary behest in narrative communication [which] is to emphasize the important points along the span of movement, to make

Textual function o/"gan

75

clear the relationship between these points, and to suggest the tempos and duration of movement ... [the χάη] form helped the narrator to choose out and stress the beginning or the end of the action or the continuance of time in which the action existed" (1954: 398, also 390, 392). Yet none of these scholars offers the type of evidence appropriate for establishing what, following Halliday (see section 2.1.4.2), I call the "textual" function (organ. Evidence for such a function can be adduced from the distribution of the form within individual texts in Middle English and from the similar functioning of other ingressive forms from Middle English to the present.

3.5.1. Internal evidence for the textual function of gan The evidence significant for establishing the textual function of χάη is quite different from that cited either to support or to refute its metrical function. Rather than noting its distribution among different types of texts, one must carefully observe its distribution within an individual text. With a metrical function, one would expect a form to be fairly evenly spaced in the text (see Ness—Duncan-Rose 1982: 312), since its occurrence is determined by the structure of the individual verse line. However with a discourse function, one would not expect such even distribution, since the occurrence of the form is determined by the larger content structure of the text. One would also not necessarily expect it to cooccur regularly with particular syntactic, semantic, or even "stylistic" features, but rather with other textual features, such as discourse boundary markers or frame-shifting temporal and spatial adverbs and conjunctions. To this end, I have looked at the occurrence ofgan in Troilus and Criscydc, in which Chaucer uses the form more frequently than in any other text (Beschorner 1920: 10; Smyser 1967: 82-83): 3.5% of the time as opposed to 2.2% of the time in The book of the Duchess, The house of fame, and The parliament of fowls, and 0.8% in The Canterbury tales (Terasawa 1974: 95). By my count there are 314 examples οιgan, g nne, or g nnen in 8239 lines of text. 12 These are listed, with the accompanying infinitive, in Appendix C. Though the use ofg'an here is sometimes attributed to Italian influence, the preponderance of this form in Troilus and Criseyac, considered by many to represent the height of Chaucer's poetic achievement, has not been explained other than as a metrical filler. Surprisingly, it is a scholar who argues most forcefully for the metrical function of gan who supplies some evidence for its textual function.

76

Middle English gan

Beschorner (1920: 9-11) first notes that gat ι docs not appear at regular intervals in Chaucer's verse. He then observes that infinitives following gan fall into a number of lexical classes: verbs of motion, vision, sound, desire or its expression, and emotion and its expression (see also Terasawa 1974: 104). Furthermore, gan occurs when the action expressed happens suddenly or in haste, as evident by its cooccurrence with the verb hyc 'to hurry' or adverbs such as atwon, right anoon, anoon-right 'at once', sodcnly 'suddenly', and sivythc 'quickly' and by its occurrence in conjoined sentences, either with explicit conjunctions (e.g., and also sonc 'and also soon') or not. Finally, gan often denotes changes in the time of day, especially the transition from day to night or vice versa (see also Homann 1954: 391). The verbs occurring typically with gan thus denote aspectually definite changes or events which happen unexpectedly or by chance. More important than the types of verbs occurring with gan, however, are other types of textual evidence. First, gan is very unevenly distributed in respect to the five books constituting Troilus and Criseyde. Per hundred lines, gan occurs 3.11 times in Book I, 5.41 times in Book II, 3.90 times in Book III, 2.76 times in Book IV, and 3.58 times in Book V. This distribution corresponds closely to the amount of narrated action as opposed to reported speech or thought in each book. For example, whereas Book II includes all the actions which bring Troilus and Criseyde together and hence has the highest proportion of gam, Book IV consists almost entirely of discussion of the imminent separation of Troilus and Criseyde and hence has the lowest proportion. 13 Furthermore, of the over three hundred instances of gan, only thirteen occur in direct discourse, and in twelve cases the dialogue consists of an embedded or "secondary" narration: Pandarus relating Troilus's battle exploits (II 194), Pandarus narrating a fictitious story about Troilus (II 509, 516, 519, 522, 541, and 542), Troilus remembering Criseyde's actions (V 571, 573, and 610), and Cassandre telling of Diane's actions (V 1467 and 1482). Thus, there is only one actual example of nonnarrative gan in the entire poem (III 160). One can conclude, therefore, that gan is a narrative device. Second, gan appears to occur in foregrounded clauses. The clauses containing gan are always declarative, never interrogative, imperative, or negative (Terasawa 1974: 102). Gan itself is formally active and perfective, and the accompanying infinitive generally denotes a dynamic, telic event, which carries the narrative forward (see the accompanying verbs listed in Appendix C).14 And the subject of gan is frequently a main participant in the narrative. Thus, by the criteria of grounding discussed in section 2.3.3, the

Textual function of gan

77

clause with gan is foregrounded and marks a mainline or backbone event, the "complicating action" of the narrative (to use Labov's distinction 1972: 363). Third, gan seems to be associated with salient or important turns in the course of events. It is very unevenly distributed within individual books. Rather than occurring at regular intervals, gam generally occur in multiples, clustering around significant events.15 In fact, a list of the actions expressed with gan (see Appendix C) could well serve as a plot synopsis of Troilus and Criseyde. Moreover, gan occurs in a number of identifiable contexts, all representing junctures in the narrative sequence: (a) changes in the time of day (e.g., II 65-71, II 906, III 1418, IV 1690, V 276, V 515, V 1108); (b) changes in scene or cast (e.g., II 80, II 614, II 943, II 1096, II 1318, II 1460, II 1668, II 1702, III 57-72, III 206, III 424, III 554-556, III 15281535, III 1556, III 1594, IV 355, IV 813, IV 1128, IV 1693, V 82, V 294, V 528); (c) introduction to or conclusion of speeches (e.g., I 204, I 329, I 506, I 596, I 1044, II 99, II 253-254, II 428, II 505, II 825, II 884, II 1619, III 182, IV 519, IV 521, V 637, V 870, V 925, V 1006, V 1456-1457, V 1538); (d) character internal changes such as resolutions or responses (e.g., I 866, I 1085, II 455, II 674, II 806, II 1159-1167, II 1337, III 155, IV 255, IV 362, IV 367-369, IV 631, IV 1427, V 433, V 1667); (e) turns in the general course of events (e.g., I 139, III 1696-1699, IV 8, V 1, V 1546, V 1745); and (f) fortuitous occurrences (e.g., I 275, II 1250, III 626, III 743, IV 58, IV 66, IV 131, IV 1213, V 1656-1659). The cooccurrence of adverbs with gan (see Appendix D) also provides convincing evidence that gan occurs at important junctures. The most common adverbs are temporal sequencers, followed by resultative and causal adverbs which express a temporal as well as a logical relation, 16 all of which function as temporal frame-shifters. Gan occurs most frequently in clauses following a tWi cm-clause; given the episode-boundary marking function of tWiijM-clauses in Middle English (see section 6.2), this placement of gan is entirely understandable. Furthermore, though manner adverbs are fairly common with gan, they are restricted to two forms, one of which (thus) can also express a resultative connection. Gan thus seems to be a narrative device used in foregrounded clauses to mark salient shifts or turns in the course of events. I will call this the "delimiting" or "demarcating" function of gan; that is, gan serves to mark

78

Middle English gan

structurally significant transitions and the beginning of new events in the advancement of the plot.

3.5.2. Comparative evidence for the textual function of gan Comparative evidence for the demarcating function of gan, though weaker than the textual evidence, is of two kinds: first, the existence of parallel functions in do and the historical present, and second, the existence of parallel functions in other ingressive markers. These discourse functions of both do and the historical present have been discussed already in sections 1.2.1 and 1.2.3. The use of a number of other ingressive aspect markers in a delimiting function in discourse attests to the naturalness of the proposed function. First, Richardson (1991a: 47-58, 1994a: 29-30, 1994b: 318-324) argues that motion verbs (such as cumari), perception verbs, and onginnan with an accompanying infinitive in Old English, which he sees as having imperfective and ingressive meaning, often "signal the beginning of new and significant episodes" (1991a: 50; see section 1.2.3). Lending support to this, Terasawa (1974: 98-99) finds that in Kyng Alisaunder and in Libeaus Dcsconus, the com + infinitive/ present participle construction in an earlier manuscript is replaced by the gan/ con + infinitive construction in a later manuscript; he rejects the notion that this replacement is due to corruption or oral mishearing. Second, though the verb comsen in Middle English, ultimately deriving from Latin com- + initiarc meaning 'to begin', is of limited distribution (occurring primarily in two texts) and lifespan (from c. 1250-1400), the MED (s.v. comsen, def. 2; also Visser 1969: 1375-1376) sees it as modeled on gan, suggests that it is "usually, if not always simply stressing the fact that something actually is done or occurs", and compares it with do. Funke (1922: 23-24) likewise attributes both "perfective" and "descriptive" functions to comsen. Third, two hendiadic structures involving ingressive aspectualizers, take and V and go and V, are attested in late Old English or Middle English to the present (see Rynell 1960: 128-131; Visser 1969: 1397-1398; Brinton 1988: 124-125) which, because of the presence of aspectually incompatible elements, more plausibly express textual rather than ingressive meaning. Both periphrases are still current, with acquired expressive meanings (OED: s.w. go, def. 32c, and take, def. IV, 25d). Fourth, the ingressive aspectualizers, break and burst (out), common in Middle English but quite restricted in Modern English, appear to have had a textual function when

Development of gin

79

occurring in hendiadic structures. Finally, Visser (1969: 1377) suggests that the ingressive aspectualizer Jrt// sometimes means "something like 'happen'", citing examples from Middle English to the present.

3.5.3. Textual function of gan outside Chaucer Lest it seem that the textual use of gan is restricted to Chaucer, a similar function has been attributed to con in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Richardson (1991a) argues that the occurrence of con in the rhymed bob and wheels which conclude stanzas can be viewed as an expedient not of verse but of narrative structure. Citing Zimmermann's (1973) argument about the structural role of the bob and wheel in repeating, summing up, or initiating the poem's content and the function of the perfect in the bob and wheel to mark transitions, Richardson suggests that this is a natural place to shift episodes (1991a: 86-87). He argues that the stanzaic boundaries coincide with narrative junctures (p. 89) and that con serves here to initiate episodes (p. 115). Beginning with a similar view that the bob and wheel serves to summarize or comment upon the action of the stanza, Aertsen (1991: 8-13) argues that the con found there serves to emphasize this interruption in the dramatic action of the narrative. He rejects the notion that con begins episodes, however.

3.6.

Development of gan

In its textual role, then, gan serves a demarcating function, occurring at stages in the narrative sequence, at points of transition between events. Specifically, it indicates the beginning of a new or significant event in the discourse. We turn now to the question of how such a function develops from the original ingressive meaning of the gan form. OE onginnan functions unambiguously as a marker of ingressive aspect with the meaning o f ' t o begin' (see Brinton 1988: 117-118); as such, it belongs to the prepositional component of the language. Because OE onginnan/ aginnan and ME aginncn only rarely occur with punctual verbs or durative/ iterative adverbials, I have argued elsewhere (Brinton 1983, 1988: 158-161) that these forms do not acquire the textual meaning of ginnen, though in particular instances there seems to be an incipient textual function (see Terasawa 1974: 90-91). These prefixed forms are entirely supplanted by

80

Middle English gan

Binnen in early Middle English, which often has an ingressive interpretation (see above, section 3.1). An alternatively prefixed bcginnan form arises in later Old English, continuing to the present (ModE begin). Like the other prefixed forms, it does not seem to have had a textual function in Old or Middle English (see Bnnton 1983, 1988: 158-161) but has taken over the purely ingressive function. The development of textual functions in an originally aspectual form can be straightforwardly explained. Because a central task in texts, especially narrative texts, is the placement and sequencing of events in time, tense and aspect forms obviously perform a crucial function (Longacre 1979a: 258). Hopper (1979b: 219) even goes so far as to define aspect as "a device or set of devices that exists in order to guide the language user through a text".17 The functional differentiation of perfective and imperfective forms in texts is well known (see section 2.3.3), and the development of such textual functions is transparent. From their propositional role in indicating the chronological sequence of events viewed as wholes, perfective forms acquire a textual function in foregrounding, while from their propositional role in indicating simultaneous or overlapping events seen as ongoing, imperfective forms acquire a textual function in backgrounding. However, little attention has been paid to ingressive aspect in discourse studies, though it could be assumed that ingressive forms might develop the secondary textual functions observed in other aspectual forms; as is the case with imperfective and perfective forms, it could also be assumed that the development of textual meanings is semantically transparent. In fact, the textual function of ME ginnen can be understood as a consequence of its original ingressive meaning. In essence, there is no change in meaning, only an extension of the scope of 'beginning' from an action considered in isolation to an action or actions considered in relation to the other actions in the discourse. This change can be considered a kind of metonymic shift, or pragmatic strengthening, as a meaning which is only contextually, or conversationally, implied becomes part of the conventional meaning of the word. The course followed by gan conforms to the directionality of semantic/ pragmatic change observed in lexical items undergoing grammaticalization (see section 2.4.1.2): namely, from propositional to textual and interpersonal meanings. Whereas aspectual meaning belongs within the propositional domain, turn-of-events meaning belongs within the textual domain. Furthermore, it seems that an interpersonal meaning develops from the textual meaning. Since situations marked by gan represent new or important stages in the plot development and sometimes happen suddenly, unexpect-

Development of gun

81

edly, or fortuitously, gan may acquire the interpersonal (emphatic, intensive) meanings mentioned by Funke and his followers. These meanings represent an increase in subjectivity (Traugott 1995b) as the speaker marks in the text places which he or she considers important. In discourse analytic terms the emphatic/ intensive function of gan is better understood as "internal evaluation"; that is, gan is a "means by which the narrator makes the story interesting, highlighting the relative importance of the various narrative events" (Silva-Corvalan 1983: 774; see further, section 4.1.4). The changes undergone by gan in its development are also compatible with syntactic changes observed in the process of grammaticalization (see section 2.4.1.1). For instance, Terasawa (1974: 104) notes that while gan to V and gan V are both common prior to 1350, gan V is "completely established", with only a few exceptions, after that time, and while gan may be separated from its infinitive in earlier texts, it is more often adjacent to it in later texts (p. 98). Both of these facts point to increasing syntactic "fixation", which Lehmann (1985: 309) views as one aspect of the process of grammaticalization. There is morphological "fixation" as well since gan becomes fixed in the third-person preterite form, most often singular (even being confused in its northern form, can, with the modal verb). This loss of inflectional variability can be seen as part of the "decategorialization" of gan, from a full verb to a quasi-auxiliary and finally to a dummy auxiliary. In one view, there may also be a loss of scope, or "condensation", as jwz comes to modify a verb rather than itself taking an infinitival complement, but in another view, it is possible to see the acquisition of textual and interpersonal functions as, in fact, an increase in scope, as pragmatic gan relates to larger textual and situational contexts than the purely propositional^iw. The development of gan shows clearly the phenomenon of "divergence" or "form/ meaning asymmetry" since gan continues to function as an ingressive aspectualizer in certain contexts while assuming textual/ interpersonal functions in other contexts; eventually, of course, in what can be understood as a case of "renewal", beginnen takes over the ingressive function and contributes to the loss of gan in this function. Finally, in its later development, the propositional or textual gan seems to have been coopted as a metrical expedient; for example, nearly half of the cases in Shakespeare occur in his short poems, and none occurs in prose. This move ultimately leads to gan s complete loss of meaning and disappearance, a movement to 0 marker compatible with the known path of grammaticalization. The course of development proposed thus differs from Fischer's suggestion (1992: 267) that the metrical exigency gan "could be easily turned to stylistic use". The unidirectionality of

82

Middle English gan

grammaticalization would dictate that the (meaningful) textual function precedes its (meaningless) metrical function. The development of gan can be schematized as in Figure 3.1. Changes over time are recorded here on the horizontal axis, while changes between the components of language are recorded vertically, as they represent synchronic changes. The superior placement of the propositional component is meant to indicate that propositional meanings are the source of textual and interpersonal meanings, as suggested by the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. While gan would seem to be a particularly clear case of the ephemerality of pragmatic markers, since its use did not last beyond the Middle English period, we have seen that other ingressive expressions (such as go/ take and or up and) may have taken over this delimiting function in contemporary colloquial narrative.

3.7. Conclusion In conclusion, Funke's original description of the stylistic function of gan now appears more credible. In suggesting that the function of gan was to indicate "the kind of sequencing and placement of [the] action in the entire succession of events", Funke seems to have come close to articulating the textual function of gan as a marker of discourse structure. However, his insistence on the discreteness of the propositional, textual, and interpersonal functions and on the primacy of the latter (emphatic/ intensive meanings), combined with his failure to provide linguistic evidence, weakens his arguments. This chapter has provided evidence based on the distribution of gan within the narrative structure of an extended text (Troilus and Criseyde), comparative evidence of parallel functions in other ingressive forms, and evidence derived from the textual functions of aspectual forms in general to argue for the role of gan in Middle English in marking significant transitions or junctures in the narrative plot and, secondarily, in expressing the narrator's evaluation from within the text. The development of these textual and interpersonal functions in gan follows principles of semantic/ pragmatic change found in the process of grammaticalization, pointing to the unidirectionality of change from propositonal to nonpropositional meaning and for the conventionalizing of contextual implicatures.

Conclusion

83

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0 l-,

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intern;

ζ

ε " Χ (Λ J

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'S

e

Ζ ω

ΐ

Q j C

s ο

4-1

C

textual > interpersonal, with an optional textual stage, set out in Traugott's flow chart (1982: 257). It seems clear that the interpersonal usage does not represent a development from the textual function, but rather a direct development from the propositional function as it evolved over time; there is no plausible way to derive the sense of 'coming, at your service' from the textual function of denoting salient or important elements. Whether the interpersonal function develops from the propositional sense of 'at once' or 'shortly' is difficult to say, but given the timing of the propositional change and the first appearance of anon meaning 'coming' (first recorded in the OED in 1553), it seems best to derive it from 'shortly'. It also seems most plausible that a servant would utter anon as a delaying tactic when planning to attend his or her master 'shortly' rather than 'instantly'.

112

Middle and Early Modern English anon

This unilinear course of development has two implications not borne out by the progression of anon. First, it suggests that if both interpersonal and textual functions develop, the developments are linked: the interpersonal devolves from the textual. However, in the case of anon, interpersonal and textual functions develop quite independently. Second, while it allows for semantic change within all of the components, it does not link these changes, specifically those within the prepositional component, to the development of textual and interpersonal functions. Presumably, at any point in the development of the prepositional meaning of a lexical item, textual or interpersonal functions could arise, thus allowing for multiple textual and interpersonal functions over time. But specific textual and interpersonal functions are linked to and can arise from only certain propositional meanings. For example, in the development of anon, the textual function can derive from the meaning 'at once', but not from the meaning 'shortly', whereas the interpersonal function most likely develops from the meaning of 'shortly'. In order to capture the crucial link between changes in propositional meaning and the possible development of textual and interpersonal meaning, as well as the independence of textual and interpersonal meanings, the grammaticalization of anon should therefore be schematized as in Figure 4.1. The relative ordering of the textual and interpersonal reflects the pattern found by Traugott (1982, 1988, 1989; see also Finell 1986) for interpersonal functions to develop later than textual functions (see section 2.4.1.2), as when the evaluative function develops from the textual function. However, no necessary link is made between the two components since interpersonal functions may develop independently, as is the case here with the attentiveness function. Thus, the progression of anon is more in accord with Traugott (1995b) in which she has abandoned the linear progression propositional > (textual) > interpersonal, adopting the view that "grammaticalization does not operate along a single dimension" but rather along "correlated diachronic continua".

4.5.

Conclusion

ME anon thus functions as a pragmatic marker, as defined in Chapter 2. While continuing a propositional function with the meaning 'at once', it takes on a textual function as a kind of foregrounder. It denotes those events which are "more foregrounded", that is, plot-advancing actions which are

Conclusion

113

IT:

-

X

B _

7

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anooivid

_1 -> K U < Z

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rt

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114

Middle and Early Modern English anon

causally, thematically, and humanly important in the context of the narrative, and it serves to emphasize the sequence of events, moving the narrative forward in time. The events are also salient in that they are evaluatively marked as significant actions relevant to the point of the story. As with all pragmatic markers, the occurrence of anon is not obligatory; it need not be used in all possible contexts. Thus, its appearance is surely motivated in many cases by metrical demands, as nothing prevents a textual marker from being put to metrical use. A metrical function does not entail that ME anon is merely an "empty filler", however, since the form may preserve its textual and prepositional functions even in cases of metrical exigency. Anon continues to serve a textual function in the late Middle English of Malory, but this function does not seem to have remained beyond the period. This loss is perhaps attributable to the semantic shift in anon from 'at once' to 'shortly' in Early Modern English, a meaning incompatible with the textual function, but conducive to the development of an interpersonal function as a marker of attentiveness.

Chapter 5

Old English episode boundary markers

5.0. Introduction It is generally agreed that medieval narratives lack a tight linear or global plot structure; rather, the narrative develops by the repetition of relatively autonomous episodes. Medieval narrative consists of "a loosely-knit sequential structure of individual adventures strung serially along a line of action", generally unified around a single protagonist (Evans 1986: 126). In an episodic narrative, the "story is advanced in a series of relatively independent units following each other in paratactic sequence", that is, loosely juxtaposed with no connective narrative (Clover 1974: 58, 64; also Lönnroth 1976; Byock 1984-1985). A medieval narrative is comprised of episodes punctuated by descriptive passages or comments by the teller (Bloomfield 1970: 99). This episodic organization is usually attributed to the oral characteristic of medieval narrative (Clover 1974: 82). Since the episode is the "major poetic and semiotic principle in medieval narrative" (Evans 1986: 129, 130) or the "atom" of medieval narrative (Lönnroth 1976: 44), it would seem obvious that the delineation of episodes would be an important narrative task. In Old English narrative, it has been shown that pa serves a function in initiating episodes (see section 1.2.1), though its episode-boundary marking function is generally thought to be secondary to its other functions, such as foregrounding. Furthermore, as Foster (1975: 410-411) observes, \ia is relatively "unobtrusive", so "to highlight the progress of the narrative" longer temporal phrases, such as syppan 'afterwards', ponnc 'then', or ceftcr pyssum wordum 'after these words', must sometimes be used. However, Foster does not go far enough: not only phrases, but entire clauses such as pa gclamp pcet and pa gewcard pa is usually present, either sentence initial or postverbal, and an adverbial phrase or clause, sometimes quite lengthy, may precede the complement clause or be preposed to the main clause. Despite their frequency, these collocations pass virtually without comment in grammars of Old English. However, Wahlen (1925: 69-86) records the variety and frequency of impersonal constructions denoting the course of events, Gorrell (1895: 404-410) gives a classification of these verbs, and Denison (1993: 67) lists these HAPPEN-verbs among the set of impersonals.

5.1.1. Textual distribution Ge/ijmp-constructions seem to occur almost exclusively in narrative, judging from the Toronto Concordance (Venezky—Healey 1980) and the HCET. They are common in Alfred's translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical history of the English people, in Waerferth's translation of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, in ^Ifric's Lives of saints and Catholic homilies, and in the Anglo-Saxon Bible (where wees ge-/ α-worden are the exclusive forms); they occur less frequently

The gelamp-construction

117

in the Blickling homilies, Alexander's letter, the Life of St. Chad, Apollonius of Tyre, Alfred's Orosius (where gcwcard is preferred to gclamp), ^Elfric's Old English version of the Heptateuch, and the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. However, they can also be found in Old English verse; with the aid of Bessinger (1978), I have collected fifteen examples of the construction in the poetry. 2 In the discussion which follows, my examples come primarily from Bede and

5.1.2. Contexts of occurrence To a great extent, ^e/omp-constructions occur at the episode transition points recognized by discourse analysts for Modern English (see section 2.2.2). In most instances, they occur at points of "temporal elasticity," or gaps in the temporal sequence: (1)

a.

Da W3es ceftcr moncgum dagum, p3et se cyning com to pam calonde, & het him ute setl gcwyrccan. 'Then it was, after many days, that the king came to the island and ordered them to make him a seat in the open air' (Bede 1,25,58.18-19) 3

b.

t>a waes py seofodan gcare hire untrymncsse, paette seo adl & pcet sar hwyrfde in hyrc innooas. 'Then it was, in the seventh year of her affliction, that the disease and pain attacked her internally' (Bede 4, 23, 338.22-23)

However, another kind of change almost always accompanies the temporal change. For example, ^e/ijmp-constructions occur at points of change in the setting of the action: (2)

a.

E>a gelamp ceftcr pon paette Peahtc dcod com of Scyddia lande on scipum & pa ymbcerndon call Breotonc gemcero, pcet hi comon on Scotland upp ... 'Then it happened after that that the people of the Picts came in ships from Scythia and passed around the whole British coast till they landed in Ireland

(Bedel, 1,28.7-9)

118

Old English episode boundary markers

b.

Gelomp sumc dcegc, da we fcrcndc wceron mid hicnc, dxt we bccotnan on smednc fcld & rumnc; & wees gcscropc crmcwcg. 'It happened one day, when we were traveling with him, that we came to a smooth and spacious field; and it was a suitable racecourse' (Bede 5, 6, 398.28-30) Swa hit siddaii gelamp/ ymb lytcl f&c pact dcet Icodtncegen, / g lia'lcp to Hicnisalcin/ cwoinon in pa ccastrc corora mcestc,/ eorlas ci'scrofc, mid pa ceoclan cwcn. 'So it happened after a short time that the company, heroes renowned in battle, came to the city of Jerusalem with the mightiest of followings, men brave in battle, with the noble queen' (AS PR 2, £/e«c271-275)4

(3)

a.

Mid p y lie pa1 1 pa longre tide fordhcold & dyde, pa gelomp sume dcegc, poet he wees from pcern mynstrc for sumum pingefyr gongende. 'When he had observed and done this for a long time, then it happened one day that he was going for some thing to a distance from the monastery' (Bede 4, 25, 352.15-16)

b.

pa gelamp hit on pcs dceges Annuntiatio see Marie [past] se earl Waleram of Mellant ferae fram his an castel Belmunt het to his an oder castel Watteuile. 'then on the feast of the Annunciation of St. Mary, it happened that Waleran, count of Meulan, went from one of his castles, called Beaumont-le-Roger, to another of his castles, called Vatteville' (Anglo-Saxon chronicle [E] 1124.4-6)

Because the narrative generally follows the movements of the protagonist from place to place, it is more common for episodes to begin with arrivals at a new location (2) rather than departures from an old location (3). Gelampconstructions also occur at points where new characters, whether human (4) or animal (5), appear, or where previously introduced characters reenter the narrative (6):

The ^[-imp-construction (4)

119

a.

Da gelamp hit paet sum dry hcrmoincs Achaten äsende his gingran philetntn to darn forcseedan apostolc. 'It then happened that a certain sorcerer named Hermogenes sent his disciple Philetus to the aforesaid apostle' II 27, 7-9)5

b.

pa geburode hit p [ret] 510» saccrd fcrdc on pain ylcan wege. 'then it happened that a certain priest was traveling along the same way' (Anglo-Saxon Bible [Luke] 10.31; cited in Venezky— Healey 1980)

(5)

Hit gelamp pa sona pnrh godcs forc-sccawungc pact an swcart hrcm pcerßeah sonc to. & bc-wcrodc pert lie . . . 'It happened then immediately through God's providence that a black raven soon flew thither and guarded the body' (y£LS [Vincent] 239-241)6

(6)

pa gelomp paet sc ilcagconga, sc de on his cagan nntmm wees, pa in ocere ilcan cyrican wees ondwcard. 'then it happened that the same young man, who was suffering in his eye, was then present in this same church' (Bede 4, 32, 382.22-24)

I have found only one example of an episode beginning with the removal of a character, that in which Andrew narrates the actions of the apostles following Christ's death: (7)

Swa gesaelde iu piet sc sigcdema/ fcrde,frca mihtig. 'So it happened of old that the victorious judge, the mighty lord, departed' (ASPR 2, Andreas 661-662)

Because of the hagiographic nature of most of this narrative material, death does not simply remove a character from the scene, for in martyrdom a saint often continues to have an effect in the narrative events. Gc/awp-constructions also denote changes in the central event being narrated. In such cases, the protagonist may simply embark on a new series of actions (8), or an action, such as a command (9a) or an accusation (9b), or an event, such as a fire (9c) or a volcano (9d), may evoke a response or reaction from the participants in the narrative, thus serving as the instigating cause of the new episode:

120

Old English episode boundary markers

(8)

a.

oa gelomp, biet hco onfeng rnynstcr to timbrenne & to cndebyrdienne in stowe, sco is gccegcd Strincshalg. 'then it happened that she undertook to build and outfit a monastery at the place which is called Whitby' (Bede 4, 13, 334.4-5)

b.

getimode piet sutnc wyrhtcw afundoii done stan cet pees screefes mude. and hinc au>cg awiligdon. 'it happened that some workmen found the stone at the cave's mouth and rolled it away' (/ECH II 27, 207-209)

c.

eeftcr bam getidde p[a;t] Ecgferd gcbohtc hoc & land cet Aldclstan caldonncnn . on cyngcs gcwitncssc . & his witena. 'After that it happened that Ecgferth bought the title deed and land from the nobleman /Ethelstan on the knowledge of the king and his counsellors' ("History of the estates of Sunbury and Send", Charter of 1447 27; cited in Venezky— Healey 1980)

a.

Pa gelamp hit past man bead barn tunreede be his snna on afeddc weeron beet man sccolde (wegen cempan gescyrpan to bcercfyrde. 'Then it happened that someone commanded the council of the town in which his sons had been brought up that they should equip two soldiers for the army' [Eustace] 297-298)

b.

Da gewearö hit on pisum ilcan tirnan oööc litle cer pet Brihtric Eadrices broOor caldormanncs forwrcgdc Wulfnod did pone Supseaxscian to pam cyning. 'About this same time or a little before, it happened that Beorhtric, the brother of the ealdorman Eadric, made an accusation to the king against Wulfnoth, a child of the Southsaxons' (Anglo-Saxon chronicle [E] 1009.8-10)

c.

ba gelomp past beet hus call wees infyren & ongon scmninga byman. Pa beet pa gebeoras gesawon, baßugon hcoforhte ut ... 'then it happened that the whole house was on fire and suddenly began to burn. When the guests saw this, they fled out in fright ...' (Bede 3, 10, 180.28-30)

(9)

d.

The gelamp-awfrwf /ίο»

121

pa ge-timode hit ymbc twclf-monad cpftcr agalhcs prowungc cthna up ablcow swydc cgcslicc ontcndnyssc.

and

'then it happened about twelve months after Agatha's passion that Etna blew up with a very fearful fire' [Agatha] 221-223) While ^e/ijwp-constructions may appear at points in the text where the possible --world changes, they also appear at a number of related points, which can all be classified as changes of state. The changes may be physical, such as injury (lOa), illness (lOb), death (lOc-f), 7 sleep (10g), or waking (10h); they may be intellectual, such as cognition (lOi); or they may be spiritual, such as sin (10j), miraculous cure (10k), religious conversion (101), or a vision (10m). They may also involve an external change of state (10η): (10)

a.

t>a gelomp mid ba godcundan forcsconncssc pa?rc synnc to witnungc tninrc unhcrsumncssc; da u hreowscndc wees, da ic mid dy hcafdc & mid honda com on done stan dry/an.

'Then it happened through divine providence in punishment of my sin of disobedience when I was falling, then I came driving with my head and hand on the stone' (Bede 5, 6, 400.26-28) b.

Alftcr disnin gelamp pact mice I manncwcalm becom ofer dcere romaniscan Icodc.

'After this it happened that a great plague came over the Roman people' II 9, 89-90) Hit gelamp pa rade . paet hi of life gewytan . and Icefdon heora azhta pam cedelum mannum.

'It happened then quickly that they departed this life and left their possessions to the noble people' [Julian and Basilissa) 79-80) d.

Da gelamp hit bet sc cyng /Edelred fordferde cer da scipu comon.

'Then it happened that king ^Ethelred died before the ships arrived' (Anglo-Saxon chronicle [E] 1016.35-36)

1 22

Old English episode boundary markers

e.

Hit gelamp eac swilce on odrum timan. past anre wydewan sunu wearo to deade gebroht. and hrcedlicc gcwat fram woruldlicum bricum. 'It happened also at another time that a widow's son was brought to death and suddenly departed from worldly enjoyment' (^ECH II 34, 146-148)

f.

Hit gelamp pa sona . swa hi ofslagene wceron . paet mycel liget com . of er b a manfullan hcedcnan. 'It happened then, as soon as they were slain, that a great lightning flash fell upon the wicked heathens' (j£LS [Julian and Basilissa] 422-423)

g.

pa waes cefter mcdmiclumfcpcc, baette sc ilca Codes wer his leomu in stilnesse gesette & hinc gercstan woldc, & onslcptc. 'then it was after a short time that the same man of God set his limbs to rest, wishing to repose, and slept' (Bede4, 11,296.1-2)

h.

Da gelamp hit pest god woldc biet sco haligc gcfcrrceden aweht bcon sceoldc. 'Then it happened that God willed that the holy company should be awakened' [Seven sleepers] 427-428)

i.

t>a geweard \>am chtcmm on hcora yfclntn gcbcahtc . piet hi fra godes halgan on hcardum bcndum gclcddon . to anntn bradum mere mid bysmorfullum cdwitc. 'Then it came into the evil minds of the prosecutors that they led God's saints in heavy chains to a broad lake with ignominious taunts' (/ELS [Forty soldiers] 139-141)

j.

Gelomp him in gcogudhadc Ins, pie t he surnc maandcedc gefremede. 'It happened in his youth that he committed some transgression' (Bede 4, 25, 350.12-13)

k.

oa gelamp him semninga mid gifc bare godcundan arfcestnesse burh rcliquias oces halganfa-dcr Cudbryhtcs gch&lcdnc beon.

The gelamp-c 0H5f rwcifOn

1 23

'then it happened to him suddenly by the grace of the divine goodness to be healed through the relics of the holy father Cuthbert' (Bede 4, 32, 382.11-13) Hit gelamp da cet hcerc mcessan . paet man rceddc pcet godspell ...pa cwced . lucia . mid gelcafan to hire tncder. 'Then it happened at mass that someone read the gospel ... then Lucy, full of faith, said to her mother'

[Lucy] 10-14) m.

Hit gelamp eft siddan pact he on swcfne anc gcsihdc be him sylfurn gcscah . 'It happened afterwards that he saw in a dream a vision concerning himself

II 28, 102-103) n.

Him on fyrstc gelomp,/ a'drc mid yldurn, pact hit weard calgearo,/ healarna nicest. 'It happened to him after a while, speedily with men, that it became all ready, the greatest of halls'

(ASPR 4, Beowulf 76-78) In all cases, the changes of state denoted by ^r/tfwp-constructions initiate a new course of events, that is, a new episode. For example, sleep may lead to a dream or vision, waking or thought to action, religious conversion to a saintly life, sin to a life of penance, and illness to death. It is especially common for the deaths of holy people to be indicated in this way, since their deaths frequently lead to miraculous events or cures. Another context in which ^c/rtrnp-constructions occur is prior to an exemplum or instantiation of a general truth: (11)

Sculon we anc cydncssc his mcpgcncs sccgan ... Gelomp sumrc tide, paet sco ceastcr Contwara burgc bitrh ungcmcennc synna wcaro fyrc onbcerned. 'We shall give one proof of his power ... It happened once that the town of Canterbury was set on fire by sinful carelessness' (Bede 2, 7, 118.1-3)

Moreover, it is common for ^r/iwip-constructions to occur in the environment of two or more of the changes identified thus far, such as change in time and place (12a), change in place and participant (12b), change in par-

124

Old English episode boundary markers

ticipant and specificity (12c), change in participant and state (12d), or change in place and action/ event sequence (12e): (12)

a.

Da gelamp hit cet sumiim cyrrc paet he fcrde into anre byrig fre man constantinopolim ncmncd. 'Then it happened at a certain season that he went into a city which is named Constantinople' [Seven sleepers] 16-17)

b.

E>a ge-wearo him on mcrgcn piet hi frone munuc Iceddon to fram halgan martinc . ac sc munuc noldc. 'Then in the morning it happened that they would lead the monk to the holy Martin, but the monk did not wish to' [Martin] 820-821)

c.

E»a waes ceftcr mcdmicelrc tiidc, pa he on pa?m horse scet, pact him cwom sum frcarfa togeanes . . . Forpon he. WCPS swidc mildhcort & pcarfena bigenga . . . 'It was then after a short time when he sat on horseback that a poor man came to him . . . For he was very benevolent and cared for the needy . . . ' (Bede3, 14, 196.10-14)

d.

Hit gelamp hwilon paet an wod man gcscet beer cer sc cadige wer hine cer gercstc. and he wearo gcwittig ... 'It happened once that an insane man sat where the blessed man had previously rested, and he became sane ...' (ΛΕΟΗ II 34, 256-258)

e.

Hit gelamp pa ceftcr fyrstc . paet pa ungc-lcaffullan hcedcnan gcbundon frone bisccop . and to dcerc byrig rauenna geleddon on bendum. 'It happened after a time that the unbelieving heathens bound the bishop and led him in bonds into the city of Ravenna' (/ELS [Apollinaris] 154-156)

One does not find ^e/drnp-constructions at points of transition in the narrative perspective; point of view is not extensively manipulated in Old English narrative, and when it is changed, it is usually sufficiently marked by the verbs of communication which introduce direct discourse. With this one exception, therefore, all of the episode-initiating changes identified for Modern English, plus a number of other changes of state, are marked in Old English by ^e/dmp-constructions. There thus appear to be more types of

Tlic elam-fiwifrwf/uxi

125

Table 5. 1. The functions of^'f/iwi/j-constructions in Old English Initiate an episode - cooccur with a gap in temporal sequence a change in the setting of the action arrival departure a change in character introduction of a new human or animal character remtroduction of an old character removal of a character from the action a change in the central event initiation of a new series of actions response/ or reaction of a character to a situation a change of state illness, death, sleep, wakening, cognition, cure, conversion, vision, and so on Introduce an exemplum or general truth Terminate an episode

initial episode boundaries than previously recognized by discourse analysts. Finally, much less frequently, ^c/amp-constructions mark the termination of an episode, the end of a sequence of actions involving a single participant, as in the examples in (13). The functions of ^e/amp-constructions are summarized in Table 5.1. (13)

a.

Him aeode swa sc halga him gewitegode. past he on dam tcodan gcare his cyncriccs. and his lifes öolodc. 'It befell him so as the saint had foretold him, that in the tenth year he lost his kingdom and his life'

(jECHII 11,259-261) b.

Bctwux dysum gelamp paet oflifegcwat hcere wudewan sunu . and se witcga hine arcerde eft ofdeadejjurh his drihtnes mihte. 'In the meantime, it happened that the widow's son departed from life, and the prophet raised him again from death, through his Lord's might' [Book of kings] 69-71)

126

Old English episode boundary markers

c.

Hit oa gelamp. be dees lareowes wordum . pact facet wif gewittig. hine mid wordum gegrette. bced facet heo moste him mete geardan. and cydde hu se deofol. hi dearnunge forlet. and swideforhtigcnde.fleames ceptc. da da se halga faider sidode. 'It happened, according to the teacher's words, that the woman in her senses greeted him with words, prayed that she might prepare him food, and informed him how the devil had secretly left her, and greatly fearing, had taken flight while the saint was journeying thither'

(/ECU II 10, 153-157) The construction serves to summarize and conclude the episode, which often ends as it has been foretold. The construction may even be used to narrate an episode in summary form, as (13c) shows.

5.1.3. Accompanying adverbials The temporal adverbials in Old English ^ί'/dwp-constructions also point to the episode-boundary marking function of the construction. Frequently the adverbials denote the "gap" in the temporal sequence typical of episode boundaries: cefter unmonegum gearum (Bede 3, 17, 204.13) 'after not many years' cefter feawum dagum (/ELS [Eustace] 141) 'after a few days' siddan cefter lytlum fyrstc on pees cascrcs dagum (ALLS [Agnes] 261-262) 'after a little while in the days of Caesar' noht micclre. tide cefter his siege (Bede 3, 9, 178.18) 'not a great time after his death' cefter monegum dagum (see [la]) 'after many days' fay seofodan gcarc hire untrymncsse (see [lb]) 'in the seventh year of her affliction' on faes dceges Annuntiatio sec Marie (see [3b]) On the feast of the Annunciation of St. Mary' ymbe twelf-monad cefter agathes farotvungc (see [9d]) 'about twelve months after Agatha's passion' cefter medmidum feecc (see [10g, 16b]) 'after a short time' on mcrgcn (see [12b]) 'in the morning' cefter medmicelrc tiidc (see [12c]) 'after a short time' cefter litlum fyrstum (see [14a]) 'after a little while'

The gelamp-co/ttirwciio«

127

(tfterjylgendrc tide (see [14c]) 'at a later time' monigger (see [14i]) 'for many years' Or they denote some indefinite time, which also implies a temporal discontinuity: on pam dagum (viiLS [Eustace] 151) 'in those days' oet sumum cyrrc (see [12a]) 'at a certain season' sumc dceg(c) (see [2b, 3a, 14h, 15c]) One day' in (see [7]) Of old' on oorum timan (see [10e]) 'at another time' sumrc tide (see [11, 17e]) On one occasion' hwilon (see [12d]) Once' on sumum dcegc (see [15a]) On a certain day' on sumnc seel (see [15bJ) 'upon a certain occasion' cet sumum scele (see [16c]) 'at one time' However, at other times, the temporal adverbials simply show temporal succession: frotinc (Bede 5, 14, 442.21) 'then' after fron (see [2a]) 'after that' after pam (see [8c]) 'after that' after öisum (see [10b]) 'after this' after dison (see [14b]) 'after this' raöe (see [10c]) 'quickly' scmninga (see [10k]) 'suddenly' siööan (see [10m]) 'afterwards' Or they express temporal simultaneity between two events: in scolfan tid (Bede 3, 7, 168.2) 'in this same time on pisum ilcan timan (see [9b]) 'about this same time' in ilcan tid (see [15g]) 'at the same time' In neither of these latter two cases do the adverbs serve to designate an episode boundary. Less frequently, the adverbials in ^f/amp-constructions express the causal relation between events. The grounding role of such adverbials is more significant than their episode-boundary marking role and will be treated below (see section 5.2.2).

128

Old English episode boundary markers

5.2. Grounding functions of the ^e/amp-construction Apart from occurring in the context of episode boundaries, the constructions considered in this chapter serve an important function in the grounding structure of discourse. Just as earlier studies have pointed to the foregrounding function of OE pa (see section 1.2.1), as well as to its episode-boundary marking function, the remainder of this chapter will consider the grounding functions of larger ^e/flm/)-constructions containing pa. Such a construction typically consists of a main clause (e.g., pa gclomp 'then it happened'), an adverbial (e.g., sumrc tide On one occasion'), and a complement clause (e.g., pcztte Ccdd hamferde 'that Cedd travelled home') (see 17e below).

5.2.1. Grounding of the complement clause According to the criteria of grounding presented in section 2.3, the complement clause of the HAPPEN-verb in the^e/d/rip-construction is ambiguously grounded. By syntactic criteria, it appears to be backgrounded, but by semantic criteria, it would appear to be foregrounded. The most salient characteristic of the complement clause is its syntactic embeddedness or subordination, evidenced by the presence of the complementizer pcet; this would suggest a backgrounding function. In fact, the correlation between subordination and backgrounding has been strongly asserted.8 Chvany (1985a: 1, 1985b: 249, 1990: 216) considers syntactic subordination "an icon of backgrounding", and Reinhart (1984: 796) sees embedding as a "powerful means", along with the past perfect and noniconic order, by which an author may background temporal (and otherwise foregroundable) material. For Dillon (1981: 132, 134), "subordinate clauses do provide a way of inobtrusively enriching the background of ideas and assumptions" and of establishing "a hierarchy or ranking of importance of ideas". Tomlin (1985) has tested this correlation in an empirical study and found it generally correct, with over 80% of subordinate clauses containing backgrounded material. The association between subordination and backgrounding rests on an analogy between syntactic structure and larger textual structure, with syntactic dependency corresponding to textual dependency. For example, according to Matthiessen—Thompson (1988), syntactic subordination grammaticalizes larger textual dependency, namely that of "satellite" (roughly, background) to "nucleus" (roughly, foreground). However, the association

ix function $ of tin· gclanip-ri'»5frMffiELS [Dems] 115-117)

f.

t>a gelamp purh Godcs gifc, pcet se cyning eac swylce betuh obre ongon lustfullian pa-t dcenostc life haligra . . . 'Then it happened through God's gift that the king also among others began to take pleasure in that pure life of holy men ...' (Bede 1,26,62.10-11)

g.

Da wees geworden, pcettc pcerc scolfan ncahtc pa brohton ban utc awunedon, ncmnc mon gctcld ofcr ahrcvddc. 'Then it was that the same night the bones when brought remained outside, except that someone spread an awning over them' (Bede 3, 11, 182.23-24)

h.

Hit gclamp pa sumc dceg . da da sc hallend sidodc pa?t sum man him cwced to. 'Then it happened one day when the Savior journeyed (=was journeying) that a certain man said to him' (/ELS [Memory of the saints] 154-55)

i.

E>a he da monig ger in paere foresprecenan maegoe biscophad pegnade, swylce eac pisses mynstres gemaenne dyde, & paer prafost & ealdormon gesette, pa gclomp pcette he to pcem seolfan mynstre becwom in pa tide pcerc miclan dcadlicncsse & wooles . . .

Grounding functions of the gelamp-fOHSirwrfiott

131

'When he then for many years had served as bishop in the aforesaid province, and also had taken charge of the monastery, and established there a prior and head man, he happened to arrive at this same monastery at the time of a great mortality and plague (Bede 3, 23,232.16-19) In a few instances the complement clauses of the j^e/amp-constructions are actually marked formally as backgrounded, that is, by containing a state verb (15a; see also 6 wees ondweard 'was present', 14g awuncdon 'remained', and 17c wees onweard 'was present'), an activity verb (15b; see also 16a rad 'rode [ = was riding]'), which would be translated with a past progressive in Modern English, an imperfective aspect (15c; see also 3a wees gongende 'was going'), including one denoting an iterative activity (15d), a perfect aspect (15e), an irrealis mood (15f; see also 12b Iceddon 'led [=would lead]'), or a passive voice (15g; see also lOe wcard gebroht 'was brought', 1 Ok gchcelcdnc beon 'be healed', 11 wcard onbcerncd 'was set on fire', 14b wcard gcscoten 'was shot', and He wceron gcrnartyrodc 'were martyred'): (15)

a.

Hit gclamp on sutnutn dcegc. da da godcs cnglas comon. and on his gcsihdc stodon. da waes car swylcc se scucca him betwux. 'It happened on a certain day, when God's angels came and stood in his sight, then was also Satan among them'

II 30, 19-21) b.

Hit gclamp on sumnc sa>l pci't In sieton cetgadcrc . oswold . and aidan . on bam halgan castcrda'gc. 'It happened upon a certain occasion that they sat (=were sitting) together, Oswald and Aidan, on the holy Easter Day'

[Oswald] 87-88) c.

t>a gclomp sumc da'ge, {)a-t he wxs in pa'm foresprccenan wicnm mid anc brcdcr wuniende, fw s noma u>a-s Owinc. 'Then it happened one day that he was dwelling in the aforesaid place with one brother whose name was Owini' (Bede 4, 3, 262.27-28)

d.

Donon gclomp pcctic pa scolfan moldan, peer his lichoma gcfcol, monige men neomende warron . . .

132

Old English episode boundary markers

'Then it happened that many men were carrying away the very clay where his body fell (Bede 3, 9, 178.5-7) e.

Hit gclatnp pa su>a pert sc gclcaffnHa oswold nordhymbra cyning waes cumen to cyncgylsc. 'Then it happened so that the faithful Oswald, king of the Northumbrians, had come to Cynegils' (/ELS [Oswald] 131-132)

f.

t>a gclamp him sum pcet celccrc mcessan. pcet hi ne mihton wunian binnon dcere cyrcan cet dam husclgangc . ceftcr pees diaconcs clypungc. 'Then it happened to them so at every mass that they could not remain inside the church at the partaking of the eucharist after the deacon's call' I 11,351-353)

g.

Da gclomp in da ilcan tid, peet sc Codes wer waes dydcr geladod mean to halgianne from deem ilcan gcsidc. 'Then it happened at the same time that the man of God was invited by this same retainer thither to consecrate a church' (Bede 5, 4394.18-19)

Thus, in numerous cases, the complement clauses are atypical of forgrounded clauses in one or more respects. But I do not think that they are truly backgrounded. They conform to the three qualities that Dry (1983: 3235, 46) argues must be present in order for subordinate clauses to be foregrounded. The complement clauses generally contain finite activity, accomplishment, and achievement verbs in the inceptive or perfective aspect (but see above, examples [15a-g]). The events denoted are new; they have not been previously mentioned in the discourse. And, most importantly, they are temporally-sequenced events, presented in iconic order and generally part of the mainline of events in the narrative structure. That is, by expressing backbone events essential to plot development, the clauses meet the semantic criteria discussed in section 2.3.2 for foregroundedness. Chvany (1985a: 14-15, 1985b: 255, 270, 1990: 221) has argued that the two-way grounding contrast between main and subordinate clause is inadequate and has replaced it with a five-point scale in descending order of foregroundedness: (a) main clause; (b) complement of main verb of saying, phrasal verb, or modal verb;

Grounding functions of the gehmp-ccwstructwn

133

coordinated clause; or nonrestrictive relative clause; (c) other complements, including nominalizations; (d) adverbial clauses; restrictive relative clauses; and (e) participles, gerunds, and predicate nominals.9 I would include complements of main clause verbs of happening with complements of verbs of saying (b), which for Chvany (1985b: 270) "are more like main clauses than other complements". 10 It seems, therefore, that the complement clauses constitute what Reinhart terms the "subsidiary foreground" (1984: 785), or what Jones—Jones (1979: 12) might classify as "significant background" (see section 2.3.1); they would occur quite high on the "spectrum" of grounding postulated by Longacre (1981). Nonetheless, the complement clauses of j^c/ijwp-constructions in Old English are not at the highest level of the foreground, remaining to some extent backgrounded. Reinhart (1984: 799) notes that the choice to present temporally-ordered events as background rather than foreground is "subject to various (widely studied) aesthetic and functional, or perceptual, considerations". What, then, are the functional considerations in Old English narrative which lead to the (relative) backgrounding of temporally-ordered mainline events in the complement clause of the ^c/amp-construction? I would like to suggest that certain mainline events are backgrounded in this fashion if they constitute the initiating or instigating event of the episode, what Longacre (1981: 347) calls the "inciting event". Such events are temporally or causally prior to the core events of the episode; they establish the necessary conditions for the episode to occur. In a sense, they are the reason for the ensuing episode. Frequently, therefore, they involve someone or something external acting upon the main character, new characters appearing to interact with the main character, the main character moving to another location in which new events can take place, or the surrounding circumstances undergoing a change. Fludernik (1991: 370, 372) calls the initiating event the "incipit" of an episode and observes that in Modern English colloquial narratives, it is frequently signaled by discourse markers such as and or so. Cognitive linguists have also defined the episode as consisting of just such an initiating event followed by the reactions of the protagonist to this event. For example, Mandler—Johnson (1977: 119) point out that the "beginning" section of an episode often expresses events which cause the protagonist "to respond in some way", while Rumelhart (1975: 214) describes episodes as involving "the reactions of animate (or anthropomorphized) objects to events in the world. The episode consists merely of some event followed by the reaction of the hero of the episode to the events."

134

Old English episode boundary markers

Work on OE pa has suggested the existence of these episode-initiating backgrounded clauses without explicitly identifying the £e/flm£>-construction. Generally, the introductory clause is seen to be one giving the time, place, or circumstances of the actions of the episode, what Longacre (1979b: 118) calls the "ice breaker". For example, Wärvik (1987a: 89) notes the existence of "backgrounded introductory clauses", perhaps containing temporal subordinate clauses, before the first foregrounded clause in a segment; Enkvist (1986: 304, 305, 306-307) points to backgrounded clauses which introduce "a frame setting for the narrative proper"; Enkvist—Wärvik (1987: 230) argue that a new substory often begins with a definition of temporal setting or the introduction of a new character before the narrative itself; and Waterhouse (1984: 269) observes that many of the chapters in .XElfric's "Life of Martin" begin with one or two clauses which set the scene or make general statements. 11 Hopper (1992: 220-221) notes that verb-initial clauses which begin episodes generally have an intransitive verb, expressing either motion or location, an identified subject, or a newly-introduced patient. They have a "re-orienting" function in specifying the location of the next episode or in introducing a new participant. The examples given in (16) clearly show that the complement clauses of the ^e/a gcseah hefrefrcndc gcsihdc. 'then it was after a short time that the same man of God set his limbs to rest, wishing to repose, and slept. Then he saw a comforting vision' (Bede4, 11,296.1-3; example (10g) repeated here for convenience)

Grounding functions of the gelamp-comirwrtron

135

Da gelamp hit cet sumum scelc. swa su>a gyt foroft ded. beet cngliscc cypmcnn brohton hcora ware to romana byrig. and Grcgorius code be dcere street to dam cngliscum mannutn hcora ding sceawigende. t>a geseah he betwux öam warum, cype-cnihtas gesette 'Then it happened at one time, as it still often does, that English merchants brought their wares to Rome, and Gregory went along the street to the Englishmen, viewing their things. Then he saw among their wares youths placed for sale'

II 9, 53-57) In each case the actual episode, the events directly involving the actions or reactions of the main participant, begins with the sentence following the ^c/ijmp-construction. This sentence is foregrounded in the recognized ways of Old English, namely, with the use of pa.}7>

5.2.2. Grounding of the adverbial clause The adverbial indications of time and reason which occur in the episode boundary constructions of Old English, since they are usually interspersed between the main verb and its complement, are syntactically more deeply embedded than the pcet-clauscs denoting the initiating events. They are semantically more backgrounded as well, as can be seen in Chvany's classification of subordinate clauses (see above), which places adverbial clauses next to last in foregroundedness. Like all subordinate clauses, adverbial clauses are thought to express given information (Fleischman 1990a: 179180).14 They are standardly seen as having primarily a cohesive or anaphoric function in texts and as being topics (themes), especially when preposed to the main clause. An adverbial clause in initial position has a "strong tendency to refer backwards to the topic of the immediately preceding clause(s)" (Winter 1982: 80, 91, 165) while the following main clause introduces a new topic. Longacre (1981: 339) notes that adverbial clauses are used in a "secondary capacity": they denote "script-predictable events" and "do not so much announce new events as use references to past events for the purposes of cohesion" (see also Cook 1986: 73). Altenberg suggests that preposed subordinate clauses express known or presupposed information (1984: 6364, 1986: 21, 1987: 53, 59) which picks up the topic of the preceding clause (1984: 58-60, 1987: 52-53). Preposed adverbial clauses with given information create a thematic link to the preceding context by repeating or summarizing it (Matthiessen—Thompson 1988: 305, 313; also Thompson 1985:

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Old English episode boundary markers

81; Thompson— Longacre 1985: 229). According to Marchese (1987: 270272), sentence-initial subordinate clauses serve as topics, contain old or assumed information, function as linking devices on the local level, and are backgrounded. Considering the adverbial clauses of time in the ^e/dmp-constructions given earlier in this chapter, we can see that they always express old or given information and are thus backgrounded. In (3a), the abstinence mentioned in the adverbial clause is described in the previous paragraph; in (9d), the adverbial phrase referring to Agatha's passion occurs at the end of a tale about that passion; in (lOa), the fall of the protagonist from his horse is mentioned several lines earlier; in (lOf) the death of the protagonists occurs some ten lines earlier; in (12c), the previous context describes how the bishop is given a horse to use and thus his sitting on the horse can be presupposed; in (14h), the Lord's travels are implied though not explicitly stated in the previous context; and in (14i), the bishop's erection of the monastery is described in the previous paragraph. Similarly, the following examples of adverbial clauses of time also express old information: (17)

a.

Hit gelamp pa on fyrste pa pa p^et folc pider sohte to bam micclan screfe . pier pa martyras lagon . p&t sc cascrc hct ahcbhan cennc wah to pees scrczfcs ingange 'It happened then after a time when the people went thither to the great cave where the martyrs lay that the caesar commanded a wall to be built at the cave's mouth' (/ELS [Chrysanthus and Daria] 333-336)

b.

Pa gelamp hit on öam dagum pe das foresprecenan pinge gewurdon . pid Eastcngle & pidcr to gcfcohtc cwom. 'When he had done so for a long time, it happened that Penda, king of the Mercians, led his troops against the East Angles and advanced to a battle there'

(Bede3, 18,208.17-18) e.

E>3es be heo pa eal pa lond purhferdon & micle cirican & gesomnunge Drihtne gestryndon & begeaton, pa gclotnp sumre tide, pcette Cedd hamfcrdc ... 'After they had traveled through all the land and acquired and won over a large church and congregation to the Lord, then it happened on one occasion that Cedd traveled home ...' (Bede3, 22, 226.12-14)

f.

Ond forpon, ba öis gefeoht neah Winwede streame waes gefohton, wjes seo ea pa for regna micelnesse swiöe reöe, & heofonflod micel onsaet, pagclomp, oa heo fleonde waeron, pat par tniclc ma tnoticytmcs adronc on p am wceirc, ponne mid sweorde ofslcgcn wcerc. 'And therefore, when this battle was fought near the river Winwede, the river was then very rapid on account of heavy rains, and heavy floods filled it, then it happened, when they were fleeing, that there was a much greater number of men drowned in the water than was slain with the sword' (Bede3, 24, 236.16-20)

g.

Mid by heo pa longe symbledon & druncne wasron, & ba spearcan up flugon in paes huses hrof, se waes mid gyrdum awunden & mid piece bepeaht, pa gelomp pcet pcet hus call wees in fyrcn & ongon semninga byrnan. 'And when they had been long feasting and were drunk, and the sparks flew up to the roof of the house, which was interwoven with twigs and thatched, then it happened that all the house was on fire and suddenly began to burn' (Bede 3, 10, 180.26-29; example (9c) repeated here for convenience)

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Old English episode boundary markers

h.

Fordon, pa hine nion eft in gefeohte slog, pa gelomp pcette him mon aheow pa hand mid fry carme ofpcem lichoman. 'For when he was afterwards slain in battle, then it happened that they cut off the hand with the arm from the body'

(Bede3, 6, 166.12-14) In (17a), the people's frequenting the cave is mentioned in the previous lines; in (17b), the adverbial clauses refer back to events described in the previous context, and (17c) follows immediately after a description of the king's baptism. Note the explicitly anaphoric forcsprcccnan 'aforesaid' in (17b; also 14i). In these three cases the adverbial clause follows the gclamp verb, but it may also be preposed, as in (17d); here the adverbial clause summarizes the events of the previous context, and the pcet is anaphoric. Example (17e) contains both a preposed and postposed adverbial; the preposed adverbial refers to the results of the commandment to Cedd to proselytize given in the preceding sentence, while the postposed adverbial is a simple temporal phrase. Adverbials likewise occur in both positions in (17f), where the postposed adverbial refers to clearly old information, the army's flight, mentioned five lines earlier, while the preposed adverbial gives a detailed description of the circumstances of this flight. In contrast, the temporal adverbials in (17g) and (17h) are not clearly old information. In (17g), however, I believe that the information in the adverbial clause is "script-predictable" and hence understandable as old information. 15 In (17h), the protagonist's death is not mentioned prior to the adverbial clause, but here his death is background information, or insignificant in a sense, since the focus is on the fate of his hand, which has been blessed and survives undecayed after his death. Adverbs of cause or reason may also occur in the ^c/dm^-construction. For the most part, these express the known or script-predictable fact that something happens through God's providence or Satan's will, because of a human being's sinfulness, or as has been foretold: purh Codes gifc (see [14f]) 'through God's gift' purh godes forc-sccawungc (see [5]) 'through God's providence' midpagodcundanforcsconcsscpcrre synnc to witnungc minre unhcrsumncssc (see [10a]) 'through divine providence in punishment of my sin of disobedience' mid gife pcere godcundan arfastncssc (see [10k]) 'by the grace of the divine goodness' pcetgod woldc (see [10hl) 'that God willed'

Grounding functions of the gelzmp-construction

139

inbryrdendum pcemfeond calm gode (Bede 3, 22, 226.31-32) 'through the instigation of the enemy of all good' for /elness (/ELS [Holy cross] 20) On account of evil' hurh ungemcenne synne (Bede 3, 17, 204.21) 'because of sinful carelessness' su>a se halga him gcwitcgode (see [13a]) 'so as the saint had foretold him' be dees larcowcs wordum (see [13c]) 'according to the teacher's words' In only three cases that I have found do adverbials introduce a potentially new reason: for his langsiimum fcerc (see [14eJ) 'because of his longjourney' fore his cyndicnessc gc modes ge onsynes & his gccanmnge wyrdnesse (Bede

3, 14, 194.33-35) 'because of the kingliness of his spirit and his looks and his high merit' fturh hces cyofco (Bede 3, 23, 230.15) 'through his information' However, Christ's longjourney, the king's character and appearance, and the priest's informing are all mentioned in the previous context; therefore, these express old information. In another case, the narrator questions the reason, but I do not think that this can be considered new information: for sumum intingan (Bede 4, 25, 352.2) 'for some reason' Thus, the adverbial clause of the OE ^c/amp-constructions expresses old information, by repeating or summarizing events in the preceding context or by expressing events which are predictable from or implied by the preceding context. It corresponds to what Wärvik (1987a: 88-89) calls an "orienting temporal subordinate clause" in Old English. Its role is often clearly anaphoric and cohesive. In both respects, it serves a backgrouding function, one which is retrospective in nature. But I believe it has a prospective grounding function as well such as has been suggested by others working on subordinate clauses. For example, Winter (1982: 118) points out that adverbial clauses generally serve to present the basis or grounds for the deduction or conclusion in the main clause. Talmy (1978: 632) sees them as providing the temporal reference point, or ground, for the following figure. More specifically, Dillon (1981: 135-137) suggests that initial adverbial clauses give "the circumstances or conditions under which the rest of the sentence holds" and establish "the portion of the world crucial for the interpretation of the main clause" (see also Cook 1986: 71). And Altenberg agrees that

140

Old English episode boundary markers

preposed subordinate clauses have a "grounding function", introducing background against which information in the superordinate clause is to be interpreted (1984: 57, 1986: 21) and serving as a "suitable starting point for the more important information in the main clause" (1986: 21). Finally, Silva (1981: 288) finds that preposed w//a/-clauses "provide the context for interpreting the present [episode], thus filling the episodic gap". We can therefore understand the adverbial clause of^r/rtw/j-constructions, especially when preposed, as serving as the grounds or starting point, expressing the temporal and causal circumstances according to which the ensuing clauses are to be understood.

5.2.3. Function of the matrix clause A final question involves the function of the main clause verb of happening in gclamp-constmcuons. Like their complements, the main gclatnp-clauses pose a problem for a theory of grounding, since by syntactic criteria they are foregrounded, but by content criteria they appear unimportant or extraneous and hence logically backgrounded. Gorrell (1895: 404-410) provides a clue to understanding their function. He classifies the ^/«//ip-clauses as "simple introductory expressions" or "introductory particles". He argues that they may be used "not only to vary a long succession of direct statements, but also ... to prepare the reader for a statement about to be made" (p. 405).16 Considering cases in which backgrounded information appears in independent clauses, Tomlin (1985: 108-109, 116) identifies one of their two functions as "metacomments" on the text or act of text-formation, such as Scene goes back to little fish or Okay, here comes the picture.^1 Such metacomments, Tomlin observes, have subordinated to them a dependent clause with foregrounded information; they direct "the hearer's attention to a new major event sequence by describing the structure" of the text. Clover (1974: 62, 71-72) notes that in the "preface" section of a scene, folkloristic expressions such as Once upon a time may occur and that introductory saga formulas are common there. Mandler—Johnson (1977: 118) have found that in the "setting" section of a story or episode an expression such as Once upon a time or /( happened that, often occurs; it serves a "formal function by signaling to the listener that certain types of event sequences will follow" and it "activates a story schema". Prince (1982: 127-128) classifies such expressions as "metanarrative signs", one function of which is organizational and interpretive, to "guide our reading" and show how a given text is to be

Syntactic status of constituents of the gehmp-construction

141

understood. In general, Stubbs (1983: 63, 64) points out, metacomments "guide messages" and "have to do with the structure of discourse itself. Polanyi—Scha (1983: 266) also point out that metacomments are one of the discourse-structure signaling devices which mark movement from one unit to another. 18 I would argue that the main gclamp-chusc serves as just such a metacomment on the narrative structure, indicating that a new discourse unit, a new episode, is about to begin. iy It has what Chafe (1984: 444) recognizes as an orienting function, serving as a "kind of'guidepost' to information flow, signaling a path or orientation in terms of which the following information is to be understood". It orients the reader to the flow of events in the narrative, tracing the main route through the text, and relating the episode which follows to what precedes.

5.3. Syntactic status of constituents of the gelampconstruction The grounding of the different constituents of the ^e/amp-construction sheds light on their syntactic status in Old English. Traugott (1993) argues that /wf-clauses in Old English are first embedded as complements of the noun phrase or adjective phrase (Stage I), then as object (Stage II), and only later in the post-Old English period as subject.20 In Stage I, she suggests, they are not fully embedded but are a "kind of satellite construction or adjunction". We saw above (section 5.2.1) that the />c?f-clauses in ^e/tjwi^-constructions in Old English are not truly backgrounded, but serve as part of the "subsidiary foreground", or the second highest level of foregroundedness on Chvany's scale. This would suggest that they are not as backgrounded syntactically as they initially appeared to be. For example, Gorrell (1895: 405) observes in passing that the complement clauses of verbs of happening are only weakly subordinated. Visser (1963: 25) argues that the restriction of the j?