The Semantics of Syntactic Change: Aspects of the Evolution of 'do' in English 9783110846829, 9783110112832

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The Semantics of Syntactic Change

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 47

Editor

Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

The Semantics of Syntactic Change Aspects of the Evolution of do in English

by

Dieter Stein

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1990

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

Stein, Dieter, 1 9 4 6 The semantics of syntactic change : aspects of the evolution of do in English / by Dieter Stein, p. cm. — (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs : 47) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-89925-346-6 (alk. paper) 1. Do (The English word) 2. English language — Syntax. 3. English language — Semantics. I. Title. II. Series. PE1317.D6S75 1990 90-6579 422 — dc20 CIP

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Stein, Dieter: The semantics of syntactic change : aspects of the evolution of do in English / by Dieter Stein. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1990 (Trends in linguistics : Studies and monographs ; 47) ISBN 3-11-011283-3 NE: Trends in linguistics / Studies and monographs

© Copyright 1990 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30 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. Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin Printed in Germany

Preface This study has profited during the long course of its evolution from the comments of many colleagues and students whom it would be tedious to try to enumerate. Those who are meant will know. I would, however, like to emphasize a very special debt of gratitude to the editor of the series, Werner Winter, for his repeated and patient help and advice. Gratitude of a very special kind is also due to my assistant and my student assistants for their help in scholarly matters and their very pragmatic, secretarial and "gofer"-type help, including making lots of very strong coffee.

List of abbreviations 2S

second person singular present, in co-occurrence with the second person pronoun thou (e.g. thou sing' st) 2T second person singular preterite in co-occurrence with the second person pronoun thou (e.g. thou receivd'st) 3S third singular present you second person with person pronoun you non-you all other person categories, excluding second persons and, additionally in the present, the third singular (for these first five abbreviations see chapter 7.2) + or -pg see chapter 7.3.3 wk verbs with weak preterization str verbs with strong preterization d preterite wh wh questions yes-no yes-no questions decl declarative sentences SPP verbs denoting speech acts, verbs of perception and performative verbs (see chapter 5.7) The following abbreviations occur mainly in the chapter on the subjunctive and are explained there in more detail (10.3): fin finalistic sentences vol volitional sentences MA, mod-aux modal auxiliaries NM category with no surface marker in a person category pret form of the preterite IRR irrealis subjunctive aff finite form (the affix may be 0 ) per periphrastic form (with appropriate form of do, like doth, did etc.)

Contents Preface List of abbreviations Chapter One: Introduction

1

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Theoretical motivation Why re-study the development of do? Theories and data Heterogeneity of explanatory dimensions Structure of presentation

1 5 6 8 9

Chapter Two: Do up to the fifteenth century

11

1. Phases of do development 2. The origin of "meaningless periphrastic do" 3. Do in the Paston letters (1422-1509) 4. The democratization of do: a speculation

11 16 21 23

Chapter Three: Do and discourse structure

31

1. Do as a marker of discourse-semantic prominence 2. Saliency and foregrounding 3. Foreground and contrastiveness 4. Local foreground structure markers

31 35 37 38

Chapter Four: Syntax and style in the sixteenth century

43

1. Do in the sixteenth century: the quantitative problem 2. Standard and prose style 3. Main stylistic currents 4. Relevant stylistic structures 5. Imitating Latin syntax 6. Antithesis

43 44 46 50 56 59

X

Contents

Chapter Five: The semantics of do in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

63

1. Analysis of a pamphlet by John Fisher (1521) 2. Authority 3. Rhetoric and foreground 4. Rhetorical questions 5. Negation 6. Intensity 7. Performatives, speech act verbs, and verbs of perception 8. Logical relationships 9. Standardization and synonyms

63 64 67 82 85 87 93 99 101

Chapter Six: Unity and diversity: style, dialect and the semantics of do before 1600

103

1. Use and semantics 2. Syntactic versus semantic explanation 3. Do as a marker of courtly speech 4. Do in low texts 5. The demise of courtly do 6. A case study: Early American letters 7. Semantic, stylistic and dialectal diversity, and German tun 8. Methodological considerations

103 106 108 121 126 131 136 141

Chapter Seven: Do in the Shakespeare corpus

143

1. An initial hypothesis 1.1. The problem 1.2. The phonotactics and frequency of thou + st 1.3. Methodological advantages of the Shakespeare corpus 2. Subcategorizations and terminological conventions 3. Phonotactics and periphrasis frequency 3.1. Differences between person and tense categories 3.2. Differences between phonetically defined types of verb stems in the present 3.3. Differences between syntactic contexts in the present 3.4. Generalization in the present from thou + you

143 143 144 146 148 150 150 151 154 162

Contents

XI

4. Diachronic interpretation of the synchronic pattern 4.1. Analysis of the preterite and diachronic interpretation of the subcategorical pattern 4.2. Stability of the variational pattern 5. Further strategies of avoiding (d)st 6. Negatives

168 172 175 178

Chapter Eight: Do in questions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the statistical evidence

179

1. 2. 3. 4.

Methodological considerations Corpora analyzed From raw data to indices: an example Periphrasis frequency in questions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the evidence

168

179 180 182 183

Chapter Nine: The mechanics of generalization

195

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

195 198 203 208 210 213 220

Individual utterance versus system Naturalness and isolect Micro-structure of generalization I Rhetorical and other questions Micro-structure of generalization II Frequency and residuals Poetic uses

Chapter Ten: Third singular morphology and syntax

223

1. 2. 3. 4.

223 226 229 230

Inflectional ending and verbal syntax The transition from th to s The phonotactic factor Parallels between third singular and do development

Chapter Eleven: Subjunctive

233

1. Overview and purpose 2. Historical development of subjunctive marking 3. The structure of subjunctive marking in Early Modern English 4. The inflectional motivation of subjunctive marking 5. Do in subjunctives

233 234 238 247 250

XÜ

Contents

Chapter Twelve: W7i-questions

255

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Motivations for analyzing w/z-questions Empirical data Results Interpretation Dimensions of directionality

255 256 258 259 262

Chapter Thirteen: Natural and social aspects

267

1. The semantic unity of do uses 1.1. The rise of epistemic do 1.2. Do in negation 1.3. Exclamatives 1.4. Emphatic do 1.5. Typology and grammaticalization 1.6. Semantics of do and inversion 1.7. Further word-order factors 2. Natural tendencies 2.1. Motivations for naturalness 2.1.1. Individual and group 2.1.2. Natural tendencies and prediction 2.1.3. Conflict between internal and external factors 2.1.4. Types of natural tendencies 2.1.5. Theoretical orientation of naturalism 2.2. Natural tendencies in the development of do 2.2.1. Similarity 2.2.2. Economy and simplification 2.2.3. Long-term and short-term goals 2.2.4. Syntactic environing of phonological processes 3. Semantic directionality: subjectivization 4. Social and varietal aspects 4.1 .Do and written standard 4.2. The diversity of Jo meanings 4.3. Order and grammar 4.4. Medium and meanings of do 4.5. The unfashionableness of thou

267 267 269 271 272 275 278 280 282 282 282 284 287 289 292 296 296 300 306 311 313 317 317 318 322 325 328

Conclusion

333

Contents

xiii

Appendices

335

Bibliography

415

Index

443

Chapter One Introduction

1. Theoretical motivation There are several reasons for embarking on a new analysis of a classical question of historical English syntax, the rise of a periphrastic form of do + verb in thirteenth-century Middle English, which eventually resulted in a grammaticalization of do in questions and negation and emphatic use as in Modern Standard English from the seventeenth century on. The theoretical reasons concern the notions of "natural" and "social" language change. The distinction between "natural" and "social" factors is to a large extent equivalent to the ones made by Campbell between "internal" and "external" (1980:18ff.) and by Coseriu (1974:195, note 76), natürlich and künstlich. By "social" forces are meant factors such as prestige, identification, and the effect of the status and needs of varieties and styles, paradigmatically demonstrated by Romaine (1982). The term "natural" has been given preference over "internal" because it indicates a line of research that is more specific than "internal" suggests. DuBois (1985) includes in his definition of "external" discourse-pragmatic preferences of clause structure, while recognizing as "internal" only those that are part of the structural make-up of an autonomous linguistic system in the sense of Saussurean langue. External, for him, are all factors and preferences deriving from pragmatics and use. The latter are included in our notion of "natural". Our use of the term "natural" follows more closely Campbell's and Coseriu's concept of "external" in being explicitly focussing on the prelinguistic and broader-than-linguistic determinants of language development. Trying to identify "natural" factors of language development means focussing on those two types of factors which determine the course of development in our specific syntactic case: those which may be called general cognitive or behavioral factors which affect language use (such as economy or "the principle of least effort"), and those discourse-based preferential clause

2

l.

Introduction

structures which tend to freeze into grammaticalized structure. It is clear that these two groups are not independent of each other, but possibly represent the effect of the same tendencies on different ontological levels of language. The definitional relationships can be represented as in figure 1, which locates the most frequently discussed factors along a continuum of external and internal. It makes clear that the use of "internal" (the upper tier of labels in figure 1) subsumes both "natural" and DuBois' concept of "internal". This definition of "natural", "internal", and "external" implies that factors inherent in the abstraction of an autonomous system like the prior existence of a paradigmatic pattern (e.g., auxiliary + verb) or Lightfoot's (1979) "transparency principle" are internal, but not natural, and also not social. It also defines the developmental direction of the universal, naturally-based process of grammaticalization (Lehmann 1985, 1987). The programmatic use of "natural" as a research program has two implications. The first is that the aim is to apply to syntax a research orientation that has gained momentum in the analysis of other levels of language. Amongst the earliest work in the identification of naturalness is Stampe (1969), who points out that the child's verbalizations would result in "verbal pabulum" if only ease of articulation as a natural tendency were operative. Stampe (1969:444) describes natural phonological tendencies in the following way: I assume, then, that in its language-innocent state, the innate phonological system expresses the full system of restrictions of speech: a full set of phonological processes, unlimited and unordered. The most extreme processes are usually observable only in infancy: unstressed syllables are deleted, clusters and coarticulations are simplified, obstruents become lax stops, Unguals become coronals, vowels merge to a.

Ohala (1974) and Fromkin (1970) refer to inherent anatomical, physiological, and neurophysiological constraints characteristic of all vocal tracts. As pointed out above, naturalness-oriented research received much of its momentum from pidgin and Creole studies. Bickerton (1981:489) observes wide-based, cross-ethnic processes, as in, e.g., copula deletion due to "universal processes of assimilating consecutive vowels". Without needing to expatiate on the subject any further, it should be mentioned that the most explicit approach to naturalness in phonology is by Bailey (1973), who establishes directionality by defining natural change as moving from marked to unmarked segment structures, and

Theoretical

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1,

Introduction

Hooper (1976). Naturalness theory is currently best developed in morphology (Mayerthaler 1980, 1981; Wurzel 1984a, b, c; Dressier 1985a, b). The principal tendencies identified here are constructional and serial iconicity, morphosemantic transparency, and uniformity in the paradigm. What is cognitively similar should also be so in its formal representation. Naturalness is here a function of semiotic motivatedness. Under this aspect, morphology is optimal to the extent that it is non-arbitrary. The classical conflict is, of course, with natural phonological tendencies which have the effect of countermanding the effect of morphological optimization. As is usual in linguistics, the application of natural change theory to syntax has been the last to be elaborated. Work is going on to define a basis for what might constitute elements of a natural syntactic structure (Haiman 1985), but there is as yet no application to syntactic change theory. This is an additional reason for undertaking a case study. The second implication is an a priori commitment that an internal in the strict, narrow-scope sense as used by DuBois in particular syntax-internal, explanation will not do. This commitment will be substantiated in the course of the presentation on both theoretical and factual grounds - inasmuch as these two aspects can be separated. Rather, the corollary of a naturalness-based approach is to look at the discourse-based semantics of syntax. Tieken (1987:4) mentions a suggestion by Traugott (personal communication) that the evolution of do should be studied from a "semantic", i.e., a functional, point of view. The present study intends to do just that. In fact it may be said that one of the central messages of this study is that, at least in the case under investigation, syntactic change is not syntactically-driven, but semantically-driven with syntax as the frozen, grammaticalized, syntacticized results. Previous research in language development has tended to focus on either the natural or the social approach, neglecting the effect of the one on the other. Although various scholars have called for such an integrative view (Campbell 1980, DuBois 1985) these calls have largely remained unheeded, as scholars have, understandably, given heuristic preference to identifying one rather than the other, a procedure which is to some extent an epistemological necessity. In order to show that a factor does indeed have the potential to determine the course of linguistic change, it is necessary to identify cases "where each force operates alone, its competitors having dropped out of the picture, so that its full effects can be observed..." (DuBois 1985:355).

Why re-study the development

of do?

5

2. Why re-study the development of do? In addition to theoretical considerations, the subject of the rise of do has received fresh attention in the recent renewal of interest in historical linguistics. After the towering monograph by Ellegärd (1953), work on the subject seemed to have subsided, as there appeared to be, at the time, a communis opinio that the problem had been solved. The very fact that a spate of articles has been produced on the subject in recent years after a long silence indicates that there was an increasing feeling that the case might profitably be re-opened - a suggestion that seems reasonable after some 30 years, given the openness of historical hypotheses as a matter of principle, and given the advances of linguistic theory. This alone suggests a re-analysis. In addition, several generative treatments rekindled research interest in the subject (Hausmann 1974; Lenerz 1979; Lightfoot 1979). Another motivating aspect for the renewed interest was generated by the current research in word order and word-order change. It must be said that all hypotheses put forth in previous work, including Ellegärd (1953), relate the rise of do in its Modern Standard English functions in some way or other to word-order considerations (avoidance of inversion, fitting a pattern of auxiliary + verb) typically an asemantic, formal explanation. The present study will argue that this was a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. Furthermore, recent work by investigators not committed to any particular theoretical orientation has presented empirical findings or theoretical points which were at variance with hypotheses put forth in earlier work (Ard 1982; Frank in press). Additionally, some of the earlier work of the present author (Stein 1978a, b) suggested an influence of phonology on syntax in the form of the use of do to avoid phonotactically undesired consonantal clusters in the inflectional ending (cf. chapter 7, section 1). This suggested the possibility of testing to what extent the rise of do might also be related to the reduction of inflectional verb endings - a case involving a natural ease-ofarticulation tendency as a triggering factor. This is an even more likely possibility, as recent work has suggested phonetic erosion as a factor behind word-order change (Vennemann 1975) and behind semantactic change in general (Liidtke 1980a, b). In this connection it should be pointed out that an obvious and important piece of contrastive evidence has gone surprisingly

6

l.

Introduction

unexploited in previous work, with the exception of Hausmann (1974). As will be demonstrated, German tun and other cognates show surprising similarities and differences in their development and varietal distribution, and these will be used as arguments in interpreting data on English do. Finally, recent growth in interest in varieties, dialects, and standardization provides an additional motivation for aiming at a view that integrates dialectal uses, rather than at one that focuses only on uses in the written standard, as system-oriented approaches tend to do. Tendencies or teleologies based on, or derived from, analyses of the autonomous system tend to be restricted to the system underlying the written standard varieties, while neglecting the plentiful use of do in declarative sentences in other varieties.

3. Theories and data Having mentioned several reasons for re-studying the development of do in English, it now seems appropriate to clarify the theoretical position behind the present study on a more general level. This study is not primarily an attempt to use historical data to evaluate a particular synchronic theory in the sense of Kiparsky's (1968) famous window metaphor. Nor is it an attempt - or at least it tries not to be to validate a particular approach that is primarily diachronically oriented. The express intent is to give equal consideration to all approaches. The German physicist and philosopher Hans Peter Dürr (1984) has cast the sorting-out or data-creating effect of theories, wellknown to theoreticians of science, in the metaphor of the fisher and his net. What fish he catches will depend on the kind of net he uses and on its texture. In other words, his theoretical parameters determine the type of data and place constraints on his possible results. Naturalness theory is nothing but a relatively new kind of net, although a promising one. This is why nobody in historical linguistics can claim to have found a final solution. There is no theory-free or zero-degree analysis. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool positivist or purportedly theory-abstinent philologist is under the yoke of descriptive theoretical categories. Recent typological research has made clear how shaky even such notions as "subject" and "sentence" are - terms which one would be

Theories and data

1

tempted to accord the status of primitives. Previous research has cast out other nets. At various points the present study will identify aspects where divergences from previous researchers' results are due to different types of net. One consequence of different nets and different fish is that the respective results may not be commensurable. This applies above all to the results obtained by applying generative-transformationally based approaches to the history of do (Lightfoot 1979; Hausmann 1974; Lenerz 1979). It is clear that these authors' data are different from those presented here. A case in point is Hausmann (1974). Although Hausmann includes the German standard and dialectal situation, he does so from a point of view that is entirely different from the ones espoused here. His vantage point does not include the question of the meanings of do, or the way in which those meanings are related to the varieties dimensions in a systematic manner. Therefore, the reason why these approaches will not be referred to as often as might perhaps be expected is simply that results and data are not comparable. What are important data in the approach used here semantics, varieties, internal variational structure - will fall through others' nets, and be non-data. For instance, a central assumption underlying the analysis in this volume is that an important piece of evidence for the motivation of a process of change comes from analyzing it as close as possible to its point of departure in the variable area. The underlying philosophy is that the environment in which the new form appears earliest and (with some caution) quantitatively most frequently will give us a clue to why it appears at all. This, it must be stressed, is not meant to depreciate earlier studies or their results; they are simply not comparable. Each approach defines its own criteria of falsifiability. The truth is nobody's. Obviously, future students of the subject will use still different nets with different textures as the theoretical orientation of linguistics changes, more or less in line with general intellectual climates. It is hoped that future research will cast out other nets and make transparent other structurings of data.

8

1.

Introduction

4. Heterogeneity of explanatory dimensions Giving equal chances to all possible explanatory dimensions has other consequences for the theoretical homogeneity of the present study. If the purpose is to identify, in a kind of longitudinal study, as many forces as possible that have determined the course of the events, it is a priori evident that there will be several disparate forces at work. This applies particularly to external forces operating on a process which extends over a chronological distance of nearly 500 years (from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century). This period sees the massive influence of Latin and French style and syntax. There is the onset of mass literacy in the eighteenth century; the rise of a written standard; various stylistic fashions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the regulatory forces in the eighteenth century. It seems highly unlikely that the history of do should be untouched by these external developments. At the same time, these influences make do an ideal testing ground for the dialectic between internal and external forces. The consequence is, of course, that the study has to straddle several disciplines which are at times institutionally at odds with each other. In particular, it will not be possible to stay strictly within the bounds of an even very liberally conceived notion of "linguistics". As the enumeration of potential external forces has indicated, the study also deals with literary history, with which hard-core linguists may not feel at ease. For scholars of philology or English literary history the difficulty is likely to be the other way round. But no excuse is made for this difficulty. Given the aim of the study, to elucidate the history of a particular form, the unifying common denominator is that form. It would be unfair and unnecessarily blinkered if it were to be restricted to only one aspect. It is, however, to be hoped that the different disciplines are presented in a way that will make the linguistic issues readable for more stylistically oriented scholars and vice versa. There has to be a trade-off between the depth of technical detail to which the issues can be pursued and the need to enable readers from other disciplines to follow the discussion. Because of the number of issues necessarily encountered in a case of such complexity, this is also a quantitative problem. So it is hoped that the cut-off points will do justice to both the heterogeneity of the issues and the forbearance of readers not interested in all of the issues raised.

Structure

of presentation

9

5. Structure of presentation A chart (figure 2.1) giving an initial survey of the uses of do that existed in particular periods of English can be found at the beginning of chapter 2. This chapter will also define some of the central explananda. Others will appear at later stages of the discussion as more empirical data are presented. The structure of the volume roughly follows the diachronic course of events. Developments in Middle English (1100-1500) are discussed in chapter 2. Chapters 3 to 6 deal predominantly with the sixteenth century and chapters 7 to 12 look at processes which are chronologically located from the end of the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, with chapter 13 situating the individual processes and phenomena in a coherent view, and evaluating their theoretical impact. There is a distinct change of gear from chapter 6 to chapter 7. Chapters 3 to 6, while containing discussion of the linguistic issues, are primarily concerned with the influence of literary style on the use and semantics of do. This is because these types of external factors are assumed to be the dominant ones up to this stage. From the late sixteenth century onwards (i.e., from chapter 7 onwards) it will be claimed that internal forces have predominantly determined the course of events. As a consequence, the discussion of natural forces gravitates towards the second half of the study, starting with chapter 8, section 1.2. In a way, chapter 13 is the central chapter of the study since it integrates the diachronic analyses of separate, or separate-looking, grammatical areas, such as the development of subjunctive marking (chapter 11), of verb-morphological changes (chapter 10), and the internal evolution of periphrasis in different types of wh questions (chapter 12). These areas have, of necessity, been analyzed separately in their own right, with the focus on perspectives under which they are relevant to the overriding concerns of the study. For instance, a functional relationship between the appearance of do and the loss or undesirability of inflectional endings is at the center of the argumentation from chapter 12 onwards. For this reason, the chapter on the change from /ö/ to /s/ in the third singular present (from "singeth" to "sings", chapter 10) looks at a correlation of morphology and syntax. If the overall structure of presentation is narrative, some of the chapters are modular in character. They go back chronologically

10

1.

Introduction

beyond the discussion of phenomena in Middle and Early Modern English (chapters 2 to 6). This is the case in the chapters on verb morphology (chapter 10) and the subjunctive (chapter 11). This also applies, however, to the discussion of certain theoretical issues such as: the role of frequency; comparison with cognates of do in other languages (e.g., German tun); the relationship between the structure of meaning of do and the varieties situation (standard versus dialect) as well as points raised in previous work (e.g., the role of word-order considerations). These issues are raised, and their relevance to the interpretation of the data pointed out, after the individual complexes of data have been presented. However, the final evaluation of major theoretical issues is only possible in chapter 13, after the presentation of all the empirical data.

Chapter Two Do up to the fifteenth century

1. Phases of ^-development Although the main focus of the present study is on developments between 1500 and 1700, it seems appropriate to provide first a rough scaffolding within which the phenomena can be located. Table 2.1. is adapted from Traugott (1972:199) and gives a survey of the uses of do in English at different periods of the development of the English language. As any chart of "uses" will be, table 2.1. is of course theory-laden and reflects and anticipates the results of the analysis in the following chapters. This is particularly manifest in those aspects of the table where it departs from Traugott's scheme. In contrast to Traugott no distinction is made between a function of do designated by her as "truly, indeed" ("I believe they do like warfare") and as "optional tense carrier" ("He did go [=He went]"). These two categories are represented here by a single category "meaningless periphrastic". This term is only used here as a category label to relate to previous research in which it is the current label. Much of the following discussion will in fact center around showing that it was not meaningless at all, but semantically contiguous to causative, which is indicated by placing it immediately below the causative function. Another difference is that there is no "optional tense carrier" category extending into Modern English but a separate category "emphatic (=contrastive) do". This represents the position of the present study that although there appears to be an unbroken syntactic continuity, there is semantically a watershed between the earlier "meaningless periphrastic" and the later use in declarative sentences in Standard English. The placement on the chart above questions and negation is intended to symbolize the semantic common denominator it shares with these two categories. The labels "meaningless periphrastic", as well as the labels "emphatic" and "contrastive", will be clarified later.

12

2. Do up to the fifteenth

century

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