Cover not available
Part of
Word Order Change in Acquisition and Language Contact: Essays in honour of Ans van Kemenade
Edited by Bettelou Los and Pieter de Haan
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 243] 2017
► pp. 213–239

Chapter 10
The rise and fall of the passive auxiliary weorðan in the history of English

| Meertens Institute Amsterdam

This paper gives a quantative analyisis of the dynamics of the passive auxiliary weorðan favouring passive BE in the history of English. Weorðan displays a rise-and-fall pattern rather than a decline pattern: it forms a peak, which is interpreted as a ‘failed change’. This failed change turns out to be dynamically connected to another failed change: the rise-and-fall of strict V2 in Old English. The connection between strict V2 and the need of weorðan (and its counterparts) is considered: (1) language-internally in Dutch (dialects), (2) cross-linguistically in Romance and Germanic, (3) diachronically for Old and Middle-English. By using a Giorgi/Pianesi-style syntactic projection of Reichenbachian S,E,R-events, we provide a model that includes V2 and the passive diathesis, which predicts this correlation.

Article outline
  • 1.The decline of weorðan in English
    • 1.1The problem
    • 1.2Previous approaches
  • 2.Sensitivity to tense/aspect periphrasis
    • 2.1Aspect sensitivity in Dutch (dialects)
      • 2.1.1Standard Dutch
      • 2.1.2Passives of causative constructions in Dutch and Middle Dutch
      • 2.1.3WERDEN in Dutch dialects
    • 2.2Aspect sensitivity in Rhaeto-Romance
    • 2.3Aspect sensitivity in Old French
  • 3.Comparative data from Germanic and Romance
    • 3.1 Werden/ be and tense/aspect periphrasis
    • 3.2 Werden, be and V2
  • 4.Diachronic analysis of English weorðan
    • 4.1Main clause versus embedded clauses
    • 4.2 Diachrony of weorðan
    • 4.3 Diachrony of strict-V2
  • 5.On the grammatical connection between werden and strict V2
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Corpora used
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.243.10pos
References

Corpora used

"
Die Winteney-Version etc."
LEON – alpha – University of Leuven
. Peter Petré 2010 Die Winteney-Version der Regula S. Benedicti Lateinische und Englisch mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen, Glossar und einem Facsimile zum erstenmale 1888 St. Benedict, Arnold Schröer (ed.).Google Scholar
Halle
: M. Niemeyer. Electronic edition from the University of Michigan Library. [URL]> (6 July 2007).
HC: Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Diachronic Part (ICAME, version 2)
1999 Matti Rissanen et al. Helsinki: Department of English.Google Scholar
The Paris psalter and the Meters of Boethius (The Anglo-Saxon poetic records, 5)
1961 George P. Krapp (ed.). New York NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
PPCME2: Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edn.
Anthony Kroch. Pennsylvania PA: [URL]> (6 July 2007).
The Middle English Genesis and Exodus [Lund Studies in English 36]
, Olof Arngart (ed.) 1968 Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
YCOE: The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose
2003 Ann Taylor et al. York: Department of Language and Linguistic Science.Google Scholar
YPC: York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry
2001 Susan Pintzuk & Leendert Plug. York: Linguistics Department.Google Scholar
Benincà, Paola & Laura Vanelli
1985 Italiano, veneto, friulano: Fenomeni sintattici a confronto. Revista Italiana di Dialettologia. Bologna. Clueb 8, 166-194.Google Scholar
Biberauer, Theresa & Roberts, Ian
2008 Cascading parameter changes: Internally-driven change in Middle and Early Modern English. In Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory. The Rosendal papers [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 113], Thórhallur Eythórsson (ed.), 79–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borer, Hagit
1989 Anaphoric AGR. In The Null Subject Parameter [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15], Osvaldo Jaeggli & Kenneth J. Safir (eds), 69–109. Dordrecht: Kluwer.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buridant, Claude
2000 Grammaire nouvelle de l’ancien français. Paris: SEDES.Google Scholar
Burzio, Luigi
1986 Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach. Dordrecht: Kluwer.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard
1985 Tense. Cambridge: CUP.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coopmans, Peter
1985 Language types: Continua or parameters. PhD Dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Einhorn, Elsabe
1974 Old French: A Concise Handbook. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Fuss, Eric
2003 On the historical core of V2 in Germanic. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 26: 195–231.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fuss, Eric & Trips, Carola
2002 Variation and change in Old and Middle English. On the validity of the Double Base Hypothesis. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 4: 171–224.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, Eugene
2009 Synonomy and obsolence: The example of Old English weorþan . Paper presented at Studies in the History of the English Language (SHEL) 6. Alberta: Banff.
Giorgi, Alessandra
1997 Tense and Aspect: From Semantics to Morphosyntax. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Haeberli, Eric
1999 Features, Categories and the Syntax of A-positions: Synchronic and Diachronic Variation in the Germanic Languages. PhD dissertation, University of Geneva.Google Scholar
Haiman John & Benincà, Paola
1992 The Rhaeto-Romance Languages. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Hecht, Hans
1900 Bishop Waerferth von Worcester: Uebersetzung der Dialoge Gregors den Grossen. Leipzig: Wigand’s Verlag.Google Scholar
Iliescu, Maria
1982 La typologie du verbe frioulan. Studi linguistici in onore di G.B. Pellegrini, 193-204. Pisa: Pacini.Google Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert
1990 As Time Goes By. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Frede
1990 Old French and Comparative Gallo-Romance Syntax. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie. Berlin: De Gruyter.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayne, Richard
1975 French Syntax. The Transformational Cycle. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
van Kemenade, Ans
1987 Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Kemenade, Ans & Westergaard, Marit
2012 Syntax and Information Structure: Verb Second variation in Middle English. In Information Structure and Syntactic Change [Oxford Studies in the History of English 2], Anneli Meurman-Solin, Maria José López-Couso & Bettelou Los (eds), 87–118. Oxford: OUP.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kibler, William W.
1984 Introduction to Old French. New York: Modern language Association of America.Google Scholar
Klingebiel, Josef
1937 Die Passivumschreibungen im Altenglischen. Bottrop: Postberg.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann
1997 Verb movement in Old and Middle English: Dialect variation and language contact. In Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, Ans van Kemenade & Nigel Vincent (eds), 297–325. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony
1989 Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1: 199–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony, Taylor, Ann & Ringe, Donald
2000 The Middle English Verb-Second constraint: A case study in language contact and language change. In Textual Parameters in Older Languages [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 195], Susan C. Herring, Pieter van Reenen & Lene Schøsler (eds), 353–391. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Los, Bettelou
2009 The consequences of the loss of verb-second in English: Information structure and syntax in interaction. English Language and Linguistics 13: 97–125.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce
1985 Old English Syntax, Vol. I: Concord, the Parts of Speech and the Sentence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moignet, Gérard
1976 Grammaire de l’ancien Français: Morphologie, syntaxe. Paris: Éditions Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Petré, Peter
2010a The functions of weorðan and its loss in the past tense in Old and Middle English. English Language and Linguistics 14(3): 457–484. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petré, Peter
2010b On the Interaction between Constructional & Lexical Change: Copular, Passive and Related Constructions in Old and Middle English. PhD dissertation, Leuven University.Google Scholar
2014 What grammar reveals about sex and death: Interdisciplinary applications of corpus-based linguistics. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 30(3): 371–387.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Postma, Gertjan
1993 The syntax of the morphological defectivity of be . HIL Manuscripts 1: 31–67.Google Scholar
Petré, Peter
2014 Constructions and Environments: Copular, Passive, and Related Constructions in Old and Middle English [Oxford Studies in the History of English 1]. Oxford: OUP.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pintzuk, Susan
1999 Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. Garland, New York.Google Scholar
Postma, Gertjan
2010 The impact of failed changes. In Continuity and Change in Grammar [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 159], Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts, Anne Breitbarth, & David Willis (eds), 269–302. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Clause-typing by [2]: The loss of the 2nd person pronoun du ‘you’ in Dutch, Frisian and Limburgian dialects. In Information Structure and Agreement [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 197], Victoria Camacho-Taboada, Ángel L. Jiménez-Fernández, Javier Martín-González & Mariano Reyes-Tejedor (eds), 217–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
In press. Modeling transient states in language change. In From Micro-change to Macro-change: Proceedings of DIGS 15I, Rob Truswell & Eric Mattieu eds. Oxford OUP
Reichenbach, Hans
1947 Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Russ, Charles V. J.
2002 Die Mundart von Bosco Gurin: Eine Synchronische und Diachronische Untersuchung [Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, Beiheft 120]. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
SAND
: Barbiers, Sjef et al. et al. 2006 Dynamische Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten (DynaSAND). Amsterdam: Meertens Instituut.Google Scholar
Strang, Barbara
1970 A History of English. London: Methuen & Co.Google Scholar
Trips, Carola
2002 From OV to VO in Early Middle English [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 60]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verdam, Jacob
1911 Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Visser, Fredericus T.
1973 A Historical Syntax of the English Language. London: Fisher Unwin.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel, Labov, William & Herzog, M. I.
1968 Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium, Winfred P. Lehmann (ed.), 95–195. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Zieglschmid, Andreas
1931  Werden and wesan with the passive in various Germanic languages. Germanic Review 6(4): 389.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Karen De Clercq, Liliane Haegeman, Terje Lohndal & Christine Meklenborg
2023. Adverbial Resumption in Verb Second Languages, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.