Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

Syntactic dialectal variation in Middle English 149
invariantly (2 per cent). In sum, the situation found in late Old English is that of one
clear favourite relativizer (invariable þe), a decline in the use of pronominal relativizers
(se and seþe) and a very timid presence of invariable þat.
Regarding the distribution of relativizers in early Middle English, Table 2 reveals
that while invariable þe remains the favourite relativizer, it has undergone a significant
reduction in frequency, compared to its position in late Old English, from 79 per cent
to 66.2 per cent. By contrast, invariable þat, sparingly used in late Old English, shows
a striking increase in frequency from late Old English to early Middle English from
2 per cent to 30 per cent. Pronominal relativizers decline sharply after Old English
from 18.7 per cent to 3 per cent, almost verging on ‘danger of extinction’. Finally,
the results from Table 3 also reveal the first appearance of a new set of pronominal
relativizers in the English language, represented by wh-words as adnominal relativizers.
This function was non-existent in late Old English, and still infrequent in this
early period, but already present in the English language.
Table 2. Distribution of relativizers in late Old (adapted from Suárez Gómez 2004: 216)
and Middle English 8
Late Old English Þe 526 (79.3%)
Se and seþe 124 (18.7%)
Þat 13 (2%)
Total 663
Early Middle English Þe 780 (66.2%)
Þat 354 (30%)
Se and seþe 36 (3%)
Wh- 8 (0.8%)
Total 1,178
Table 3. Distribution of relativizers according to dialect in Middle English
East-Midlands West-Midlands South Kent Total
Þe 347 (226.8) 238 (74.7) 165 (128.9) 30 (51) 780
Þat 57 (37.2) 265 (83.2) 26 (20.3) 6 (10.2) 354
Se/seþe 2 (1.3) 10 (3.1) 13 (10.1) 11 (18.7) 36
Wh- 4 (2.6) 4 (1.3) – – 8
Total 410 517 204 47 1,178
8. Zero relativizers have not been included in the analysis of relativizers because of the low
number of examples. Only 8 instances of zero relative clauses have been found in the corpus
under analysis.