Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
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150 Cristina Suárez-Gómez<br />
For <strong>the</strong> purposes of this study, more revealing information is provided in<br />
Table 3, which contains <strong>the</strong> distribution of relativizers in early Middle English<br />
according to <strong>the</strong> dialectal area in which <strong>the</strong>y appear. This table includes raw numbers<br />
and normalized frequencies per ten thousand words. The four dialectal areas<br />
represent <strong>the</strong> classification displayed in The Helsinki Corpus.<br />
Invariable þe, <strong>the</strong> most commonly used relativizer in late Old English and in<br />
early Middle English, gained preference in <strong>the</strong> linguistically conservative areas of<br />
<strong>the</strong> South and Kent. More surprisingly, it also became <strong>the</strong> relativizer of choice in<br />
<strong>the</strong> East-Midlands, showing an even higher frequency than in late Old English.<br />
This contradicts Kivimaa (1966), who observed that this relativizer first levelled<br />
out in this dialectal area (and <strong>the</strong> North). Taking into account <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong><br />
sou<strong>the</strong>rn dialect is <strong>the</strong> direct inheritor of <strong>the</strong> West-Saxon dialect of Old English,<br />
<strong>the</strong> predominance of þe in <strong>the</strong> South and Kent is only to be expected, given that it<br />
is a representative of a conservative dialect. What is much harder to account for is<br />
its continued high frequency in <strong>the</strong> East-Midlands, a linguistically advanced area,<br />
where one would accordingly expect integration and innovations ra<strong>the</strong>r than <strong>the</strong><br />
retention of earlier traditions.<br />
A very different siuation prevailed in <strong>the</strong> West-Midlands where <strong>the</strong> invariable<br />
þat, which although present, was very rarely used in late Old English (see Table 2),<br />
became <strong>the</strong> preferred invariable relativizer. This situation deserves special attention<br />
because here <strong>the</strong> frequency of invariable þat is even greater than that of invariable<br />
þe (94.8 vs 63.7 respectively), and thus constitutes an innovative trace with respect<br />
to late Old English. This distribution confirms Kivimaa’s observation that þat is<br />
more frequent where þe disappears first, but contradicts her conclusions in that<br />
þat is not favoured in <strong>the</strong> East-Midlands.<br />
Regarding Old English pronominal relativizers (se and seþe), <strong>the</strong> numbers lend<br />
support to Kivimaa’s conclusions. My results show that Old English pronominal<br />
relativizers are in decline and almost in ‘danger of extinction’, especially in <strong>the</strong> East-<br />
and West-Midlands (3.1 and 1.3 occurrences per ten thousand words respectively).<br />
Surprisingly, <strong>the</strong>y appear more frequently in <strong>the</strong> generally most conservative area<br />
linguistically speaking, namely Kent (18.7), in which <strong>the</strong>y are even more frequent<br />
than <strong>the</strong> innovative þat.<br />
Finally, <strong>the</strong> dialectal distribution shows that <strong>the</strong> new pronominal relativizers<br />
represented by wh-words which were introduced into <strong>the</strong> English language in this<br />
period (cf. Table 2), are only present in <strong>the</strong> Midlands, both East and West, which<br />
are precisely those dialects in which <strong>the</strong> frequency of pronominal relativizers inherited<br />
<strong>from</strong> Old English (se and seþe) decreased earlier. This substitution effect<br />
seems to have acted as a compensation strategy, so as not to leave a functional<br />
gap vacant, a phenomemon which would agree with one of Maxwell’s diachronic