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

170 Bettelou Los
4. Earlier English
4.1 Evidence for grammaticalization
OE particle verbs generally fit the resultative semantics of predicates, even more
so than their PE counterparts because they are almost invariably transparent combinations
of (transitive and unaccusative) verbs and particles, as in the following
examples (both from Elenbaas 2007):
(28) þæt hi hine ut sceoldon wurpan (coeust, LS 8 (Eust) 168.173)
that they him out should throw
‘that they should throw him out’
(29) & ærn swa feor up swa næfre ær ne dyde
(ChronE (Plummer) 1014.28.1906)
and ran as far up as never before not did
‘and ran up as far as he never did before’
Of all the verb groups listed in (19) only those in (vi) ‘light’ verbs, both transitive
and unaccusative, occur robustly with particles in OE. Notably absent are the denominal
or deadjectival conversions, and the finer-grained ‘manner-of-motion’
like run, jog, lope, sprint, dash, rush, hurry, scurry, scramble (Slobin 2005: 316). We
will see that they only start to appear in EModE (Section 4.3).
Saying anything definite about the grammaticalization process is not easy. If
we interpret particles that are heads rather than phrases as the result of grammaticalization,
we could try to find evidence that they are exclusively phrases in OE
and become heads only later on. Example (29) with up being premodified by swa
feor ‘so far’ shows that OE particles certainly allow a phrasal analysis, but it cannot
be established on the available data that they are exclusively phrasal. Even for PDE,
most analyses acknowledge that particles can be heads and phrases (as evidenced
by the fact that they often allow premodification by elements like just and right
in the ‘predicate order’ but not in the ‘particle order’). Evidence of verb raising
clusters, where we might adduce head status if the particle is found adjacent to
its verb (i.e., orders like þæt hi hine sceoldon ut wurpan, cf. (28) above), cannot be
conclusive because of the possibility of Verb Projection Raising in OE. The only
firm evidence for grammaticalization of predicate phrases into heads comes from
the EModE examples of PPs like those in (3b) grammaticalizing. Claridge (2000:
138–140; 158) has some examples in her EModE corpus of the NP in these grammaticalizing
PPs still occurring with some degree of premodification: take NP into
[your most grave and wise] consideration.
If the order of (1b) with the verb and the particle adjacent can be analysed as a
grammaticalized order in PE (with the particle as a head), can we perhaps deduce
anything from the occurrence of this order? The grammaticalized ‘particle order’
is already the most frequent order in the first subperiod of the Middle English part