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

Particles as grammaticalized complex predicates 17
The phenomenon of unselected objects can be found, but in the prefixed verb in
OE, not in the particle verb. Prefixes represent an older layer of grammaticalization,
very much akin to the later particle system (see also Claridge 2000: 87), in
which the grammaticalized element has become a bound morpheme, inseparable
from the verb. It has ‘frozen’ in preverbal rather than postverbal position because
early Germanic was an OV-language which at that stage probably did not have
the verb-second operation that separate particle and verb in OE, Modern Dutch
and Modern German. This allowed the grammaticalization process to proceed to
its logical conclusion: the predicate and verb became a single lexical item (van
Kemenade & Los 2003). These verbal prefixes have long been recognized as
‘transitivizing’ and even changing the case of the object. Compare for instance
hliehhan ‘laugh’ which is an unergative verb but may occur with the object that
is laughed at in the genitive, as in (33), with behliehhan ‘deride’ (lit. ‘be-laugh’)
which is a fully transitive verb with its object in the accusative (as in (34)).
(33) ðonne we hliehað gligmonna unnyttes cræftes. (CP 34.231.4)
when we laugh jesters-gen useless tricks
‘when we laugh at the useless tricks of jesters’
(34) Huru, ic swiðe ne þearf hinsiþ behlehhan (Guthlac 87: 1356–1357)
Indeed, I much not want departure-acc deride
‘Indeed, I do not want to laugh at his death’
If we assume that the prefix be- was once the predicate of an Agreement Phrase in
a structure like (8), with its subject (which later became the object of the prefixed
verb) in the specifier, this subject would have had accusative case (the default case
of subjects of verbless or non-finite constructions). This case is not mediated by
the verb but by the predicate. The transitivizing effect of these prefixes, then, is an
inheritance from their predicate origins. Deadjectival and denominal verbs, as in
(21), which often do not have a simplex, are also a feature of prefixed verbs (van
Kemenade and Los 2003), though not of OE or ME particle verbs.
We must conclude that predicate and particle quirks are not much in evidence
in OE and ME. The first blossomings of both appear to date from the EModE
period.
4. Particle verbs in EModE
Historical studies on particle-verb combinations in English seem to agree that the
PDE situation with respect to particle verb combinations is reached in the EModE
period, with the 16th and 17th centuries representing a high point in their development
(e.g., Brinton 1988; for phrasal verbs in Shakespeare, see Castillo 1994; see
also Claridge 2000: 96–98 and the studies cited there). A marked difference with
OE and ME is the appearance of other groups of verbs than transitives or ‘light’