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

174 Bettelou Los
verbs (e.g., groups (i) and (vi) listed in (19). In (35) and (36) we have EModE
examples of denominal verbs and in (37) an example of a deadjectival verb:
(35) Goe, sayes hee; trusse up your trinkets and be gone. The cooke, seeing no remedy,
departed. (Helsinki Corpus: Robert Armin, A nest of Ninnies, p. 14, 1608)
(36) There was in the time of Will Sommers another artificiall foole, or jester, in
the court, whose subtiltie heapt up wealth by gifts giuen him, for which Will
Sommers could neuer abide him
(Helsinki Corpus: Richard Madox’s diary, p. 47, 1582)
(37) At 12 the east wynd began to fresh up which caused us to way upon the eb,
but before we wer passed a lege yt faynted and we wer fayn to cast Anchor.
(Helsinki Corpus: Richard Madox’s diary, p. 135, 1582)
Other examples of such verbs appearing in combination with the particle up in the
EModE part of the Helsinki Corpus were:
(38) clitch up, clap up, sprout up, reckon up, block up, treasure up, burble up, nuzzle
up (‘indulged’), prune up, knit up (‘joined together in friendship’), mould up,
dry up, rip up (‘?think up’), dress up, work up, seal up, pluck up, clamber up.
Chronologically, then, there is a difference between the appearance of sets (vi) of
the list in (19) (‘light’ verbs like the transitives set, turn, make, let etc.) and unaccusatives
that can be described as ‘core’ motion verbs like rise, come, go etc. and the
other sets. Set (vi) has appeared in particle-verb combinations since OE. The other
sets, (i)–(v) – most notably manner of motion verbs like clamber, trip, wander,
unergatives like work, sing, laugh, play, and denominal/deadjectival verbs – are
very rarely found in OE in a particle verb combination, if at all, and they are the
ones that exhibit the predicate quirks to the greatest advantage: unselected objects,
verbs that are only attested in the particle-verb combination but have no independent
existence, denominal and deadjectival verbs, idiomatic combinations. I
have split these verbs up into 2 groups: Category 1 comprises set (vi), the set that
has been attested with particles from the earliest period, whereas Category 2 comprises
sets (i–v) that only start to appear robustly with particles in EModE. If we
look at occurrences with the particle up in the EModE part of the Helsinki Corpus,
we find both categories well represented in all three periods, although the share of
Category 2 verbs goes up slightly (29.6% of the total in E1, 30% in E2 and 32.3%
in E3). There is an increase in the overall numbers, too (Figure 1).
The denominal and deadjectival verbs of Category 2 were found in travel writings,
diaries, plays, autobiographies and in one text on education, which seems to
indicate that they are more prominent in informal genres; the size of the corpora
are too small, however, to say anything definite. Biber et al. (1999: 407–413) focus
primarily on the verbs and particles that have the highest frequencies, and