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

Old English weorðan and its replacement in Middle English
The subsidiary status of the copula verb can, for instance, be inferred from the
scope of the negation in sentences such as Druncen wyrhta ne wyrð he na welig “A
drunken worker does not become rich” (c 075. ChrodR :60.6), where the negative
marker invariably negates the subject complement rather than the copula verb.
Similarly, Ne becumaþ heo to ænigre reste “They do not get to any resting-place”
(HomU 5. [Scragg]: 75), for instance, mainly differs from Margareta to ece
reste becom “Margaret got to [her] eternal resting-place” (LS 6 [Margaret]:2. 0)
in the negation of the goal location. 5 It is this unique pairing of form and meaning
which defines the copula-construction and which allows us to treat not only
[Copula + ap/np] but also [Copula + pp] and [Copula + pple] as instances of the
copula-construction. A diagram of the resulting taxonomically structured network
of copula-constructions in OE is given in Figure 2 (the aspectual distinctions
marked by the individual verbs have been compressed for the sake of clarity).
What is important about this constructional network is the fact that the topmost
schematic construction as well as its immediate daughter constructions (which are
situated on an intermediate level of schematicity) are not associated with a particular
lexical form. In other words, the similar behaviour of weorðan, beon and wesan
points to the existence of a constructional network at least to some extent independent
of one verb in particular. As such, the existence of a network of schematic copula-constructions
is not very surprising, as copula-constructions also behave very
similarly cross-linguistically (Stassen 997; Pustet 200 & Croft 200 : 283–3 9).
As regards the second type of constructional network, all uses of weorðan can
also be considered as interrelated, if we assume that weorðan is a single, polysemous
lexeme rather than a single form covering several unrelated meanings. In
favour of a single network is the shared semantics of ‘(sudden) transition into a
new state’ found in all uses of weorðan. Syntactically as well, we can see a common
denominator, in that weorðan is nearly always used intransitively, being either
non-copular in nature, or being used as an intransitive copula linking a subject to
a subject complement. The lexeme-dependent constructional network marked by
weorðan, then, is represented in Figure 3.
In addition to the existence of (i) a lexeme-independent constructional copula
network in which weorðan participates and (ii) a constructional network specific
to the lexeme weorðan itself, it should be noted that the affinity between differ-
5. Compare in this respect He was not rushed to hospital [which is why he was dead on arrival],
where the PP to the hospital fills the same slot as the PP in a copula-construction. In this sentence,
the negative marker only affects the manner of motion towards the goal-PP, while the fact
that the patient actually ended up in hospital is not negated; this suggests that it is the information
in the PP which is subsidiary to that in the verb, and the PP hence cannot fill the subject
complement slot.