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

6 Peter Petré & Hubert Cuyckens
One of the newly emerging alternatives, becuman, deserves special attention, as
it is the most frequent alternative from the very beginning, and, more importantly,
because it went down the grammaticalization path the furthest, eventually shedding
off all its non-copularizing functions. By ME already, becuman had assumed
most copula functions of weorðan, as is illustrated in (2 )–(23).
(C) Copula + pp
(2 ) Vor al þe lost of þise wordle […] ne byeþ bote a drope of deau/ to þe ziȝþe of þe
welle. […] huanne me wenþ hine nime: he ualþ agrund/ and to naʓte becomþ.
(c 340. Ayenbite of Inwit:9 )
“Because all the lust of this world […] is but a drop of dew in comparison to the
well. When one thinks to take it, it falls down and comes to nought [= becomes
nothing].”
(D) Copula + ap
(22) And he bicom riʓth fyne wroþ. (c 400 (?a 300). Kyng Alisaunder I:235)
“And he became pretty much angry.” (compare (20))
(E) Copula + np
(23) Þe uerste is. huanne/ eny uor drede/ of pouerte. oþer uor couaytise/ uor to wynne:
uorzaʓþ god/ and þe cristene bileaue. and becomþ bougre. oþer ieu. oþer sarasin.
(c 340. Ayenbite of Inwit:43)
“The worst is, when anyone, because of dread for poverty, or for the desire to
make profit, abandons God and the catholic belief, and becomes heretic, or Jew,
or Saracen.”
The only frequent function of weorðan not found for becuman is its use with participial
complements. Otherwise, the types of construction found with becuman in
ME are very similar to the major types associated with weorðan. Furthermore, the
relative frequencies of becuman in ME differ far less from those of weorðan than in
the preceding OE periods, as is made clear by a comparison of Figure 5 (in which
occurrences of weorðan + past participle are left out) to Figure 6. In sum, in the
ME period becuman has acquired all the major functions found with weorðan: it
occurred as an intransitive verb meaning ‘arise’, with a dative object meaning ‘befall’,
and as a copula with Prepositional, Adjectival and Nominal subject complements.
The most striking difference between weorðan and becuman in ME (apart
from the absence of participial complements) is the higher number of NP subject
complements in the case of becuman.
While these relative frequencies make clear that weorðan and becuman behave
similarly in early ME, they also reveal the vast difference between the two verbs in
OE. Indeed, while weorðan in OE showed copula uses with adjectival and nominal
subject complements (in addition to intransitive uses, uses with dative objects,
and copula uses with pp complements), becuman saw a relatively high proportion of
copula uses with pp complements, but was hardly ever used as a copula marking