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

44 Peter Petré & Hubert Cuyckens
becuman to different copula-constructions is a gradual process, which seems to
have proceeded from Copula + pp (early OE already) to Copula + ap (see (24)–(26))
to Copula + np (twelfth century). Apparently, then, before becuman was able to
extend to the Copula + pple construction, this construction had split from the
other copula-constructions, in that way creating an associative gap that could not
be overcome by becuman. An additional reason why becuman did not spread to
the passive construction can be found in its semantics. Unlike weorðan, becuman
sometimes seems to carry a connotation of volition (see, for instance, the free
choice involved in becoming a Jew, Saracen or heretic in (23)). Such a connotation
is infelicitous in the case of a true passive construction, in which the patient is emphatically
involuntarily affected by the action denoted by the participle.
Besides a possible connotation of volition, becuman also seems to express a
more gradual type of change than weorðan, and is, in its copular use, similar in
meaning to a concept such as ‘develop into’, a sense that naturally derives from
its original spatial meaning ‘come to some place’, which expresses an accomplishment.
Together, these two semantic components of becuman can be related to the
second change we mentioned, as they provide the main reason for the development
of becuman into a copula, namely its usefulness in meeting the need of new
types of predicates introduced in the English language. Specifically, comparing
the time-stability of the subject complements collocating with weorðan to those
collocating with becuman enables us to provide an elegant explanation of the loss
of weorðan and the specific development of becuman.
The OE verb weorðan seems to have had a general preference for time-unstable
collocates. More specifically, its most frequent collocates are either resultative participles
or adjectives denoting human propensity, such as angry or happy. The first
group of collocates, that of resultative participles, is inherently time-unstable. The
participle hurt in he got hurt refers to the fact that being hurt may be associated
with a resulting feeling of pain, a state that does not last very long (as compared,
for instance, to an entire lifetime) – it never refers to an enduring state of pain. The
second group of collocates of weorðan derives largely from the semantic field of
human propensity; examples are: milde ‘merciful’, forht ‘afraid’, bliðe ‘joyful’, sæne
‘hesitant’, wrað ‘angry’, yrre ‘angry’, fyrwitgeorn ‘curious’, ormod ‘despairing’. These
adjectives are low on the time-stability scale, and differ considerably from more
time-stable adjectives such as those denoting age (old, young) or those denoting
material (wooden, silver) (see Stassen 997 & Pustet 200 ). The similar degree of
time-stability found in participles and adjectives collocating with weorðan is an
additional indication that a strong link existed between them. The co-ordination
of wrað ‘wroth’ and awed ‘angered’ in (20), for instance, shows that the same timeunstable
concept can be expressed sometimes by both participles and adjectives.