Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
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46 Peter Petré & Hubert Cuyckens<br />
predicate construction He became king. This might not be <strong>the</strong> only example of such<br />
a change of idiom, but more research is necessary to establish <strong>the</strong> general character<br />
of this kind of shift. As regards <strong>the</strong> increase in Copula + AP constructions,<br />
becuman + AP can be seen as <strong>the</strong> successor of <strong>the</strong> second class of weak verbs,<br />
which disappeared in early ME. Many verbs <strong>from</strong> this class expressed properties<br />
of all degrees of time-stability, as for instance ealdian ‘grow old’, hwitian ‘whiten’,<br />
ascortian ‘shorten’, etc. It would indeed be highly unlikely that <strong>the</strong> co-occurrence<br />
of <strong>the</strong> disappearance of this class and <strong>the</strong> emergence of phrases such as become old<br />
or become green are a coincidence. In sum, <strong>the</strong>se changes point towards a sweeping<br />
change in <strong>the</strong> constructional idioms available in English, a change which, however,<br />
will have to be examined in more detail in future research.<br />
5. Conclusion<br />
In this paper, we have established <strong>the</strong> existence of a constructional network of<br />
copula-constructions in OE and ME. We have focussed on two verbs used in this<br />
constructional network, namely weorðan, which disappeared in early ME, and<br />
becuman, which appeared as an alternative. The appearance of becuman has been<br />
shown to be an instance of analogical extension, made possible through <strong>the</strong> initial<br />
distributional similarity between this verb and <strong>the</strong> copula weorðan. Moreover, <strong>the</strong><br />
replacement of weorðan by becuman (and o<strong>the</strong>r copulas such as weaxan) has been<br />
explained in terms of a change of <strong>the</strong> constructional network of copulas. More<br />
specifically, (i) <strong>the</strong> emancipation of a passive construction seems to have contributed<br />
to <strong>the</strong> archaisization of weorðan and prevented <strong>the</strong> spread of becuman to this<br />
new passive construction; and (ii) becuman also apparently filled a need for a new<br />
copula of change, allowing volitional and gradual kinds of change, which emerged<br />
as a consequence of <strong>the</strong> influx of time-stable predicates (both aps and nps) during<br />
<strong>the</strong> late OE and early ME periods. The causes for this influx, finally, are still in need<br />
of a more thorough investigation.<br />
References<br />
Biese, Yrjö M. 932. Die neuenglischen Ausdrücke des Werdens in sprach geschichtlicher<br />
Beleuchtung. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 33: 2 4–224.<br />
Biese, Yrjö M. 952. Notes on <strong>the</strong> Use of Ingressive Auxiliaries in <strong>the</strong> Works of William Shakespeare.<br />
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 53: 9– 8.<br />
Bybee, Joan. 2003. Cognitive Processes in Grammaticalization. The New Psychology of Language<br />
ed. by Michael Tomasello, vol. 2, 45– 67. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.