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

Verb types and word order 53
typical examples are be, appear, come, belong in the category of verbs without
complement, but in the tables below I have presented them as a separate category,
because existential constructions are particularly interesting in a historical perspective,
as we shall see. In other words, the category ‘verbs without complement’
comprises verbs without complement other than existential verbs.
Clauses with passive verb phrases have been excluded, except for a few cases
where the passive verb phrase has a copular function or existential meaning. In (4),
the verb phrase wæs funden has existential meaning, and has been included in the
category of existential verbs, and (5) is an example of a passive copular verb:
(4) 7 þær wæs ungemetlic micel licgende feoh funden on ðæm wicstowum
and there was immeasurable much ready money found at the camp
“and immeasurably much ready money was found at the camp” (Or 69: 3)
(5) and sir Baudewyn of Bretayne was made constable (Arthur 16: 33)
The reason for operating with this mixture of syntactic and semantic categories is
to be able to relate word order not only to syntax, but also to semantics and information
structure, without having to operate with categories that are too small in
relation to the size of the corpus.
3. Analysis and discussion
As mentioned in the introduction, the main aim of this paper is to compare noncoordinate
and coordinate clauses with respect to the distribution of verb types in
the different word order patterns in the four periods. Non-coordinate clauses and
coordinate clauses, though both are main clauses, are presumably not functionally
identical, and a study of the verbs may give us information about what characterizes
these two clause types. Furthermore, studying the verbs not only in relation to the
distinction between non-coordinate and coordinate clauses, but also in relation to
the word order patterns within these clause types, may throw some light on the
functional differences between the word orders. Finally, the diachronic data show
the historical development of these particular structures.
The basic assumption is that coordinate clauses have an elaborating or modifying
function (Traugott 1992: 277) and that they may therefore relate to the immediate
previous context in a more direct way than non-coordinate clauses. According to
Quirk et al. (1985: 930ff.), the main function of the coordinate clause does not lie in
establishing what the action is, but rather how it relates to the preceding sentence, by
expressing e.g., contrast, explanation, consequence, result or addition. This does not
mean that non-coordinate clauses do not relate to the previous context, but it is not a
necessary condition; non-coordinate clauses may introduce a completely new topic.